Return of the Strong Gods
(firstthings.com)
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The reason we seem so weak today is because 100+ years ago we lacked the social programs, the medical technology advancements and sanitation practices and technology to save the weakest people in society. Remember hearing how the Life Expectancy of a person used to be 30? Well, if you lived to 30 you likely would live to 70 just like now.
The Old World was no place for the weak but our new world allows the weak to prosper. It's not that the strong were weeded out, it's that in the past the only humans remaining were the strong while the weak died. Now, the weak don't die and thus they've started to expand their numbers. The strong are still here but have been crowded out by all the new weak people our civilization allows to live.
If you lived to adulthood at all back then you would likely make 70, not just if you made it to 30. That low life expectancy was due to extremely high infant and childhood mortality rates, which modern sanitation almost singlehandedly ended. Some places, they didn't even name infants unless they made it to childhood.
There wasn't some great culling of weaklings in their 20s. Also, social programs don't deserve the credit you give them, because extended families and communities used to look out for their own.
The article isn't about physical strength, but authority. He pointed to Vatican II, the CRA, and anti-nationalist sentiment as multiple fronts on which authority was diluted to create a weaker post-war world.