I also assume that people are reasonably intelligent and able to discern between remarks said in jest and those that are said in ernest.
Well, just imagine what hopeless pantywaists we would have been when WW2 came if we’d never had a Depression. We’d still have been naive isolationists with a newsreel-strength military, plus our young generation would have been a clot of cosseted freewheeling jazz babies, innocent of sacrifice and unable to obey authority without question.
:o
Okay, 'nother question. Do you think it’s good for people to beat each other up?
There’s a lot of people I’d like to punch, but no. As a general rule, I don’t believe violence is a good thing. That said, there are people who do use violence and those people should be resisted. Violently if necessary.
I’ve had some college students who whine in their essays about grades–but not about the red ink at all–because a low grade, like a D or F, would make them feel bad, hurt their feelings, ruin their self-esteem, and make them feel like nothing and they would just want to give up. Seriously.
News flash: Grades are objective assessments of the work. If the work is poor, it gets a low grade. It has fuck-all to do with feelings. It is not a personal attack. We also encourage students to seek help from the many resources available to them to help them do better in the course, if possible.
Whenever I got a low grade, I just figured I needed to buckle down and study more, or get a tutor, or maybe reconsider my decision to take the class at that time. It never even occurred to me that the instructor was being "mean."Huh. My friends and I used to try and get hit on purpose when played dodgeball, so we could get out and then go and sit and talk. THAT’S why the game sucks. Everyone who NEEDS the exercise gets hit first, sits out, and nobody gets any exercise.
(BTW, does the OP have any proof, or articles or links to a lot of these claims – like the Happy Meal one?)
I never could throw worth a damn, but I could dodge like Neo in Bullet-Time.
Hm. Was for me. My family moved around a bit, and I often found myself the new kid at school who everyone was looking to pick on. I took a few beatings, and fought back successfully a few times. This was in the early 80s, in the midwest and northeast. My memory’s a little foggy, but there were definitely two kids in two different cities who were (eventually) my very good friends in elementary school, when our initial encounters were fistfights.
I usually identify as a typical bleeding heart liberal socialist, but I find myself agreeing with msmith537 throughout this thread. Perhaps ironically, I remember arguing quite a bit with my (very conservative) parents when they chose to home-school my two younger siblings. They cited my experiences as a two-fisted social outcast as one of their main reasons for doing so. I argued that, while unpleasant at the time, it had made me a stronger, more well-adjusted person to be forced to stand up to myself, and that being a naturally introverted and intellectually inclined person, I’d have probably ended up an antisocial shut-in if I hadn’t been forced to socialize myself, and yes, stand up for myself physically if necessary.
So yes, part of me definitely feels like our culture is becoming too ‘wussy’. Incidentally, and I may regret typing this, but this is one of the reasons I hate guns and wish they would all disappear. Well, maybe not really. But somewhere in the back of my mind the schoolyard scrapping codes still hold court. Part of me longs for the sheer honesty of fighting, where it really wasn’t about whether you ‘won’ or ‘lost’, but rather the fact that you could put on a good show whilst your classmates gathered around gawking. Hell, 99% of the time some teacher or principal would break it up before anyone won or lost anyway. Our current culture seems to keep kids from fighting quite effectively based on lawsuits and guns. Either you can’t fight because the kid’s parents will sue yours, or you can’t fight because the kid may have a gun, or he may go grab his father’s gun and come back the next day and kill you all. One of the time-honored rules of schoolyard fighting is that you don’t kick a guy in the groin. It’s cheap and demeans the entire system. Lawsuits and guns are both institutionalized kicks in the groin.
Of course, the very fact that I’m posting on the SDMB is indicative of the fact that I’ve been drinking, so take everything I’ve written with a grain of salt.
These days, I would much prefer to talk my way out of an altercation than resort to physical violence. But I feel like my ability to do so was forged in part by my willingness to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.
Gotta disagree with you there. Just using the example of war - be it the battle, or the entire war, victory goes to the side that is prepared - better logistics, better use of terrain, better informed about the enemy’s plans, everything and anything to get that critical advantage.
There’s an old saying (at least as old as WW2) - “The graveyard is full of dead heroes.”
