Higgenbotham wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:22 am
THE PHOENIX PRINCIPLE
AND THE COMING DARK AGE
Social catastrophes – human progress
3000 BC to AD 3000
Marc Widdowson
First published 2001 by Amarna Ltd, 35a Chaucer Road, Bedford, MK40 2AL, United Kingdom
pp. 140-143
Chapter 17 - Defining dark ages
Decline and collapse
It is now possible to provide a concise definition of a dark age.
DA1 A dark age is an extended period of significantly reduced integration, organisation and cohesion. (From an individual’s perspective, social bonds may become more intense in a dark age. However, overall cohesion is reduced because the social network extends much less far. See Figure 15-1.)
Having defined dark ages by DA1, the model of integration, organisation and cohesion immediately indicates the specific features that one would expect dark ages to display. For example, disintegration implies conflict and disorder (P2), which are clearly aspects of dark ages. The classical Greek poet Hesiod deplored the post-Mycenaean age as an era of futility and violence. Disintegration also implies the removal of protection (P1). Certainly, Britain’s dark age followed the withdrawal of the Roman legions, whereupon public safety evaporated and villas everywhere were looted and abandoned. Some other dark age characteristics that ensue from the present model are as follows:
• Less centralised control (=disintegration).
• Less trade (=disorganisation).
• Less social differentiation (follows from loss of political hierarchy and economic specialism (E1)).
• Lack of grand projects (P7).
• Smaller territories (P3, P8).
• Loss of specialised knowledge (E3).
• Proliferation of styles in art (S1, S4).
Few things are more characteristic of a descendant society than the emergence of a squatter mentality. This also follows from DA1. When disorganisation forces people to be self sufficient, they can at best erect only crude shelters, in which there will be few refinements or utilities. If people continue to live within fine old buildings then it is inevitably in a degraded fashion. State societies as a whole are no longer viable during a dark age, since such a high-scale ensemble can be maintained only with high levels of integration and organisation. Hence, a dark age must also result in the loss of characteristic state institutions. Without writing and education, though, few records are produced and much knowledge is simply lost. This is why dark ages are dark. They leave no account of themselves. They are blank pages in the historical record. Thanks to the loss of monumental architecture and the general breakdown of the economy, the material culture of such periods is also sparse and non-durable. Archaeologists are in the dark almost as much as historians.
DA2 Dark ages leave few records and they are periods of obscurity in historical retrospect. The characteristic features of a dark age add up to a time of poverty, low aspirations and low achievement. There is endless petty violence and a moral free-for-all. In this sense, the descent into a dark age can be described quite fairly as a process of cultural degradation. When people from still ascendant societies contemplate one that is verging towards a dark age, or already in a dark age, they are bound to regard it as hopeless and dire. Administrators sent to Greece from Constantinople, during Europe’s barbarian era, described it as a god-forsaken hole that offered none of the rudiments of civilisation to which it had formerly contributed so much.1476 Those who experience a dark age develop attitudes to match. To reduce cognitive dissonance, they tailor their expectations to what their means can afford. There is a harder, less self-indulgent outlook on life. People renounce material comforts and rely more heavily on other-worldly fulfillment. At the same time, devoid of rulers, they develop habits of freedom. They have little to lose from conflict and are quite willing to participate in and perpetuate the troubles. Hence, a dark age will seem to be a time that emphasises asceticism, spiritual values, fierce independence, and the martial spirit. This complex of attitudes is bound up with the prevailing social conditions to form a logical ensemble.1477 Life must be simple when people are poor, and naturally people will then value the simple life. During a period of decline, before the arrival of a dark age proper, the processes of disintegration, disorganisation and discohesion, which have already occurred in reality, begin filtering through into perceptions. There is a growing popular consciousness of social deterioration, and this also provokes certain characteristic attitudes. At one extreme, there are those who actively endorse the way that old habits and old symbols lose legitimacy (S6). For them, whatever was fine or heroic about the old order no longer appears as such and instead approval is extended to things that were formerly regarded as common, debased, uncouth and immoral. The Cynic school, which was spawned by the decay of classical Greece, typifies these philosophies that enshrine disdain and positively uphold depraved behaviour. Diogenes declared that he was a citizen of no state, expressed contempt for patriotism and asserted the naturalness of sexual activity by masturbating in public.
An opposing reaction is typified by the Stoic school. This was also spawned by the decay of classical Greece and became popular again in Rome as the empire’s troubles mounted. It emphasises a resigned attitude to the difficulties of life and the need to maintain personal standards of conduct in an imperfect world. This philosophy provides solace to those who continue to cherish the old legitimacies and for whom the negation of these legitimacies is disorienting and depressing. As perceptions catch up with the reality, people comment on their problems at length and many of them may deplore the direction in which they see things moving. Such concern implies not so much conviction about the shape of the future, as fear for it. People can find it hard to believe that their former advantages are really lost forever, and they cling to the notion that the decline may be reversed. In a letter preserved from fifth century Roman Gaul, the author writes about mounting chaos but nevertheless expresses the hope that it will be a passing phase. The concern with decline is symptomatic of it. As G K Chesterton observed, fit people do not worry about their health.1478 If perceptions were to remain positive and confident, the reality might indeed recover from a decline. However, when there is more wringing of hands than any practical attempt to seize the initiative and overcome the problems, a society is essentially doomed. Reflexivity (TC11) also implies that negative perceptions may only further corrode the real situation. The entrenchment of pessimistic expectations is a sign that distinguishes an incipient dark age from more transient dips in a society’s fortunes.
