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DISCUSSIONHow was "special snowflake"/SJW culture created? (self.GenderCritical)

suburbansoulgirl#000000+XX が 投稿

This morning, I got to wondering about how did western societies develop this culture in which everyone is special and unique (or go out of their way to be such), nobody is wrong (unless you counter the special snowflake narrative- then you're "problematic" or "phobic") and criticism/manner of speech is policed for being "triggering".

Is it an overcompensation for inhumane treatment of others which was prevalent in previous generations?

Is it just plain old attention seeking?

...or is it another reason?

Either way, special snowflake culture is not creating a more accepting and open environment, but an increasingly hostile one and one where people cannot be honest without fear of condemnation.

What do you think created this culture of fragile beings who take offense to just about everything?

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[–]trianglecrisps 28 ポイント29 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I agree with other posters who mention individualism and the "self esteem" generation.

Also, as a political phenomenon, I think it arises from the fact that real political change is very difficult to achieve, and the problems of today are so immense that most leftists have given up on tackling the big questions. Global capitalism, the mass media and its propaganda, governments with their heat-seeking missiles and high-tech police forces - fighting these things as a citizen is pretty much impossible. When you look at something like the french revolution, and other movements throughout history, the actual logistics wouldn't be possible to do in today's world.

So instead of focusing on the hard stuff, lefty-inclined types focus on the easy stuff, like language and representation and all the other snowflakisms.

[–]regressivebs 26 ポイント27 ポイント  (1子コメント)

This.

This is my first "This." ever, that's how much I agree with you. There's no anti-war movement in the US. How fucking crazy is that? But a bunch of rich kids think they're revolutionary because they fuck a lot of people. Rich people have almost always had a right to hedonism. It doesn't make it bad, but sex positivity and special pronouns aren't going to help people killed in drone attacks.

[–]boutros_gadfly 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've wondered if the ever present gaze of social media has just bred a generation dense with shallow narcissists, so no real action is happening over and above that which is visible... an impression of action instead of action for action's sake, kind of thing.

[–]williamwilliamitwasI Identify As A Misanthropic Turtle 17 ポイント18 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I believe it is definitely tied to our current version of capitalism. If everyone is special and unique, well that requires you to purchase plenty of crap to differentiate yourself and show how awesome and unlike other people you are.

[–]transfasc_modmod of r/transfascism 42 ポイント43 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Neoliberalization of the university system. An answer conservatives won't want to hear. The root cause wasn't the extreme left, it was the corporate Right.

When you run a university like a corporation, what happens? They become increasingly litigation and conflict shy. Hence: safe spaces and no contradiction allowed to students no matter how dumb or extreme they get.

This is poison to education, because going against received notions is necessarily painful and messy.

This podcast lays it all out.

https://shadowproof.com/2015/09/27/podcast-university-inc-the-policing-of-speech-on-american-campuses/

[–]SagaciousUmbrella 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Good point -- if you read academic blogs and forums, you can find all kinds of horror stories about faculty members being pressured by their administration to cave to all sorts of ridiculous demands from their students (and the helicopter parents of those students), based on a "customer is always right" sort of mentality. For instance, that coursework that's late, or not up to par, shouldn't be penalized, because the professor's job is to "promote student success". Or, a student plagiarized some work, but really it was the professor's fault, because if the student felt so desperate that they had to plagiarize, then clearly the professor didn't do a good enough job of teaching them the material! So, in effect, universities turn into places where people are spending tons of money and fighting for their right NOT to be educated.

[–]suburbansoulgirl#000000+XX[S] 7 ポイント8 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I thought that the roots of this culture came from academia, but never thought of it from that angle. Thanks for sharing this.

[–]gcgayman 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Here's the NYTimes article that inspired that podcast.

https://nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html

It made an interesting point about Title IX and corporate sexual harassment policies.

But corporate entities serve corporate interests, not those of the individuals within them, and so these efforts are often designed to spare the institutions from legal liability rather than protect the individuals who would be harmed by sexual harassment. Indeed, this is the very lifeblood of corporatism: creating systems and procedures that sacrifice the needs of humans to the needs of institutions.