Or,
These things cannot be clearly explained in words. You must research what is written here. In these three ways of forestalling, you must judge the situation. This does not mean that you always attack first; but if the enemy attacks first you can lead him around. In strategy, you have effectively won when you forestall the enemy, so you must train well to attain this… - Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Musashi was no wussy, having killed a ridiculous number of people in combat, and may have been one of the best fighters who ever lived. But, he believed in being prepared (like Batman).
Either that, or he couldn’t shoot for shit and needed the extra bullets 
Dodgeball was one of those things I was sort of good at, and had a good time with. I was not great, just sort of good. I was pretty good at dodging. My throwing arm was not the most powerful, but I could throw just fast enough and just accurately enough. My real “thing” was climbing - ropes, peg boards, didn’t matter. NO ONE could keep up with me. I mean NO ONE. Must have been something about the strength to weight ratio of thin people.
There were some comments about WW2 already. Some perspective from the other side of that - We Germans are definitely much bigger “wusses” than our grandfathers. Our country was able to reunite peacefully only because nobody saw it as a threat anymore. It took a long time until Germany used its armed forces in any capacity, no matter how worthy the cause, and just recently our defense minister had to resign because of one bombing where civilians were killed in Afghanistan. And a great majority of Germans like it that way.
We’re much better off today, and much more secure, than at our height of military power.
The height of your military power could be seen as before WW1.
Well put.
- One Always Picked Last
Meh, I was almost always picked last or near the last in team sports in P.E. Who got picked first, last and middle was more a question of who was the friend of the picker, not who was an athlete. I was first in plenty of other subjects that were based on merit, so P.E. taught me that I wouldn’t be first in everything. I already knew people could be jerks. That’s largely why already I didn’t care if the majority of my classmates liked me or not, and we weren’t friends.
Rah for the death of team sports in P.E., though. They’re boring, and as was mentioned before, not everyone gets excercise (I’m looking at you, outfielders). Better they all get into a sport that pits them all against each other. I am serious. I think it teaches them both that people are jerks, and if you work, you can be rewarded. Plus, they get to run around, and the teacher can make them run around correctly. What else is P.E. supposed to teach?
I don’t think the U.S. is quantitatively any more wussified than it was. The army is complaining that the recruits aren’t as ready for combat as they once were? Probably so. They aren’t as physically fit as they once were, either, I’d bet. We’re still a pretty mean little bunch of monkeys. We just don’t practice it physically as much as we once did. I don’t think that makes us any less dangerous than we once were. Between ourselves, or as a nation to the outside world. Hell, the millitary doesn’t kill the same way it once did.
We need to teach kids when it’s important to be a jerk, and about what. Most of the time it’s not acceptable, but there are times and places when it’s just necessary.
I agree with the op’s premise. I see it as a trend to remove as much risk and hardship from children’s lives as possible. On the surface this is a good thing, a requirement of proper parenting and a society’s responsibility to protect the next generation. However, dealing with and managing risk is an important life lesson.
Many kids today will never ride their bicycle to school. Too dangerous. Or walk to school. Child predators are out there, so no walking with your friends in the neighborhood. Sad. So many of the young kids are missing out on some fun, neat things because their parents are too worried the kid might get hurt.
Someone up thread mentioned fist fights that were settled then and there, whereas today the kids simmer with rage. Maybe this is why kids today go to school to shoot everyone, rather than simply shooting their tormentor. I remember hating the bully, not the whole student body. Something is different now. Zero tolerance policies perhaps.
Why are they jerks? Because they made the logical choice to pick someone bigger or taller or faster than you for their team? People aren’t jerks just because you don’t get your way.
I enjoyed dodgeball in school and I was okay at it, but I think you’re wrongly interpreting the sport as a life lesson. It isn’t. It’s a game, and in some cases people use it as an instrument of jerkiness and bullying. That doesn’t mean dodgeball needs to be banned, but I think that much ought to be acknowledged if we’re going to use it as evidence that it’s being banned because people are wusses now.
Unacknowledged bullying makes the world go round. If we addressed even half of what goes on, we’d be too busy and too depressed for society to function at all.
This is close to the heart of what not being a wuss is about. People are going to hurt each other. Learn when to speak out and when to let it happen - to others and to you yourself. And learn that sometimes it’s not just inevitable, it’s necessary.