Are we in the second "Dark age"?

This is a personal choice that you chose to make. No one can force you to follow this nonsense.

Let the word make this choice if it wants.

Nothing says you need to follow it off of the cliff if you don't want to.

What you are describing is simply a way of interpreting what is going on around you. You don't have to buy into this world view.

You could just as easily be focusing on other aspects of reality that are more life giving. You could be focusing on Things that are not so dark and gloomy.

Try it. You might like it.

love and blessings Don

I would agree, but possibly for different reasons, though there is an overlap. There is a new feudalism, certainly, in that rather than relying for security on the State, the poor depend on a rather ruthless but minimally functional system of organised crime, whereas the less materially deprived are tied financially to banks, mortgages and corporate employers, and have little flexibility in the same way as payment in kind on mediaeval estates tied peasants to their lords. Another feature of mediaeval Europe was the prevalence of plagues, and in recent years, new infectious diseases such as AIDS and the various types of hepatitis have emerged, along with the risk of viral haemorrhagic fevers spreading from central Africa over the world.

Then there is the phenomenon of gated communities, which resemble castles.

One of the features of the modern age was, naturally, modernism, which is now seen as superceded. Here is where i disagree with you. I would say that contemporary society is characterised by anti-intellectualism and scepticism about total world views, meaning that New Age beliefs and creationism, along with a rejection of grand theories of society, has led to a situation where the market dominates thinking more than ever before.

What is needed is a willingness to think everything through clearly, recognising the interaction between rationality and emotivism and the creation of a new scheme of metaphysics which will give practical advice as to how to improve the world. Right now, i'm doing this on a small scale through philosophical counselling and home educating my children and others. More than that, i don't know. Maybe there are various small groups here and there which can cooperate on this.

So, i agree with you on some points but not all.

If you think this is a second dark ages, perhaps you should try imagining yourself in one of the prior dark ages (there were several). The most notorious was after the fall of the Western part of the Roman Empire from the 5th century to the 10th century CE. Imagine the road system crumbling, the forests returning and inhabited by outlaws, and people retreating into small enclaves to protect themselves. Imagine never traveling beyond seven miles and not knowing anything about the world beyond. Imagine being illiterate, as your parents were, and your children will probably be. There's nothing to read. Imagine disease and violence and plain hard work that limits you to a life of perhaps 30 years. Imagine having no hope for anything better for your children. Now that's some truly dark stuff!

Compared to that our modern culture is much better off. True, we have our own problems, some of which you allude to. But compared to an ordinary person living in Gaul or Spain or England (or almost anywhere else) around 500 CE, you live healthier, live longer, live freer, live with amazing comforts, enjoy at least a little personal wealth, have astounding access to knowledge which you can read and study, and have real hope despite your problems. And btw, these advantages come as a result of a material appreciation of the world, not in negating the material world! Materialism isn't bad in an of itself; the comparatively better life you have now is a result of materialism!

Don't squander any of this! It is up to us to act with self-discipline so that we make good choices about our material advantages and our material world-view. Science is better than blind faith. Philosophy in an open "market of ideas" is better than superstition. And materialism is better than being physically, medically, and culturally impoverished.

No, I don't think we're in a second dark age.

Polls show that most people believe in an afterlife.

I believe in wealth of character, and there are movements all over the world that aim to live simply, sustainably, and with satisfaction rather than consumption as their goal.

Any argument can be logically valid even if its premises are flawed. For an argument to be sound, it must be both valid and the premises must be true. Still, your own experience is fundamental. Trust that first. Trust your reason second. And only resort to blind belief when you're feeling incredibly lazy and ignorant.

I have a feeling that we will be making great strides in the scientific understanding of ethics in the coming decades. Still, ethics does matter, and I'm actually seeing more emphasis on it rather than less. What I am seeing less of, however, is the religious domination of morality. People are slowly realizing that you don't need religion to be ethical.

Yes and no. We are in an age of materialism, but it is not a dark age. The dark age was when people forgot all the scientific knowledge, we have made and are still making many technological advances. If more people had some moderate form of religion, doesn't matter what, people might become more enlightened while still being able to readily accept science and technology.