[–]endthewooabolitionist 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (1子コメント)

American wealth, decadence, consumerism, cultural imperialism + the internet.

[–]Omina_SentenziosaI' m not a TERF: I' m just ladybrained that way! 19 ポイント20 ポイント  (0子コメント)

the internet

Stealing a sentence I have read somewhere: the Internet is at the same time the greatest invention of humanity and its worst failure.

[–]unicornliberationmake america terf again 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (7子コメント)

the other posters summed up pretty well why this type of culture developed. for me, it all started with yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com (the sjw culture was still evolving at the time - it was only a year before that blog that ppl started discussing gender & race on tumblr), from then on 'problematic' became a term that was widely used on tumblr. most of the talk was about reverce racism, cultural appropration, basic feminism. then somehow things like being genderfluid and all that shit started slipping on the site. i assume that since most of the users were priviliged white middle-class americans/westerners, labeling yourself as 'genderfluid', 'trans', 'demigirl', etc was a way to stand out and seem special and oppressed, too. something i've found interesting is that most of these people struggle with mental illness (mostly self-diagnoses, but often you'll find people listing about 15+ illnesses), which makes the community quite toxic (saying this as someone who also struggles with mental health). people now even have whole pages where they write down their priviliges and their identities. oppression olympics, ya know. 'trigger warnings' were being used by women who have been raped, now a trigger warning can mean everything that makes you feel a little uncomfortable. it's sick that this type of thinking is seeping into mainstream media (buzzfeed being the most vocal media- i have no idea why i still visit the damn site).

meanwhile, here in eastern europe we're just laughing and making fun of the fact that you can label yourself 'they'. (:

ps. i've also noticed that A LOT of americans are unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives, even while being more priviliged than most of the world and having more resources. so there's that. i think that's a factor, too.

[–]newgcf 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (6子コメント)

A LOT of americans are unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives, even while being more priviliged

Part of it I think is guilt, part of it is feeling increasingly isolated from the means of production, and the ease of modern life making people question whether their existence has any purpose. I don't believe humans are meant to have life as 'easy' as we do in America, even though they believe they want it. We have all the leisure time to do whatever we want, and the only thing we want is be distracted during all that free time, to feel "busy". Or maybe it's that thinking is the only difficult task Americans have left, and we hate doing anything difficult.

Well, I'm depressed. But you're spot on about the unhappiness and dissatisfaction. People are trying to find meaning, and being divided into increasingly smaller groups, while pressured to constantly promote themselves like a commercial product. Individualism is the only path to happiness under those circumstances, and it doesn't make anyone genuinely happy.

[–]unicornliberationmake america terf again 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (5子コメント)

i can see that! it seems to me that americans being individualistic and goal-focused is the main problem. many people struggle with not being rich enough, not being popular enough, not being successful enough, not getting where they want to be soon enough, etc. you're so right about the distractions thing!

my country is a typically collectivistic - people value the most family and health, most see things like being rich/famous/successful in your career as fleeting - you have it one day, it can be gone tomorrow. obviously not a perfect culture (far too traditional and religious for my taste), but people are consideringly more happier and being able to find joy in the small things than americans. even though more than 80% of the population struggles with money and 22% live below the poverty line. no fancy vacations and expensive cars for us, and still happy. :) maybe in the end the depression/anxiety epidemic in america stems from loneliness (!!!), self-esteem issues (which created the special snowflake thing) and not appreciating what you have (not living in the present). humans are fascinating.

[–]qwertypoiuytre 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Americans don't just have a problem with "not being rich enough". A third are in or near poverty, half make less than $30,000 per year, and three quarters live paycheck to paycheck with little to no emergency reserves - in a country where if you slip and fall and are taken in an ambulance to the hospital, it can set you back $7,000 (happened to my mom last year - who works full time, makes $25k per year with a master's degree - which she is still paying off - and the cost was only for the ride, a couple tests and some anti-nausea and pain medications, and monitoring overnight).

What you see on tv is not representative of the american experience for the majority. The idea that this phenomenon is due to americans being too privileged and having it too easy is off base.

[–]unicornliberationmake america terf again 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

i was talking about the mentality, not the reality. as in, why am i not as wealthy as the people i see on tv/as i expected to be when i was young?

