YEBIGA,

You're confusing the end of the Western Empire with the end of Greco-Roman civilisation, for centuries after the last Western Emperor, Roman culture continued in the West. You're also constructing a straw man argument, neither I nor Steven Meyer claimed that the early Medieval period was a "Golden Age", simply that the period was not as dark as the name suggests. You should read our earlier posts more carefully and note the references, particularly Joseph Hogarty's "Europe: from its origins" and John J O'Neill's "Holy Warriors" which records the devastating effect the Moslem invasions had on European civilisation, after the so called "Dark Ages".

The decline of the USA is not inevitable, neither was the decline of the Roman Empire, as any reader will realise from a careful reading of Roman history--it all seems inevitable, in hindsight.

Poirot,

Bageant's article is more like a rant than a reasoned political and social analysis. I doubt if the average Australian Commercial TV addict or Murdoch newspaper reader would score any better than the "dumb" Americans depicted in it. Climate change is just too much bother for Australians as well. Seems like a typical liberal democracy.

Steven,

Bageant's article is a superb social analysis because it cuts through the bullsh!t. It ties in nicely with YEBIGA's comment that "In recent times, the USA has shown signs of abandoning its own enlightenment culture. Its own principles and beliefs..... The barbarian tribes are in the empire operating with impunity. The culture is still holding onto a facade."

- and yes, I think you're right regarding your comparison of the American and Australian mainstream public.

Mac said:
You're confusing the end of the Western Empire with the end of Greco-Roman civilisation, for centuries after the last Western Emperor, Roman culture continued in the West.

Yebiga says:
I am sorry but it is a rather curious call to state Roman culture continued in the West after the fall of the Western Empire. Remnants of Roman culture remained as items of fashion but by definition the fall of the empire and its fragmentation into a myriad of barbarian and other local tribes must mean that Roman culture by necessity declined.

It is equally curious to separate the western empire from Greco-Roman civilization. Surely, the western empire is Greco-Roman civilization. It is precisely this disruption of the Greco-Roman civilization which we loosely mark the dark ages.

Finally, to me the dark ages are aptly named because they emotionally mark the will full vandalism caused by christianity to human knowledge, literature, the arts, politics, philosophy, etc. To me the damage is immeasurable. Thus the appellation the dark ages and or christendom are comfortably interchangeable. Whatever name the death of the Western empire is in Western Europe the death of greco-roman culture.

Dear Poirot,

Thank you for giving me an excuse to dip into Joe once more, may he rest in peace. A man who cared deeply about his fellow Americans but far less for what America had become.

Sorry, my last post should have been directed to mac.

YEBIGA,

Your last paragraph puts it particularly well. I'm no scholar of the period, but recently I watched a documentary on Italy and recall the narrator, while telling us of the study of anatomy at Bologna University, that in the dissection room there were small windows built into the walls where members of the Inquisition used to keep an eye on proceedings. They eventually shut it down. But, in defiance, a gifted sculptor made amazingly intricate wax statues of various anatomical systems and the students used them to understand the human body in the absence of the real thing....the wax statues still exist in the dissection room at the university.

My pleasure, csteele : )

Dear mac,

You say; “You should read our earlier posts more carefully and note the references, particularly Joseph Hogarty's "Europe: from its origins" and John J O'Neill's "Holy Warriors" which records the devastating effect the Moslem invasions had on European civilisation”

Well I have gone and googled your Mr O'Neill and as a supposed historian he is a revisionistic, agenda driven, shocker who hangs around sites like Islam Watch and Jihad Watch spouting such nonsense as;

“Just over a decade after the Christian knights of France and Germany had helped their co-religionists in Spain to retake the city of Toledo from the Muslims, some of them prepared to set out on the First (official) Crusade. Before they did so, a few of them took part in the mass murder of several thousand Jews in Germany and Bohemia – an atrocity unprecedented in European history.”

“In view of the fact that these pogroms were committed by warriors some of whom had learned their trade in Spain, and in view of the fact that such atrocities were hitherto unknown in Europe, we may state that there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Christians had been influenced by the Muslims. This is all the more probable in view of Islam’s history of virulent and violent anti-Semitism.”

What tosh.

Plus how many historians do you know want to wipe 300 years off the calender? His reasoning? “The motive then for the insertion of phantom centuries (and phantom characters such as Charlemange) into history, was the revival of the Western Roman Empire.”

WTF?

The guy is a fruit loop my friend.

Do you really endorse this rubbish?