On the use of the word 'Snowflake'

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Someone who is both a post-modernist and a collectivist. Though I suppose a post-modernist would be enough since I've never seen one who isn't a collectivist. Perfect example would be at the Munk Debate where Peterson and Stephen Fry demolished two of them in a rather one-sided debate.

Uh huh. And what mkes these collectivists post-modern, or these postmodernists collectivists? Given that Peterson has someweird ideas of kinship to lobsters, I'm guessing they're socialist octopi and have body-length, distributed neurons.

Like ... if you said; "Mutant Space Nazis" ... someone asking you todescribe what they're like, I personally would think they were idiots if they said; "Well they're mutants, but in space, and happen to be Nazis."

So please outline to me what is a postmodern collectivist.

What makes them a postmodernist? Are we talking artistically? Philosophically? Why is it bad?

Because, you know ... the two don't actually fit together. Like a collectivist could be a structuralist philosopher, who places value in class consciousness ... or it could be an organization like the Roman Catholic Church. Basically the last supranational organization on the planet that literally tells its adherents that traditionally, as a Catholic, you can't swear allegiance to the state.

You can give an promise of service, but the Church is the highest authority...

And that's a collectivist idea...

Both of which not really postmodern however ... but you could have a postmodernist Catholic.

For example, a Catholic who might believe the interpretation of the Bible is only temporal and wrong in so far as all historical interpretation, just that it's as close as we can humanly get in the moment by the hiugh-ranking members of the Ecclesia militans--but is destined tobe revised, changed, and altered as time goes on.

After all, a Catholic is not sola scriptura... A Catholic believes the Bible is just a book. The Catholic Bible is also bigger than Protestant versions ... and there's stuff that's Apocrypha and Deuterocanonical that they point to as proof. That's why Catholics aren't technically allowed to swear on Bibles.

After all, Catholics recognize the Bible is just a collection of books, and humans are flawed creatures bound to misinterpret its meaning. Swearing on the Bible is therefore giving false witness and false testimony. Moreover, humans cannot swear to oaths onto Heaven, but rather can only make good on their oaths between people.

And so you can technically have a postmodern Catholic ... a postmodern collectivist Catholic who truly believes that all interpretations of the vision of God is merely a temporal truth of the current holy intermediary, but still believes in their role as a member of the Ecclesia militans.

A defender of the Catholic Church against the 'forces of Darkness', sworn to overturn even their own countries if the 'evils of men in high places' should also be their own. Still a collectivist identity. Also arguably a postmodern interpretation ... and not one strictly admonished within the Roman Catholic Church.

Hence why Catholics often end up on the chopping block... Hence why you also have weird conspiracy theories concerning 'Catholic subversion and subterfuge' when non-Catholic nations go all nationalist...

See, this is what happens when people just throw buzzwords together that make no sense, or justa vague cover all that could apply to everyone...

 

[Saelune]

If people who regularly said 'snowflake' really meant this, then they would all be major supporters of EQUAL rights. Ya know what would really show those damn snowflakes!? Treating everyone equally.

Except most don't. They usually want to treat gays different than straights, men different than women, blacks different than whites etc.

I am not going to get into a debate as to how people are using something incorrectly when discussing what the correct use of the term is.

A snowflake is a special subset of irony, demanding to be treated the same as everyone else, and then some, in spite of - or sometimes because of - an aspect of their character. In addition, they frequently have paper thin skin, and struggle to handle any dissenting opinion or refusal to adhere to their demands.

These type of people can be of any race, gender, religion, or creed.

I would not call Donald Trump a snowflake, I'd call him a loon with a silver spoon. While the demands he makes of others go beyond common courtesy, he is not thin skinned. He is very thick skinned, too thick skinned even. Everything bounces off the twit and he only hears what he wants to hear or chooses to hear.

I've started trying to 'reclaim' snowflake as it were. By calling people like Donald Trump snowflakes, cause he is, and Jordan Peterson a snowflake, cause he is.

Dunno how effective it will be though.

I find it quite telling that we live in a time where we find the mere concept of individuality objectionable enough to use it as an insult.

Snowflake isn't used as an insult against the concept of individuality (in fact it's mostly used against collectivists who abhor the concept, ironically enough). As Silentpony pointed out it has nothing to do with the concept of individuality and is about those who think themselves completely unique and deserving of similarly unique treatment because of it.