[–]qwertypoiuytre 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think this is still obfuscating the systemic problem and replacing it with an individualistic analysis. Framing it as wanting more, rather than wanting enough, are two very different things. Many people are too busy "wanting to be as wealthy as": a person who is not perpetually living on the edge of eviction, medical bankruptcy, student loan default, choosing between medicine or food, etc to entertain any serious thoughts as to why they aren't living like the millionaires on tv.

[–]newgcf 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (0子コメント)

but people are consideringly more happier and being able to find joy in the small things than americans

I think collectivist culture is really interesting to compare to America, and I do think that people are generally happier in collectivistic vs individualistic societies... but, as you say, neither is perfect, and collectivism can be taken so far that individual rights and freedom are ignored. So much of our perception and values, and even mental health issues are influenced by the culture in which we're raised.

the depression/anxiety epidemic in america stems from loneliness (!!!), self-esteem issues (which created the special snowflake thing) and not appreciating what you have (not living in the present)

Completely agree, and it's a very sad phenomenon. Not as tragic as say, living in cycles of perpetual violence or poverty... but maybe if more Americans would do something to help those in bad situations, they wouldn't be so depressed...

[–]149824710298347 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

i can see that! it seems to me that americans being individualistic and goal-focused is the main problem. many people struggle with not being rich enough, not being popular enough, not being successful enough, not getting where they want to be soon enough, etc. you're so right about the distractions thing!

They still believe in meritocracy and American exceptionalism. Fundamentally. The cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming. Medicalizing distress makes it an individual problem, as well, and there is an authoritarian scientism at play.

Only since the Occupy movement has the concept of social class come into public awareness and actually been talked about in routine discourse. It's a tension that's being worked out.

[–]endofthelinerXX-Marks-My-Sex=Female 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Individualism wrought monstrous. If you can't get rich and famous in America, fake it with something else, but never, ever, allow yourself to be just a regular "vanilla" working person, female or male. Get rich and famous on Youtube! On TV talentless shows! Doing stupid animal tricks! Promoting style over substance! Or get rich and famous promoting an absolute fraud of an ideology in which you can be the opposite "gender" (sex, that is) of what you were born. Defend yourself to the death, if you have to lie, cheat and steal to accomplish what you set out to do.

It took some other western countries a while to take this on (while competing with their own cultural values), but many, through globalized capitalism, are entwined with the concept now.

[–]TheNewGarry2 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (2子コメント)

As many pointed out, I don't think students being extreme lefties is anything new, but wanting to get school admins involved is. It's also way too convenient given the goals of neoliberal universities. Anyway- very important work on this topic that addresses this, this is what made me consider this. This got shared already here but I can't emphasize this enough http://shadowproof.com/2015/09/27/podcast-university-inc-the-policing-of-speech-on-american-campuses/

About the Berkeley protests- in retrospect I don't think Bob Reich's theory that the black bloc guys were collaborating with Trump is completely, 100% implausible. http://truthdig.com/report/item/a_yiannopoulos_bannon_trump_plot_to_control_american_universities_20170205

Given that this is a feminist sub some of the occasional blaming parents in the face of massive structural inequities seems kind of odd to me.

[–]suburbansoulgirl#000000+XX[S] 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for the linkage.

And yeah, it definitely not new, but the internet accelerates it.

[–]TheNewGarry2 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

One final thing

K, but everyone will have a different story about how much they remember participation trophies FFS. This kind of thing without solid data can only build sweeping, false generalizations and is besides the point. Personal anecdotes ultimately prove very little. Furthermore they are traditionally used to serve reactionary and/or neoliberal/conservative purposes. For example, Paul Ryan's manipulative story about the kid wanting his lunch in a paper bag http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/paul-ryan-free-lunches-make-kids-soulless.html

Very important --> http://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/the-personal-and-the-political/

Any political radical should perhaps look at underlying structural causes before personal stories. Eg- data and numbers. Doing otherwise will backfire hard

[–]Kalipest 10 ポイント11 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think the snowflake thing just err... snowballed really. It started out as a group of good people who were genuinely interested in inclusivity and social awareness. Once it got rolling, it became a conduit for supremely narcissistic behaviour. Basically, the SWJs got drunk on power.

