Generation 'Snowflake'

[nudge]

2 hours ago, Bluewolf said:

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the Snowflake Generation as:-

A way of referring to the type of young people who are considered by some people to be too easily upset and offended

I can get on board with that, especially given the direction that the modern thinking world seems to be moving in.... I don't think a day passes by that we are not reading about something or someone causing offence to someone else and for me it does tip the balance a little bit too far in favour of the over sensitive and over emotional among us.. Being of the older generation I have seen such a huge swing toward these over emotional people who without thinking first react to something rather than pause for breath and give it proper consideration before jumping on the nearest social media platform to air their grievances and condemnations... 

The reason I have put this up is because I was reading an article this morning where one University has drawn up a list of 'trigger words' in books that are likely to cause offence or upset and are demanding their removal from the libraries... There is however a much needed blocker coming in that is attempting to control this... 

Students at some universities have drawn up a list of 'trigger words' and demanded books containing them should be removed from the library, Jo Johnson has said. The universities minister warned institutions they have four months to clamp down on student zealots who restrict free speech on campuses. Mr Johnson said he has seen too many ‘worrying’ incidents of groups trying to ‘stifle those who do not agree with them’.

He warned institutions that they have a duty to intervene and ensure differing points of view can be heard – however controversial.

And speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Johnson said students at one university had created an extensive list of 'trigger words' and demanded any books containing them be removed from the library. 

A new regulator, the Office for Students, will come into being in April 2018 and will have the power to punish universities which do not adequately safeguard free speech. Those falling short could be fined or even deregistered – rendering them effectively unable to operate.

It follows incidents in which student unions and societies have banned speakers because they deemed their views ‘offensive’.

Chairman Sir Michael Barber said the Office for Students will force institutions to allow diverse opinions to be heard amid concerns that some views are being shut down In a speech to the Limmud Festival in Birmingham, Mr Johnson said free speech and open debate must be a central principle of all universities. ‘Universities should be places that open minds not close them, where ideas can be freely challenged,’ he will say. ‘In universities in America and worryingly in the UK, we have seen examples of groups seeking to stifle those who do not agree with them. We must not allow this to happen.

‘Young people should have the resilience and confidence to challenge controversial opinions and take part in open, frank and rigorous discussions.

‘That is why the new Office for Students will go even further to ensure that universities promote freedom of speech within the law.’ As a condition of registration to the Office for Students, the Department for Education is proposing that universities benefiting from public money must show that their governance is consistent with the principle of free speech.

The OfS will have a range of powers if freedom of speech is not upheld, including ‘monetary penalties’ and deregistering institutions. When a university is deregistered it means it is not recognised as an English higher education provider, cannot receive direct Whitehall funding and will not be able to award its own degrees.

Many student unions believe universities need to be ‘safe spaces’ where young people can be shielded from views they may find upsetting. But critics say being shielded from the realities of the world does not prepare students for the challenges they face after graduation.

However, Mr Johnson also reiterated that free speech must not be used as a ‘smokescreen’ by those who wish to limit the rights of others. 

He said universities must ensure there is no place within higher education for ‘hatred, extremism or any form of discrimination or racism, including anti-semitism’.

He said: ‘A racist or anti-semitic environment is by definition an illiberal one that is completely in opposition to the liberal tradition of our universities.’

 

I completely agree that there is no place in the modern free thinking world for hatred or racism and stamping that out is alright by me but lets got get carried away with the other stuff.... What kind of a future are we trying to create??  

This reminds me of an ongoing effort to bowdlerise literary classics by revising original material which is now considered inappropriate, improper and offensive by those who are mentally incapable of taking historical context into account. Classic children books such as Doctor Doolittle, Pippi Longstockings, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are probably the best examples of this. The changing of art in retrospect to suit the notions of political-correctness-gone-crazy is absolutely absurd. 

[SirBalon]

8 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Yea I read that as well just a bit before Christmas but the one I was reading was a random person and not anyone in education... But it's another example of going a bit far with things.. Based on that Disney might as well pack up shop and head for the hills... Rapunzel is another one that needs to go.. Pulling on someones hair is a sign of abuse and or Domination ( depending on what your kink is ) so where does it all end?? 