Except it is, and you said so yourself. You DO know what the word 'unique' means, don't you?

If we are going on a scale of snowflake to... IDK water? Peterson is far more of a snowflake than Trump. Trump can take some insults (he even made a joke about himself saying confeve last week.) Peterson gets a slight whiff of power and decides to make sure he's the only one with free speech. Even Trump isn't that bad.

Donald Trump can take an insult? Since when?

 

[Saelune]

Please explain to me what a 'post-modern collectivist' is.

Someone who is both a post-modernist and a collectivist. Though I suppose a post-modernist would be enough since I've never seen one who isn't a collectivist. Perfect example would be at the Munk Debate where Peterson and Stephen Fry demolished two of them in a rather one-sided debate.

You do not define a word by using the word you are defining. If you are going to use buzz word labels like those, you need to be able to define them.

 

[Zontar]

What makes them a postmodernist? Are we talking artistically? Philosophically? Why is it bad?

I don't see much difference between postmodern art and postmodern philosophy since the art is born of that philosophy, but if we're differentiating them I'd say philosophy. I, like most who aren't postmodernist, see it as bad because it has no actual value. Looking back at the Munk Debate, apart from calling Peterson an "Angry White Man" (while ironically being an almost stereotypical angry black man), what did Michael Dyson actually say? Here's a video on part of the debate, from which I'll pull a few quotes.


1:02

Empirical, as far as I know, means that which can be verified or falsified through through the senses.

[Fry: exactly]

So if we look at it, in an objective, uhm, way, the reality is that people don't have equal access to the means to articulate the very moment you're talking about.

5:52

But that is to be complicit in the very problem itself. Terminologically you are beginning at a point that's, that's already, uh, productive and controversial, you said 'how can he get his equality back'. Who you talkin 'bout? Jordan Peterson? Trending Number 1 on Twitter? Jordan Peterson, international best seller? I want him to tweet something out about me and my book. [cough] Jordan Peterson? [unintelligible] This is what I'm saying to you, why the rage brah? Y-you doin well, but you're a mean made white man, and you're gonna get us right, and I have never seen so much whining and snowflaking. There is enough whine in here to start a vineyard, and what I'm saying to you empirically and percicely when you ask the question about white privilege, the fact that you ask it in the way you did, dismissive, pseudo-scientific, non-empirical and without justification, A) the truth is that white privilege doesn't act according to quantifiable segments, it's about the degree to which we are willing as a society to grapple with the ideals of freedom, justice and equality upon which is based, number two was interesting to me, you're talking about not having a collective identity, what do you call a nation? Are you Canadian? Are you Canadian by yourself? Are you and individual? Are you part of a group? When America formed its union, it did so in opposition to another group, so the reality is that those who are part of group identities and politics denied the legitimacy and validity of those groups, and the fact that they had been created thusly, and then have resentment against others. All I'm asking for is the opportunity that this [stutter] the quotation you talked about the difference between the [stutter] equality of outcome and equality of opportunity, that's a state and retried argument hackneyed phrase derived from the halcyan days of the debate over affirmative action. Are you looking for outcomes that can be determined equally, or are you looking for opportunity? If you free a person after a whole long time of oppression and say 'now you are free to survive', if you have no skills, if you have no quantifiable means of existence, what you have done is liberated them into oppression, and all I'm suggesting to you, Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of our great presidents said, 'if you start a man in a race a hundred years behind, it is awfully difficult to catch up', so I don't thin Jordan Peterson is suffering from anything, except an exaggerated sense of entitlement and resentment, and his own privilege is invisible to him, and it's manifest with lethal intensity and ferocity right here on stage.

Alright so you look at these and you tell me, what exactly is he saying? Seriously think about it. Other then insulting Dr. Peterson and pushing the myth of white privilege, he said nothing at all. When you break down what he said, the near totality of his statements are empty, devoid of meaning, not actually attempting to convey information to the listener. Postmodernism is, at its core, much a do about nothing. Looking at the second point I quoted, what did he say? He called Dr. Peterson a mean white man who's blind to his privilege, and stretched it out into a 3 minute diatribe. He took information that takes literally 5 seconds to state and stretched it out to 180 seconds, using words that don't work in context to distract the listener from realising how little he has to actually say and to make following what is said as it's being said difficult. It's a means of beating agreement into people by overloading the senses and getting people to just go along with it without thinking (the main means by which postmodernism spreads since it can't hold its own under proper scrutiny).

