alt Hacker NewsAn interesting Reddit r/AskHistorians thread on the question """Does the aphorism "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times", accurately reflect the evolution of civilizations through history and across different cultures?"""
copying only the conclusion for a tl;dr: "The only way that the aphorism explains history is by reinforcing confirmation bias - by seeming to confirm what we already believe about the state of the world and the causes behind it. Only those worried about a perceived crisis in masculinity are likely to care about the notion of "weak men" and what trouble they might cause. Only those who wish to see themselves or specific others as "strong men" are likely to believe that the mere existence of such men will bring about a better world. This has nothing to do with history and everything with stereotypes, prejudice and bias. It started as a baseless morality tale, and that is what it still is."
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/hd78tv/does_...
Replies
Ironic given how strongly Reddit, r/AskHistorians, and the humanities in general bring their own biased lens to bear. Just like everyone else.
Just because it says "men" doesn't mean it's about masculinity. Rather, my reading of "strong men" is closer to "people with a strong work ethic, integrity, and zero tolerance for corrupt grifters," and my reading of "weak men" is "people with zero work ethic who are in fact, corrupt grifters."
That reply completely misunderstands the quote. It is about how people with integrity, who are willing and able to put out effort and endure difficulties to build a better future, do usually manage to make things better than those who do not.
It’s essentially a truism warning people that problems you ignore don’t fix themselves, and has nothing to do with gender or gender stereotypes, that’s a linguistic misunderstanding. In this context, “men” is gender neutral and means “people.” In old english, the word “men” is explicitly gender neutral and there was a different word, “wēr” for male people, which is still used in some contexts, e.g. “werewolf” means wolf man.