Who knows when an age darkens?
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
The European Middle Ages, as we look back on them, seem pretty awful. We call them the Dark Ages. They ran from the time Rome fell, in the mid-400s, to the mid-1400s, when printing was invented.
That’s about 1,000 years in which people lived what seems a hard life from our standpoint. But maybe it wasn’t so awful. People put up with the Middle Ages for 1,000 years, so at least some were satisfied. Great buildings were built, in some places the arts flourished. Only a few could read, but only a few needed to.
The invention of printing changed that suddenly. Books became available at a relatively low cost, and people had a reason to learn to read. Navigation techniques improved, and sailors felt confident in going beyond the traditional limits of exploration. New lands were discovered. By 1492, the Western Hemisphere had been trod upon by Europeans who were intent on conquering it for their own.
A new age had begun.
But nobody is likely to have said, “Okay, you guys, the Middle Ages are over and the Modern Age has begun.”
As far as that’s concerned, nobody probably said, “Okay, the Age of Classical Civilization is over and the Middle Ages have begun.”
People in the future make those delineations.
The Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and other civilizations of those times probably would have been surprised to see most of their advancements destroyed or ignored in later centuries, just as Middle Agers would have been amazed by the steam engine, by cars, by computers.
What will future Earthlings think of our time in history 400 years from now? Will they be in another Dark Age, looking back on us with scorn or envy? Will people become illiterate again, as they seem to be doing? Or will ours be considered a Dark Age?
