> “Snowflake” used to be a pejorative to describe the political left
Horseshoe theory [1]. Both the far left and right are thin skinned, constantly engrossed in nonsensical semantic debates and accusing their betters of lacking a sense of humor.
These days, Varoufakis talks about "radical centrists".
(It's possisble he doesn't actually have a sense of humour and what we're seeing is pure schadenfreude over, eg, the unsurprising stuff that's happening to the centre-left in Sweden right now. Which happened to Starmer, and has yet to happen to Burnham
But this is maybe only "empirical"--- your wiki link mentions the vulnerability of centrism to elite takeover, and subsequent alienation from the masses. Nod to your "betters")
I don't think this word has meaning anymore in modern Western politics. We have institutionalists.They aren't that different from the animating essence of Trump 1.0–they want to go back to some good old days. Even though the world has since changed. And the old days weren't that good, they're the reason we're where we are now.
And we have various folks pitching reform. The idiots on the far left and the right agree on the broad structure of reform, namely, nothing thoughtful except getting rid of the other guys. But they aren't the only ones pitching reform.
Snowflake has the weirdest provinance. It was used in Fight Club as a metaphor for individual uniqueness, but because the people who thought Tyler Durden was the coolest thing ever identified with his followers. When Tyler said "You are not snowflakes" they took it to be a positive statement. Snowflake got reinterpreted as a metaphor for fragility.
Ironicly many of those who use the term are not snowflakes in one of those senses and are in the other, but the opposite of what they believe to be true.
> Palahniuk was hardly the first person to use the metaphor. It's the stuff of self-help books and inspirational posters and elementary school assurances.
> In the 1970s snowflake was a disparaging term for a white man or for a black man who was seen as acting white.
> In Missouri in the early 1860s, a "Snowflake" was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery—the implication of the name being that such people valued white people over black people.
Tyler Durden, Don Drapper, Patrick Bateman, are all characters that you’re not supposed to want to be like but that “blackpilled” men completely miss the point and worship. There must be a name for this type of character influence. It reminds me of the “torrent nexus” trope but for people.
Yes, and it's being used ironically here. The people who pointed and laughed at those who wanted "safe spaces" and overly sensitive, are overly sensitive about people not like them getting any help. "You called us snowflakes, but you're the ones who have the fragile ego."
> “Snowflake” used to be a pejorative to describe the political left
Horseshoe theory [1]. Both the far left and right are thin skinned, constantly engrossed in nonsensical semantic debates and accusing their betters of lacking a sense of humor.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
OK. The framing has shifted, though.
These days, Varoufakis talks about "radical centrists".
(It's possisble he doesn't actually have a sense of humour and what we're seeing is pure schadenfreude over, eg, the unsurprising stuff that's happening to the centre-left in Sweden right now. Which happened to Starmer, and has yet to happen to Burnham
But this is maybe only "empirical"--- your wiki link mentions the vulnerability of centrism to elite takeover, and subsequent alienation from the masses. Nod to your "betters")
> centrism
I don't think this word has meaning anymore in modern Western politics. We have institutionalists.They aren't that different from the animating essence of Trump 1.0–they want to go back to some good old days. Even though the world has since changed. And the old days weren't that good, they're the reason we're where we are now.
And we have various folks pitching reform. The idiots on the far left and the right agree on the broad structure of reform, namely, nothing thoughtful except getting rid of the other guys. But they aren't the only ones pitching reform.
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(What stuff is happening to the center left in Sweden right now?)
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Snowflake has the weirdest provinance. It was used in Fight Club as a metaphor for individual uniqueness, but because the people who thought Tyler Durden was the coolest thing ever identified with his followers. When Tyler said "You are not snowflakes" they took it to be a positive statement. Snowflake got reinterpreted as a metaphor for fragility.
Ironicly many of those who use the term are not snowflakes in one of those senses and are in the other, but the opposite of what they believe to be true.
> Palahniuk was hardly the first person to use the metaphor. It's the stuff of self-help books and inspirational posters and elementary school assurances.
> In the 1970s snowflake was a disparaging term for a white man or for a black man who was seen as acting white.
> In Missouri in the early 1860s, a "Snowflake" was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery—the implication of the name being that such people valued white people over black people.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/the-less-lovely-sid...
Tyler Durden, Don Drapper, Patrick Bateman, are all characters that you’re not supposed to want to be like but that “blackpilled” men completely miss the point and worship. There must be a name for this type of character influence. It reminds me of the “torrent nexus” trope but for people.
>There must be a name for this type of character influence.
Well you can spot them with a Rorschach test, perhaps.
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The torment nexus, not the torrent nexus(torrent nexus sounds kinda fun)
The term is: antihero
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Yes, and it's being used ironically here. The people who pointed and laughed at those who wanted "safe spaces" and overly sensitive, are overly sensitive about people not like them getting any help. "You called us snowflakes, but you're the ones who have the fragile ego."
every accusation, confession, etc.