I do agree with your broader point though that it's worth asking if society is getting more illiberal and intolerant of opposing views. It's not just a "young people these days" kind of thing.
Hard times create desperate men who make like hell to everyone else as they lash out. Good times are created by men who care. Good times create nice people.
Fascists seen empathy and niceness as weakness and something bad. They were also something that emerged from hard times and created misery and pain. Lets not promote their ideology.
"Hard times create strong men". At what age do the hard times start for this to be true? Do children who are victims of abuse become strong? Some perhaps, but I suspect not more than a control group. Do the hard times occur when the people are full adults? Anecdotally in my life, I've seen hard times be precursors to people cope by using drink and drugs, and seen hard times to lead other people to step up to the challenge. And what is the definition of strong, here? Seems so vague as to be pointless. This old saying seems like complete bunk to me.
It's a pat saying, but I don't think history bears it out.
The German people after World War I were suffering. Significant reparation burdens had been placed upon them. They were starving and angry. These should have been the "hard times that create strong men," yes?
It created the Nazis and they were defeated militarily. Seems something went off in step 2 there; nobody considers Germany during World War II "Good times."
Agreed. Western society is very much in a pattern of decline right now. Whether it's terminal remains to be seen, but the decay is blindingly obvious imo.
Why did they fail? Obviously, famine, wars, etc had a part; but as the saying goes:
Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
Weak men create hard times.