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Greetings from Germany!
I just surfed in and discovered this board - I like it (I am also long hair fan,but I never detected a site like this one in german .de-domains)
Reading the messages I wondered about the influence of being long-hair fan on politics in the United States. As far as I know in the USA soon president election takes place. In Germany most (esp. younger) men with long hair are presumed to be "left"/"green"/"anarchistic"/"ecologic", against militarism, racism, pollution, church, conservative politic etc.. Thats in my opinion a good contrast to the actual neo-nazism problem in germany,where "skinheads" (young men, neo-nazism fans, with shaved heads, no hair at all...and far more worse - no brain...) hunting and killing people who dont "look german" (I am also dark-blonde with blue eyes,lucky to have the long hair...).
What about the USA? Are long haired men here also "left"? Or are they not interested in politics at all? Will they vote for Bush or Gore?
Will there ever be a long-haired man getting president of the USA? ;-)
(I also dont think it will be possible in germany...)
Yours
Leto
Hello from San Diego, California
It all depends. Longhair on men is not considered mainstream style right now. Most of the men who have Longhair are therefore somewhat rebellious. That being so, most of these guys generally are against the conservative/ conforming social pressures and politics. Generally. Therefore, there is a strong connection in the US between having Longhair and being left of center politically. It is nowhere near absolute however.
You are quite correct about the stereotype of Longhairs being true huggin, eco freak, left wing hippies. The reality though is very different. There are a number of Longhairs in the US who are staunch Republicans, have every intention of voting for Bush, and really hate being lumped together with the hippy freak bunch.
Then there are other Longhairs who have grown their hair out simply because they like how it looks and feels not because of any political or social statement it makes. Their politics are their own.
Well, we've had Longhairs as Presidents before. In fact, for almost our entire first century as a nation ALL of our Presidents were Longhairs. Then styles changed, hair cutting technology got a lot cheaper, and short hair came into vogue. The rest, as they say, is history. Will there ever be a Longhair US President again? I don't know. Considering that the future is not yet cast I would have to think so. When though is anyone's guess.
Madoc
While many would associate longhairs as being left of center politically, there are a good number who are conservative. Although shorter hair is more in fashion now, there are many areas where longer styles are tolerated, if not accepted. Many with longer hair do it because that is what they feel looks good or is simply what they like, not as some symbol of rebellion (it would seem as some of the neo-nazis shave their heads as their sign of rebellion!). Hair does not necessarily identify one as some type of radical (whether on the right or the left).
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Oh, thank you for your very informative statement (thanx of course also to the others for their replies...)
Surely also in germany there are long haired guys not interested in politics at all, having long hair, because they are harley fans, skater or like grunge and heavy metal etc., but generally the sympathy to left/right in germany are very often expressed by clothing and hair style, especially green/eco activism can identified easy,when (younger) men wear long hair (I also belong to this "party"...;-))
Yes, the "liberal" party of germany (F.D.P:=free democratic party) also absorbed that ideology. In germany its called econo-liberalism. I think, its only social-darwinism wtih a nice "cloak". The strong may live, the weak may die - no thanks....
Yes, always the same: money changes the character (very fast...) and the hair style (....even more faster). Such people also live in germany. But not only money, also power changes people. When the left/green government of germany won the elections two years ago, nobody would have believed that a minister of defence, who wanted to abolish the army in his early years now would join the war against Yougoslavia (you remember?) etc... its disappointing...
Yes, thats right, there are really some "green" with strange ideological background. But its a minority.
Very strange, I presume its a combination of racism, darwinism and ecology - no thanks...
Lets hope that no scientist will succeed in cloning Adolf.....
Yes, thats correct. In the 1920´s were rising many groups with eco/liberal/friendhip with nature ideological background with ideas getting real popularity 50 years later. They were the grandfathers of the later eco/green activism . But I would not say, they _became_ Nazis, I would say the were _absorbed_ by nazism....
But to get back to the theme of this board: The Wandervolkel men did not wear _long hair_....
Yours
Leto
Dear Leto,
You wrote:-
I'm sure you find that everywhere. In fact in the early 1980's I was in Britain again and found that many liberal/left longhairs had cut their hair to dissociate themselves from this new breed of longhair.
Maybe you should start the Left Longhaired Men's Party of Deutschelands. (I'm half serious but how do you say that in German).
Anyway, that is generally so I guess.
That's exactly what Paulina Borsook, Barbrook and Cameron and David Hudson, Samir Amin and other liberal/left thinkers feel too.
I don't think guys like Steven Jobs did what they did for any political ideal. Their hippieism seems to be be in line with the youthful indulgence and hedonism of their time.
In fact, according to the book, The Journey is the Reward -- which is about Steven Jobs and the rise of Apple Computers -- It was Steven Wozniak who actually designed and built the Apple Computer and wanted to sell it as a hobby kit to the developer community in his area along the same lines that Linus Torvalds created Linux and offered it to the software developer community at nominal prices to cover costs.
