Snowflakes are everywhere just now. And all the same. On Christmas trees, Christmas cards, Christmas decorations. So unlike the real thing. Or the young people. No two snowflakes are the same.
A real snowflake is formed when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a dust particle creating an ice crystal. As it falls, water vapour freezes onto the main crystal, building new crystals into the six arms of the one wholly true, and unique snowflake.
Some would have you believe members of our “Snowflake Generation” – born between 1980 and the mid 1990s – do the opposite. That, raised in pamperdom, they become more similar growing up.
They are not universally loved. "Over-indulged, over-entitled, over-demanding and definitely over-educated. They know the theory of everything and they know nothing about anything," said charmed businesswoman Jackie Lavin on RTE 1's Cutting Edge programme earlier this year. An older person.
It was always thus. How quickly some forget!
Here’s ancient (indeed!) Greek Hesiod (died approximately 650 BC): “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today.”
Or Socrates (died 399 BC): “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Even Aristotle (died 322 BC) said of young people: “They overdo everything. They love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else.”
More recently, Dubliner George Bernard Shaw (died November 1950 aged 94) pronounced: “Youth is wasted on the young.” Such general mean-spiritedness.
Interviewed by this newspaper last year Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas in London and author of I Find that Offensive, said today's young people "have grown up in a narcissistic culture of self-obsession" and "have been overprotected and overflattered all their lives, constantly hearing how important and wonderful they are". Can't you just hear the resentment there?
It’s simple really. We should remember the inherent wisdom of that old Irish saying: “Mol an óige agus tiochfaidh siad” (praise the young and they will come to you).
So feck off all you miseryboots and leave the young alone. Retreat to a corner and, remember. I’m with Picasso. He said: “It takes a very long time to become young.” I’m trying. Lord knows I’m trying.
Youth from Old English geoguo, Dutch jeugd, German Jugend.
inaword@irishtimes.com
