Dark Ages

I like history. I'm a keen amateur. Unfortunately, because of this interest, I see the world is once again repeating itself and taking several steps backward again.

Every 1500 to 2000 years, or so, the world decides that we have to enter an age of darkness. Civilization builds itself up and then tears itself down again. And it's the same pattern. Disaffection, complacency, degeneracy, terror, wanton killing & destruction, disillusionment, selfishness... All of these factors seem to herald the beginning of a Dark Age. But most telling is mass migration by a violent community.

The last dark age began about 1700 years ago followed by a several hundred years of restructure and rebuilding followed by a thousand odd years of growth. Before that another dark age happened when the Sea People destroyed the bronze age civilizations about 1500/1600 years prior to the era we call The Dark Ages. Only a much reduced Egypt remained. Form that earlier dark age Ancient Greece, Persia and finally Rome emerged and rebuilt civilization. There is evidence for earlier civilizations and it's possible that they suffered a similar fate.

The first (known) dark age began with the mass migration of the Sea People's the later by the Huns, various Goths and their ilk and ended with the Vikings in Northern Europe. All of them came with violence and destruction to gain their ends. Only the strong survive and it is civilization that is the weaker of the opposing forces. All the gains and that civilization has made are destroyed and we start over again, several thousand steps behind where we left off.

So here we are, on the cusp of a new dark age. I'm not happy about this. I'm getting too old to resist it. My soldiering days are done. I feel sad that my own culture will be destroyed and, as history shows, it tends to destroy itself from within first and, so laying the ground for what will finally destroy it.

This has happened in other parts of the world too. Civilizations have grown, prospered, advanced and then died. Something else always replaces it and whether what replaces it is better or worse is up for debate. We, with all of our technology, still can't replicate ancient structures like the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu, etc. So are we more advanced?

Anyhow, I don't believe that this blog post will survive any upheaval as we are destined to go backward once again. So I can't say: "I told you so."