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[MetalSlimeHunt]

The European Dark Ages weren't really a thing at all. Make no mistake, the end of Antiquity caused disunification and a decline in trade, but most of the idea of the Dark Age comes from the Greco-Roman Romanticists of the 1800s. "Greece and Rome were great states of freedom and democracy that were replaced by barbaric kingdo-" *record scratch* Yeah, no. Greece and Rome attained a slightly higher quality of life for some people through massive slave labor, which obviously doesn't do much for anybody else, the slaves most of all. Their political freedom was ultimately about as limited as the Feudal system that followed, and in the case of the Romans didn't even last. Greece's was alright for a while, so long as you were a free landowning male who could pass as the ethnicity of the city they lived in, weren't disqualified by any other conditional factors or local laws, and had enough resources to overcome the inevitable corruption of the system....to corrupt it for your own needs, of course. And if you had all of that in a feudal system, you were already a minor noble.

Let's not derail further since things are actually happening with the Arab Spring right now.

Anyways, which nation/region is going to have a dark age next? We had the european dark ages, and the muslims seem to be coming out of theirs...

If global united action isn't taken on environmental issues, the next dark age will be global.

As an aside, I'd suggest that you start a Saving Humanity from Itself thread, since you've been on this a lot lately.

[Trollheiming]

The European Dark Ages weren't really a thing at all. Make no mistake, the end of Antiquity caused disunification and a decline in trade, but most of the idea of the Dark Age comes from the Greco-Roman Romanticists of the 1800s. "Greece and Rome were great states of freedom and democracy that were replaced by barbaric kingdo-" Yeah, no. Greece and Rome attained a slightly higher quality of life for some people through massive slave labor, which obviously doesn't do much for anybody else, the slaves most of all. Their political freedom was ultimately about as limited as the Feudal system that followed, and in the case of the Romans didn't even last. Greece's was alright for a while, so long as you were a free landowning male who could pass as the ethnicity of the city they lived in, weren't disqualified by any other conditional factors or local laws, and had enough resources to overcome the inevitable corruption of the system....to corrupt it for your own needs, of course.

I don't think anyone claimed that Greece and Rome were great states of freedom, because until the rise of America, "great states of freedom" weren't really a thing at all.

Those 18th century romanticists were largely products of undemocratic systems and knew the lessons of Athenian democracy better than you. (It was a shambles that devolved into mob rule.) Maybe it's not that they mistakenly thought Rome was a beacon of freedom, maybe it's that they had a more healthy understanding of freedom itself. You're judging the past on an arbitrary and elusive modern standard for freedom. How many of you feel truly free in this age of freedom? So what then? All history becomes a dark age, despite other variables that clearly changed the quality of lives during certain eras, and clearly have nothing to do with your obsession on freedom?

Look at Roman law and the law codes of Salian Franks. Tell me how it is equivalent that both cultures had slaves, when the Roman codes forbid harming slaves and the Salian code only punishes harming others' slaves. Have you read the Satyricon? It details a Roman magnate, fabulously wealthy, named Trimachio who was the grandson of a slave. This is fiction, but based on the reality of easy social advancement in the early Principate. In the Roman system, there was a pathway up, and most slaves got freedom, and certainly their children were freedmen. In the Salian codes, a Gallo-roman is always a Gallo-roman, with no exceptions under the law, and a Frank is always a Frank.

You take one aspect of living a better life and make it the sole all-consuming indicator. Slave is just a word, and you fail to compare what a "slave" under different law codes actually faced in daily life. That's the modern freedom-centric thought. And you don't even qualify that freedom is hard to pin down.

In the Roman Principate, there were massive construction projects, literature, standardized laws, basic education, good roads and safe, extensive trade, fewer wars and more stability. And there were "slaves" but what of it?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think anyone claimed that Greece and Rome were great states of freedom, because until the rise of America, "great states of freedom" weren't really a thing at all.

That's a large part of Romanticism in a nutshell. Yearning for the good old days (which were terrible). As the Romantics happened after the United States were established, your point is irrelevant.

Those 18th century romanticists were largely products of undemocratic systems and knew the lessons of Athenian democracy better than you. (It was a shambles that devolved into mob rule.)

No shit it was a shamble that devolved into mob rule. That's always the outcome of unconstitutional (as in, "lacking a constitution at all") direct democracy.

