“The ancient Babylonians knew that generations differ from each other, but perhaps for the first time in history, these differences have become so enormous that anthropologists half-jokingly talk about the emergence of a new human species.
The term “snowflake generation” was recognized by Collins Dictionary and Financial Times as the word of the year in 2016. It refers to people born in the countries of the golden billion after 1990 (some sociologists prefer to count from 1985). However, it specifically refers to those belonging to the middle and upper classes, well-educated, from families far from crime, etc.
The biggest circles of snowflakes can now be found in senior classes of decent schools and on university campuses, although some of these creatures have already fluttered into the big world and caused quite a stir there.
Who are snowflakes?
These are people who:
* intensely hate violence. At least, they think so (although we will discuss this point in more detail later)
* prioritize safety above all (including emotional)
* are highly sensitive, suspicious, and impressionable
* are unaccustomed to deprivation, hard work, or rough treatment
* react painfully to opinions different from their own
* regard human history as a dirty sequence of murders, tortures, and other atrocities from which one must completely disassociate, including being cautious about any texts and rules from the cursed past—like all world literature
* are convinced of their own uniqueness and value themselves highly
* possess quite limited imagination
* condemning intolerance in others, are themselves models of impeccable intolerance towards their opponents
* experience serious stress when their ideas do not align with real life
* willingly talk about their most intimate experiences
* are typically politically correct leftist child-centric individuals with feminist views, often vegetarians
Dances of snowflakes
It is believed that the term “snowflake” is taken from Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club”: “Do not think you are a unique and beautiful snowflake!” We add: and fragile. The vulnerability of snowflakes to the disgusting truth of life is such that psychotherapists might as well take palaces on mortgage now: having glimpsed another nasty face of existence, a snowflake will fall into depression faster than you can sneeze.
These were snowflakes —no joke, actually weeping, with tears, loudly, mouths agape— throughout nights on campuses in front of broken televisions that broadcast the astounding, incredible, impossible news: Trump was elected president. A sexist, homophobe, and racist.
If the parents of snowflakes — left social-democratic youth — felt excitement and sensed victory, dispatching to the dustbin of history yet another dirty misogynistic cartoon about Snow White and the chauvinistic dwarf-gnomes, then snowflakes grew up basically believing that they had already won. That this world is beautiful, filled with violets and unicorns and that all progressive people on the planet think alike, having virtually eliminated dirty, militant imperialists and conquered social and gender inequality. In general, let’s just live peacefully and happily, not taking off bicycle helmets to avoid booboos if you trip!
Famed British educator-writer Tom Bennett wrote in The Telegraph in 2016: “Coming to universities, they already feel scared, facing a world different from what they imagined, so they seek protection and safety in lecture halls, not creativity and knowledge.”
This protection looks like this: try by all means to pretend that snowflakes are the majority, they all think in one way, so controversial or unpleasant opinions have no place in the audience.
For lecturers, professing right-wing, conservative, militaristic, sexist or colonial views (or those who allowed themselves to joke unsuccessfully about one of these topics on Twitter five years ago), access to universities should be closed. Such lecturers should have contracts terminated, and disagreeable professors fired. This policy is called “no platforming” — not giving a voice to those with whom we disagree. Moreover, we’re not talking about marginals, charlatans, and cannibals. No, students build barricades, not letting in respected luminaries, the best specialists in their fields. They do not want to understand these people, study their views, argue with them, in the end: these lecturers might “bring them grief,” and comfort is more important than knowledge. Thus, former CIA director David Petraeus was not allowed into New York University’s building — this person, who had access to the most exciting political mysteries!
