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Old 11-29-2011, 03:42 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ragnarkar View Post
The Middle/Dark ages followed the peak of Rome..

Many technological and scientific discoveries were lost never to be found for many centuries during the Middle Ages..

Is it still possible for the world to plunge into a new "Dark Age" in the next few centuries where most of the innovations in Science, Medicine, Technology, and even Government of the last 200-300 years are lost, possibly following a simultaneous decline of America, Europe and China.
As for America, it is on the fast track to heading for the abyss ; there are so many major problems plauging America today , especially financially, that I see no bright future for the nation. Its nice to have optimism , but it seems to me the definitive turning point was when the nation decided it wanted to be a secularized nation and abandon its dependence on the Almighty . Its now a race between moral degradation and insolvency to see which wins out. Not good news for the present young generation --- they will have to read what America was once like in history books and imagine if it were only so today.
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Old 11-29-2011, 03:47 PM
 
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The majority of the Gothic cathedrals that anyone would think of were built in the High Middle Ages. These followed the Early Middle Ages (aka Dark Ages) when barbarians basically stopped rampaging back and forth across Europe and people began to settle down and farm or practice a trade. Where population had declined throughout the Dark Ages, it expanded rapidly in the High Middle Ages and this increasing capacity to produce wealth helped make all those cathedrals possible. Knowledge lost to Europe between about 500 and 1000 CE was reacquired from Middle Eastern and Muslim societies in which no Dark Ages had occurred. The High Middle Ages ended for good around 1300 as famine and plagues reduced European population to about half of what it had been at its peak.
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Old 11-29-2011, 04:05 PM
 
Location: Floyd Co, VA
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For an interesting read on the subject I recommend Dark Ages America, The Final Phase of Empire by Morris Berman. Copyright 2006.

Made me glad that I am 62 not 22 and not likely to be around 40 years from now. As a youngster I somehow thought that if we could make it to the year 2000 without a nuclear war the world would be OK.
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Old 11-29-2011, 11:04 PM
 
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Lets try and keep this on topic people, which means an end to the discussion of Gothic cathedrals as well.
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Old 11-30-2011, 02:06 PM
 
Location: Bloomfield Twp, MI
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ragnarkar View Post
...Is it still possible for the world to plunge into a new "Dark Age" in the next few centuries where most of the innovations in Science, Medicine, Technology, and even Government of the last 200-300 years are lost, possibly following a simultaneous decline of America, Europe and China.
No, I don't think so. Unless there was some sort of mass extinction event caused by natural disaster or weapons discharge - where all of our technologies, inventions, research materials, historical records, and all the people whom contribute to its sum were wiped out. Even then, I think much of our "back-up copies" of the world's innovations is well protected and would quite likely even survive the aforementioned.

Aside from the above, if one considers the advancement of technology in just the last 30 years, the whole of it seems to be unstoppable and is growing at an exponential rate. In science, computer technology, communications advancements, medical research, transportation, engineering and countless other areas - we are advancing at an incredible rate. It would be nearly impossible for us to enter another period similar to the 'Dark Ages.'

In my lifetime so far, I have noticed one thing in particular that is quite different from the very recent past. The speed and presence of information, and the rate at which it is consumed by nearly everyone in the civilized world is incredible. This one thing alone has probably been the cause of what feels like instability in the world.
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Old 11-30-2011, 02:24 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Retroit View Post
Gothic cathedrals were being constructed a few hundred years before the plague. "Gothic" was used as a pejorative by later critics; "Gothic" means "barbarians".

The point being: we tend to judge the Middle Ages as a very horrible time. It must surely have been to the Romans, but not so to the "Barbarians".

The way this relates to this thread is that while it is true that the US has and will continue to suffer, the rest of the world has benefited greatly from the knowledge that the US (and Europe) has built up over the ages.
Early Cathedrials of the style preceeded the massive ones, but the largest were built later, reaching the far limits of the style. It represented a growth of technology from a smaller beginning, but was the effort of a society already changed and recreated by the black death, which did give birth to the modern world in the same way the fall of Rome gave birth to early medieval society.

We can match the two events as almost a second fall. Rome fell to barbarian hordes, and for a time it was very terrible for the survivors. It was a lawless land where in the end it came to the pesants willingly trading options for protection. In the beginning it benifited both. Later, not so much.