I could spend hours explaining everything wrong with just the quoted parts of what Dyson stated during the debate, but honestly people like Professor Saad have done a better job demolishing postmodern dialectic then I ever could so if you care about understanding it you can hop to his YouTube channel.

There is very little that exists within postmodernism, but if there's anything that unifies it it's its inherent deconstructive nature. Be it politics, society, culture, language or what have you, postmodernism seeks to deconstruct everything. Nazi collaborator Le Corbusier was the first postmodern architect, and his goal with his work was in his view, was to destroy the culture of old and replace it with his monstrosities. A dramatic example, sure, but the underlying goal of postmodernists to deconstruct everything (without replacing what has been removed at that), is easily seen in just about everything they do.

There is nothing that unifies postmodernists other then deconstruction and the use of gibberish to confuse those that they are trying to persuade. That and the fact all postmodernists seem to be either socialist, communist or fascists, so I suppose calling a postmodernist a collectivist is a redundancy.

 

[CaitSeith]

If we go into semantics, snowflake and Special Snowflake are technically two different terms...

 

[Asita]

I find it quite telling that we live in a time where we find the mere concept of individuality objectionable enough to use it as an insult.

Snowflake isn't used as an insult against the concept of individuality (in fact it's mostly used against collectivists who abhor the concept, ironically enough). As Silentpony pointed out it has nothing to do with the concept of individuality and is about those who think themselves completely unique and deserving of similarly unique treatment because of it.

You're going to have to explain the difference between individual and unique then, because I would see them as synonyms. Apparently not?

Like what's the difference between being treated on an individual basis rather than unique

I think I can shed some light on that. The difference between the two can be summed up by the word "specialness". I find it easiest to understand in terms of character creation. When you're making a character, you're always making an individual, but there's always that impulse to make the character stand out from the pack, something that is rarely seen in the setting, if not one of a kind. That impulse is to make the character unique.

One of the more prominent examples of this is probably Drizzt Do'Urden. He was an individual character, yes, but what made him unique was the fact that he was a chaotic good member of what was at the time an otherwise universally evil race[footnote]as decreed by the rules of Forgotten Realms[/footnote]. Alternatively, in a setting where every 'caster' type character has a connection to one of the four classical elements, this character is special because they instead have a connection to the 'element' of Life/Void/Aether, which is rare enough to be considered a myth.

Or in a late 1800s setting, your character is special because he figured out and harnessed atomic energy[footnote]ie, the character is upwards of 4 decades ahead of his time[/footnote] which he uses to power his unique technological achievements. Or your character is the last of a race long thought extinct. Or in a setting where everyone has one power (or a few closely intertwined powers), your character has the power to have all the powers he wants. And of course the classic Star Wars example is Gray Jedi in the sense of "a good guy who can shoot lightning, choke people, and use Dark Side powers without penalty".

To be a bit more direct about it, where individuality is about who the character is and what makes them interesting as a person, uniqueness is about what the character is and how the rarity of their nature makes them interesting (ie, what makes them special compared to the rest of the more normal cast).

Now it's worth noting that while this is often a hallmark of bad writing, it is not always the case. As with so many things, the question is of execution and how it is employed. For instance, the eponymous Avatar of Avatar: the Last Airbender (and Legend of Korra) is unique. That is not a bad thing as the story is overwhelmingly about the responsibility and weight that comes with the character's unique abilities.

Nemo harnessing the atom in the 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is hardly given a passing mention and only serves the narrative purpose of better explaining the submarine[footnote]the technological wonder of "it's powered by electricity" from the book having long since become blase[/footnote] and helping to further juxtapose the wonders seen on the Nautilus and the terror it was capable of inflicting on the rest of the world. It's uniqueness that is a means to a greater narrative purpose, while in the worst examples the uniqueness is basically just there for the sake of authorial appeal or to otherwise make the character cool.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

If we go into semantics, snowflake and Special Snowflake are technically two different terms...

Are they? Snowflakes by definition are unique, one-of-a-kind things. The term special doesn't add much to snowflake.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Alright so you look at these and you tell me, what exactly is he saying? Seriously think about it. Other then insulting Dr. Peterson and pushing the myth of white privilege, he said nothing at all. When you break down what he said, the near totality of his statements are empty, devoid of meaning, not actually attempting to convey information to the listener. Postmodernism is, at its core, much a do about nothing.

