I knew that sooner or later MG would say something I agreed with. If a stereotype didn't have some truth in it, it wouldn't work, even as an insult. Stereotypes are caricatures, and caricatures have to have some truth in them.

Stereotypes do shine a light in some particular aspect of the truth. When people try to generalise them into something wider ranging they becomes lies.

Sometimes of course you get outright lies, but that's a different thing. The typical Paddy joke you fin dinn Engkand (similar to the Poilish jones you have in the States, based on the idea that the Irish are thick is an example; on the other hand stereotypes about drinking and fighting and blarney and so forth are valid enough, though only part of the truth.

Most of the stereoypes about hippies have that kind of partial truth. At the same time, as with national or sexual gender stereotypes, for every single element in them you could come up with people who would clearly fall within the group concerneed, but wouldn't share that particular characteristic.