@TechConnectify This is true in the same way old music is better than new music. Only the good stuff makes it through time, but in the present you have to contend with the good as well as the bad.
At any time period, lots of people fight for lots of ideals. And lots of things can pass for ideals, even selfishness ("rugged individualism"). But a few decades later you only remember the ideals that won out, and the people that stood for them, and you think, man, those people had moral character.