As opposed to making assumptions or the creation of false metanarratives? What deconstructivism is predominantly interested in is the breakdown of metanarratives of the past. Deconstruction is not a method, because that presupposes a judgment bias. But it is a valuable tool of skepticism that tries to subvert a manipulative tendency to find transcendent meaning over its absence. Which is inherently problematic.

Gee, I wonder why Peterson would have a problem with people deconstructing his conspiracy theorist bullshit?

Whether ot be his illiteracy of Canadian laws, or his apparent illiteracy of neuroscience that he compares lobsters to humans.

It's a means of beating agreement into people by overloading the senses and getting people to just go along with it without thinking (the main means by which postmodernism spreads since it can't hold its own under proper scrutiny).

There's plenty of things you could insult Peterson about. Deconstruction is not a method in and of itself.

I could spend hours explaining everything wrong with just the quoted parts of what Dyson stated during the debate, but honestly people like Professor Saad have done a better job demolishing postmodern dialectic then I ever could so if you care about understanding it you can hop to his YouTube channel.

But I don't want to listen to some internet randos like Peterson ... I'm not a fucking sheep. I'm asking you for your opinion. I've read some of Peterson's stuff, and I'll judge him solely on what I've read (enough to know I don't really need to read more).

There is very little that exists within postmodernism, but if there's anything that unifies it it's its inherent deconstructive nature. Be it politics, society, culture, language or what have you, postmodernism seeks to deconstruct everything. Nazi collaborator Le Corbusier was the first postmodern architect, and his goal with his work was in his view, was to destroy the culture of old and replace it with his monstrosities. A dramatic example, sure, but the underlying goal of postmodernists to deconstruct everything (without replacing what has been removed at that), is easily seen in just about everything they do.

And therefore deconstruction is bad because ...?

Also You're talking nonsense, because...

There is nothing that unifies postmodernists other then deconstruction and the use of gibberish to confuse those that they are trying to persuade. That and the fact all postmodernists seem to be either socialist, communist or fascists, so I suppose calling a postmodernist a collectivist is a redundancy.

Examples please? Because when I think of postmodernism, I think of primarily a rejection of assumed values and metanarratives.

For example, comparing Stella's minimalism of zombie modernism to a rejection by postmodernists of the modernist slant that 'art has a quintessential reality of its own,' and seeing an explosion of artistic rendition that sought to undermine through examining presupposition and intertextuality.

Modernism was a cancer of thought and artistic rendition that consumed itself to the point where the metaphorical subject was absent. So much so, that despite how vaunted Stella was commentators argued it represented a pitiable self-consumption and was no longer art in its own but rather an abstrction of itself.

A problem that even Stella began to realize towards the end of his career.

It's a bit hard to display just what this image is without examining it for yourself, the texture and use of materials itself is important. That Stella with numerous late 60s works attempted to create as flat an image as possible through various techniques ... trying to depersonalize the act of painting upon a canvas with obligatory geometric shapes of unpainted canvas. Not a layered medium as per a conventional artwork.

Postmodern art was essentially the inheritor of a landscape wrapped up in false schools and metanarratives of artistry.

An attempt to recognize the inherent consumerism of culture and praxis, and rather than mourn that like modernism did ... sought to interpret and own it and bring it into the cultural maelstrom of ideas to help liberate artwork and embrace new ideas of people's relationship to it.

The rise of urban art, highly temporal, the capacity for its meaning to be utterly lost, and being A-OK with that and accepting the decay of history ... created vivid meaning that wilted and died and sought none of its posterity through false deeper interpretation via other artistic mediums had sought through modernist projections of the desire of posterity.

Modern art...

The postmodern response...

Postmodernism overwhelmingly has a problem with Marxist theory.

Like, I don't even know why I have to write that ... postmodernism is most certainly a critique of structuralism.

So ... no? You're wrong.

Postmodernism is inherently political, because that is precisely the argument it makes. That meaning is temporal, it can be lost, there is no objective truth or meaning in art, and all things are destined to decay. But rather than mourn that, it embraces it.

