There's the other half, which is often only implied: soft men make bad times, hard men make good times. It's supposed to be cyclical: good times -> soft people -> bad times -> hard people -> good times. Usually directly followed by "back in my days things were tough, but kids these days are just weak"

I'm not sure how it's supposed to work out. The US is arguably currently under the control of the baby boomers, who were brought up in good times. And those good times were brought on by the two generations before them who were brought up in tough times (two world wars, depression, etc)? But that feels tenuous at best

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gherkinnn 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

If there was any truth do this then Russia (arguably a "hard place" for most of its history) would be brimming with strong men (it is always "men" in these discussions) who then create which good times exactly?

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integralid 4 days ago | parent [-]

>it is always "men" in these discussions

This obviously means "human" in this context.

But of course this saying is just a meme at best, it doesn't work like that in reality. In fact, good times make strong men just like good childhood makes strong adults.

	▲	komali2 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> This obviously means "human" in this context. I disagree, people who say this often are "great men of history" types that genuinely ascribe much of the significant events in human history to the activities of men alone.
	▲	gherkinnn 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> This obviously means "human" in this context. In the abstract yes. In practice I mainly hear this meme spouted by trad-masculine-sparta types.

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3D30497420 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> But that feels tenuous at best

Yeah, I rather doubt that the direction of history can so easily be summarized by good/bad times and soft/hard men.