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> The Wikipedia article doesn't mention Ward-Perkins, a prominent scholar in the camp arguing that the dark ages represented real material decline. The Grokiped

> The Wikipedia article doesn't mention Ward-Perkins, a prominent scholar in the camp arguing that the dark ages represented real material decline. The Grokipedia article cites him extensively. Wikipedia is not supposed to be an academic journal where all sorts of competing views are put forth and debated. I do not go to wikipedia to learn the 15 different alternative theories about [subject], I want to learn what the prevailing scientific consensus is. Will that consensus sometimes be wrong? Undoubtedly. It's nearly guaranteed to happen at some point. That doesn't mean a system that records the current consensus is wrong in any way. This is how the article on Earth handles flat earth/geocentrism: > Scientific investigation has resulted in several culturally transformative shifts in people's view of the planet. Initial belief in a flat Earth was gradually displaced in Ancient Greece by the idea of a spherical Earth, which was attributed to both the philosophers Pythagoras and Parmenides.[288][289] Earth was generally believed to be the center of the universe until the 16th century, when scientists first concluded that it was a moving object, one of the planets of the Solar System.[290] We don't need to repeat 100 of years of arguments and attempts at science that were ultimately incorrect, we can just note that at one point the consensus was different and go on talking about what the current one is. > The difference is interesting because Grokipedia's presentation is much closer to the truth. The dark ages really were in fact dark. In some parts of Europe, literacy itself was almost lost. Trade did collapse. Living standards did fall. We have tons of archaeological and literary evidence attesting to this decline. Tabooing the term "dark ages" does nothing to deepen our understanding. As it happens, The Dark Ages is also one of my Special Interests and the term is reductive to the point of useless. It's a very loaded word that promotes a biased view of history that is, for the most part, meaningfully incorrect. We can measure all sorts of things (with varying degree of accuracies) about "society" and then choose a specific set of "good ones" and "bad ones" but who gets to make those choices? And what specific geographic region are we measuring them? If average literacy goes down in rome but up in paris, what does that prove? Is one darker than the other? The term Dark Ages was invented solely to make the renaissance people feel special. It only exists as a term of disparagement to compare against the supposedly better time period. It's not some kind of objective term that people came up with after studying the times and places involved. Like, as a general thing, it's useful to have words that refer to periods of time that other people understand. Saying "the middle ages" or "the classical age" is pretty vague but at least it more or less communicates something useful to most people. If we really want to call a period of time "the dark ages" and everyone agrees that this is the standard nomenclature, this isn't the worst thing in the world. But "dark ages" is intended to be a very prejudicial term that is way less factual than its name would imply.

quotemstr 1y ago
> As it happens, The Dark Ages is also one of my Special Interests and the term is reductive to the point of useless. It's a very loaded word that promotes a biased view of history that is, for the most part, meaningfully incorrect. Industrial output, long-distance trade, literacy, artistic quality (yes, I know it's subjective. I don't care: if it hadn't collapsed the Grotesque style wouldn't have been a revolution), and tons of other things collapsed. Records became extremely spotty. There's no reliable descent from antiquity for a reason. By the fifth century, what we'd call serfdom was common. People were legally bound to their parent's professions. Free movement was restricted. Spoliation was universal because new high-quality materials couldn't be sourced at any price. Oh, and almost the entire corpus of classical literature was lost. Yes, the dark ages were real, miserable, and significant, and I don't care for the modern revisionism on the subject. You could argue about the speed of the decline and whether it really got going in the third or the fifth centuries, or whether it might have been averted without the Gothic Wars wrecking what was left of already-fragile Mediterranean trade, but that there was a civilizational nadir in western Europe around the end of the first millennium is beyond honest dispute. The perspective you've adopted is exactly the one that needs to respond to intellectual competition, because this nonsense about "oh, there was just a change in civilization style and we don't know which is better so don't judge" is infuriating and gaslights the public.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  > The perspective you've adopted is exactly the one that needs to respond to intellectual competition, because this nonsense about "oh, there was just a change in civilization style and we don't know which is better so don't judge" is infuriating and gaslights the public. I absolutely can and will make moral value judgements about civilizational statuses. Lower literacy rates is bad! Public healthcare is good! The problem is that the world is far more complicated than the term "dark ages" accurately reflects. There sure was a reduction in some types of trade and some literacy rates in some specific areas at some specific times. Constantinople was having a fine old time in 450c.e. for example and their literacy rates hadn't changed meaningfully. > By the fifth century, what we'd call serfdom was common Yes? It was also common in the 4th century, 3rd century, 2nd century, 1st century... you get the idea. I looked up the "bound to parent professions" and the first reference I can find is to emperor Diocletian around 280c.e., I admit I'm not sure if that counts as part of your dark ages. > Oh, and almost the entire corpus of classical literature was lost. The "corpus of literature" was constantly being lost before the invention of the printing press. Look, talking about history (and in general) requires some degree of generalization and vagueness. We literally don't have time to cover every single detail, so we use commonly understood if slightly inaccurate terms like "roman empire" to refer to complicated subjects. "Dark Ages" is similar. It doesn't help that the term "Dark Ages" was invented specifically to make Rome/Greece and the Renaissance ages look better. It's hardly an unbiased term. But the overall point is that if you actually look at history, 900 c.e. is really truly not that much different from 500 c.e. or 1200 c.e.

