My Semester with the Snowflakes

Previous discussion 4 days ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21864639" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21864639</a>

I’m not worried about the kids in college now who are too young, busy, and roll their eyes at mainstream American political culture to give a shit about the latest outrage-du-jour on Twitter. They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history. They’ll be just fine.<p>It’s the young adults who are a few years into their career being crushed by high prices, low wages, holding useless degrees under piles of debt that I imagine make up the majority of the online outage mobs and who are likely going to be a lost generation.

It’s interesting how much implied context is in this: that someone old, and related to the military (presumably right-leaning from the “snowflake” term), likely distrusts&#x2F;disrespects someone young and wealthy from the coasts (presumably left-leaning from geography).<p>Are we really so polarized? Are hundreds of millions so gung-ho to flock away from the center? Can the whole American situation be approximately summed up, statistically, by these two exaggerated caricatures?<p>It seems that’s the tone of the article. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong, but either way I would hope that the real situation is more nuanced than that.<p>Maybe the situation on the ground really is that bad in some places. I don’t leave my house in the US much other than to fly out of the country, and only know what I read online about it. Can someone with direct experiences in these places shed some more light?

Well written piece! Never stop learning.<p>In a way there&#x27;s an underlying political statement here on how diverse opinions and education changes perspective.

Great quote: &quot;To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.&quot;

&gt; Later at some point during the day, a young student placed a glove with red paint on it on one of the flags as she wanted to demonstrate her displeasure with something…I’m not quite sure what.<p>&gt; These hardworking kids are very kind and thoughtful. A far cry from the picture that is often painted of them.<p>I&#x27;m... Confused, to say the least. In fact, those two paragraphs encapsulate my confusion at the post in general.

I love this essay.

Interesting article. Read it this morning. Curious what the &#x27;snowflakes&#x27; think about it.

Stop reposting this over and over.

There was once a guy in his mid-40s that tried to rush the fraternity I was in. I don&#x27;t think there were any rules that prohibited it either except extreme creepiness.

I always thought the “liberal snowflake” term is quite odd. I guess I could qualify or classified as one. There’s something wrong with that statement. I think the meaning of it is quite the opposite. As a liberal, you realize that you are not a special individual and must cooperate to gain more, to distribute the available resources for some sort of greater progress, such as health care for everyone etc. Being the opposite is just what a snowflake would be. The one of a kind, just me and my capabilities and resources against the rest of the world. If you don’t have an insurance to give the appropriate healthcare to your loved ones, you, and only you are the failure here, not the collective “us”.<p>I believe I was less liberal in my youth, but since when I got my children I can’t bare the thought of not being able to pay their health care if they ever needed it. Even though that’s not a problem for me, I still think of it very often when I see them sick.