Want to shut someone down? Accuse them of oppressing you - don't even need to prove it, simply self-identify as a member of an "oppressed" group. The more obscure and "oppressed" your group is, the more YOUR voice deserves to be heard. So. Gay is not enough. Gotta be a panromantic asexual demi-boy with self-diagnosed autism.

Want to shut someone up? Declare their point of view "problematic" and either reply with deliberately obtuse jargon-laden argument, or perhaps, if you're feeling lazy, just throw an insult and tell them that it's not your job to "educate" them.

It's quite funny that they declare their opponents "literally hitler", because if anything they themselves prove how good people can find themselves in the midst of an incredibly toxic ideology (just as did plenty of perfectly normal Germans in the 40s).

Likewise, when they talk about wanting to create "safe spaces", what they really mean is that they want the power to designate and control spaces. It's really quite colonialist in nature.

I think a lot of the "snowflake SWJs" will look back on this time in their life and cringe. And that's fine; they are young and young adults are and have always been faintly ridiculous (my goth phase was quite regrettable.)

What is more concerning (and who are more guilty, in my opinion), are the adults who have let these young people use their power-tripping temper tantrums to inform public policy and denigrate the academic culture of university campuses.

[–]Fallenstarrynight 16 ポイント17 ポイント  (28子コメント)

It started in the 1990s. I was a kid in the 1990s, so here is how I see it:

The 1990s marked a time when people were obsessed with counseling and psychology. Many books and tv shows around that time centered on the human psyche.

(Another symptom of our psychology craze was the vastly over-diagnosed and over-prescribed ADD/ ADHD. Many, many children were given Riddilin.)

It was at this time that there were many books on how to parent to ensure a healthy child who wouldn't have all those mental issues you saw on tv all day long. Overwhelmingly the answer was to show overt approval of ALL this your child did. The child was always special, always to be fawned over. This led to what many people today blame as the cause of this phenomena, Participation awards.

Participation awards are a good symbol of what went wrong. They show the belief of: Always award your child even if they did nothing to deserve the praise. The problem is, what started as a way to stop self-doubt created a generation of people who think they are special and inherently superior to all those around them.

[–]qwertypoiuytre 19 ポイント20 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think a complementary phenomenon to take into account is that all the while the Participation/Snowflake awards mentality was taking off - things really were getting worse for the youngest generations. Millennials for all they are trashed, have been screwed over by the generations before them - starting off adulthood with tens of thousands in debt, crippling health costs, 20% lower pay than the Boomer generation, having to put off the basics of adulthood like home ownership and families. So, thanks to the older generations who gave us all a blue ribbon at the track meet and shit talk us now, but what would have been really special is not throwing future generations' economies and livelihoods into the dumpster.

I think if things were better, more young people would have the confidence and contentment that comes from basic material security and professional/vocational accomplishment and wouldn't be looking for these easy but empty 'fixes' in the first place, i.e. the snowflake coping strategies they were taught.

At the end of the day, of course the blame game doesn't help anybody. We get the leaders and subsequently the conditions we deserve. So it's time for millennials, whether they caused the situation they're in now to get it together and fix it.

[–]SagaciousUmbrella 13 ポイント14 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I was also a kid in the 90s. One of the few actually good and insightful Tumblr posts I've ever read was one that made the point that we saw what was going on with the participation trophies, and it left us distrustful of adults. We ended up thinking, "This adult is praising my performance. How do I know they're being honest, and that they wouldn't be saying the exact same thing no matter how I was doing?" That pattern of thoughts is extremely familiar to me.

Though I suppose these could both be true: the more skeptical or introspective types are thinking "Trust no one!", and the more gullible ones are thinking "why yes, I am spectacularly special." Fast track to Dunning-Kruger.

[–]TheNewGarry2 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (7子コメント)

Sigh. Do you know how much of a conservative buzzword cliche this is? You guys do know that participation awards have been around for a while? I was a kid in the 1990s too. Don't you think that would make it harder for you to have perspective? You don't think structural problems are part of it?

