/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17068078]

History books generally view the medieval period as a dark age with no progress in philosophy, arts, science, or culture.

Now apparently historians think there was no dark age, and that the medieval period was the same as any other period in terms of progress.

Yet I've read a couple of modern books and I have yet to see evidence of this. Most historians seem to accept the damage Christianity did.

Is dark age revisionism just reddit revisionism? Are there any books
that show otherwise?

[Anonymous No.17068173]

Oof that's a very eurocentric graph yikes

[Anonymous No.17068181]

[Anonymous No.17068188]

Ignoring the graph, the civilizational decline in the early middle ages was due to the collapse of the empire, not the rise of Christianity. On the contrary, the monasteries were critical to rebuilding the West.

[Anonymous No.17068195]

>>17068181
>No hyperborean golden age
Trash

[Anonymous No.17068206]

How tf do you even quantify % of science, this graph is fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.17068220]

>>17068188
Very much this. There are many cultures where, having been wiped out, were never replaced and spent millenia back in a stone age, attainment completely forgotten. Sometimes the areas were never to rebuild.

[Anonymous No.17068238]

[Anonymous No.17068254]

>>17068206
Maybe you base yourself on the amount of output of books and manuscripts
Nigger

[Anonymous No.17068255]

[Anonymous No.17068269]

>>17068078
The middle ages laid a lot of the groundwork for the rennaissance. There were advances in farming that mostly get ignored because they aren't exciting. Eyeglasses also originated in the middle ages.

[Anonymous No.17068283]

>>17068078
>no definition of progress/scientific advance
>no mention of the founding of universities all across europe 1100-1400
>ignores scientific discoveries made in africa/the arab world
>historicised view of the middle ages that admits authors, artists and scientists saw themselves as revolutionnairies when really they didn't

0/10

[Anonymous No.17068290]

>>17068269
Not to mention the advances in architecture and engeneering.

[Anonymous No.17068298]

>>17068078
>roman head over heel over greeks
Oh no no no https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

[Anonymous No.17068305]

>>17068078
i wonder how old this picture is. has to be 10 years or more. funniest thing is that it doesn't even out at the middle ages, it just drops like "science" went back 2000 years in time

[Anonymous No.17068330]

>>17068173
based

[Anonymous No.17068338]

>>17068206
Redditor spotted.
Who do you think developed science more in the 18th century, Europeans or Australian Aboriginals?

[Anonymous No.17068340]

>>17068078
>Most historians seem to accept the damage Christianity did.

What? If you didn't have based fat monks copying lost knowledge, translating and doing the thinking for barbaric European tribes, you'd probably still live in a hut. Christianity preserved what was good in the failed Roman Empire.

It would be a bit like the West collapsing right now and being overrun by armed antifa trannies proclaiming autonomous zones, after 500 years these trannies would be civilized by Catholic monks who kept the records of Western civilization.

[Anonymous No.17068346]

>>17068330
literally made for BBC

[Anonymous No.17068347]

>>17068298
I was wondering how long it would take before some moron posted a single example to somehow prove a point. Good job, retarded phone poster.

[Anonymous No.17068348]

>>17068195
That's age of Atlantis. Guenon mentions them on the same page.

[Anonymous No.17068352]

>>17068181
which book should I read that argues something like this. give me your best schizo shit

[Anonymous No.17068359]

>>17068348
Ah no problem then

[Anonymous No.17068367]

>>17068078
The whole dark ages thing was just protestant enlightenment propaganda.

>Science historian David C. Lindberg criticised the public use of 'dark ages' to describe the entire Middle Ages as "a time of ignorance, barbarism and superstition" for which "blame is most often laid at the feet of the Christian church, which is alleged to have placed religious authority over personal experience and rational activity".[52]

> Historian of science Edward Grant writes that "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the Age of Reason, they were made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities"

>.[53] Furthermore, Lindberg says that, contrary to common belief, "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led".

>[54] Because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire due to the Migration Period a lot of classical Greek texts were lost there, but part of these texts survived and they were studied widely in the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.

>Around the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the High Middle Ages stronger monarchies emerged; borders were restored after the invasions of Vikings and Magyars; technological developments and agricultural innovations were made which increased the food supply and population. And the rejuvenation of science and scholarship in the West was due in large part to the new availability of Latin translations of Aristotle.

[Anonymous No.17068418]

>>17068078
>no progress in the arts
??

[Anonymous No.17068423]

dance monkeys dance

[Anonymous No.17068478]

>>17068181
Death to the eternal K*rean. Finns dindu nuffin and were good boys

[Anonymous No.17068493]

>>17068367
>David C. Lindberg
>Lindberg
>berg

[Anonymous No.17068598]

>>17068493
>berg
>Berg
>mountain in German
I see

[Anonymous No.17068613]

>>17068078
I'd rather be a peasant in that "dip" than anything else in one of the periods

[Anonymous No.17068647]

>>17068181
The rise of PIE was more of a very wide-reaching revolution than an actual "hyper-war"

[Anonymous No.17068689]

>>17068348
>>17068359
>Guenon mentions them on the same page.
He says that Atlantis was a colony of Hyperborea that existed in the Silver Age.

