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The truly tough don't mention it or need anyone to point it out.
Your statement, I agree with it. People can have genuine toughness without ever having to be loud or boasting about it. They don't even have to put in on display. It's about what you do when the time calls for it.
Carrying the resultant disability for the rest of his life while dedicating himself to continue representing his country.
What's not to admire about those obvious characteristics, while Trump on the other hand . .
Bob Dole did what was asked of him, and paid for it. He carried that weight all the way to running for President in 1996. I certainly have far more respect for Bob Dole that I ever will have for Trump. Dole had courage. Trump was just a blow-hard jerk.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frostnip
It'd be great to see more men step up and adopt more "traditionally" masculine traits...positive masculine traits. Valor, loyalty, perseverance, responsibility, horse sense, courage, etc.
Sadly, even this is not enough. Achieving an increase in good and/or ability to prevent a bad is one thing. Conscious and deliberate refraining from doing a bad against another person is something else entirely. Look no further than Harvey Weinstein and Tim McVeigh.
Weinstein certainly supplied some goods to the world (pleasure for the public via his movies, jobs for the film industry, etc.). By all accounts he was a quite fearless man, quite competent, and really got things done (which is why he had so many movies and supplied so many jobs to people working on those movies). Yet, for all that, the bad he did overall was much, MUCH worse than the good he did overall. Sure, if he never existed, lots of movies would either not been made or made in a very different way from the ones we saw. But whatever denial of those goods in that case would be trivial compared to prevention of abuse of dozens of women.
Tim McVeigh? A crack shot knocking out enemy soldiers and targets (thus did his part in preventing more bad from happening to both Kuwait and US interests). Yet he also killed 168 innocent civilians.
For these reasons, I side more with "not doing non-defensive bad to others" more than I do the positive traits you mentioned.
I am not a Trump supporter, nor a Biden supporter.
That being said Trump boasted about his athleticism when he claimed to be the best youth Baseball player in NYC and was offered contracts from MLB organizations when the truth of the matter was his HS batting average was under 200.
On the other hand Biden was a HS Football standout and recruited to play Div 1, even though he quit during his Freshman year.
So based on that, who would you of considered to be more of the tough guy back in the day?
Also this so called wimpification of society is just a perception based on nothing of validity.
Not to be nitpicky, but Division I didn't exist until 1973. When Biden went to the University of Delaware in 1961 they were classified as NCAA College Division.
TR actually was a tough guy. Trump wouldn't 24 hours roughing it in the badlands of the Dakotas.
Or in the Amazon rainforest. Theodore Roosevelt led an expedition to find an unmapped river. He almost died. Ironically, he died a few years after that expedition.
Not to be nitpicky, but Division I didn't exist until 1973. When Biden went to the University of Delaware in 1961 they were classified as NCAA College Division.
And I doubt the D-1 football players in 1973 were as brick wall solid as they are now. My nephew plays D-1 and at 6'4 and 265, he's one of the SMALLER members of the team (defensive line).
Sadly, even this is not enough. Achieving an increase in good and/or ability to prevent a bad is one thing. Conscious and deliberate refraining from doing a bad against another person is something else entirely. Look no further than Harvey Weinstein and Tim McVeigh.
Weinstein certainly supplied some goods to the world (pleasure for the public via his movies, jobs for the film industry, etc.). By all accounts he was a quite fearless man, quite competent, and really got things done (which is why he had so many movies and supplied so many jobs to people working on those movies). Yet, for all that, the bad he did overall was much, MUCH worse than the good he did overall. Sure, if he never existed, lots of movies would either not been made or made in a very different way from the ones we saw. But whatever denial of those goods in that case would be trivial compared to prevention of abuse of dozens of women.
Tim McVeigh? A crack shot knocking out enemy soldiers and targets (thus did his part in preventing more bad from happening to both Kuwait and US interests). Yet he also killed 168 innocent civilians.
For these reasons, I side more with "not doing non-defensive bad to others" more than I do the positive traits you mentioned.
Weinstein was a pig. But I seriously question the fact that he was an actual “by force” rapist. Those women willfully slept with that nasty dude to further their career and everyone knows it. The few times the women had him on video and he made advances and they rejected them, he backed off. Rather quickly. He didn’t force himself on them. He tricked and manipulated them…But I guess this is still a form of coercion and technically a rape.
I personally don’t view him as a masculine man. I think he was a weak person hiding behind fake masculinity.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Oh yes, absolutely, we should be good progressives and admire failure and have contempt for success. Stop requiring those hard subjects in school, for starters.
First, learn what a non sequitur is. Now to the rest.
Lack of contempt does not mean admiration. Likewise lack of admiration doesn't mean contempt. Respect means "outright praise, glory, and adulation". Disrespect is "a strongly negative attitude". You yourself likely don't admire a person in the middle 50% of something, yet still lack contempt for them. Same thing with strength and weakness.
As for success, see my previous post above about Harvey Weinstein (successful doesn't mean admirable). By the same token I have less contempt for a homeless person or even a non-bigoted, non-demeaning "basement-dwelling neckbeard video game player" than I do for Weinstein. The reasons should be obvious.
Hard subjects in schools? Where the blazes did you get off on going onto that tangent. Again, read up on non sequiturs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
It is the nature of humans, and all social mammals, to protect the group members who are weak because they are young. This is a powerful basic mammal instinct.
But weakness is never admired, and there is no reason it should be admired. Progressives have now gone completely off the deep end with this. We are supposed to think it's just as good to be autistic as "neurotypical." We are not supposed to see anything wrong with being fat, or bad at sports, or bad at math, etc.
Again, non sequitur. Beyond this, you miss the progressive mindset entirely. Fat, bad at sports, bad at math are not to be shamed, even if they're not to be outright admired. What IS shameworthy is what I implied above - doing non-defensive deliberate hurt, harm, or degradation to others. To deny otherwise is to take the basebrain animalistic snap impulses too seriously - especially when it confuses inability to prevent or roll back a bad thing with willfully allowing and desiring the bad thing to happen. That distinction is huge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Everyone is perfect, everyone gets a trophy.
This philosophy denies everything that is most basic about the world. If you get rewarded for failing, and hated for succeeding, then why try?
The participation trophy trend is misguided, but that's all the agreement you'll get from me. The motivation, however misguided, comes from kneejerk glorification of success and a sometimes maniacal contempt for failure, regardless of other (positive) traits that person may or may not have, especially moral and ethical ones. In fact, this kneejerk contempt for failure also implies that civilized, humane traits are either just a consolation prize for "losers" or, at best, a boring if often important trait for winners. That kind of attitude is a large part of why this world, for all the pleasures it offers, still leaves a lot to be desired.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
I can understand wanting to moderate natural human cruelty to some degree. But the Left's attempts at being humane wind up being as cruel as the cruelty they were trying to fight.
If cruelty's trivialized (as you are still doing here, notwithstanding your first sentence), then even the strongest, smartest, bravest, and most competent (even if all combined) will still have to "sleep with one eye open" against rivals who are too tantalizing close to the top for their mental comfort (think cutthroat corporate environments and classic totalitarian dictatorships or "banana republics").
Trivializing cruelty toward those least able to defend themselves also creates a situation that rewards backscratching, purely self-interested power cliques, defensive alliance building, turf wars, shabby behavior, immediately visible and obvious short-term gains at the expense of long-term well-being.
What the hell kind of winning is that? None that I can think of, unless you think the ideal human is essentially a crocodile with an oversized brain and complex tool kits.
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