As Harvey put it, Political Correctness does not have to be a bad thing if it does indeed lead to some common decency but I see a lot of common sense things getting blown completely out of proportion and giving some people and inch means they come back and want the whole mile.. We just need to allow the sensible and keep control of the ridiculous...  

I was listening to Ian Collins on LBC one night going on about that Sleeping Beauty situation and he even mentioned the universities trying to take this to the higher authorities. 

I’m all for the correct implementation of political correctness but unsubscribe from extremes totally and won’t even listen to it. I have Jewish friends in a couple of London unis and I won’t even go into what they go through. 

[nudge]

22 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

I heard there’s a group of university students that want Sleeping Beauty deleted from the curriculum because she is asleep and the Prince kisses her without her consent... I kid you not, this is for real! 

I read that too haha. I even read about a newly released version of Three Little Pigs where the Wolf is allegedly vegetarian, not sure if true, this does seem a bit too far fetched even for today's standards  

[Honey Honey]

Thought it was a Geordie lass who was reading it to her 6 year old son and found that part distrubing so wrote to the school asking for it to be taken off the curriculum. 

Her argument was that it is ok for older children to read but 6 year olds are more impressionable and replicate what they hear in stories. Also a belief that all the little things add up to create certain behaviours throughout life. 

The problem in this case is it can't be empirically proven, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily wrong.

[SirBalon]

10 minutes ago, nudge said:

I read that too haha. I even read about a newly released version of Three Little Pigs where the Wolf is allegedly vegetarian, not sure if true, this does seem a bit too far fetched even for today's standards  

Hahaha... It is funny to us because we’re in the in between generations but in all seriousness, this is for real!

It’s cleansing in a different way.

[Bluewolf]

3 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Thought it was a Geordie lass who was reading it to her 6 year old son and found that part distrubing so wrote to the school asking for it to be taken off the curriculum. 

Her argument was that it is ok for older children to read but 6 year olds are more impressionable and replicate what they hear in stories. Also a belief that all the little things add up to create certain behaviours throughout life. 

The problem in this case is it can't be empirically proven, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily wrong.

Well that's going to take this in another direction altogether.. I wont disagree about impressionable youngsters.. My 3 year old Grand Daughter watches and listens to everything you do and say in the house and copies it as best she can to feel part of the group... You have to be so careful with the language you use around her in case she starts to pick any of it up so swears are down to a minimum and trust me when Chelsea are playing that's a monumental effort for me..  

 

 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Most people are fucking snowflakes. Proof? I have been warned for making a joke about snorting Anne Franks ashes and had a talking to for using the word wog in an etirely different context to that used in England.

 

 

[Honey Honey]

Altering history. You were not warned. Deadlinesman told you why the posts were inappropriate in a public place and why we would be removing them and you thanked him for not warning you in reply 

Removing them was not snowflake, it was upholding a line of common decency. This is my earlier point, some can't distinguish between the two anymore. Just lump everything in to this derogatory get out of jail free card called "snowflake".

[Inverted]

The older and more than right-wing will always point to the more bizarre tendencies of student politics or whatever to make themselves feel better.

Ive personally never come across trigger-warning culture in uni, but I have seen our national newspapers throw massive rages and smear campaigns against MPs who vote against hard Brexit, against people who make fun of blue passports, against citizens who bring litigation against the government, and against judges who make decisions  they don’t like.

But it’s convenient to make young people seem unreasonable and intolerant because we have no power - the elderly and the right-wing run this country, and so it’s in their interest to paint themeselves as reasonable, common-sense people falling victim to crazy times, rather than the main creators and shapers of our political culture of rage and misinformation. 

[Fairy In Boots]

21 minutes ago, Batard said:

I do think the distribution of wealth in Britain is a problem, the class system here is out of touch with modern society. I’m entirely pro working to achieve your own success, but the notion of being born into a more privileged family and benefiting so immensely from it belongs somewhere pre-WWII, society has moved on. 

