In the Daily Mail, Claire explains the rationale behind her book ‘I Find That Offensive!’ and the rise of a fragile and thin-skinned ‘Generation Snowflake’.
Some of the girls were sobbing and hugging each other, while others shrieked. The majority appeared at the very least shell-shocked.
It was distress on a scale appropriate for some horrible disaster. Thankfully, however, I wasn’t in a war zone or at the scene of a pile-up – but in a school hall filled with A-level students.
What had provoked such hysteria? I’d dared express an opinion that went against their accepted way of thinking.
‘Generation Snowflake’ is the term for these teens, one that’s now used frequently in the U.S. and becoming more common here. It describes a fragile, thin-skinned younger generation that can’t cope with conflicting views, let alone criticism.
Being faced by a roomful of weepy teenagers certainly isn’t the only example of such behaviour I could cite, but it’s the most dramatic I have experienced.
It happened when I was taking part in a debate at a North London school as director of the Institute of Ideas early last year.
Read the full article here.