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I wouldn't say that society has been declining for thousands of years, but there have definitely been long periods of consistent decline in things like toughnes
by pg 17y ago
I wouldn't say that society has been declining for thousands of years, but there have definitely been long periods of consistent decline in things like toughness, respect for elders, and so on. Hesiod's time would have been one of them, because Greece was then in transition between the tough, impoverished warrior culture of Homeric times and the comparatively easy, luxurious city life of Plato's time.
Among English speaking peoples, toughness has on average (i.e. not including people who hit restart by moving to frontier areas) probably declined monotonically since around 1000 AD.
- vidar 17y agoThis seems to be a function of rising living standards, so that the population is never tougher than they need to be. If we assume that toughness is a desirable attribute, is there a way to toughen people up, even if they don't "need it".
- _delirium 17y agoThat's one of the classic (Gibbon, I think) explanations for the fall of the Roman Empire: as their living standards rose, they got softer until a bunch of lower-living-standards barbarians could overrun them. Not sure of a solution, though. (It's probably also worth noting that that hypothesis isn't as popular among modern historians.)
- pg 17y agoSure, military training tends to do that.
- _delirium 17y agoWealthy societies tend to resist military training, though. I can't imagine a proposal to reinstitute the draft would be very popular in the US, and much of Europe is slowly phasing out their mandatory military service.