The interesting similarity between the Dark Ages and our modern age it that both leave little behind. The Dark Ages weren't dark, the sun shone, people lived, fell in love, had families and died, but they left nothing behind for us to know them by. Our age, with all our digital photos, web sites, etc, will also leave nothing for future ages to know us by, unless they have Mac OS9, which is unlikely. So, yes, we are in a dark age of materialism. As far as reaching a new age of enlightenment; if such a thing is possible then it must've always been possible. Therefore, look for things that have lasted through the ages. For instance, my laptop cost $900 five years ago, and is now virtually worthless. My violin, which is over 100 years old, cost $900 six years ago and is still worth $900. Some things have lasting value and some things have a transient value. Seek out the things with lasting value and build your life around them. Good luck!

If we are talking about a dark age in this sense of intellectualism in social content then I have to say that in my view we are.

Some may talk of infrastructure and services but these are only the life lines of the organism, there may well even be an open source of information, such as the internet. But if this is not used and is confused by disinformation the collective intellect is no more developed than a bowl of spaghetti.

The mass which makes up the majority of human society is living in an intellectual dark age, however this is nothing new!

But whereas in the past this was the result of little choice due to lack of access to information, today a large part of this majority has been keep in the dark as a result of information over load.

The consequence of which is servitude to the corporate machine of materialism, the infrastructure which some think to indicate enlightenment is in fact being used to encourage ignorant acceptance of the status quo.

To give an example we only need think about the inefficiently of transportation of market goods, for the sake of profit margins and cutting of labour cost items are produce on one side of the world only to be sold on the other!

This lacks all true logic and is only justified by the economic model which is in place.

This is a nothing more than false economy which will lead to devastating result in the long term.

The very fact the the mass is unable to grasp the importance of these facts proves my point in stating that we are living in and intellectual dark age.

Past societies have disappeared from the face of the earth or become historical memory due to the incapacity of there leading class and population to face the problem before it was too late.

It is a common fallacy to think of the period after the fall of Roman as the dark age, this in reality is only results of the on set of a dark age which started before the final fall.

As to the evolution of the mind this is of course the key to the solution of the problem, but it must be in the here and now focused on building a better world for those who will come after us.

This will be our afterlife if we don't live well and for the good of others then it follows that the afterlife that we construct now will be no paradise!

One should never believe blindly what one is told, but should open ones mind to the understanding of the complexity around them in order to face the problems with simplicity.

Every person has the responsibility to be responsible for there own true good and that of the collective human society.

Life will suck if you let it, but by making it better it will suck less!

The road to a new age of enlightenment is the opening of minds to the concept of the individual collective, in which each person see that by improving the system as a whole and making life better for humanity they will benefit themselves.

cooperation is more efficient than competition.

We must return to the idea that technology is to serve humanity and not to make humanity it's serves.

FTWR

The enlightenment was the rebirth of science, materialism and reason. If you want another enlightenment like that one, you'll have to accept materialism.

If you are equating theories of the soul with life after death with the enlightenment, you are misguided. these were alive and well during the 'dark ages' and contributed to its darkness in terms of ideas. Like someone above wrote, the dark ages wasn't all that dark; architecture made giant leaps in the early middle ages.

materialism existed since the beginning of time. it is not something newly discovered. live for today and..., life sucks... get over it and the other philosophical saying you had mentioned also existed "forever". nothing new there. evolution of humans in the scientific since had started 3.5 million years ago, so you want to notice a mind blowing/human evolutionary change in 20 something years that you are alive? that is a little unrealistic. in a wide scope view of things, we had never left the dark ages, we are still in them.

Ahh, this question could have come from the very depths of my heart.

All around me I see the great multitudes willingly giving up their freedom as a result of a planted fear of the unknowns.

I see a rejection of intellectualism in favor of mass acceptance. The questioners are considered malcontents and are shunned.

Wealth is horded, poverty is free to all who can not stomach the ruthlessness of business competition. The machinations of "science" have been bought and paid for by men of affairs. All to keep theirs; and us in the dark

Keep the discontentment close to your heart. Learn from it. Be wary. Do not allow it to transform in to a lesser emotive lest it consume you rather, see the world for what it is. Naked in all its ugliness, see the beauty beyond. Nature still sings the songs of life, albeit more wildly, soon to raise to a howl. Know her ways. She will share her knowledge of It, which Created her and you. Know your place in her. She will keep you and yours.

Remember, thirst for knowledge was our downfall, the shattering of innocence. Knowledge will be our salvation, in the Light of Sophia.

Not yet, but the corporate way of "as much as possible for the least cost" is leading us down that path. I'm surprised how many people as disillusioned with the future, and have NO long-term goals. "Why bother?" is the attitude, "there IS NO long term"

All brought to you by greed, mega-corporations, and Bush/Cheney, et el.