quotemstr 1y ago

> As it happens, The Dark Ages is also one of my Special Interests and the term is reductive to the point of useless. It's a very loaded word that promotes a biased view of history that is, for the most part, meaningfully incorrect. Industrial output, long-distance trade, literacy, artistic quality (yes, I know it's subjective. I don't care: if it hadn't collapsed the Grotesque style wouldn't have been a revolution), and tons of other things collapsed. Records became extremely spotty. There's no reliable descent from antiquity for a reason. By the fifth century, what we'd call serfdom was common. People were legally bound to their parent's professions. Free movement was restricted. Spoliation was universal because new high-quality materials couldn't be sourced at any price. Oh, and almost the entire corpus of classical literature was lost. Yes, the dark ages were real, miserable, and significant, and I don't care for the modern revisionism on the subject. You could argue about the speed of the decline and whether it really got going in the third or the fifth centuries, or whether it might have been averted without the Gothic Wars wrecking what was left of already-fragile Mediterranean trade, but that there was a civilizational nadir in western Europe around the end of the first millennium is beyond honest dispute. The perspective you've adopted is exactly the one that needs to respond to intellectual competition, because this nonsense about "oh, there was just a change in civilization style and we don't know which is better so don't judge" is infuriating and gaslights the public.

wredcoll 1y ago
> The perspective you've adopted is exactly the one that needs to respond to intellectual competition, because this nonsense about "oh, there was just a change in civilization style and we don't know which is better so don't judge" is infuriating and gaslights the public. I absolutely can and will make moral value judgements about civilizational statuses. Lower literacy rates is bad! Public healthcare is good! The problem is that the world is far more complicated than the term "dark ages" accurately reflects. There sure was a reduction in some types of trade and some literacy rates in some specific areas at some specific times. Constantinople was having a fine old time in 450c.e. for example and their literacy rates hadn't changed meaningfully. > By the fifth century, what we'd call serfdom was common Yes? It was also common in the 4th century, 3rd century, 2nd century, 1st century... you get the idea. I looked up the "bound to parent professions" and the first reference I can find is to emperor Diocletian around 280c.e., I admit I'm not sure if that counts as part of your dark ages. > Oh, and almost the entire corpus of classical literature was lost. The "corpus of literature" was constantly being lost before the invention of the printing press. Look, talking about history (and in general) requires some degree of generalization and vagueness. We literally don't have time to cover every single detail, so we use commonly understood if slightly inaccurate terms like "roman empire" to refer to complicated subjects. "Dark Ages" is similar. It doesn't help that the term "Dark Ages" was invented specifically to make Rome/Greece and the Renaissance ages look better. It's hardly an unbiased term. But the overall point is that if you actually look at history, 900 c.e. is really truly not that much different from 500 c.e. or 1200 c.e.