Not really I work full time & have an online business which allows me to keep the Mrs at home while they're raised until they can go to school I regularly put in 15 hour days. Long term investments i've made and equity i've built as well as assets i'm acquiring will ensure my two kids have a much more comfortable life than I had.  Everything I now do is to give them options I never had, most of my mates are the same and we're all son's of poor working class Irish immigrants often single parent families off a council estate in Birmingham. The lads we knew that were more interested in partying are behind us and won't get out, it's their fault. We're now scattered around the better suburbs with what you would probably class as upper working class/ lower middle class styles of living. I say it all the time poor life choices = poverty. It's not the system, many industrious born poor fuckers have done very well because they put the work in. a tougher upbringing helped instill that hunger to do well.

It's the fundamental flaw with all kinds of socialism in my eyes. if you take away the carrot what's the fucking point and society naturally regresses because you doing have anybody driving that advancement.  If my kids are going to get a better shake guaranteed, why would I bother? surely i'd do the bear minimum and doss for a few hours each night. There's just no incentive at all if you take away the reward people get lazy it's in our nature. I appreciate there's losers in a capitalist system but capitalism has done more to take people out of serfdom than anything else. War is a fantastic example of this, of course it's horrible, but the necessity to gain an advantage drives great advancement. 

20 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

As I have half jokingly pointed out before the emotional sensitivity and over reaction that defines snowflakes would on this forum best describe some posters response to things like gay pride shoe laces. Trivial and yet a few people ball their eyes out over it and get very irritated. 

Being politically correct does not require being a snowflake. More often than not political correctness could just be called common decency. Beware those who rave about all political correctness generically. In the pub the other week this bloke lamented that coppers aren't allowed to beat people up anymore in their cells or give them a clip around the back of the head because of political correctness 

Some now pretty much justify themselves being a cunt and rancid person by deligimising opposition to their own behaviour as "PC", a term they have now come to believe is some sort of world gone mad.

I think it's just natural resistance to change and a resistance to it being so forced on occasion, there's almost an arrogance to it of "this is what we're doing now and if you're not on board you're a relic" when the jury is still very much out on new ideas.

A great example is gender fluid/ identification bollocks. Personally I take a laissez faire attitude towards what you dress as, but I draw the line at formal gender identification, this is at basic odds with science and I just don't buy this you are what you feel, no you are what your chromosomes dictate you are. A great example is the Fallon Fox debacle in mma where you have essentially a guy with the genetic mackup of a man which is harder and tougher, beating up several women. That's madness but the whole attitude of you're a bigot if you question this is what fuels such a reaction and negative reaction to the whole argument as a whole.

5 minutes ago, Batard said:

I meant the opposite, I meant why would we even allow it 

A big problem is positive discrimination, equality is same rules for all and we haven't got to that point yet, which in turn is fueling a new division. You've had empowerment of ethnicity in the last twenty years and in some quarters that's created a sense of entitlement.  Coupled with White male children being statistically the worst performers in schools now, jobs where only none whites must apply. This is bullshit, just scratch the nationality box off job application forms all together and have genuine equality or all that's happened is the oppressor has become the oppressed and the vice versa but you still have oppression.

[RandoEFC+]

This over censoring of things like literature really is a joke. Trying to keep 6 year olds from reading Sleeping Beauty? Even when you get the 1 in 1000 child who decides to go and kiss a sleeping girl at nursery it's no harm done and actually an opportunity for a parent or teacher to have a discussion with the child and enable them to reflect on why that might not be appropriate behaviour rather than just telling them these are the rules.

People young and old develop their moral compass by being exposed to conflicting views and circumstances. Censoring everything in the name of political correctness and telling people this is how you must think and this is what you must believe is 100 times more intolerant than allowing people to read things like Of Mice and Men which contain racial slurs.

[Inverted]

But these issues have always been there. Every generation has to get to grips with certain issues in censorship, it’s not a modern PC phenomenon.

 

[Honey Honey]

The entire school and church curriculum where literature is concerned is already a deliberate selection by government influence to ensure both obedience and the creation of a particularly desired culture and morality. Whether it works or not may be questionable, but it is not censorship if you can just go to a library or book store and buy what the state doesn't teach you.

[Burning Gold]

Some have rightly pointed out that there's a difference between political correctness and snowflakery, but it goes both ways. For every person complaining about things like not being allowed to say paki shops anymore, there's someone defending bonkers, repressive snowflakery as 'just political correctness and common decency'.

