Dark Ages Redux: American Politics and the End of the Enlightenment

[sad sally]

Published on Monday, June 18, 2012 by Common Dreams - by John Atcheson

We are witnessing an epochal shift in our socio-political world. We are de-evolving, hurtling headlong into a past that was defined by serfs and lords; by necromancy and superstition; by policies based on fiat, not facts.

Much of what has made the modern world in general, and the United States in particular, a free and prosperous society comes directly from insights that arose during the Enlightenment.

Too bad we’re chucking it all out and returning to the Dark Ages.

snip

And the descent into the Dark Ages is marked by more than global warming. Take austerity budgets. There is an extensive historical record showing that implementing austerity measures in an economic slowdown is counter productive. And this data is backed up by current experience in Europe, where austerity measures have been disastrous.

So the data is telling us austerity during a jobs crisis hasn’t worked in the past and isn’t working now. What to do?

Pass an austerity budget, of course.

Welcome to the Dark Ages.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/18-2

[MisterP]

1. picking nits, but there was like a 830-year gap between the Early Middle Ages and the Enlightenment

as a movement (410-900 vs. 1730-1800)

[sad sally]

2. point taken...although, we all have to meet our match sometime or other