Comment on we are creators
neuromorph@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The chariot lasting as high tech for 3800 years has some part to do with the dark ages…
Most modern historians consider “The Dark Ages” to be a myth.
Even if that weren’t the case you are talking about 500 years out of nearly 4 centuries.
This is also an extremely ‘Western’ centered POV. While Europe was in the “Early Middle Ages”, cultures around the world were thriving. The ‘Byzantine Empire’, The Tang dynasty in China, The Maya Civilization etc. Innovation happened all over the world, not just in Western Europe.
also i consider the dark ages were as important for european development, as you leave a good wine in the cellar or a dough in the fridge for a long time for it to mature and develop a special flavor.
Chariots wasn’t really high tech unless for a relatively brief period of time a couple of millenia ago. They are not very suitable for combat. They can be fast though.
Chariots were an extremely effective weapon, they lasted so long for a reason?
Gladaed@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
The dark ages weren’t dark. Humanity didn’t just stop for 1000 years, you know?
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Western history classes gracefully ignore things like the chinese empires, the golden ages in the arabic world (which oh so happened to be to be during the “dark ages” of Europe and saw science flourish there) and anything that happened on the american continent prior to colonialization (not like we know too much about it given the colonizers’ rampages and targeted cultural destruction). Let alone African history, Indian, South-East Asia, Australia…
Same of course with religions. But watching that Martin Luther movie three times was definitely important I guess, cause it “changed the whole (!) world”. I fucking hate all of this bullshit.
Sorry for the rant.
bob_lemon@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Even within Europe, there was significant scientific progress during said dark ages. It’s extremely obvious by just looking at a 9th century building to those from the 14th century (especially churches). The latter require profund knowledge of mathematics/civil engineering. We went from tiny windows in 2m thick brick walls to vast, airy Gothic cathedrals (although those did take a couple of centuries to actually finish).
Although to be fair, that knowledge did largely come to Europe from the scholars of the Arabic world.
Saleh@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
To add to it. A lot of the European antique that the West loves to pride itself in, such as the work of Roman and Greek philosophers and scientists were only preserved by the Muslims in the Middle East and subsequently rediscovered from Arabic and Persian works. So a lot of European culture and history was preserved by outsiders as the white barbarians couldn’t hack it. Unlike the imperial museums in the UK, France, Germany or other countries, that preservation was achieved largely without pillaging.
breecher@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
The amount of antique Hellenistic texts rediscovered from Arab and Persian texts is neglible, compared to the texts which were preserved in other ways.
Your rant about museums is completely unrelated to that particular subject as well.
BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Only thing I, as a European, know about MLK is that “I have a dream” speech and that he has something to do with rights for black people in America. My memory stops there.
Funny enough, in Catholic religion class I learned more interesting things about history than in history class itself. My teacher made sure we knew about other religions, how all of them are connected, how they developed, what some did while others went crusading, etc. Best teacher I’ve ever had.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I asked my teacher why we were so christianity-centric in the class, we literally never talked about things like Shintoism, Islam and more. She then loudly proclaimed to the class that I “wanted to have an extra (!) block about FOREIGN religions” (of course causing 90% of the class to scream at me - bullying was rampant there anyway). She then smiled at me in the most fucking dense way possible to basically say “see, nobody wants that” and from then on ignored all my protests and just left, ignorantly smiling like the idiot she was.
We proceeded to not learn anything about them, therefore the only influence we had (since it was the countryside) were the news talking about islamic terrorists.
Also same about MLK of course. He existed and he had a dream, end of history.
Wolf@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
Unless this is a joke and I’m just being dense, I believe Natanox was talking about Martin Luther, and not Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (MLK).
Gladaed@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Dark ages didn’t happen is the issue with your point. There were many new technologies developed and progress being made.