[Anonymous No.17068696]

>>17068689
What book out of curiosity?

[Anonymous No.17068702]

>>17068352
I've got you anon

The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21796/21796-h/21796-h.htm

Fingerprints of the Gods
http://megpugh.com/files/Graham_Hancock_FINGERPRINTS_OF_THE_GODS.pdf
Magicians of the Gods is on the usual dld sites

The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life

The Adam and Eve story, hosted for some reason by the CIA lol, who have also redacted sections of it for reasons unknown
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79B00752A000300070001-8.pdf

Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt

and of course the Herodotus and Pindar references to Hyperborea, and Plato's account of Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias, which he got from the Egyptians

im forgetting stuff, will post if I remember

[Anonymous No.17068715]

>>17068702
The Arctic Home in the Vedas
http://vedic-nation.com/media/research_activities/9_arctic_home_in_the_vedas.pdf

[Anonymous No.17069010]

>>17068347
I can post way more, romans incrementally developed engineering but their maths weren't as developed as the Greeks. Their logics weren't that good either, it was imported from Greece if they had any.

No this is me >>17068255

[Anonymous No.17069270]

>>17068696
I'm not sure and too lazy to look it up but Evola definitely mentions it in Revolt Against the Modern World.

[Anonymous No.17069296]

>>17068078
>Most historians seem to accept the damage Christianity did.
hello r*ddit

[Anonymous No.17069400]

>>17068078
You can prove there were no Dark Ages when you realize that technologically Western Europe was literally on par with Eastern Europe and the Middle East and the rest of the world the whole time. Now of course they didn't have gunpowder and what not, so I understand that. And of course they didn't have a lot of old classics translated and of course they had a pretty shitty idea of how to even do science, they avoided carrying out experiments and observation practically on purpose. But they barely regressed technologically or scientifically. The 'Dark Ages' were more like a very big slowing down of progress. And even though there was progress in other parts of the worlds, a lot of that was basically in glorified nerd clubs. It wasn't really leaving those areas. The Chinese were making rockets for fun and the Islamic scholars lived in a university in Baghdad and when they got wiped out by Mongols their whole society was fucked because it was that much centered on a specific pocket location of the civilization. The Europeans began building universities before and better than anyone else while the Middle Ages were still going on, in the 11th century forward. If anything, that's what's most responsible for stirring in the Europeans an eventual interest in the knowledge possessed by the Muslims and the Greeks. That's why Aquinas was reading Averroes and via Averroes, Aristotle, in the 1200s. European university culture is responsible for taking Europe out of its mediocrity and forward. And that was decidedly engineered by Europeans, actually sponsored by the state and beloved and so forth. Those despotist empires of the East were so authoritarian and volatile that despite geniuses existing in them, their fates would often amount to little, except insofar as their knowledge was actually taken seriously by Europeans who gradually surpassed them. The Medieval Christian spirit was directly responsible for the start of universities. You should blame feudalism for the dark ages more than either Christianity or the Germanic barbarians. Feudalism was already beginning in Rome, this whole idea of people up top giving graces to their best men in the form of land grants and expectation that they would return the favor with service. That, more than anything, is what led to Europe's intellectual decline, but it ironically led to its gradual rise, because the decentralization of Europe in the long run made it better than the volatile-but-somehow-also-static despotic regimes of the East.

[Anonymous No.17069413]

>>17068173
Flat lines aren’t very interesting to graph

[Anonymous No.17069439]

>>17069296
You realise that "the dark age was fake" is THE reddit narrative?

[Anonymous No.17069450]

>>17069400

[Anonymous No.17069465]

>>17068078
What is deal with demonizing medieval time even though so many arts and science came from that time ?

[Anonymous No.17069506]

>>17069439
Not for any substantial reason. It's just a quirk they choose to be extreme about. If it aligns with them at all it's to heighten science's relation with history.

[Anonymous No.17069517]

>>17069465
Umm let's see
>thousands of texts were destroyed because church didn't like them
>thousands of people murdered by church because their ideas went against religion
>tons of research in science and philosophy stifled because it didn't fit into Christian theology

>>17069506
Reddit loves it because it's a classic "well, akshually..." type of thing they get to say and feel smug about

[Anonymous No.17069554]

>>17069465

[Anonymous No.17069574]

>>17068078
Oh dear OP, how can you be so blind? There was nothing wrong with the dark ages.