Evergreen College (Washington) was forced to fire (with apologies and severance) anthropology professor Bret Weinstein and his wife, also a lecturer. Characteristically, Weinstein, a progressively minded Democrat as far left as they come, had the misfortune to speak against the students’ idea of having a “Day Without White Teachers,” during which only colored teachers and students could speak and lecture. Students wanted this day to “underline the important role of minorities,” and Weinstein carelessly issued a statement in which he pointed out that the principles of equality and freedom of speech were poorly aligned with such an action and that skin color should not prevent someone from working or studying. Immediately, he was branded a racist, students demanded his dismissal. And when the college management refused to do so, Weinstein was literally harassed: they locked him in an auditorium, blocked his car, set up barricades at his home, and wrote offensive and threatening letters to him. Eventually, the college admitted that “it could not ensure the employee’s safety” and fired the professor.
However, snowflakes do not limit themselves to no-platforming for disagreeable contemporaries. They also gag restless dead, trying to talk from their graves. That schools have long been removing politically incorrect books is not news, but in recent years the fashion has also spread to universities. Thus, a group of Slavic studies students, united with Russian-speaking students, demanded the removal of Bunin from university literature programs.
What did the Russian classic do wrong? The Russian classic dared to describe the rape of girls and continually wrote sort of nasty things like “…she lay on the bunks, all curled up, her head buried in her chest, having cried hotly from horror, delight, and the suddenness of what had happened” and “…she, weeping, suddenly responded to him with a feminine unconscious impulse—tightly and also as if gratefully hugged and pressed his head to herself.” A writer who thinks that a woman can experience “delight and gratitude” during rape certainly has no right to cloud the snowy world. They want to know nothing about the fact that Bunin generally believed that in fear, pain, and suicidality, a person has a moment of ecstasy (remember how the hero of “Mitya’s Love” shot himself: “…deeply and joyfully inhaled, opened his mouth and forcefully, with pleasure, shot”).
No, really, what’s better—to know Bunin or to avoid a nervous breakdown? Snowflakes firmly choose the latter, and instructors meet them halfway. Thus, professors now often use the rule of “trigger warnings.” For example, at Oxford University, law students are already taught with trigger warnings. Like: “Now there will be a description of a very unpleasant case involving the killing of old women, racism, and homophobia. We request those students who might take this close to heart, to leave the auditorium or put on music in their headphones.”
What does the world need so tender lawyers for, and how will they function in courtrooms? This question is not asked by the faculty; it is far more important to avoid incidents and lawsuits with scandals now.”
One of snowflakes’ favorite terms is “devaluation.” The depth and strength of their feelings are more important than any opinion, even an expert one, from the outside.
“Oh, how I suffer! A mosquito bit me!”
“Really a mosquito? Not a bear? They’re easy to confuse…”
“Don’t you dare joke about my suffering! Don’t you dare devalue my feelings!”
“Well, let’s dab some cologne on the bite.”
“Don’t you dare give me advice, I didn’t ask for it from you!”
“If it hurts that much, why endure it, let’s apply it.”
“Don’t you dare blame the victim! I am not guilty of becoming a victim of violence! My actions cannot be judged, I am a victim, I am always right!”
“Then what should we do with you?”
“Understand and sympathize!”
Yes, a generation born in the wild seventies, let alone the utterly cave-like times, sometimes cannot understand why it’s so terrible when there’s no your favorite smoothie in a cafe. They are not ready to acknowledge as a cruel trauma the nightmarish fact that a snowflake was violently and manipulatively trained to use a potty at three years old, removing the native diaper. The seventies generation, having become the parents of snowflakes, learns with interest how terrible, deceitful, aggressive, and toxic creatures they were, how they mutilated the child’s body and soul.”
Where does the snow come from?
Tom Bennett agrees with most socio-psychologists and educators: snowflakes are not the result of a hypno-ray installed by aliens on the Moon, but quite the expected product of new pedagogy. Snowflakes mostly grew up in those countries where at that time physical punishment of children began to be considered a criminal offense. Moreover, a child in our time is maximally protected from any discomfort and danger. Homes with children are redesigned into something akin to rubber chambers for little lunatics. When sick, the child immediately gets painkillers. Any sports activities are carried out as softly as possible, with mandatory protection and medical exams. The child’s interests are paramount: he is the king, god, and master in the family. He is constantly told that he is the smartest, the most beautiful, the most loved and deserves the very best. Even if he behaves badly, mom and dad will still always love him always-always: ‘unconditional love’ and ‘unconditional acceptance’ are the alpha and omega of modern parenting pedagogy.”
