Not quite the same as the old Dark Age. The old Dark Age happened when the corporate governmental structure of Rome collapsed, allowing hordes of tribal heathen to overrun what had been the empire’s domain. Today’s Dark Age is instead happening because modern governments continue to become ever more powerfully intrusive into what used to be private affairs, using their assumed authority to enforce some sort of contrived orthodoxy and thus moving towards politicizing just about everything.
This is particularly obvious in the various fields of science. Having previously been the means by which civilization crawled out from the old Dark Age, science today is festooned with corruption. Back when it was tasked with the objective process of unraveling the mysteries of our world, science flourished. Nowadays science is largely in the business of acquiring politically controlled government grants. Exploiting various sexy fields of study to provide politically useful data and conclusions -- even if their accuracy is suspect -- is the key to professional success. Weather and climate are obviously at the top of the list for this kind of work. In spite of all this, there still are some non-governmental interests that manage to privately fund research, mostly to develop profitable and patentable innovations… much as in the past.
The mystical nature of climate hysteria harkens back to the old Dark Age. No detailed explanations are ever presented to support the alarm -- such as how does CO2 actually trap heat on the Earth’s surface, especially when it’s only less than 0.05% of what “air” is made of? Faith in the concept is supposed to be sufficient… and skeptics are verbally pilloried for their deviation from orthodoxy. Sound familiar?
In a classic gesture of obedient compliance with this orthodoxy, President Biden made John Kerry America’s ambassador to the upper atmosphere. He looks and sounds the part. He reeks of assumed authority. And, having mashed potatoes for brains, he’ll say whatever his programmers want. It never makes any sense, but it has the tone of a serious effort. I just saw him on the PBS version of the BBC. His remarks were so stupid that I had to cut the feed. Looking and sounding the part without any actual substance only works in the depths of a serious Dark Age.
Point of reference: All plant and animal life on Earth, including the buried fossil fuels, is mostly composed of carbon and its various chemical compounds. All this carbon has been previously extracted from (guess what) the atmosphere. The fatuous mysticism underpinning weather hysteria is classic dark age stuff. Science, however, doesn’t work this way. Peer review, the exposure of one’s findings and conclusions to possible criticism by others working in the same field… in order to more thoroughly validate such findings… is the foundation of scientific progress. Paying researchers to follow dictated guidelines, in order to get politically expedient results has nothing to do with progress.
Another aspect of this drift into mystical unreality involves access to and the cost of modern health care. Expanding governments are using the people’s natural desire for personal health to further control the general public. Some of us remember when Hillary Clinton was tasked with “reinventing” American health care. After a series of secret confabs, her manifesto was finally released to the public. It contained one particular poison pill: the abolition of private medical practice… giving the government a complete monopoly in the field. As a consequence, the 1994 midterm put the Republicans back in control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. President Bill Clinton was then compelled to announce that “…the era of big government…” was over. But not for long.
Couple with this the magical New Age twaddle from the 60s and 70s. In addition to the rebirth of astrology as a serious worldview, nutritional mythology achieved new prominence. “Organic” became a mark of special quality. No actual scientific evidence has ever existed to attest to its value. It does, however, cost more… and therefore must be better. In today’s world, fear of Roundup weed control concentrate dominates New Age consciousness. I am constantly being told that today’s younger people will not live as long as my generation because of Roundup.
“Holistic” medicine, a.k.a. homeopathy, has a foothold… but fortunately is not all that prominent. A friend who used to be a country doctor told me of a homeopath who hung up her shingle in his town. He introduced himself to her as a professional courtesy. She later called him up about a case that she found puzzling. He examined her patient and found that the poor soul had meningitis. The homeopath had been clueless.
Taxation remains a focal point. Regular folks would be much more prosperous and thus live better lives if the metastasizing Dark Age government wasn’t using its power to confiscate so much of their money. As a lad I remember when California raised its sales tax from 3% to 4%. There were squeals of pain everywhere. Today the state minimum is 7.25%... plus local add-ons. “Oh, you’ve got to account for inflation” would be the justification. Ahem… sales tax is immune to inflation… it’s a percentage of something’s price. If the price goes up because of inflation, the tax goes up directly.
Across the American landscape we have states that have either sales tax or income tax. California is in the minority in that it has both. Up north we have Oregon and Washington. Washington has sales tax but no income tax. Oregon has income tax but no sales tax. And thus, we have this town called Jantzen Beach, Oregon -- suburban Portland, just across the Columbia River from Washington on I-5 -- which is mostly an enormous shopping center where southern Washingtonians go to buy stuff. Ah! The beauty of the federal system. Folks still get to vote with their feet.
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Perhaps the most conspicuous manifestation of this drift into a new Dark Age is the litter of idle vagrants despoiling our cities and towns. All kinds of statistics show a steady increase in their numbers. Why? After all, economic progress has more or less continued over the past several years -- and, yet, we still have increasing squalor and the attendant devaluation of once desirable locations. The answer is simple and completely in tune with the decline of civilization. Our legal and political leaders are being undeservedly nice to these people. They mistakenly believe that coddling street bums is what society wants and doing such will enhance their political popularity. Some years ago, P.J. O’Rourke defined this practice as “compassion fascism.” Our political professionals even go to great taxpayer expense to provide these bums with basic amenities while also compelling retailers to look the other way when their merchandise is being pilfered. This does nothing to discourage such obvious pathology. What is needed, instead, is neglect. Let them suffer. Maybe then they’ll clean up their acts and rejoin society.