Dark Age

[Caid Ivik]

What is a dark age, so commonly used, but unclear (I would germanize, vielumfassend) word? Does it refer to a historical era, or actually a social state? I thought shortly about it, making few usual viewpoints, we can say memes by one of the definition.

Historically it is usually referred to era of so-called barbarian states in Europe, from fall of roman crown in 476 to restoration in 800. This fact ignores culture of Byzantium, not saying about oriental empires like ie muslim Kalifat or Asuka civilization in Japan.

Socially it's taken as era of social permission for brutality, solving everything by war and other forms of violence, as well as lack of culture. This is how it was defined by neo-romanic (cca 800-1100) renaissance (1400-1600) and illuminated era (18th century), however, seeing brutalities in WW2 or now in many african countries, as well as cultural passivity of high number of population even in civilized countries, whole history is a dark age.

Technologically it's an era before some specific invention. Mostly electricity or high speed information share systems (telegraphs, telephones, broadcast, especially internet). Without electricity, population can be on a high technological level using other chemical or mechanical marvels, ideas are everywhere. See ie Archimedes, Paracelsus or Regiomontanus. We are on the brink of cyberpunk era, synthesis of human and machine, what will be another informatic breaktrough. However, there were many communicative forms even before, various messengers were everywhere. You say - but everybody interpreted the info as he wanted to. Today it isn't done?  ;D

Philosophically it's most diverse. Before Sokrates it was pre-sokratic, before Descartes pre-cartesian and now we live after pre-Wittgenstein era, or using terms of Hesse's Glasperlenspiel, a "feuielletonic", or memetic era. Let's take current definition. Before people like Wittgenstein, Popper or Eco started to focus philosophy on describing the main meaning of words before they are used, as well as searching for an universal language, communication easily ended up in misunderstanding and argument. Words (like "dark age") were mere carriers of views of some people, cybernetically is such word defined as "mem", neural impulse. Word itself (an sich) had no meaning, like in medieval nominalist theory, only waste which resembles it. Typical such memes are nowadays for example "terrorism", "pop-culture" or "bureaucracy". And I think "dark age" belongs here as well.

[nemafakei]

Historically, socially, technologically, and, I suppose, philosophically, the period between the invasion of Greece by the (brutal and illiterate) Dorians and the emergence of the Iliad are also known as the dark ages.

[Egeides]

Actually, the latest views and research agree on saying that the Dark Age was not so dark (in the sense that it is a view of the Renaissance) and that the fact was truly gradual. So even if it had some dark aspects, it always had light here and there, and no one suddenly turned the light on when it was the time for what would LATER be coined by the term "Renaissance" (in the mid-19th century by the Romantic French Jules Michelet, though I could easily be wrong).

It is this Renaissance period though (whenever it "starts") that sprang up to rational thinking and technology (including bad effects).

For a source about Jules Michelet, Master Google gave http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/Jules_Michelet.html

[alchemi2]

imo a dark age is the lose of technologies within a civilisation due to either a natural disaster or conquest, it can be localised or global.

Britian after the end of the roman occupation for instance.