SNOWLFAKE

Snowflake Generation - Are we really snowflakes?

You may be aware that, in recent years, our generation, you and me, have been dubbed as ‘snowflakes’. The Collins English Dictionary has added another meaning to the word snowflake as ‘the young adults of the 2010’s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations’. Today, in our rapidly changing society, we live acceptingly, appreciating all ranges of diversity and peoples’ opinions. Yet, there are so many types of people nowadays, the majority of which carry controversial debates, which makes it hard to argue against in fear of causing offence or being seen by those around you as unaccepting of others; even though, supposedly, everyone is free to share their opinions. This has led many people, mainly amongst those of the older generations, to believe that the motifs of generation snowflake are contradictory. However, arguably, as a result of rapid societal change, polarised socialisation experiences from the different generations has led to conflicting views about acceptance.

Society has developed rapidly in terms of social acceptance and is still expanding human rights and equality for all e.g. from 2015 to 2018, the gender pay gap has slowly started to narrow, increasing women’s pay compared to men by 5% (although this is a small amount, it proves that change is being made). Many people agree with the decisions made to achieve this and the views spread about modern societal issues such as gender inequality, racial discrimination, sexual orientation etc. For example, in June 2016, the Secretary of Defence Carter announced that the Pentagon lifted the ban on transgender people serving openly in the US military– one of many achievements made benefitting the LGBT community. Although not all issues have been resolved, for instance, one of many examples include over 70% of ethnic minority workers say they have experienced racial harassment at work or been subjected to unfair treatment by their employer because of their race, awareness for these problems has increased massively; mainly due to us, generation snowflake. Despite our previous generations efforts to kickstart social equality by introducing hugely beneficial laws such as the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Race Relations Act of 1976, the majority of societal change regarding controversial issues has come into play as a consequence of the actions from our generation – the Equality Act of 2010, the Human Rights Act of 1998 , the Employment Equality Regulations regarding religion, belief, sexual orientation and age Act of 2003, the legalisation of gay marriage in 2014 – the list goes on and on.

“The young adults of the 2010’s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations”

For today’s millennials, cultural and ethnic diversity is the norm, since we’ve been socialised to acknowledge so – quite rightly. However, the number of different ‘groups’ in society seems to be on the rise, and perhaps the majority of the older generations are finding it hard to keep up. On the contrary, those millennials less engaged with shifting modern societal attitudes can also find this quite confusing. I admit that I can become discombobulated with the everchanging initialism of the LGBT community; which currently adopts the form of LGBTTQQIAAP, standing for (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersexual, asexual, ally, pansexual). But does this mean that I am causing offence?

Well, since we’ve been dubbed as ‘self-righteous prima donnas’ and ‘pampered, precious ickle darlings’, you’d think so. Although this is a very specific example, it has been debated extensively that lots of people in our current modern society feel as though they cannot express their opinions openly in fear of causing offence to someone. This problem has arisen repeatedly within universities, creating more and more ‘safe spaces’ and ‘trigger warnings’ and washing campuses of words, ideas and subjects, justified by the increasing protest from offended students. As a consequence, recently there have been many cases of the pressure this inflicts on teachers and professors in schools and universities. One account shows a teacher in a mid-sized American state school, occasionally giving college lectures, using a fictitious name to protect himself as he ‘wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach’– the title of the article stated ‘I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me’. Others have argued that university students are now being inhibited when entering the ‘adult world’ since they have no opportunities to debate and be exposed to situations where their opinions are challenged and contradicted by others.

“We are living in the most liberal society to date, which, just under a century ago, seemed unimaginable.”

However, I believe we have to remember that, currently, we are living in a period of rapid societal change, along with the fact that our world is populated with many people, coming from different generations, time periods and experiences of socialisation – shaping how each of us view the world. For instance, you probably have more knowledge about gay rights than your grandparents – of course this is just generally speaking. Although it is argued that generation snowflake is creating an ‘anti-free speech’ environment, important issues have been addressed and condemned as a result of our generation ‘speaking out’ in the first place. It is also common for most to agree that criticising young people for wanting to do something about the mass inequality and discrimination facing our world today is ludicrous. The question still lurking however, remains: how much is too much?

This is generally the source of the generation snowflake debate: has the calling out of discrimination got out of hand? Stemming back to the origins of ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces’ – usually in the form of online discussions and forums for example, those who were suffering sexual assault, disclaimers and trigger warnings were used to protect those too traumatised to read graphic details of relatable events. Many other examples of the primary use of trigger warnings show that this practice has emerged from good intentions. However, this process began to gain momentum, whereby more and more requests for different trigger warnings surfaced – quickly escalating. Writer Greg Lukianoff explains that ‘when you turn it into something that’s fundamentally about someone’s subjective response, it very quickly creates a debate of ‘why should your trauma be privileged over mine?’”.

This could be used to explain why some people believe they cannot express their opinions since this ‘knock on’ effect of inclusivity could be making people fearful that if they do not address individuals or situations to fit everyone’s ‘needs’, then they could be labelled as causing offence. Similarly, many people feel if their opinion doesn’t fit the ‘criteria’ of that desired from generation snowflake, it will be discarded; justifying the description of us ‘snowflakes’ as being unable to cope with contradicting viewpoints to our own.

Despite this ongoing, conflicting debate, the facts remain: currently, we are living in the most liberal society to date, a life, which, just under a century ago, seemed unimaginable. As a generation, we are able to experience and witness an astonishing array of diversity in everyday life, right at the heart of this incredible, positive shift in our, now, much more accepting societal attitudes – snowflakes or not. Realistically, there will never be a 100% agreement in any deviation from tradition, because each generation takes on its own form of diversity – and since we’re seemingly so liberal, we should accept that. Right?