Steve Jobs sought to profit by marketing the Apple Computer which Wozniak created and later on, when Jobs headed the Mac development team, he made his Mac team seem extra-special elitists and treated Wozniak's team who were making Apple II computers very shabbily despite it providing the bread and butter revenue for Apple which supported Mac development.
I believe as a result, Wozniak left to live on a farm or some part of the wilderness he had bought.
The IT and business media glorifies Steven Jobs but I'm sorry I don't go along with that.
BTW. Steven Wozniak was the longhair in the team.
I remember it well and I was one of the few in Malaysia who spoke up in defense of Yugoslavia against imperialist aggression -- not that I like Milosovic's regime but he stood in the way of western imperialist economic expansion into the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
In Malaysia, most people support the Bosnians mainly because they are Muslims but they forget that the imperialists will use nationalistic and religious rivalries to further their ends.
As a result the Malaysian government supported UN intervention against Yugoslavia, while at the same time howling like a pariah dog scalded by hot water over currency speculators manipulating the Malaysian economy and currency.
What people seem to have forgotten is that Yugoslavia enjoyed peace and good relations between its different ethic communities and component republics under Tito.
An American environmentalist told me this after I referred to newspaper reports about a local chapter of the Sierra Club environmental group in the United States which blamed immigrants for causing environmental and ecological degradation -- ie veiled racism.
Anyway, this is the logical conclusion of seemingly "progressive" concerns about overpopulation which were raised around the 1960's.
Like I know an English musician married to a Malaysian lady who has been living here for over 15 years and he posted me a commentary on overpopulation in developing countries and the pressure it creates for them to migrate to countries like Britain.
In short, despite his apparent liberalism, he reflected a certain hint of racism in his commentary and such arguments among seeming liberals can turn into Adolf Hitler's "final solution."
While population numbers do matter, even in socialist societies, the main thing which relates to population levels is the level of economic security people feel.
For example in Malaysia, the Chinese are a minority but they are the wealthiest and their procreation rate is about 1.7 children per couple, while the figure is just under two for Indians.
However for the Malays, the procreation rate is about 5.6 per couple.
In Singapore, where the Chinese are the majority, their procreation rate is about 1.4 children per couple and the government is worried.
They might try but if they do, will the product be the same as Adolf.
Well, you could say absorbed by Nazism or attracted to Nazism.
The American environmentalist told me that some Greens in Germany supported the Nazis and the Nazis pandered to their concerns about the environment, ecology and nature in the early stages but later after coming to power, the Nazis wiped out the Greens.
Even if the Wandervolkel men did not have long hair, their movement and its philosophies and ideals were the same as the hippies in the 1960's. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this.
One common thread which appears to run through both -- mainly middle-class movements -- is that the Wandervolkel arose when Germany was at the peak of its post World War I economic boom and the hippies arose in the 1960's when the United States and Western Europe were at the peak of their post World War II economic boom.
Standards of living in the United States and Western Europe began declining in the 1970's and you can see changes in popular culture accompanying this decline.
What you have today is a result of great inequities, with the libertarian IT-types believing that they are some "special breed" of human being with great opportunities before them, while there is lack of opportunity for much of the rest.
I a certain perverse way, I'm glad the dot.com bubble burst and brought some of these arrogant guys down to earth. Serves them right for they arrogance towards industrial workers.
Yours
Charles
I'm going to add my two cents to this discussion, even though most of this has been said already.
In the US today, you cannot corelate hair length with politics to any degree. I have long hair, and you would consider me a left liberal green person. However, the greatest concentration of male long hair I've spotted in recent years was at the Cisco Networkers gathering last summer. Everyone there was an information technology professional, typically the "netheads" of the world. It was a great place to see long locks on guys.
In contrast, the Clearwater Hudson River Revival, a large green, ecological, social justice, type gathering had a lower percentage of long hairs by quite a bit. But, it had a lot more older, male long hairs.
Also, to confuse the issue further, bikers tend to wear long hair and their politics, as a group, tends to be any one's guess.
I've also heard that some street gangs have adopted long hair, worn either in a ponytail, or even in a bun, as an identification symbol.
Add in the skateboard kids with shaved sides and high ponytails, and the confusion is complete!
I'll add a couple of personal guesses:(Mostly in fun)
22 years old, mid back hair, cell phone and Palm Pilot...Likely libertarian.
55 years old, partly bald, ponytail and beard... good chance of left liberal.
35 years old, short ponytail, business suit, wingtip shoes....Republican who may try to sell you some stocks.
30 years old, mullet and tatoos...doesn't vote at all.
Like I said, mostly in fun.
CD
Hey, you pegged me on the first try!