DA3 Belief in decline is a component of it.
Creativity and continuity
To say that dark ages involve cultural degradation presents a negative impression, which would probably accord with most people’s picture of what a dark age involves. However, the optimistic side of a dark age is that, by restoring perceptions to the reality, it forces the members of a social group to arrive at a more realistic picture of the world and their position within it. This is helpful since it provides a firm foundation for future progress. The breaking down of old certainties presents an opportunity for new ways of doing things to emerge. Conservatism is replaced with radical inventiveness, and diverse ideas may be able to flourish. At the same time, the dark age serves as a kind of testing ground. Nothing is ruled out solely on principle, although only the most successful ideas will persist and be developed. Hence, the dark age yields not only new ideas, but also better ones. During the last days of the second world war, German planners were considering the re-building of Berlin after the war had ended. They thought about moving the capital to a new site. It soon became clear, however, that this would be prohibitively difficult because of the way that road, rail, gas and electricity networks all converged on the existing capital. Even if Berlin were removed, its image would be visible in the rest of Germany’s infrastructure.1479 This illustrates the way that a society’s entrenched institutions can inhibit its freedom to evolve and advance. Very far-reaching destruction may be needed before it becomes worthwhile to consider a wholly new direction, so that people can build things up from scratch. Yet without such destruction the society may be trapped down some sub-optimal developmental route or cul-de-sac. Hence, a dark age is a time of great creativity and progress. Innovation is always in some ways inherently destructive. Edward Gibbon made this need to destroy in order to advance a central theme of his study of Rome’s decline and fall.1480 The economist Joseph Schumpeter characterised economic depressions as periods of creative destruction that are essential to economic progress.1481 Sweeping away outmoded firms and industries is painful but it has to be done to make way for the next major advance. A dark age is the same phenomenon writ large. It is a time when society is thrown back into the melting pot. Wornout institutions are broken down and obstacles to social progress are removed. Fantastic opportunities then emerge as people re-build integration, organisation and cohesion. A dark age is certainly not a sombre time for everybody.1482 For those who have talent and initiative, the dark age offers many rewards.
DA4 A dark age is a time of creativity. Old and inappropriate institutions or ideas are replaced with new, more realistic ones. It follows that a dark age should not be regarded simply as an accident into which societies fall by misfortune. Rather dark ages are an absolutely necessary and integral part of the historical process. They deliver long run benefits. Without dark ages, human societies would have stagnated long ago. Traditional policies of preventing forest fires have similarly been recognised as counterproductive. Preventing fires only causes undergrowth and dead wood to build up and clog the forest, which not only harms its ecology but also provides a growing supply of combustible material. Periodic fires, often set by lightning, are essential to the health of the forest. Some tree species even require a fire so that their cones will open and they can complete their lifecycles. This is not surprising really. Forests existed for a long time before humans became involved in managing them.1483 A forest fire is a good analogy for a dark age. It clears out dead wood. It consumes the old institutions that have become harmful to progress but are so ingrained they are virtually impossible to change smoothly. This seems to be a very general process in nature, and history is just one illustration of it. Another example is found in the fact that damming rivers, and thus preventing flash floods, means that they become clogged with debris to the detriment of their flora and fauna. Floods are necessary to restore a river’s health. Similarly, in biological evolution, mass extinction events have been followed by bursts of speciation as life rushes into the many niches that have been created. This logic of destruction followed by creative recovery is a general feature of complex systems. Dark ages imply renewal and growth. After a dark age, the old civilisation is never simply revived. There is a qualitatively new configuration, and this is largely discontinuous with what went before.1484 The longer and deeper the dark age, the more radical the new configuration. That is to say, significant change requires a significant dark age. The place where destruction begins and proceeds the furthest is likely to make the earliest and most complete recovery.1485 This is the phoenix principle. Catastrophe comes before progress. One cannot occur without the other and the greater the catastrophe, the greater the progress. On the other hand, the old ways seldom die out completely. There is continuity in some cultural elements.1486 For instance, Roman language, law and other institutions survived in barbarian Europe, albeit transformed. On the broadest view, world history shows obvious progress despite the many setbacks.1487 Few major technologies were lost when Rome collapsed,1488 or at least they were easily re-invented. Superimposed on the ferment of integration, organisation and cohesion, therefore, there is an overall improvement in technology and in human institutions.