Maybe it's not that they mistakenly thought Rome was a beacon of freedom, maybe it's that they had a more healthy understanding of freedom itself.

What are you even talking about?

You're judging the past on an arbitrary and elusive modern standard for freedom.

It is not a matter of judgement. I am not passing moral edict against the political freedoms of the Roman Empire, I am explaining to you all why the Dark Age is not a thing.

In the Roman system, there was a pathway up, and most slaves got freedom, and certainly their children were freedmen. In the Salian codes, a Gallo-roman is always a Gallo-roman, with no exceptions under the law, and a Frank is always a Frank.

You take one aspect of living a better life and make it the sole all-consuming indicator. Slave is just a word, and you fail to compare what a "slave" under different law codes actually faced in daily life. That's the modern freedom-centric thought. And you don't even qualify that freedom is hard to pin down.

In the Roman Principate, there were massive construction projects, literature, standardized laws, basic education, good roads and safe, extensive trade, fewer wars and more stability. And there were "slaves" but what of it?

I don't believe I ever equated Roman slavery to the slavery of the past few hundred years, but that is irrelevant. There were slaves in the US South who got good treatment as well, after all, you need your slaves to be in good condition if they're going to do efficient work for you. Being pointlessly cruel to them isn't just immoral, it's stupid. The same held true for the slaves of Antiquity even if they had better conditions than more modern slaves.

But that is not the point. Slavery is not moral no matter how you treat the slaves. Owning other people is wrong, because everybody should have the right to seek their path in life, not live as the tool of another without choice. Even if you don't stay a slave, nobody should ever be a slave for any period of time. (Jumping ahead to your rebuttal, the control that governments and corporations exert over us is not absolute like slavery and is also why I hold the political views of a filthy progressive, as to remove what control remains and place the powerstructures of our society firmly within the hands of the general public and cap their avenues of oppression.)

[Trollheiming]

I don't think anyone claimed that Greece and Rome were great states of freedom, because until the rise of America, "great states of freedom" weren't really a thing at all.

That's a large part of Romanticism in a nutshell. Yearning for the good old days (which were terrible). As the Romantics happened after the United States were established, your point is irrelevant.

Actually, the Dark Ages were acknowledged as such even back to the Renaissance. If we're using the term Romantics strictly as in Romantic Literature, that style tended to favor themes that weren't civilized, or that took a sterner view of civilization. For example, Walter Scott wrote about the scottish highlands and popularized the wistful theme of Twilight of the Celts, in which the old untamed highlands were falling to modernity; there was also Nathaniel Hawthorne and his books like Scarlet Letter, in which civilization was less pure than nature. In Romantic literature, you're much more likely to get an ode to noble savagery than an paean to the civilized Roman. Viewing the Roman period as superior to the Migration Era was by no means a creation of the actual Romantic Period. In fact, the Romantic period is perhaps the first volley in the war to question the fruits of civilization.

You're judging the past on an arbitrary and elusive modern standard for freedom.

It is not a matter of judgement. I am not passing moral edict against the political freedoms of the Roman Empire, I am explaining to you all why the Dark Age is not a thing.

It is judgment. All of this categorizing and describing of eras is merely arbitrary opinion with no firm measure. It must necessarily involve judgment somewhere, and if it isn't your judgment, then it is the judgment of someone that you listened to, but whose arguments you didn't internalize, so it falsely crystalized into "fact" in your mind.

But that is not the point. Slavery is not moral no matter how you treat the slaves. Owning other people is wrong, because everybody should have the right to seek their path in life, not live as the tool of another without choice. Even if you don't stay a slave, nobody should ever be a slave for any period of time.

That's a common conceit in modern people, but then you really are simply saying that everything before the 1960s was a Dark Age in your view, and you refuse stubbornly to acknowledge that certain ages have been a darker age than other dark ages. That's an obtuse way of making a grandiose demonstration of your morality. Makes you feel warm inside, but accomplishes little else.

Cut to the chase. You have to be in a time period where there are long bouts of peace, good roads, trade, construction projects everywhere, libraries, grammar schools, laws that recognize all freedmen equally and limit abuse on slaves.

