presently the younger generation is less vanilla than the older generation and the older generation isn't being very welcoming to people who aren't like them and never will be.
Ahhh, you youngsters. Do you seriously think that you're the first generation who thinks this? Aren't they teaching history anymore? EVERY generation grows up thinking THEY'RE the cool non-vanilla kids while resenting their elders and mocking everything about them. And then one day (if you're lucky), you wake up and look in the mirror, and you look like your Dad (or grandfather). And you won't even realize it, but you'll make a lot of the same decisions that Dad did too -- decisions that many would consider "safe" or even (gasp!) "conservative" (in a non-political way).
I know -- not you, 'cuz you're different, right?
Shouting lecturers down is yet another form of the whole free speech paradigm you hold so highly.
By definition, free speech doesn't mean anything near what you claim it does. I truly feel sorry for you if you really believe anything that you wrote here.
Do you really think that people who think Kim Kardashian is interesting and like the NFL are really going to give this any serious thought?
Whoa . . . don't conflate the enjoyment of professional sports with contrived, superficial, reality TV bullshit. There are plenty of us geeks out there who follow both the NFL closely (the draft is a week from tonight and I'm hoping my team lands Bud Dupree!) *and* are interested and aware enough to carefully analyze what Snowden did and form our own opinions.
The end of labor is to gain leisure.