To think in the past people had more stoicism and resilience and it’s a shame we’ve sort of lost that?

[Carrotted]

Towards the end of the battle of Waterloo, the Marquess of Uxbridge, a British general, had part of his leg blown off by a French cannonball. He was sitting atop his horse next to the Duke of Wellington, to whom he turned and said “By God, sir, I think I’ve lost my leg”, to which the Duke of Wellington replied “By God, sir, so you have”. He then went to the field hospital where the remaining leg was amputated without anaesthetic, while he joked with the surgeons.

Thats one individual and the story is probably elaborated for effect, but AIBU to think people in previous generations tended to be more stoic in the face of adversity. To have a “get on with it” attitude?

There are obvious downsides to that attitude, but it can have lots of benefits to have that approach to life.

AIBU?

Some people definitely lack resilience in some contexts. Most people probably aren't resilient across the board. @Carrotted could you give an example of what you'd consider resilience? Something you've survived in a way you'd consider resilient? Or maybe you're not of a "previous generation" and perceive yourself to be lacking resilience?

My DF survived a horrendously violent childhood and joked about it. But would be reduced to frothing, helpless rage by a slow driver on the motorway.

My DB also survived a violent childhood and never says a word about it. No complaints, no diagnoses, just "gets on with it". Very resilient. But he does tend to expect other men to have the same response to violence. In fact, he thinks being hurt or affected by it is a sign of weakness and would agree with you @Carrotted . Not with the implied generational difference - he sees plenty of emasculated snowflakes across all generations - but with the implication that "getting on with it" is better.

I wonder, @Carrotted whether you think getting on with it, when "it" is abuse, is still preferable? If not, what's the threshold after which hardship has caused suffering?

I also wonder what evidence you have for the suggestion that previous generations "got on with it" more? And what generation you are of? Do you see yourself as more resilient than someone specific who is younger than you, who you believe has had an easier life? Or have you not coped with something in a way you're proud of?

And I wonder, too, what you mean by "getting on with it". My view is that both DF was and DB is in fact carrying their abuse into the present in harmful ways. (DF dead now, as a result). They didn't acknowledge harm done, and as a result the harm continued.

So, I suppose, I'm maybe saying that you're being quite hard on yourself, OP. I'm sure you're coping really well, and sometimes the more explicit, direct coping behaviours are actually the bravest and most effective.

I read a book recently about the Victorian era which said exactly that and apparently Charles Darwin and many members of his family suffered from 'nervous complaints' when they'd take to their beds to avoid obligations or social interactions they didn't want to engage in.

With lots of peers at the time thinking it was all rubbish and avoidance with modern viewers wondering if they had auto-immune disorders or whatever.

With another theory being that middle-and upper-class women and to a lesser extent men, just couldn't be arsed with all the expectations placed on them to correspond with numerous family and friends, host daily visits from the same and host dinners just because it was socially expected.

I know now a lot of people would think it was privileged nonsense but the amount of expectations placed on middle and upper class women in those times were insane. Even just the constant outfit changes through the day which were laborious and time-consuming and attending all the meal times, hosting visitors through the day even if the standard was 15 minutes per visit and planning and hosting dinners and parties.

It was relentless, they never could just 'be' or relax.

And I know people will say boohoo at least they weren't worrying about feeding their DC but still, you can see how it would create anxiety and low mood.

And coming from a working class English/Irish family my Irish Nan frequently took to her bed when expectations were high. I don't think there was a Christmas in the 80s or 90s when she was alive when she didn't go to bed on Xmas day with a headache and leave all the cooking and cleaning up to her 5 daughters. After they had spent weeks putting up her tree, shopping, decorating, wrapping her presents etc.

Emerging in a lovely outfit around tea-time to put out some cheese and pineapple already prepared by her daughters and have a few drinks and a sing-song :)

I knew when I read the title and OP that this would be a thread where the OP plopped and dropped.

I haven't RTFT but lack of resilience is definitely an issue for the younger generation. I think we might have lost our way a bit with the addition of emotions being added to the NC. The amount of young dc complaining about anxiety now is horrendous and so many children being withdrawn from school for poor mental health. The Anxious Generation is a good read.

I'd have to disagree, some of the most highly strung, easily offended/hurt/upset people I've ever known were of my grandparents generation. My grandmother left her orphanage in the 1930's and went into domestic service for a woman who was voluntarily bed bound.

I think every generation has people who are capable and stoic and those who aren't.

I often wonder how people today would cope if they had to sit in bomb shelters at night waiting to hear for the dooglebugs engines cutting out knowing that when it did it meant a bomb was about to drop on the,

Talking of fortitude, the novelist Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy in 1812 - fully conscious, no anaesthetic.
Her account of it is totally harrowing. She managed to survive the op, and lived for about another 20 years (had the op aged 50).

@LindorDoubleChoc It didn't take long for that pathetic, cliched, stereotypical old trope to appear did it? 🤣🤣🤣

You assume that life today is softer and easier and better. I don’t think that’s true at all. OK, our houses are warmer and we don’t have outside loos, but in other ways life is much harder.