The plague tore apart the fabric of society. The art of the time is dark and filled with images of death. Death became the norm. In its own way it was a second fall of Rome, for the average person lived in fear of death, food became scarce, but in a rather gruesome way, in time, it was a change for the better. Pesants and pesant labor had value now that there was not enough. It was the birthplace of modern economics as landholders began to pay for labor so the pesantry would come to them over the neighbors. And as the plague redefined the world, it began the first steps which created ours.

In regards to the thread title, the *proper* description of the Dark Ages was just the beginning. As a society was created, it ceased to be so dark. As memories of how it was faded people lived in the world as it was. If you treat the 'middle ages' as seperate segments, the Black plague was a dividing line which cause the eventual end of feudalism. But instead of the end for it being sharp and anarchy, it just faded. The violent end of Rome was only the end stage, but you can give it a date. The end of the whole era slid into another.

I agree with a previous poster that we ARE in decline, as we harden up the rules and the spirit of individual achievment is growing less and less. But does this mean we'll have a Dark Ages? Not necessarily. The fading of ideals is a start of a new age, but it could simply be a slide into traditional authoritan rule, and like as in other faded ages, the memory of the old becomes fuzzy and then legendary.

What would be a dark ages would be war, and sadly as it would likely be atomic, the 'recovery period' might be never.

And yes, Medieval history is extremely fascinating and most have no clue it was such a dynamic time, but different than what came before or after.

I reccomend Barbara Tuchman's book A Distant Mirror as parallels have often been drawn between the 14th and the 20th centuries.
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Old 11-30-2011, 03:00 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SPECFRCE View Post
Happy or would you mean Ignorant. I believe most people are ill informed or lead astray. Each of us are apart of the ignorance plague and we too are just happy with it. Otherwise we would do much more to enlighten others.
Part is ignorance, but only part. Two, three generations back, they would have looked at the world and after getting past all the gee whiz stuff, and not be so happy since they'd see what's been lost. If you remember when getting on a plane was walking in and picking up your luggage, the family waiting in the boarding area while you wait, and no police state, then you SEE the differences. Someone who doesn't, who all their life has had it be that way, will not.

But I too agree with SG granny. Especially about the points about education. It was about learning to learn. We didn't refer to 'useless' degrees. Due to illness, I never got the rest of my history AA. Somehow I'd still like to. But I kept on learning, and that I know how to see the 'big picture' had changed the way I see the world. But a history degree is denounced as 'useless'. Its all in the mindset you learn. Maybe if you want to be an engineer, you also must learn history so you see beyond the defined steps and insoluer boundries.

In essense, we fight the things somehow which are changing the values of our society, or we surrender to them, since those who grow up with them will not understand. Some of a generation will, since there are a minority of any generation who live out of the box, but the mass won't get it and it wil become the new society.
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Old 11-30-2011, 11:59 PM
 
Location: US Empire, Pac NW
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Scientific advances actually continued through the "dark" ages. There has never been a so-called dark age throughout the whole world in the history of the human race. What was an age of religious introspection where relatively few advances were made (debatable), was a golden age for a number of civilizations. What was "lost" in the Roman collapse was actually largely preserved by a number of factors:

- the Eastern Roman Empire continued for another 1000 years until the Islamic hordes took over Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul in the 1200s
- the Muslim and Arab world, meanwhile, invented the numeral system we use today and is used throughout the world (yes that's right, 1-9 was a MUSLIM invention, Rome only used M,C,V,I, and other arcane methods of numbers)
- meanwhile, little Ireland produced the world's most beautiful texts and actually sought out old books and knowledge from the Roman era and preserved it. Read "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Tom Cahill. It's a great read.
- in Europe, what can be seen as a "dark" age I see an era of "recalibration" away from big, monolithic centers of government and empire and decadence, into smaller, more compact forms of government, and individual advances were made, and an important "free market" style "strongest wins" system determined the new empires gradually. Armor made significant strides through this time. The concept of a mercenary was invented at this time with the longbowmen, steel and aluminum started being used, gunpowder was imported and the concept of a cannon was too, and implemented.
- in Asia, the regimented Phalanx and Legion proved no match against dispersed and fast arms, the horsemen. This was an important advance, as it taught many armies that having small, lightly armed, but very fast units can harrass an enemy to lose morale, sap strength, and make weaker for the more bulky units to demolish the enemy.
- Muslim astronomers made important discoveries regarding the Earth's rotation.


