It's definitely a trite aphorism, but presumably it's talking about endurance in the face of adversity, not physical strength.

I've thought of that aphorism from time to time when I encounter people on vacation here in Mexico, let's say, who seem to become a wreck when some small thing doesn't go as they'd liked.

Like the kitchen is outside next to the pool, so there's no A/C and how dreadful is that. And the boy at the cenote charged them 60 pesos ($3) while a sign says that resident Mexicans only pay 30 pesos and that's unfair for someone who has 10x the wage of the resident Mexicans. And someone had a chicken on the bus going to Guadalajara. And now they're going to grumble with their spouse for six hours over it. And there was an iguana in their shower this morning so now they're getting management involved.

I'm thinking this is a weak, pathetic man crippled by a life too comfortable.

Griping isn't necessarily a sign of how much someone will put up with, when they put their minds to it, though. It may be a sign of unreasonably high expectations, but not necessarily willpower.

Griping exposes your internal state about an adverse event.

Not all adversity should be endured, that's true. Like dealing with an evil manager at work.

But when someone finds a line of leaf cutter ants in front of their hotel door or a shower iguana to be something worth bickering over with management despite booking a trip to the subtropics, they've been rotted by comfortable times.

>This is an aphorism that mostly doesn't bear out historically. Good times tended to make people wealthy, and wealthy people tended to be stronger, not weaker.

I wholly agree with the aphorism and it's a defeatable law; but perhaps it's not exactly clear who they mean. It's not about father-son type situation. It's completely unclear what 'strong' they even mean. Not to mention the other law that's counter to this in that who is defining weak vs strong?

My argument against the aphorism is the cycles can be happening out of sync. It's not like 100% of men are weak in any era. It's not that you cant intentionally break the cycle.

Rockefellers, Buffet, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and andrew Carnegie are all perfect examples of breaking out of the cycle.

Perhaps we need to rewrite the saying:

Difficult times forge resilient people, resilient people build prosperous societies, prosperity breeds complacency and dependence, complacency and dependence usher in difficult times.

You're still falling into the historicist trap of thinking that a societies future development can be inferred from it's history (which is simply untrue because the future of knowledge is fundamentally unpredictable, how would we know what we will know in the future without knowing it).

Also historically, difficult times don't breed resilient people, the dark age was a millennium long.

>You're still falling into the historicist trap of thinking that a societies future development can be inferred from it's history (which is simply untrue because the future of knowledge is fundamentally unpredictable, how would we know what we will know in the future without knowing it).

Not only can future development be inferred, you can see the pattern in history. The consequences of weak men.

Reconstruction -> third great awakening -> world war 1 -> roaring 20s -> world war 2 -> golden age of capitalism -> 4th great awakening -> culture wars, 9/11, tech bubbles -> great recession, covid, etc

Or to look at what we're in right now.

Glorious revolution 1701 + 75 years = age of revolution 1776 + 84 years = civil war 1860 + 79 years = world war 2 1939 + 80 years = 2019

The cycle is 4 movements in 80 years adjusting every 20 years. Hence the 4 parts of strong men create good times.

>Also historically, difficult times don't breed resilient people, the dark age was a millennium long.

This is where you're confused. This isn't a situation where the USA is doing great and 100% of people are strong, then create a generation of 100% weak people.

During the civil war, there was weak and strong people. then during reconstruction there was weak and strong people.

I too can look backwards in time an select points that fall on a random line that I draw, but luckily I know better than to claim that this is in any way predictive of the future. I don't know if you're the book reading type but you should give Karl Poppers writings a try, he might save you yet.