I’m beginning to realize that on Medium I’m a counterpuncher, or perhaps I just like to tag along. Reading some stories, I simply appreciate the inspiration they provide. James Hatch’s My Semester with the Snowflakes caught me off guard. Viewing the headline, I was sure it would be one more sad irony about the snowflakes we hear are cluttering higher education with their safe rooms and triggers–as bad as their opposite numbers, though I’m not quite certain who those might be. Otherwise known as special snowflakes (oxymoronic), Generation Snowflake, et al. It’s a cutting term to be sure. Whether it’s accurate or not depends–doesn’t it always?

“The term ‘Generation Snowflake’ or ‘Snowflake Generation’ was popularized by Claire Fox's 2016 book I Find That Offensive!, which discussed a 2015 student/faculty confrontation at Yale University. The confrontation, which was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, shows university students arguing with Christakis [Nicholas A. Christakis, Head of College] over a disagreement regarding Halloween costumes and the degree to which Yale University should intervene [in] student costumes which may be perceived as cultural appropriation. Fox described the video as showing a: ‘screaming, almost hysterical mob of students’ and that the backlash to the viral video led to the disparaging moniker, “generation snowflake’ for the students.

”The term ‘snowflake generation’ was one of Collins English Dictionary's 2016 words of the year. Collins defines the term as ‘the young adults of the 2010s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations.’ “
from Wikipedia page.

Halloween costumes as cultural appropriation? I indeed do hate it when THOSE PEOPLE appropriate cat whiskers and hats from underprivileged witches. And brooms? Don’t get me started. Please read Hatch’s story, or the rest of this won’t make too much sense. It may not anyway, but there you go.

My Semester with the Snowflakes

As he describes it, Hatch, an ex-Special Forces dude at age 52, currently is attending Yale as an undergraduate, a fox in the henhouse sort of scene. He was anticipating to be in amongst–as the vogueish term calls them–snowflakes. His was a catchy headline that I’m sure he chose deliberately followed by an excellent read, causing me to write the following in response–tagging along again–mainly about my own stay in that most ivy of places.

Now that’s more like it! Photo by Allyson Weislogel on Unsplash

What was cool about Yale in the 70s was the dress fashion. Robin Givens of the Washington Post would be seriously offended—old jeans, army fatigues; I fit right in! Even though several classmates were scions from seriously wealthy families. Long hair, smiling and talking to the homeless hanging out on the New Haven Green. Being a kid from the South, near broke but loving pizza and being funded by loans and a teaching assistantship, I was as alone as I’d ever been, but for all the surrounding snowflakes. All the long hair–one classmate called himself Gonzoid, explaining the intricacies involved in building an inflatable the size of a room where a tank of nitrous oxide introduced non-dental students to the art of losing brain cells faster than with booze.

And the architectural professors (most were practicing architects) welcomed us into a brotherhood—even the handful of women in the class. I was in Heaven!

Yale asked only that we believed in a higher calling—whatever calling that might be—and that we strove to achieve it. Pretty corny, huh? And I ate it up, because I’d come from a family who believed in striving, had grown from a youth expecting I’d never learn to design or even get the chance to do it for real—to being finally at Yale. Amazed me that these Yankees in New England still believed.

I had missed ‘Nam by a shave with a high draft number, which gave me a reprieve to go to grad school, otherwise I’d have been sent over there like friends of mine. The then-current slur against South Carolina was there were so few boys who could pass the IQ tests that all the state’s collegiates were required. Hadn’t someone in that godforsaken land learned a lesson one hundred years earlier? 1st lieutenants were leading platoons and were dying at an alarming rate to AK-47s kindly donated from Russia. Being a ROTC recruit, I knew what fate awaited if I signed on. A buddy who joined the anti-war protests on campus, after his father disinherited him for being against the war, taped his 350 high draft number to his chest—wore it to all his classes. High draft number! High draft number! Go Tigers! God bless Richard Nixon for the lottery!

Kind of sick, when I think about it now, rolling dice with other people’s sons.

I remember a hip urban brother in my Black Studies class at Yale who had served in ‘Nam. He sure as shit looked like he did. Mean looking dude wore a razor blade on a chain for a necklace. I didn’t think I should stare, but wondered if it was the last razor he’d ever used on his thick, kinky beard. He, like James Hatch, was older than the rest of us. I’m sure when we met, he couldn’t figure what this long haired hippy–white southerner to boot–was doing in the class; I was equally curious.

James Hatch’s title is a great tease. And a lesson to us all. I remember how the vets returning from ‘Nam were sometimes called ‘baby killers’ and worse, like they were demons when they were just kids shoved into a nightmare and tossed out afterwards. Anti-war didn’t mean anti-soldier then any more than it means that now.

Another ex-Marine at Yale told me a story late in the studio one night—of climbing over the bodies leaving his fox hole after the battle for Da Nang. Chad Floyd. He helped found Centerbrook Architects and has gone on to become a brilliant architect. But I think about the horrors he suffered from that battle. From hellfire napalm to the optimism required to design urban spaces for the living seems like a distance measured in light years, yet he made that trip. We were such different people, yet we both loved design. Another lesson I learned along my own strange trip.

“The climate in this educational institution is one where most students understand that there HAS to be a place where people can assault ideas openly and discuss them vigorously and respectfully in order to improve the state of humanity.”
from My Semester with the Snowflakes

A recent blog titled Cause or Consequence? tackles a different slant on an Ivy education, though it comes from my own gratitude for being awarded admission into the club. I suppose if Yale and the other Ivies are the pinnacle of American education, they’re bound to be subjected to criticism–even Valinor can’t be so great. And granted, claiming to espouse egalitarian ideals when one’s life is the opposite is hypocrisy, but I, like James Hatch, found my Ivy League classmates seriously engaged in learning, all bright, all striving.

“To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.”
from My Semester with the Snowflakes

Honor isn’t something I normally have on my mind, certainly not the way I understand soldiers are trained to define it. But if I’d heard the words spoken as written, I’d be hard pressed to disagree.

“There is so much we do not know. Let us embrace, together, our humility—our willingness to admit what we have yet to discover. After all, if you knew all the answers, you would not need Yale. And if humanity knew all the answers, the world would not need Yale.” Peter Salovey, President of Yale University quoted by James Hatch

By Ragesoss — Student Desks at the Yale School of Architecture, 2008

Medium

Medium, for the uninitiated, is a website for writers of all subjects, species and sexes–a point that Hatch makes eloquently. I’m following several writers on Medium, including John Weiss, Zack J. Payne, Kyrie Gray, and John Gorman. Occasionally a ‘name’ writer–even magazines such as The Atlantic–post things on Medium, but mainly these are lesser lights (as in less well-known) working on their craft. When you first land on Medium, you’ll get a few free articles before they begin begging you to sign up, BTW.

Today’s short list of headlines on Medium:
I Hate How Ordinary I Wish I Was
I, A Florida Man, Apologize For Florida Being So Floridian
An Open Letter To The Sexual Deviants Who Designed The Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Multifloor Upright…
Food Is Our Love Language
Is This Disorder Killing Your Productivity?

And here’s a link to a sonnet I like by Zack J. Payne: Unmendable

Medium

Restaurant with a View

What’s Wealth Got To Do With It?

Is Architecture a Trainable Skill?

My Sweet Lord

Art Wars