The 'tiger mom' contrasts herself with American parents who coddle their children, but I think her approach also comes from a place of privilege..I don't know what culture you'd attribute to, but she still wanted her kids to be the very specialest and follow their dreams even if she more like forced them to..it takes a tremendous amount of economic privilege to do what she did btw, and her personal anecdotes don't really disprove overwhelming evidence that kids in poor households are disadvantaged and have less opportunities. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/05/21/our-kids-unhappy-days-america/

This is an interesting book- nothing about SJWs, but I think she makes a direct connection between how French mothers are able to have a more lax approach with the increased social safety net, universal pre-k etc. http://nytimes.com/2012/02/26/books/review/pamela-druckermans-bringing-up-bebe.html This Forbes writer isn't buying it, he would rather 'raise a billionaire'. His kid sounds like much more of a snowflake if you ask me http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2012/03/07/bringing-up-bebe-no-thanks-id-rather-raise-a-billionaire/

Some of the people who present themselves as 'experts' on the alleged campus SJW crisis in American universities and its origins in character defects of individuals actually have no business talking about it. Eg, Milo, a 33-yr-old man who briefly attended Oxford- in the uk- about 10 yrs ago and dropped out

Don't you think blaming parents is kind of sexist? Like, do you really think the fathers are ever implicitly being blamed? I saw a TradCath blogger blame 'contraception' for this because when mothers don't have 10 children like he thinks they should they focus too energy much on one child. Yes, I hate SJW culture too but this discourse of speaking about them is extremely reactionary.

If you're going to talk about American parents at ALL you're not going to mention the lack of universal pre-k, safety net? Just..participation medals? Come on.

Highly recommend this. This is a very specific issue http://www.raniakhalek.com/2015/09/27/podcast-university-inc-and-the-policing-of-speech-on-american-campuses

[–]suburbansoulgirl#000000+XX[S] 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (6子コメント)

I grew up in the 80s and don't remember participation awards at all.

[–]TheNewGarry2 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (4子コメント)

I grew up in the 90s and I don't remember them at all either. I had never heard of them before except in the context of gen x people making fun on gen y.

I specifically remember reading somewhere they existed for a long time before. They aren't specific to gen y or anything.

[–]gcgayman 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I remember them quite well from the late nineties, early aughts. At the middle school "award" ceremonies, they simply made up awards until they could justify giving one to everyone. Of course, this meant that some people ended up getting 20+ garbage awards just so the troublemaker kids could get 1. I'm sure those kids saw through the bullshit, and it only made it worse.

[–]qwertypoiuytre 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I remember it too, especially in athletics. I was very shy and non-competitive, and never liked those school-wide track and field days, but had no problem making my peace with sucking at it. But then I'd have to bring home a ribbon to highlight how I didn't actually win anything yay! and see the attempted enthusiasm from the parents, look at it on the fridge -would have been better to just be able to forget about it. I can also remember several teachers who were very big on always talking about "self-esteem" - that was the big buzzword round our parts. Self-esteem self-esteem self-esteem. It was like if they just said it enough it would magically be instilled. There was never anything real behind it. Never concrete ideas about how to build it. Just this thing the adults kept insisting we were supposed to have (and if you didn't, that's just one more thing you can feel bewilderingly inadequate about! :P).

[–]TheNewGarry2 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I grew up in the 70s and there was no such thing.

I saw an article about the history of participation trophies which said they date from the 19th century or so.

At any rate the problem here is the way we are talking about this.

You cannot diagnose a vast sociological problem, which SJW culture presumably is, by talking about personal memories. Only research and data.

[–]TheNewGarry2 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Personal anecdotes are a reactionary way of diagnosing social problems and they usually serve reactionary/neoliberal purposes.

http://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/the-personal-and-the-political/

It doesn't actually matter if I remember participation trophies or not because that's not the point.

[–]dixiechick547 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I grew up in the 70s and there was no such thing.

[–]SarkyMs 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

i agree with this.

[–]clearglassofwater 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't think waxing nostalgic is really constructive on this topic so I'm going to say I think it's accelerated capitalism/individualism, collapse of women's liberation into the third wave, feelings of helplessness and alienation both in the world and in local communities leading to anxiety, confusion, individual indulgence, trying to take back control.