The Snowflake Generation: A Defense

Thoughts Jun 27, 2021

"This is such a snowflake generation" has been the mainstream conservative opinion for ages. In every period of history, the elder generation has accused so. It is part of the "during my time, we had to defeat a balrog to get to school" mentality.

This issue is similar to the memes about safety instructions. 50 years ago they didn't write "do not drink" on bleach bottles. Today we do. Does this mean we are dumber?

No. In any given population, there's a probability (say 0.001%) of people who are dumb enough to drink bleach. 50 years ago, they simply died. Today we have better consumer protection laws. If one guy dies, media erupts, companies get sued to bankruptcy. By simply making a minor change, which doesn't affect the lives of 99.999% of the population, we have drastically reduced the number/percentage of the dumb people who actually die. Is that bad?

Same with body shaming/sexual harassment...etc. There's always a percentage who are unable to handle it. I don't think that percentage is increasing. By spreading awareness, we are reducing the number/percentage of people who will mentally break down, grow up to be deeply scarred adults, or even commit suicide. It doesn't affect us personally, but we can bear a small inconvenience, to save a few lives. This is good, we should be proud.

I'm actually happy about this generation. We see kids being wholesome, having a common sense of what shouldn't be made fun of. A disabled kid, one with disfiguration is less likely to get bullied at school today. It was shocking to talk to mom and see what they have bullied about, during her time. She was unable to comprehend that we think differently and we don't even consider those funny. That's a win for our generation. We are improving. Our younger generation will be better than us.

If you want to improve things further, teach your kids to stand up against injustice. Teach them to get into trouble in order to fearlessly defend themselves and the weak around them, regardless of the consequences. And when they do, tell them how proud you are. Teach them not to be blindly loyal to their morally corrupt friends. This is how we can build a resilient society that upholds justice.

First posted on Facebook: facebook.com/abarajithan11/posts/10222787695392458