[Anonymous No.17069583]

>>17069574

[Anonymous No.17069594]

>>17068078
>Most historians seem to accept the damage Christianity did.
Well they wouldn't be very good historians if they only accepted one side of the coin. But the damage of the Dark Ages is usually greatly overestimated by laymen. Historians called it 'dark' because we have fewer records, but the culture and thought of the era wasn't really suppressed. They established universities. They established parliaments afaik. It was alright.

[Anonymous No.17069607]

>>17069517
>Um let's see
>>> [list of things that went on for 3 thousand years]
> Yes, quite the case that it's Christianity up to some vile shit

[Anonymous No.17069670]

medieval literature was garbage. they contributed very little of note to art compared to renaissance and antiquity.

[Anonymous No.17069694]

>>17068078
The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler

[Anonymous No.17069742]

>>17069594
So why did so many Enlightenment thinkers view the period so badly?

[Anonymous No.17069790]

>>17069742
Because it provided a narrative that confirmed their identity, a story about redemption, rejuvenation, and so forth. It's not completely incorrect, but very overemphasized, more so by pseuds.

[Anonymous No.17069805]

>>17069742
Propaganda and fight for power

[Anonymous No.17069830]

>>17068078
>progress
meaningless words

[Anonymous No.17069833]

>>17069517
I'm gona need a souce for that. You are straight up wrong.

[Anonymous No.17069914]

>>17069450
Not the guy you’re replying to but
>the absolute state of /lit/
You stupid nigger, if you don’t like reading then why do you come here?

[Anonymous No.17069955]

>>17068078
>Now apparently historians think there was no dark age
The Dark Age has never referred to intellectual decline. It is called the Dark Age because we don’t know a lot about what happened during that period since there are a scant amount of primary sources.

[Anonymous No.17070013]

>>17069574
Based

[Anonymous No.17070018]

>>17069955
You can keep saying that, but it's wrong. It was called the dark age because enlightenment writers saw it as a bad period in human history

[Anonymous No.17070024]

>>17069914
>>17069400
Okay I read it. So what. We're not talking about the rest of the world. We're talking about European history.

[Anonymous No.17070055]

>>17069450
Fucking idiot

>>17069914
^^

[Anonymous No.17070121]

>>17068188
Didnt the dark ages also emerge because of islamic imperialism destryoing the trades routes in and out of europe making people poor as shit?

[Anonymous No.17070134]

>>17070121
No, the war w the middle east came about later nearer to the end of the middle ages. A lot of refugees from Rome went to Syria

[Anonymous No.17070145]

>>17070134
I am not talking about the crusades. It took them 400 years to react to all the slavery around the mediteranian making europe poor.

[Anonymous No.17070289]

>>17070145
I'm sure they did something but it had to do with invasions from visigoths and vandals a few centuries prior. Even the standstill between the remnants of Rome during Boethius time was a century prior.

[Anonymous No.17070388]

>>17068338
>Redditor spotted.
This graph is reddit embodied, the fuck are you smoking.

[Anonymous No.17070408]

>if it weren't for religion stultifying us, imagine how much of our empty, pointless universe we could've explored (before we all die and fade into nothingness)

[Anonymous No.17070414]

>>17070018
then why does the dark age only refer to period between the fall of Rome and Charlemange? Wouldn't the Enlightenment thinker has have called all of the Middle Ages the Dark Age instead of just that one specific part of it?

[Anonymous No.17070471]

>>17068254
retard

[Anonymous No.17071236]

>>17068078
>All the butthurt Christians in this thread confronted with the damage their religion has done to human progress
Also, labeling everything you don't like as "reddit" is the most pathetic form of cope

[Anonymous No.17071255]

>>17070408
Playing make-believe doesn't change the fact that you will die and fade into nothingness. Try living with some dignity and make the most of the little time you have to exist.

[Anonymous No.17071806]

>>17069790
>Because it provided a narrative that confirmed their identity
Which narrative?

>>17069805
>Propaganda and fight for power
Which propaganda? How would it help the fight for power?

[Anonymous No.17071819]

>>17070408
everytime

>>17071255
>noo, everything's pointless but nonetheless behave as i say!!
every fucking time
will you fags ever learn?

[Anonymous No.17072002]

>>17071819
>*SNIFF* "Dignity isn't my thing"
Fair enough, you've made your point

[Anonymous No.17072138]

>>17072002
keep being an idiot, fag

[Anonymous No.17072296]

>>17068078
Architecture and agriculture were especially developed during the middle ages.

[Anonymous No.17072309]

>>17069517
Lmao that stuff is just flat out wrong and Christianity was actually unique in that it did not do those things.

[Anonymous No.17072334]

>>17068078
The "Dark Ages" were due to the Roman Empire collapsing and not Christianity. If it weren't for monasteries a lot more knowledge would be lost.