The Z-man doesn't get the
etymological origin of the term "Dark Ages" quite right, but he
raises a good question about whether the West has already entered
another one:
That’s a good point to wonder if the West has not already entered a new
dark age, in which superstition rules over rationality. The concept of the
microaggression is something superstitious people living in a dark age would
have understood. After all, a microaggression is the idea that certain words and
phrases, incantations, will cause a miasma to develop around the people saying
and hearing the words. This miasma or evil spirit will cause those exposed to
react involuntarily and uncontrollably.
In fact, everything about political correctness and multiculturalism relies on oogily-boogily that people in the dark age of Europe would have found ridiculous. The people of Europe in the middle ages may not have had a sophisticated understanding of the natural world, but they did not think the dirt had magical qualities. Magic Dirt Theory would have struck them as laughably ridiculous. They may not have understood cognitive science, but they knew the apple does not fall far from the tree.
In fact, everything about political correctness and multiculturalism relies on oogily-boogily that people in the dark age of Europe would have found ridiculous. The people of Europe in the middle ages may not have had a sophisticated understanding of the natural world, but they did not think the dirt had magical qualities. Magic Dirt Theory would have struck them as laughably ridiculous. They may not have understood cognitive science, but they knew the apple does not fall far from the tree.
As I explained in TIA, Petrarch's term
was the reversal of an earlier Christian perspective of the time before the
coming of the Light of the World by an embittered Italian patriot looking at
the ruins of the Roman Empire and despairing of the relatively barbaric German
domination of his time.
Which is hauntingly similar to the situation which the people of the West may soon be facing. That is why it is so important to preserve knowledge now. Barbarians have never cared about building or minded living amidst filth, which is why we are already at the point where the fate of our indoor plumbing is in doubt.
It's not enough to know about things. It's not even enough to know how to maintain them. It is vital to learn how to design, develop, and build things if civilized society is to be preserved. We're already bringing back the Junior Classics, but perhaps we also need to create a new series, Core Civilization, comprised of books that teach the core basics of everything from architecture to gardening and water engineering. Because it's clearly time to begin thinking about these things.
Which is hauntingly similar to the situation which the people of the West may soon be facing. That is why it is so important to preserve knowledge now. Barbarians have never cared about building or minded living amidst filth, which is why we are already at the point where the fate of our indoor plumbing is in doubt.
It's not enough to know about things. It's not even enough to know how to maintain them. It is vital to learn how to design, develop, and build things if civilized society is to be preserved. We're already bringing back the Junior Classics, but perhaps we also need to create a new series, Core Civilization, comprised of books that teach the core basics of everything from architecture to gardening and water engineering. Because it's clearly time to begin thinking about these things.
I started to think about those people living in the Roman Empire wondering
why the water no longer comes from the big stone thingy anymore. Some may have
remembered their ancestors working on them for some reason, but they no longer
recall why. The people who knew how and why those aqueducts worked were long
gone. No one was around who could figure out how to make them work again,
because they lacked the capacity to do it.
