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Apparently it's increasingly a thing in Left Discourse -- I'm not sure whether it's because of the rise of liberalism intersectionality or the revival of Marxism, including New Left Marxism -- to challenge some precepts we used to have on this very board about Dark Ages Europe. Basically:

A) The pre-Byzantine Roman Empire was actually a net loss for humanity due to the destruction it caused in Europe and the cultures it ravaged.
B) The Dark Ages weren't as bad as everyone said, there was still lots of intellectual and cultural progress.

Normally I wouldn't care because that has been reactionary/Christian apologetic orthodoxy ever since I've been on the Internet. But hey, there's been revisionism of lots of things the past few weeks.
https://twitter.com/GoingMedieval/statu ... 9154412545

Is that link not working properly or is it supposed to go to a post about booty shorts?

That's just supposed to be emblematic of the trend I saw. There wasn't a real point being made there.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Apparently it's increasingly a thing in Left Discourse -- I'm not sure whether it's because of the rise of liberalism intersectionality or the revival of Marxism, including New Left Marxism -- to challenge some precepts we used to have on this very board about Dark Ages Europe. Basically:

A) The pre-Byzantine Roman Empire was actually a net loss for humanity due to the destruction it caused in Europe and the cultures it ravaged.
B) The Dark Ages weren't as bad as everyone said, there was still lots of intellectual and cultural progress.

Normally I wouldn't care because that has been reactionary/Christian apologetic orthodoxy ever since I've been on the Internet. But hey, there's been revisionism of lots of things the past few weeks.
https://twitter.com/GoingMedieval/statu ... 9154412545

This is you being behind on the literature.

B) has been in the vogue for a long while now. The Dark Ages were genuinely not that dark once you get out of Western Europe. Literally the entire Eastern Roman Empire still existed, and there was plenty of development in other parts of the world including the Middle East.

Even in Western Europe, you had the Carolignian Empire under Charles the Great in 800, which is within the Dark Ages period. France and Germany were basically under one Emperor.

B) had always instead been pushed by Renaissance writers and the Brits. The former wanted to show off how "modern" they were compared to their predecessors, and Brits genuinely had a bad time during this period with various invaders successfully invading England and creating little kingdoms.

It has nothing to do with Marxism or liberalism. It has everything to do with the dominance of conservative British historical narratives on world history; much of which is frankly fanfiction where they try to apply their own situation / viewpoint to the rest of the world. Just because the Brits were having trouble with Vikings didn't mean it was as bad everywhere else.

A) is a bit more contentious because of the lack of source materials from the "barbarian" side, but not a controversial idea even in Roman times. It was Tacitus - a Roman historian - who popularized the phrase "They make a desert and call it peace".

If historians of that empire and of that time period suggest that their empire might be burning other people to the ground and creating a net loss for humanity, then why should it be controversial today and why should people assume it's a liberal plot?

In any case, the idea that the Roman Empire was some great advancement is in itself also a big pile of bullshit. The Roman Empire was not as stable as usually depicted, and indeed the period of greatest stability was in the immediate aftermath of the Civil Wars which saw Augustus become the First Emperor. Unfortunately most people get the impression that the Roman Empire was very stable (Pax Romana) due to the work of "classical" British historians in the Victorian era who were trying to justify Britain's own dominance.

The key event for Augustus that the Brits keep trying to ignore? The demobilization and down-sizing of the Roman Army. Because of this there were literally not enough soldiers around to start another civil war. When they started militarizing again, you once again saw widespread civil wars like the Year of Seven Emperors nonsense.

The Brits unfortunately like to conveniently forget this because it parallels their own experience. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Brits massively demobilized the entire continent's navies and armies and led to a number of years of peace (albeit there were numerous democratic revolutions attempted on the continent).

However, the Brits started re-militarizing once there was this misbegotten idea that colonies were great and created national prestige, leading to competition between the "Great Powers". The First and Second World Wars were pretty much the end result.

It's not at all a Marxist interpretation of history; albeit I'm sure some Marxist history would highlight these common misconceptions. The French and Japanese for instance are extremely dismissive of many common narratives pushed by the Brits about world history to begin with.

How are the French dismissive of british narratives?

The "Dark Ages" describes a relative lack of records, not a relative lack of progress. This common misunderstanding appears to be at the main issue of this thread.

We don't use the "dark ages" term in French but there's still a tendency to view the whole medieval era as an era of stagnation where you wouldn't want to live.

As for the Roman Empire, the portrayal is a bit ambivalent. It's both seen as a "civilized/advanced culture" and as the bad people who beat the Gauls (French school teaches you about "Our ancestors: the Gauls").

OgreBattle wrote:How are the French dismissive of british narratives?

Because British world history tends to depict the late 1700s and early 1800s as the beginning of British naval dominance, and that the single central defining character of the period is Nelson.

The thing is, Nelson is an admiral who died nearly a whole decade before the Brits "won" the Napoleonic Wars.

Indeed, that there was a whole bunch of wars named after one person (Napoleon) should clue you in as to who the actual most important person of the time period is.

That's why non-English retellings of the period (especially by the French) focus very much on Napoleon and his effect on Europe. It was Napoleon who shaped the legal system of the entire continent (save Britain), and that legal system enshrines the "rights of man" as defined through the French Revolution.

The Brits however keep trying to delete Napoleon from history or pretend he's a proto-Hitler, because they know damn well they were on the wrong side of history in terms of the "rights of man". Europe was actually ablaze with revolutions after Napoleon's downfall, but Britain by and large supported the monarchists and helped suppress them.

That's also why British credentials to fostering democracy have always been nonsense. The "Magna Carta" did not define the rights of the common man, it was an attempt by nobles to counter the central authority of the king. Likewise, the idea that there was "British democracy" in the 19th Century which they spread all over the world was a farce.

It was actually not until 1918 - after literally millions of common British soldiers were killed - that Britain became a "one man, one vote" democracy. Prior to that, the majority of the population (including all the women) couldn't vote because of class-based property voting laws.

Britain in the 19th Century was not a democracy, spreading civilization. It was an oligarchy where the government could easily be bought by private corporations like the East India Company.

The thing is most British universities are still funded by the ones who profited off the empire, hence the consistently delusional depiction of the British Empire's benevolence. Where else can you find supposedly "unbiased" universities maintain statues of Cecil Rhodes - supposed bringer of civilization - who in reality instigated a war in South Africa to steal its gold, implemented the world's first concentration camps, and who maintained white supremacist views and funded them all his life?

Blade wrote:As for the Roman Empire, the portrayal is a bit ambivalent. It's both seen as a "civilized/advanced culture" and as the bad people who beat the Gauls (French school teaches you about "Our ancestors: the Gauls").

Yep. By contrast the British largely attempt to trace their lineage to the Anglo-Saxons, who came after the Romans. This lets the Brits associate themselves more strongly with the Romans, like the idea that King Arthur was really a former Roman commander.

By contrast the Celts - who fought the Romans and were the original inhabitants of the isles - are most associated with the Irish and Scots who were a perennial thorn to British "national unity".

Most historical depictions are in fact carefully curated to support a particular narrative. In the case of history textbooks, this narrative is generally one that pushes "national unity", as very few governments (even ones with "free speech") approve textbooks that question the legitimacy of the said government.

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Shout out to all the folks who have reported this for being political. You are appreciated.

However, and I admit my history teacher bias may be showing here, I'm going to allow it as long as the discussion remains about history from several centuries past.
[/TGFBS]