Abfolge und Ziel der Dark Ages

Geschrieben von Andreas am 25. Mai 2003 11:46:00:

Aus der Dark Age Seite (http://www.darkage.fsnet.co.uk/LongTermHistory.htm)
Anmerkung: Leider gelang es mir nicht, das Diagramm hier hinein zu kopieren.

"The pyramids of Giza, in some ways, have never been equalled. Compare their durability with that of the World Trade Centre, the archetypical symbol of American confidence and power.

A comparison of the era of British dominance with the modern era of American dominance reveals the latter as practising a degraded form of imperialism--far more powerful in absolute terms, but weaker relative to other nations and less capable of imposing peace and delivering global prosperity.

As the above diagram showed, the changeover between civilisations has been associated with periodic dark ages, when old geopolitical forms and cultural institutions are broken down to make way for something new. These are illustrations of the phoenix principle. Stan Beasley suggests that pharaonic civilisation itself arose out of a particularly long and deep dark age, which was preceded by earlier civilisations that have now been forgotten.

This diagram of history is, of course, a huge simplification. It leaves out Chinese civilisation, and the civilisations of pre-Columbian America, as well as many lesser societies. Thus, the overall picture of rise and fall could be modified somewhat, and the rise and fall of lesser societies might be included as a kind of froth on the great waves of history. Nevertheless, this would not change the basic truth, which is that the world has seen an increasingly rapid turnover of increasingly inferior civilisations, punctuated by ever more frequent, though less severe, dark ages.

Clearly, this accelerating process must reach some form of culmination. This will be a catastrophic breakdown, followed by the longest, deepest dark age that has occurred since the Nile Valley was pacified under the first pharaohs. When humans eventually emerge from this dark age, by the logic of the phoenix principle, they will do so with greatly renewed potential. The process of rising and falling civilisations, which we have seen in our era, will start over.

In the next era, humans may be expected to do the things that we are increasingly failing to do. Specifically, the conquest of outer space will begin on a grand scale as people combine the robust attitudes of medieval buccaneers with the latest nuclear and electronic technologies. The humans of the next era may therefore be expected to attain Kardashev-1 and go beyond it. Industry and human population will be lifted into orbit and onto the moon, rendering most of today's environmental concerns utterly irrelevant.

The next era will in turn most likely end in a social breakdown before humans have reached Kardashev-2. This will be the preserve of the next era after that. Humanity will therefore press out into the cosmos in a series of expansionary waves."

Anmerkung 2: Kardashev-Entwicklungsstufen
Kardashev 1: Kontrolle des Planeten
Kardashev 2: Kontrolle des Sonnensystems
Kardashev 3: Kontrolle der Galaxie

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Kritik: An anderer Stelle wird als jüngstes Dark Age der Kollaps der Huari-Tiahuanaco-Kultur (1000-1200 n. Chr.) erwähnt. Der Zweite Weltkrieg als Dark Age zu klassifizieren wie es auf dem Diagramm, auf welches in dem obigen Text verwiesen wird, ist. m. E. heikel, definieren die Autoren doch:

A dark age is a time without government, without trade, and without any sense of community. It is a time of everyone for him or herself. During a dark age, mere survival is the only concern. No one has the leisure for any higher activity, including keeping records. That is why a dark age is dark. Its principal feature is that we know nothing of what took place in it.

Die Schwäche der Theorie liegt darin, dass es seit der Europäischen Expansion kein richtiges Dark Age mehr gegeben hat, d. h. die Zeiten des Chaos scheinen durch die Modernität endgültig überwunden. Was sich zu zeigen hat, ist, wie die Abfolge der Imperien in der Modernität aussehen wird. Wird es am Ende der westlichen Vorherrschaft zu einem neuen Dark Age kommen oder wird das Szepter der Vorherrschaft einst an Asien/China übergehen wie im 20. Jahrhundert von Europa/Grossbritannien an die USA? Ein theoretische Kompromisslösung wäre ein "lokales" Dark Age in Europa und evtl. Amerika.




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