Or you can choose to live in a time period where lordlings squabble and fight petty wars like those described in the De Excidio of Gildas, where knowlegde of how to build anything bigger than a meadhall is lost and Roman ruins are literally thought to be the "work of giants" from myth, where literacy rates plummet, where there's a separate law for different classes, based not on fluid notions of master and slave, but a fixed ethnic definition in which Gallo-Romans have no upward prospects and can never be better than a Frank.

Here is your choice. Perhaps both are dark in your grandstanding morality, but one is considerably less dark. Which one?

 

also why I hold the political views of a filthy progressive, as to remove what control remains and place the powerstructures of our society firmly within the hands of the general public and cap their avenues of oppression.)

The general public, huh? So, who is he? I never heard of a person called the General Public. What you'll get when you entrust so much power in a man named General Public is rather a Generalissimo instead.

The folly of progressives lies therein. You actually think the "general public" exists as a sentient entity capable of self-determination, when all power actually must devolve ultimately to individuals. Individuals with real last names, names like Stalin and Mao. Best, then, to make power diffuse rather than centralizing it, eh?

[PanH]

Could we stop the derail please ? The Politics thread got locked for that exact reason, and it's off topic here. Thanks.

[Trollheiming]

Could we stop the derail please ? The Politics thread got locked for that exact reason, and it's off topic here. Thanks.

Sure. Although I would submit that the politics thread was locked,  in reality, because RedKing found a funny cat picture that he couldn't resist using.

Regarding the Dark Ages, I really don't disagree that there are better terms for the era. I actually call that era the Migration Age usually. It's more descriptive. Regardless of nomenclature, it was still a quantifiably much worse time period in measures of wars, rule of law, infrastructure maintenance, basic education levels, etc., than the times before and afterward. Name changes ought not to make us lose sight of that.

[scriver]

Actually, the Dark Ages were acknowledged as such even back to the Renaissance.

That's because it was invented during the Renaissance, and originally used only to describe the lack of documentation of this period - it was in the dark. Then the Roman fanboys turned the term into meaning dark as in "bad". This is not some revolutionary thought or something the scholars you show such contempt made up just to be contrarian, that's the general concensus among historians.

a time period where there are long bouts of peace

Oh, dear lord. You just know nothing about the Classic Era at all, do you.

[fqllve]

Shit got real during the European dark ages. There's massive evidence of that. Don't let a current academic fad distort your perception. Papers gotta be published, so academics are pressured to concoct zany revisions of history merely to feed their careers.

I don't know what historians you're reading, but I don't think the generally acknowledged position was that the Middle Ages were "good." The reason most scholars object to the term Dark Ages for the Early Middle Ages is because while most of Europe was in the shitter the Arab world was coming into its own and the Eastern Empire was still doing fine.

And honestly, in a lot of ways I can understand a preference for the Early Middle Ages compared to the High, even in France and England. Once towns started to appear they became draconian in their subjugation of the surrounding countryside, and while they were a great method to attain freedom, there was a high amount of wage slavery going on, particularly in production centers like Flanders. Plus while England got the Magna Carta the French monarchy was solidifying absolute power which combined with the Hundred Years' War pretty much ruined the country.

[Trollheiming]

Actually, the Dark Ages were acknowledged as such even back to the Renaissance.

That's because it was invented during the Renaissance, and originally used only to describe the lack of documentation of this period - it was in the dark. Then the Roman fanboys turned the term into meaning dark as in "bad". This is not some revolutionary thought or something the scholars you show such contempt made up just to be contrarian, that's the general concensus among historians.

Wrong. Petrarch doesn't agree with that assessment, and since he lived in the 1300s, he probably knows more about Late Medieval thought on this subject than you or your junk historians do. Also, am I or any reasonable person truly supposed to regard you as anything but comical when you throw immature terms like "fanboys" around to describe centuries of generally-held popular perceptions? Do you really think your current word choices are appropriate and make you look informed?

"Roman fanboys?" Who the hell is that even supposed to be? Can you name them? Even Petrarch could classify as one of those, and he was among the foremost medieval thinkers! There were almost no "barbarian fanboys" until... well, a few decades ago. When general opinion runs solidly on one side for seven centuries, I think that amounts to more than "fanboys"

a time period where there are long bouts of peace

Oh, dear lord. You just know nothing about the Classic Era at all, do you.

Sorry, but war was not felt in some places like Spain and Italy for centuries. It was called the Pax Romana. Maybe you've heard of that. Also, I don't even know what the "Classic Era" is in regards to Rome. I usually think in terms of Dominate, Principate, Late Republican, Early Republican, and the Regal Rome of the Tarquins. If you're trying to convince me that you know something better, you're failing badly.

I don't know what historians you're reading, but I don't think the generally acknowledged position was that the Middle Ages were "good." The reason most scholars object to the term Dark Ages for the Early Middle Ages is because while most of Europe was in the shitter the Arab world was coming into its own and the Eastern Empire was still doing fine.

In Europe--and it's odd to expect European history to account for other regions of the world--that era has been known as the Dark Ages for centuries. No one said that the Dark Ages applied elsewhere, but you should also be aware that everywhere in the former Empire was in a tumult during the Migration Age. The Arab world, for example? Would that be the Arab world engaged in conquest and destroying the old Roman systems, committing wholesale slaughter of places like Carthage? There was a bit less destruction in the East compared to the Germanic tribes overrunning the West, but the Arabs were not benevolent, either. The Migration Period is so-called because massive migrations were happening everywhere, and the Arabs were part of that confusion and upheaval. If they were coming into their own, it was only atop the pale remains of the roman and persian systems that they swallowed up.

Nothing in Europe or the Near East was quite as good in 500-800 as it had been before that time.

And honestly, in a lot of ways I can understand a preference for the Early Middle Ages compared to the High

Without a High Middle Ages, and people like Petrarch digging up books from the past like Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, you don't have a Newton challenging Aristotlean physics to get you to the modern age. Instead you still have a bunch of half-savages swinging swords at each other and plundering places where more people hold quills than hold swords. To love the Migration Age is to love decline and ignorance.

[Owlbread]

How did we get from current geopolitics to a debate over this?

[Trollheiming]

Some one asked whether the Middle East was almost out of its dark age...

... then naturally someone echoed the currently popular academic view that there was no Dark Age in Europe. Despite seven centuries of Europeans viewing it as such, modern analysis is so brilliant that it proves wrong even people who live through an era, like St. Gildas, who write extant books complaining about how bad it is.

It's a pet annoyance of mine, that our academic standards in the liberal arts have lapsed so low; and I take responsibility for the derailment.

[fqllve]

Nothing in Europe or the Near East was quite as good in 500-800 as it had been before that time.

Which is why it heralded the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age? I'm not saying the era wasn't bloody, but it certainly represented the height of Islamic science and civilization.

To love the Migration Age is to love decline and ignorance.

And yet the transition to feudalism and then to the plutocracy of the guilds and bankers in many ways represented a worsening of circumstances for the agrarian population. You can phrase it as Progress vs Ignorance but it's not that simple.

... then naturally someone echoed the currently popular academic view that there was no Dark Age in Europe. Despite seven centuries of Europeans viewing it as such, modern analysis is so brilliant that it proves wrong even people who live through an era, like St. Gildas, who write extant books complaining about how bad it is.

Among what academics? The guys who write Cracked articles? If you think historians believe the Dark Ages were Happy Fun Times because they prefer not to use the term you're mistaken. It's not really possible to be informed about the Early Middle Ages, and the Migration Period in particular, and think "Hey, that was the shining light of civilization."

[Trollheiming]

Among what academics? The guys who write Cracked articles? If you think historians believe the Dark Ages were Happy Fun Times because they prefer not to use the term you're mistaken. It's not really possible to be informed about the Early Middle Ages, and the Migration Period in particular, and think "Hey, that was the shining light of civilization."

Fair enough. The are more descriptive names for the era than "Dark Ages" just so long as we aren't revising away how much of a setback those times were to the peace, prosperity, and knowledge base of western society.

[Sheb]

Yeah, it seems like you're strawmanning the whole of Academia here. Every historian I've heard is less "The Dark Ages were actually cool" than "It wasn't as bad as they used to say in the 19th century."

[Scoops Novel]

Anyone hear about this? No?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W5J25MvSp0&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ&index=9

"Israel Admits Forcing Birth Control on Ethiopians ".
Edit: additional source. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gave-birth-control-to-ethiopian-jews-without-their-consent-8468800.html
I wasn't surprised and i didn't think it would make much difference. That is what we've come too. Fuck me, and Fuck This.