[Inverted]

4 minutes ago, Kitchen Sales said:

The entire school and church curriculum where literature is concerned is already a deliberate selection by government influence to ensure both obedience and the creation of a particularly desired culture and morality. Whether it works or not may be questionable, but it is not censorship if you can just go to a library or book store and buy what the state doesn't teach you.

True, when people disagree with the exclusion of a book they’re really targeting the belief that fuels the exclusion, more than the right to do so.

Like when a school in bloody Mississippi of all places took To Kill a Mockingbird out of the curriculum because of the word “nigger”.

If you want to censor bad language, that’s kinda stupid, but also normal. In that particular case, the attitude that it was easier to just skirt around racist history rather than engage with a key work on it was the problem. 

On a sidenote, I had a pal who did a high school essay on American Psycho and our teachers had no problem, and that’s the most sexually explicit and horrifically violent book ive ever read. So I guess we were lucky with censorship 

[Honey Honey]

28 minutes ago, Burning Gold said:

Some have rightly pointed out that there's a difference between political correctness and snowflakery, but it goes both ways. For every person complaining about things like not being allowed to say paki shops anymore, there's someone defending bonkers, repressive snowflakery as 'just political correctness and common decency'.

Oops. Did my anti-anti-pc brigade post get under your skin 

[nudge]

This is how I imagine uni these days 

 

[Spike]

In my experience it isn't an age-based generation, it's just people that are alive now.

[Spike]

1 hour ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Altering history. You were not warned. Deadlinesman told you why the posts were inappropriate in a public place and why we would be removing them and you thanked him for not warning you in reply 

Removing them was not snowflake, it was upholding a line of common decency. This is my earlier point, some can't distinguish between the two anymore. Just lump everything in to this derogatory get out of jail free card called "snowflake".

What if this is you right now? 

[Harry]

Well like any issue this one's politicised and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. 

There is definitely an oversensitivity coached into society now that is at least as much the cause of the problem as it is a contributor to a solution. 

There are definitely people going hard the other way in ridiculous cases where they don't have a leg to stand on.

[Inverted]

PC culture is killing Christmas and dumbing down pantos.

This is what 90% of complaints about snowflakes and political correctness sounds like to me 

[Burning Gold]

2 hours ago, Kitchen Sales said:

Oops. Did my anti-anti-pc brigade post get under your skin 

No, I largely agree with you, I just think it's stupid to pretend it only goes one way and to categorise anyone who ever questions political correctness as a frustrated racist.

[Dickie]

Im not going to fully join this debate but, I believe being PC and a snowflake are separate things. Being PC or attempting to be PC most of the time is common decency, being a snowflake is taking the idea of being PC and taking it to another level. Snowflakes are the ones who needed a "safe zone" when trump was elected. They are the ones who go on Facebook when they see a funny animal video and preach that it's cruelty to video tape your cat rolling over and falling off the couch. It's just extremism at the end of the day but not antifa extremism, snowflakes imo are the ones that expect others to do things about it and are the internet social justice warriors that preach but never do.

[Honey Honey]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

What if this is you right now? 

Maybe it is, but we have both borderline and openly anti-pc people on the staff who made the decision and enforced it, not me. To call those members of staff, their thinking and their reaction a snowflake one is ludicrous and reiterates that this concept of a snowflake has gotten well out of hand and lost its meaning.

It wont surprise anyone that on a measuring scale I would be considered by far and away the most PC member of staff. From my discussions and debates with them I can assure you everyone else on staff is far away from my disposition. So I'm convinced they are not snowflakes or behave as such

[6666]

Standing up against racism, xenophobia, homophobia or any sort of bigotry is fair enough but once it gets to a stage where you're having to put in a lot of effort to be outraged over situations that aren't that big of a deal then you are a fucking clown. Airheads congregating and making it look like their take on reality is normal has been one of the main causes of this. Before social media no one would've taken these idiots seriously.

The Lewis Hamilton outrage yesterday was especially ridiculous. Him jokingly messing around with his nephew was apparently a serious case of bullying.