By the time the Muslim empires were decadent, and pushed back to Africa and Asia Minor, they left behind their manuscripts, and Europeans took them and advanced them into an Age of Enlightenment that continues today.

Finally, with today's communications technology, the speed with which technological progress is communicated presents a unique perspective on advances. Today, we EXPECT change. Change has become so embedded in our lives we expect it. How anyone can presume we're entering a "dark age" is beyond me, what with us in the era of GPS, instant communications, enhanced reality, blistering computational speed, the dawn of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and pushing back disease and winning.

I think people just assume that since change has become expected we perceive it to be slower than it actually is and have grown complacent. Things aren't slowing down - we're just not noticing it anymore.
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Old 12-04-2011, 12:54 PM
 
Location: Gettysburg, PA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SCGranny View Post
Honestly, I think that we are entering a Dark Age; and have been for some time.

The level of education is declining; and I'm not speaking necessarily about technology, but about history, literature, the sciences, and the social sciences. What used to be an educational system that taught people how to learn, and to continue to learn throughout their lives, now teaches them according to a specific set of socially dogmatic rules. What used to be considered a complete education is now disdained for specifics and specialization - and only according to what has been done in the past 10-15 years. We are more concerned with how many days a student is absent than in what that student is learning when present. We are more concerned with the continuation and growth of bureaucracies and 'group-think' than we are about the individuality and individual expression. We are more passionate about what someone else has told us to think, than about what we ourselves have determined from information that we ourselves have gathered. We are more interested in owning the latest Crackberry than in understanding that communication isn't being used to educate, but to manipulate. Comprehension is cast aside for unsoundly-based opinion, and even 'news' reporters don't bother to ask "What do you think?" but instead "How do you feel?" No longer is science a process of forming a hypothesis, creating an experiment, and solving for "x"; instead, the "x" is given as a predetermined absolute and any experimentation that doesn't fit "x" is ignored. Try to formulate a hypothesis that goes against those who have pre-determined "x", prove through valid experimentation, accurate recordkeeping, and taking all results, good and bad, into account, that the predetermined "x" is actually a false premise, and you are vilified and ridiculed. It is more important to be a team player and do what you are told than to have innovation and creativity, and to 'follow a different drummer'. Independence and intellect are suspect. Self-determination is cast-aside for self-indulgence and self-righteousness.

The emotionally directed are all too easily manipulated into further ignorance, even convinced that ignorance is a goal to be pursued as long as one sings the party line more loudly than anyone else. Should the fiscal house of cards and self-indulgence come tumbling down, those who have been taught and believed all their lives that they are 'special' (for no particular reason or accomplishment) will turn to violence and extreme selfish aquisition, because they have been told for so long that they deserve it without any effort or input on their part The New Barbarians are on the rise, and they will lay waste to more than Rome.
Your words are eloquent and resonate very similiarly with the way I feel about the current time. For many years now, I've felt as a bystander watching the decay of society, becoming as time moves forward ever more disappointed, disenchanted; I hope to steer away from bitterness. Nevertheless, for most my life, though I'll play at times a cynical role, I realize at heart I am truly an idealist. There are so many I've met whom I believe in my soul are good people that no matter the blatant fakeness, the loud, plastic, cacophony which makes up a good part of society, when I interact with these people it makes me feel that the divine spark which I feel is in everyone and everything is not just an ember about to be put out.

I can only hope I am mistaken that the majority of the population is caught up in this whirlwind of refuse; it makes my heart numb with despondency to look at the natural beauty of the world and to think that so many other people would be more impressed with some new techno-savvy trinket which they had just bought from the electronic store.
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Old 12-04-2011, 02:02 PM
 
Location: New Mexico
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Default Forget another Great Depression.. will we see a new Dark Age?

Although there are many who'd like to see a return to mindless, unquestioning theocratic society, it won't happen. The church simply doesn't wield the power to usher in another "age of faith", which is another title sometimes used for "the dark ages."
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