For instance, Nosov’s tale “The Cucumbers” became a shock and subject of heated debate on Russian-speaking parental forums. For those who have forgotten, the backstory there is: the children picked cucumbers from the collective farm field and fled from the guard, at home the mother was not thrilled and demanded the cucumbers be returned to the guard.”
“Mom started to stuff the cucumbers back into Kotka’s pocket. Kotka was crying and shouting:
“I won’t go! Grandpa has a gun. He will shoot and kill me.”
“Let him kill you! I’d rather not have a son at all than have a son who is a thief.”
This drama sparked lively responses in parental hearts.”
“There’s nothing in life scarier than the betrayal of a person you trust. Whom you love. For whom you carry these damn cucumbers, and you get a kick in your most vulnerable and unprotected self” (doc_namino).
“Makes you want to kill the mother long and painfully. Until she fully realizes what she has done. And then leave her to live with that. I feel sorry for the child to tears” (mara dh).
“Then similar Kotkas grow up and go to psychologists to treat their childhood traumas from mother’s lack of love” (nadezhda_k).
Violence even in a child’s environment is cauterized with hot iron. Children are not shown cartoons that might scare them, and most parents even refuse to read their little ones the good old books where they shoot at the bunny, saw off the bear’s paw, or behead the king. Preference is given to modern children’s literature, where a toothbrush, offended by its owner, almost fell off the table—and this is the most tense incident possible. Even in Russia, there is a federal law № 436, directly prohibiting the mention in children’s books of death, severe illnesses, vagrancy, and other sad things. “I never thought I’d say this,” says Tom Bennett, “but children are overprotected. They live in an absolutely safe space and, arriving at college, demand the same protection they are accustomed to from kindergarten.”
Brave New World?
Or maybe it’s good? Maybe it’s right? The first unspanked, kind generation will change the face of the Earth, violence will sink into oblivion, life will flow by new laws… Well, everyone will be on Prozac, but Prozac is better than a “Pershing.” True, there are other cultures on the planet where conditions for snowflakes are not yet available. But maybe the general softening of morals will get there in about twenty years? Alas, but it must be admitted that snowflakes are only verbally opponents of violence. Yes, most likely, they will not defend a girl during an attack by hoodlums, preferring to wisely call the police. But they will give the arriving police carte blanche for harsh detention of hoodlums and as long a term for them as possible.”
Snowflakes do not renounce violence, they just delegate it to the authorities. They are easily rude when they are sure of their safety. They are capable, as we saw in the example of the Evergreen professor, of bullying and mockery. The violence that ensures their protection is wonderful, proper violence. Just let someone specially trained deal with it, and allow them to sit in their bicycle helmets on child seats. Freedom is definitely not a priority in the eyes of snowflakes: children, who were led to school by the hand until the age of fourteen and never left alone, are not accustomed to it. Moreover, they fear it, especially when freedom is used by those with whom snowflakes disagree.”
The worst a politician, actor, writer, doctor can now afford is to say something that causes fear in snowflakes. For example, to stand up for a Hollywood producer who seduced actresses, to say that passive smoking harms no one, or that feminism is quite a silly thing… That is, to go against the left ideology that has dominated European and American academic chairs for over half a century and which has become the catechism of snowflakes.
When snowflakes get scared, they unite and, sparing no energy, organize a blizzard for the culprit of their fear: lawsuits, devastating articles, tons of insulting letters, boycotting a company that did not throw the villain out on the street. Today, snowflakes are perhaps one of the most powerful, mobile, and significant diasporas in the first world countries—a community that cannot be ignored”
In a slightly edited form, this article by Taty Oleinik was published in MAXIM magazine in February last year. https://www.maximonline.ru/longreads/get-smart/_article/new-generation/
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 