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Are we headed towards a new dark ages?
- Thread starter slobake
- Start date
You're very adamant about that.I'm actually not Adam Ant
I see you sipping wine with a beautiful Italian woman in a sunny Tuscan villa as you pour over your textbooks. Your Vespa is parked right outside.
Some parallels which come to mind:
- fall of the Roman Empire/fall of the American Empire
- the use of bread and circuses
- increasing mysticism/superstition in some groups
- increasing disparity between rich and poor
Any more?
On a side note, I hope that hrodbert696 was not trying to make an argument for moral relativism. Even if genocide is seen as reasonable within a certain group, that does not somehow morally justify it.
- fall of the Roman Empire/fall of the American Empire
- the use of bread and circuses
- increasing mysticism/superstition in some groups
- increasing disparity between rich and poor
Any more?
On a side note, I hope that hrodbert696 was not trying to make an argument for moral relativism. Even if genocide is seen as reasonable within a certain group, that does not somehow morally justify it.
I've actually been called a moral relativist before, which is not accurate. Women and minorities being oppressed is bad, whether it's in America or the Middle East. However, I never subscribed to the idea that something is inherently good or bad because it's self-evident. Stating that something is immoral, moral, just, or unjust requires a supporting argument as to why.
What is your supporting argument that oppressing women and minorities is bad?
I agree with you that it is bad but I want to see what your supporting argument would look like.
Actually, no, I believe in moral absolutes. However, I also believe that legitimate historical inquiry requires the suspension of moral judgment until analysis has been completed, and that any judgments also must be provisional, considering that future analysis may bring fresh insights to people's circumstances and motivations. Moral principles may be absolute, but how they apply under specific circumstances may be complex and ambiguous. It is all too easy to rush to judgment on someone in history, and that judgment then shapes the rest of our thought about them and their society. That in turn means we wind up failing to understand what was really going on - and so invalidates the hasty judgment we passed in the first place.
There are evil people in history. There are evil people in society today. There are also systemic evils that societies have approved and institutionalized. It's rather chilling to look at photographs of lynchings from the turn of the century and see the smiling white people having a picnic under the tortured body of a black victim. It's disturbing to think of elegant Roman senators laughing to watch slave gladiators butcher each other and cheer for more blood. But if you just say, "They did those things because they were bad people," or "because they were sociopaths," that shunts you away from serious analysis of why they could believe it was a good thing. There were assumptions at work, there were principles, there was a kind of reasoning, there was a social context, within which those evils made sense.
If you set aside the judgment and actually make the effort to get inside their heads, to uncover those assumptions and reasonings and contexts, to grant them every benefit of the doubt up to the point that you cannot grant it any more, then the evil begins to make sense. It doesn't stop being evil, but you can attain a deeper grasp of where it comes from and how it takes hold. And very often, perhaps most disturbing of all, you find that those lynch-party picnickers and gladiator-game fans were not so very different from yourself. And THAT realization is probably the most precious gift the study of history can give us.
yes, I would like to hear that one, hold on.... give me a couple minutes to go make some popcorn
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
Absolutely! And, the ordinary people who go along with all kinds of evils throughout human history are not all that different from most of us. We are social animals. Not really herd animals, but we certainly, as a species, are prone to accepting prevailing thought and group-think. When a charismatic person gets on a roll, that part of human nature means sane, normal, ordinary people will follow down a path toward great evil. It doesn't even need to be a charismatic person. It can be established social norms. It doesn't occur to the people involved that there's another way to approach the world.
There are probably things we do now that will be considered horrific by future societies. I don't know what those might be, but human moral progress is an evolution, so those of us who are alive now wouldn't necessarily think about it very much.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
This is going to sound like I'm a doomsday prophet but I do believe that if we go to "total war" or creep much closer to it with certain forces in the world; yes we will inevitably lose quite a bit of ground with technology, the ecology etc., and society at large will suffer greatly. I feel the very existence of the human species is in peril and the next 50 years or so will probably tell the tale. There is something happening now that could be described as creeping viruses, and this is happening on a world wide grand scale. I don't want to get too specific because of the rules here but I think you guys know what I mean. If you care for clarification feel free to email me. (If that too is against the rules then nevermind!)
Lemme see here. Push up bras and plastic surgery, bearded rednecks on reality shows, dorky arrogant pop singers and .... I confess I don't know who that last person is.
Yes, unfortunately that is probably only one branch of a rather large tree. I'm seriously having trouble trying to understand it in a way that isn't terribly upsetting.
I read an article in Forbes a couple years back about the fall of the American Empire. Enlightening stuff when you see the actual numbers.
The frequent chatter about the inevitable decline of the United States has become almost an unchallenged shibboleth...
As the old political saying goes, you can't beat someone with no one. And, right now, there is no one on the horizon that will overtake or even seriously challenge the United States, however ailing, for at least the next decade or two.
As the old political saying goes, you can't beat someone with no one. And, right now, there is no one on the horizon that will overtake or even seriously challenge the United States, however ailing, for at least the next decade or two.
Invalid Link Removed
Thanks for posting that, interesting read.
I don't buy the "fall of the US" idea. Some of the threats being discussed in this thread are not massive threats that have the potential to initiate any sort of Dark Age. There is no "history" with which to judge our current circumstances; nothing like the US and the global societal situation ever existed before. Everything is fine, it's getting better all the time, everything's gonna be all right.
Sure bad things happen. But we're much more prepared and equipped to deal with them now than ever before, and we've made it this far so I suspect we shall continue on...
C'mon now, let's be optimists not pessimists.
Maybe we're headed towards a Max Max/Elysium type of Dark Ages. There are modern machines and computers but there is going to be a darkness of sorts with the existence of modern technology.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
If we are heading for a Mad Max world, I'm ready. I already have the ratty flat black motorcycle that is loud, fast, and goes just about anywhere. Only problem is that it doesn't run right about now.
