alt Hacker NewsThat’s your opinion, but like I said it’s not valid to imply that it is the normal view and those not agreeing are biased. Instead of trying to hear understand and challenge what historians have to say you flee intellectually, which is ironic given your take on strong men.
I’m not historian but for example I could challenge the idea that a rhetoric about strength and keeping a masculine ideal for the young male population was non existent in European feodality where only nobility had the privilege of fighting, and 90% of the population were farmers. Or that 2000 years ago Jesus already challenged the idea that men needed to be strong in the traditional sense, and that real courage was loving and forgiving among others. I could go on with fashion and clothes but maybe just look at a West European king painting to reevaluate what masculinity is supposed to look like traditionally.
My understanding is that your rhetoric appears only recently (and is therefore not traditional) coinciding with nationalism rise and the need for bodies to throw in the total war (another modern invention) meat grinder.
You can disagree, and I’m open to hearing your counter arguments, because I’m not dismissing you as biased.
> Instead of trying to hear understand and challenge what historians have to say
One self-described historian. On a Reddit post. Let’s not pretend this is the unified or authoritative voice of the discipline.
> I could go on with fashion and clothes but maybe just look at a West European king painting to reevaluate what masculinity is supposed to look like traditionally.
You’re conflating aesthetic masculinity with functional masculinity, and that’s a category error. The aphorism isn’t about how men dressed in the 17th century or how they signaled status — it’s about what kind of men can sustain a civilization.
In this context, “strong men” refers to individuals who demonstrate the discipline, competence, long-term responsibility, and willingness to bear risk that are required to build, maintain, and defend the institutions that keep a society stable — especially when conditions are difficult. It’s a sociological concept, not an aesthetic one, and it has nothing to do with your personal distaste (or favor) for particular cultural aesthetic expressions of masculinity.