Rubio: ‘A Generational Shift’

This week in Athens, standing in front of the Parthenon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a remarkable speech which I think in time will be considered to have been an historic one.  - Clarice Feldman 
Rubio began by emphasizing how much the American Founding Fathers were indebted to our Greek heritage, which, in his view, gave us democracy, Western philosophy, “Our ideas of law, of virtue, of citizenship, and republican government.” 

• Just as important, we learned from ancient Greece “the essential traits that come to define the West.” 
• Things like “fierce individuality and restless ambition, daring exploration and invention, a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory.”...

Secretary Rubio accurately described the present stasis of much of the West. Where once we understood that struggle and competition were the path to excellence, the modern world has ignored this truth: 

Now I know that to modern ears, what I just described, this way of life, may sound odd; it may even sound cruel. 

The ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, devoid of risk or failure, with neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat. 

Too often these days, we build downwards. 

We design our standards to ensure no one will lose; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. 

We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre...