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Dark Ages and Intellectual Tragedies
Tam
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
We all know of momentous times in history when the brilliance of the human mind lights the path forward and the eras in history when reason, logic, and the pursuit of knowledge hold a central place in society. During the time of the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Chinese (just to name a few) to the Renaissance, the European Enlightenment and the modern era of Big Science, we've taken great leaps forward in understanding ourselves, each other, and the Universe around us.
But what about the other pole? What about the events when brilliant light of human intellect is snuffed out and the juggernaut of progress slows to a pathetic crawl or stops altogether? Such dark ages are equally a part of our history.
So, D&D, which intellectual tragedies and dark ages interest you the most; which ones do you want to discuss?
For starters:
The burning of the Library at Alexandria is a tragedy that interests me quite a lot. Here was a place that held close to a million scrolls and documents- the largest library in the ancient world. It held the research of great many of the brilliant minds of the time (Archimedes, Heron, Aristotle, Sophocles, Aristarchus, etc.) and was one of the first institutions to conduct research and teach students based on the scientific method.
It isn't entirely clear when exactly the Library was burned down or even if was only once, but Wikipedia narrows it to these events:
1. Julius Caesar's Fire in The Alexandrian War, in 48 BC
2. The attack of Aurelian in the Third century AD;
3. The decree of Theophilus in 391 AD;
4. The Muslim conquest in 642 AD or thereafter
Whenever it happened, the burning of the Library at Alexandria was an immeasurable intellectual loss- it was unique in its time as a totally dedicated scientific institution and for centuries thereafter.
But what about the other pole? What about the events when brilliant light of human intellect is snuffed out and the juggernaut of progress slows to a pathetic crawl or stops altogether? Such dark ages are equally a part of our history.
So, D&D, which intellectual tragedies and dark ages interest you the most; which ones do you want to discuss?
For starters:
The burning of the Library at Alexandria is a tragedy that interests me quite a lot. Here was a place that held close to a million scrolls and documents- the largest library in the ancient world. It held the research of great many of the brilliant minds of the time (Archimedes, Heron, Aristotle, Sophocles, Aristarchus, etc.) and was one of the first institutions to conduct research and teach students based on the scientific method.
It isn't entirely clear when exactly the Library was burned down or even if was only once, but Wikipedia narrows it to these events:
1. Julius Caesar's Fire in The Alexandrian War, in 48 BC
2. The attack of Aurelian in the Third century AD;
3. The decree of Theophilus in 391 AD;
4. The Muslim conquest in 642 AD or thereafter
Whenever it happened, the burning of the Library at Alexandria was an immeasurable intellectual loss- it was unique in its time as a totally dedicated scientific institution and for centuries thereafter.
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You do realize that the Dark Ages aren't called "The Dark Ages" because they were any more anti-intellectual than any other period in history, but because few written records survived, right? In other words, they're only Dark to us.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the other problem is that a 'dark age' is different for different parts of the world, and can even be thought to be different for different parts of western Europe, the area usually associated with this. I mean, the term was mostly used by the Victorians anyway, 'cos it fit into their whole dynamic of 'rise and fall'. I'm not a late antiquity specialist, so I'm finding this a little difficult to explain with any modicum of sense. Sorry.
But to call it the 'Dark Ages' is to ignore the golden age of the Middle East, China, and hell even the Mayans.
So you know, fuck that.
Except, that to a large extent it didn't. It's complicated, but to a large extent arises from past beliefs that Roman culture, specifically Augustan-Roman culture was the pinnacle of achievement up till the point that particular author is writing (so, for Petrarch, the 14th century, for Gibbon, the 19th century, etc.), and most subsequent popular-culture views have been coloured and influenced by this. Yes, there was a move away from certain aspects of the Roman empire, but not necessarily a decline. One way you could think about it (maybe) is the emergence of the American 'voice' post throwing a load of tea into some water...not the greatest analogy, but the best I can come up with before 9am. For example, in 6th and 7th century Gaul there is still a huge amount of very literate and interesting writing, taking the traditional Latin genres and molding and adapting them for the new circumstances and needs, yet many would place this directly in the middle of the Dark Ages. Again, Terry Jones did an interesting series for the BBC recently called Barbarians, which sought to dispel many of the myths that those not within the Roman Empire did not have an appropiately equal culture or knowledge base.
Yes, in Britain, for example, some knowledge was either lost or just not praticle once there was not so easy a trade route from the heart of the old empire to smelly England, but that doesn't mean that nothing new happened or that culture did not adapt and change.
Again, sorry, not exactly my area and its before 9am. I'll see if I can find some books worth recommending on these subjects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQoLbPudHTE
Though it was kind of new information anyway.
Bad Kitty- thanks, that's pretty informative.
I want to reiterate this, and also, this loss of knowledge and records happened almost everywhere. At one point, China was the most advanced empire on the planet, and much of what they wrote was lost as well.
The Great Leap Forward was such an immense clusterfuck.
Let's order most of the population to produce steel in their backyards! Never mind that they could only produce mostly useless pig iron, let's not bother to tell that to Mao (who knew shit about metallurgy) in case he thinks I'm an intellectual.
And then there were things like the ordered extermination of birds that ate the crops. Yeah, that fucked up the balance of nature majorly. With their natural predators mostly wiped out, locusts ate the crops instead.
And even then, there was still Al-Andalus.
Ha, I never heard about bird killing. Were they using pesticides nationwide?
The Great Sparrow Campaign
The sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols pretty much fucked over Islam for the next thousand years.
But they don't use it to mean that the times themselves sucked, per se. They use it in the context that we don't know much about it.
But even in that context it's rapidly fading and we learn more as more about the period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
The Dark Ages is a term from the 1330s. It's pretty out-dated.
You can change the name if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the combination of the loss of intellectual drive in Rome, the collapse of the Roman empire, and the subsequent collapse of nearly all advance civilization accross europe is a tragedy. They spent nearly a 1000 years trying to scale back up to the heights attained by it.
However with no trade, communication, safety, or serious infrastructure and a religion which was increasingly against science they never could. To maintain that somehow the Roman Empires comparative technological advancement is somehow made up by history is absurd, almost as absurd as it is to try and maintain that the Dark Ages isn't a perfectly acceptable name for a period where there was almost no scientific research carried out in all of central and northern europe. The fall of the Roman Empire, which can indeed be traced back to the emergence of a culture of "science doesn't matter" is without question the greatest disaster of our time. If, and this is far from an impossibility, some bright spark had noticed that you could combine together various inventions they already had to use heat to move water, or pump a bellows then we would have had the industrial revolution in 300 AD.
arrggghhh.
Popular culture version of history once again hits. It's really not as simple as this.
Really? You maintain that significant scientific research was done during the Middle ages do you (to use perhaps a less emotionally charged name)? I'm of course not talking about the middle east here, where work was indeed being done. During that time there was almost total illiteracy, even amongst the upper classes. Nearly all of the people who had free time to use intellectually, were Churchmen, who spent the time copying bibles. There was no safety on the roads, travelling long distances required you to take your life in your hands. Even if someone had produced useful scientific work, it couldn't have been distributed due to the lack of communication.
As opposed to Rome how?
In Rome significant work was always being done on the massive roadbuilding, sanitation, irrigation and other civil engineering projects which the empire undertook at its height. The legions kept the peace, and laws were enforced. Women could own and operate businesses. There was tolerance of other religions. A large network of well constructed highways crossed the empire, facilitating the flow of ideas and people, they even had service stations where you could stop and eat, buy souvenirs and so forth! International trade flourished in the Med where the roman fleet kept pirates at bay. Cartographers, census takers and officials spread accross the empire, all requiring literate underlings to carry out their tasks. There was a relatively advanced system of banking and credit, allowing loans to entrepreneurs etc.
Now, all of these factors were lost at some point in the Roman empire before it collapsed, and the loss of each can be said to contribute to its fall. These factors don't even include the huge amounts of high technology, espescially in the areas of civil engineering, that backed them up. Rome was effectively a modern city, powered by slaves rather than electricity. It had shopping malls, and multistorey buildings, and chariot parks, and so forth.
Rome did indeed go up and down in their persecution of Christians (until they all became christians) however the main issue Romans had with Christians is that that most religions were willing to say "Your religion is fine and all, it's just that our god/faith/magic tree spirit is #1" Christians said that all other religions were heretical and evil, they didn't play well in Romes multicultural society. Thus, since they hated everyone else, and told them they were miserable heretics who would burn in hell, when the Romans needed a scapegoat to amuse the people by being eaten by lions, you could assure yourself that everyone hated those darn Christians
Such as?
There is a reason, I think, why it took the entire period from Rome to the Enlightenment to go from Euclidian geometry and algebra to claculus and then it was developed independantly by two people at more or less the same time. It had a lot to do with the fact that before than theology was the most important intellectual pursuit.
TLDR: The dark ages is a term made up by the dudes in the Renaissance so they could think about how great they were and has no real bearing on history.
Actually refusing to admit the emperor was divine was the Roman version of intolerant. Since all other faiths were OK with it, but just claimed theirs was best, they got on pretty well. Rome was a massive multicultural society. You are applying modern morality to the Roman Empire. The Christians said, "Everyone else is wrong and stupid and will burn in hell", everyone else said "Your Gods are OK, but ours are best". Which of those two statements sounds like the intolerant one designed to piss everyone else off?
The reason Roman Technology was lost is because it relied on a base of educated people, international trade, literacy, education and stability. Not just because the people in the middle ages couldn't do enough looting. Is Road building only practical in large cities? How about plumbing? Couldn't London in 1000 AD have used a few aqueducts? Perhaps some basic sanitation? Maybe some accounting and banking techniques? How about some concrete for bridge building?
You are also being naive. Rome was such a success because they had slaves true, but for much of the Roman period the income of the great Roman cities came from international trade, tourism, taxes and tithes and so forth. The image of just going forth and grabbing their stuff is only relevant to certain emperors, and to the end of the Republican period. Heck, for much of the Roman period you'd have been much better off as a Roman slave than as a serf in France in 900 AD.
Wasn't there equality under the law, freedom of religion, and a merit-based government under the Mongols? Or is this apocrypha I've just heard?
EDIT: Holy crap, I hadn't read about the sacking of Baghdad
Man, I'm learning a lot in this thread. Thanks everybody.:D
The "universities" were by and large based around a curriculum in theology. They were quite good at educating the sons of the wealthy and powerful in church doctrine, and in producing priests and religious scholars, but not so good at creating mathematicians and the other theoretical branches of science that are needed to drive the practical side.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_Medieval_Western_Europe