For a start there are too many people. In 1900 there were a billion human beings. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It’s now eight billion and we’re heading for ten. That means more noise and more stress. It also means less time and space. The traffic is hell, and every other car seems to have a modified exhaust that backfires. Plus we live in rabbit hutch houses with hundreds of other rabbit hutches jammed on top of us. We didn’t evolve to live like this. By the end of the week, most people’s nerves are shattered. And when a tragedy hits, we haven’t the time or space to recover. In 1910, if your mum died, you could walk in the woods and cry and be alone with nature. Now, those woods have probably been replaced by houses and roads. Then there is 24 hour (bad) news, venomous social media, awful processed food, polluted water and air, etc.

Life in the past may have been physically harder, but it was calmer and quieter. Things moved at a slower pace. You had room to move and breathe. And you weren’t surrounded by ugly houses and buildings. My grandparents were born in 1920, and looking back they seemed to speak in a much calmer, softer and more refined way than people do now. In comparison, people today seem so loud and aggressive and vulgar. If you brought someone back here from, say, 1900, they’d have a nervous breakdown within a week.

Or deal with deranged school mums on the parent Whats App.

Many "people today" are coping with this, or have coped with this. Does it only count if it's white Londoners?

The Anxious Generation argues that young people today are navigating a landscape that is catastrophic for their mental and physical health. Not that they're lacking resilience. You're reading mental illness as a lack of resilience i.e. an individual shortcoming/ failure. I think that's a deplorable view.

Btw, who are your "younger generation"? Presumably your own generation is, in your view, not lacking resilience? What generation? What has it endured with more resilience?

The British are outstanding soldiers though. Possibly the best in the world.

Despite the US having vastly more military power they're generally not even close lb for lb. Part of this is apparently because they specialise a lot more whilst our engineers, for example, will still be infantry trained and be expected to defend themselves as well as do their task.

We dominate the Sandhurst Military Skills competition with 15 wins to the US's two in the same time period, and in the Green Dagger desert exercise designed to trial new siege techniques we forced the US Marines to surrender and request a reset less than halfway through the five day exercise despite being outnumbered. Not bad when you consider the defending side is usually at an advantage.

Despite some countries seeing us as tea sipping gentiles we really do get shit done when we need to.

Pretty sure that woman was independently wealthy and not claiming benefits though.

That's the difference.

I'd love you as my colleague!

I think what's more evident (and this thread is an example of this) is people have a tendency to look back and say much better life was, how much more stoicism and resilience we had... it's all nonsense. There are more difference between between people rather than between generations...

Gen X here, too.
We are called "the Darwin generation", because only the strongest survived and made something of themselves.
And yes, it's all a runny shit now.

Yes to the rewriting of history!
I started my first full time job at 16.
Each day I went into the office, my manager sat down beside me and put his hand up my skirt.
I know young women wouldn't put up with this now, but I would have lost my job for sure if I had said a word against him and I would have been branded a 'troublemaker'.
I changed my job as soon as I could, but after some months when I told my manager there that I was pregnant, I was immediately sacked.
Having escaped a violent husband at 7 months pregnant, I then asked the benefits Office for help and was sent for a job interview! Cue younger MNers telling me I was so privileged to have jobs (My first wage was £6 a week and could only afford to rent a slum with 2 rooms, one with a sink but no hot water or heating, no washing machine, outside toilet shared with another family - would they accept that now?)
Yes, I developed resilience in spades.
Life has always been hard for some people, whatever generation. I see a hell of a lot of privileged (and probably hard working of course) young people taking their families abroad on holiday, buying large new build homes, eating out regularly and driving large cars. These are luxuries that I, as a "boomer" have never had and will never experience. Am I bitter? Absolutely not, I've learned to live frugally and be content with my lot - and accept that there will always be people more and less privileged than myself.

Another issue is that a lot of people nowadays like to push the idea that stoicness and toughness constitute 'toxic masculinity'. I can see their point sometimes, like when men won't ask for help when they need it or admit they're suffering. However, other times it just seems like a tactic by weak people to undermine the dominant power dynamics.

Yes, you're absolutely right. They just got on with it. Then a lot of them went mad and/or killed themselves. 🙄

Honestly, if you want to advocate for greater stoicism, at least pick a more relevant example.

this. The lack of grit in the younger generation has been a standing (and boring) theme for years.

Did you really type out that story and think for a second that any of it was real?

Bloody hell. Stoic people are stoic. You don't know they're being stoic because they're being stoic. Even stoic people are generally screaming their heads off when their legs gets blown off though.

I think when jobs always ended in most cases when you left the building, many people only had a landline, and there was not 24/7 news available, less things troubled you or could do. Added to that your family if you needed support were more likely to be local to you.

oh give me a break!

Do you really think that was how the exchange actually went? It's like thinking that nobody ever went AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK CCCCCCCCCCCCCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT until the latest generation of war films because Kenneth More never said it in Reach for the Sky (and I doubt Bader was silent on the subject of his missing legs when being pulled out of the wreckage unless he was unconscious, either).