I’m reading The Greatest Generation. It’s a great book. Read it. It’s a collection of stories about that generation that may be the best we’ve seen.
The World War II Generation, those born into the Great Depression, a time of economic destitution and extreme poverty. By the time they were in their thirties and forties and fifties they’d created an economic boom.
If they had a theme it would be self-responsibility. This isn’t romanticizing, plucking the few good from a bad lot. This truly was a generation of men and women who took responsibility for their lives, both what happened to them in the war, their disabilities that they wouldn’t call disabilities or the poverty that they rose from that wasn’t even their fault.
The main gripe that this generation has with those since is the lack of responsibility. Guys don’t take responsibility for their kids, for taking care of their families, for their work or how well it’s done or for their actions.
The Greatest Generation was a generation of men who fixed what was broken. They took it upon themselves to solve problems, be they on the world stage or chores around the house. (Read This: How to Be Old School)
They were also proud. Some may say too proud. It was a different kind of pride that they had, though, not one of entitlement like we have today, where we’re proud of our sexual orientation, our race, you know, things we haven’t earned but have been born into. Those of the WWII Generation were too proud to accept a hand out. They were too proud to call someone to fix what they knew they could fix. They were too proud to do a shitty job so they did the best they could with what they had.
If we could have an archetype for what it was to be a man it wouldn’t be the generation before them, there’s no misplaced nostalgia on all things in the past being better – those who contributed to the fall of Rome in their weakness are no better than those contributing to our fall in ours – it certainly wouldn’t be the generations since, with their entitlements and weakness and dividedness, it would be that generation.
A bulk of a generation had what men should aspire to have and were who men today should aspire to be. Many of these great men are still around today. They belong to both political parties and ideologies and yet congregate and drink and tell stories together. The pettiness of our kind doesn’t flourish among theirs. And they are a different kind of person all-together, no whining or crying and no idle threats. They don’t crave a safe space from opposing ideas, but if an ideology was bad enough it had to be dealt with and destroyed, and the lot of them worked at destroying it together.
They were strong, but didn’t get strong out of vanity. Their legs weren’t shaven, their eyebrows weren’t plucked, but their hair was combed and their shirt was tucked.
They had pride.
About The Author
Chad Howse: Chad’s mission is to get you in the arena, ‘marred by the dust and sweat and blood’, to help you set and achieve audacious goals in the face of fear, and not only build your ideal body, but the life you were meant to live.
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