Postmodernism is about forwarding the evolving symbol ... it seeks to enrapture the audience and invites them to change their relationship to it. Construct and deconstruct their interpretation to it. Through that process the symbol is consumed, changes, evolves, and whatever meaning the artist(s) had to create it is lost in history.

Only a fucking idiot would think that is somehow arbitrarily wrong. It's a legitimate argument about the inability to find objective truth or meaning. Whatever "collectivist" ideal is there, it's built on the mutual understanding the world is burning, and we're just fine.

And Peterson is a fucking idiot for fabricating such a buzzterm.

The core foundational principles lay in the skeptical interpretation of Enlightenment rationalism, and its convoluted and manufactured excesses of looking to the past, and the assumptions it made.

 

[Callate]

Oh, certainly it's often used foolishly as an attempt to cut things off with a curt insult. Not like there isn't a ton of that going around. Any word that becomes part of a reflexive and dogmatic approach will be used as such by those who would rather feel they're part of a winning team than actually think.

But for all that it's often badly used by trolls, I find the term itself kind of amusing on examination. It's not just that someone thinks they're unique, special, and deserving of special treatment. It's that they've failed to notice that in the grand scheme of things, they aren't more deserving of special treatment than anyone else, and that their fragility isn't a sign of worth, but a weakness.

It's a pity it's often used so poorly, because on reflection, it's the kind of puncture that a lot of exaggerated self-seriousness on the Internet richly deserves.

 

[Trunkage]

Donald Trump can take an insult? Since when?

You only have to watch 40 secs. Self deprecating would be a better way of saying it.

snip

Well, have to eat crow a bit. In about 24 hrs, Trump did the Trans in custody thing, which sounds exactly like Peterson. He now has the DOJ investigating the FBI. Peterson at least only meddled in a private institution. He then rolled back 80 year old laws, making it so companies can force workers to go to arbitration instead of court AND they can't pool resources (i.e. through a union. But it means any combined issues as well. I also wonder if its a response to Me Too, because it keeps harassment cases out of court.) Then he rolled Dodd Frank back including the part I'd hope they keep like - financial advisors cant give bad advice that they can profit off of. Which just... I really try to give Trump the benefit of the doubt but that's just insanely corrupt.

I don't know Peterson economic policy, so I'll give the win to Trump.

 

[Trunkage]

Apparently, Arbitration can override any statute that comes into conflict with it. Anti-trust, age and gender discrimination and even RICO laws can be ignored if they come into conflict with this Arbitration.

Also means that companies don't have to follow minimum wage. Even if you make a claim, the company can send you to Arbitration which is probably going their way.

Edit: its almost impossible to appeal an Arbitration so well

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

How classically liberal of Trump.

Fucking hell, that anti-class-action arbitration decision uses case law from before the Great Depression.

One would think that maybe labor laws from just before the worst economic collapse in USA history would be bad laws.

Ping-ponging around topics: post-modernist culture Marxism is an oxymoron, and people that think it's a real thing are probably the regular kind.

And snowflake is my go to insult for people who get offended by something after loudly proclaiming some variant of "fuck your feelings". And Richard Spencer, because he's a dick who's actively exploiting the first amendment and would love to deny the freedom of speech to anybody else. Can dish it out, but can't take it.

 

[Saelune]

Donald Trump can take an insult? Since when?

You only have to watch 40 secs. Self deprecating would be a better way of saying it.

snip

Well, have to eat crow a bit. In about 24 hrs, Trump did the Trans in custody thing, which sounds exactly like Peterson. He now has the DOJ investigating the FBI. Peterson at least only meddled in a private institution. He then rolled back 80 year old laws, making it so companies can force workers to go to arbitration instead of court AND they can't pool resources (i.e. through a union. But it means any combined issues as well. I also wonder if its a response to Me Too, because it keeps harassment cases out of court.) Then he rolled Dodd Frank back including the part I'd hope they keep like - financial advisors cant give bad advice that they can profit off of. Which just... I really try to give Trump the benefit of the doubt but that's just insanely corrupt.

I don't know Peterson economic policy, so I'll give the win to Trump.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump


Most of his tweets are him being a whiny baby. One is literally just 'Witch hunt!'


Trump is a little *****.

 

[CaitSeith]

If we go into semantics, snowflake and Special Snowflake are technically two different terms...

Are they? Snowflakes by definition are unique, one-of-a-kind things. The term special doesn't add much to snowflake.

That's pretty much the idea.