Western history classes gracefully ignore things like the chinese empires, the golden ages in the arabic world (which oh so happened to be to be during the “dark ages” of Europe and saw science flourish there) and anything that happened on the american continent prior to colonialization (not like we know too much about it given the colonizers’ rampages and targeted cultural destruction). Let alone African history, Indian, South-East Asia, Australia…
Same of course with religions. But watching that Martin Luther movie three times was definitely important I guess, cause it “changed the whole (!) world”. I fucking hate all of this bullshit.
Even within Europe, there was significant scientific progress during said dark ages. It’s extremely obvious by just looking at a 9th century building to those from the 14th century (especially churches). The latter require profund knowledge of mathematics/civil engineering. We went from tiny windows in 2m thick brick walls to vast, airy Gothic cathedrals (although those did take a couple of centuries to actually finish).
Although to be fair, that knowledge did largely come to Europe from the scholars of the Arabic world.
To add to it. A lot of the European antique that the West loves to pride itself in, such as the work of Roman and Greek philosophers and scientists were only preserved by the Muslims in the Middle East and subsequently rediscovered from Arabic and Persian works. So a lot of European culture and history was preserved by outsiders as the white barbarians couldn’t hack it. Unlike the imperial museums in the UK, France, Germany or other countries, that preservation was achieved largely without pillaging.
The amount of ancient Hellenistic texts rediscovered from Arab and Persian texts is neglible, compared to the texts which were preserved in other ways.
Your rant about museums is completely unrelated to that particular subject as well.
Only thing I, as a European, know about MLK is that “I have a dream” speech and that he has something to do with rights for black people in America. My memory stops there.
Funny enough, in Catholic religion class I learned more interesting things about history than in history class itself. My teacher made sure we knew about other religions, how all of them are connected, how they developed, what some did while others went crusading, etc.
Best teacher I’ve ever had.
Only thing I, as a European, know about MLK is that “I have a dream” speech and that he has something to do with rights for black people in America. My memory stops there.
I asked my teacher why we were so christianity-centric in the class, we literally never talked about things like Shintoism, Islam and more. She then loudly proclaimed to the class that I “wanted to have an extra (!) block about FOREIGN religions” (of course causing 90% of the class to scream at me - bullying was rampant there anyway). She then smiled at me in the most fucking dense way possible to basically say “see, nobody wants that” and from then on ignored all my protests and just left, ignorantly smiling like the idiot she was.
We proceeded to not learn anything about them, therefore the only influence we had (since it was the countryside) were the news talking about islamic terrorists.
Also same about MLK of course. He existed and he had a dream, end of history.
Western history classes gracefully ignore things like the chinese empires, the golden ages in the arabic world (which oh so happened to be to be during the “dark ages” of Europe and saw science flourish there) and anything that happened on the american continent prior to colonialization (not like we know too much about it given the colonizers’ rampages and targeted cultural destruction). Let alone African history, Indian, South-East Asia, Australia…
Same of course with religions. But watching that Martin Luther movie three times was definitely important I guess, cause it “changed the whole (!) world”. I fucking hate all of this bullshit.
Sorry for the rant.
Even within Europe, there was significant scientific progress during said dark ages. It’s extremely obvious by just looking at a 9th century building to those from the 14th century (especially churches). The latter require profund knowledge of mathematics/civil engineering. We went from tiny windows in 2m thick brick walls to vast, airy Gothic cathedrals (although those did take a couple of centuries to actually finish).
Although to be fair, that knowledge did largely come to Europe from the scholars of the Arabic world.
To add to it. A lot of the European antique that the West loves to pride itself in, such as the work of Roman and Greek philosophers and scientists were only preserved by the Muslims in the Middle East and subsequently rediscovered from Arabic and Persian works. So a lot of European culture and history was preserved by outsiders as the white barbarians couldn’t hack it. Unlike the imperial museums in the UK, France, Germany or other countries, that preservation was achieved largely without pillaging.
The amount of ancient Hellenistic texts rediscovered from Arab and Persian texts is neglible, compared to the texts which were preserved in other ways.
Your rant about museums is completely unrelated to that particular subject as well.
Sure, let’s ask the Greek what they think about the parts of the Acropolis that are stashed away in London. They will surely find it unrelated.
Only thing I, as a European, know about MLK is that “I have a dream” speech and that he has something to do with rights for black people in America. My memory stops there.
Funny enough, in Catholic religion class I learned more interesting things about history than in history class itself. My teacher made sure we knew about other religions, how all of them are connected, how they developed, what some did while others went crusading, etc. Best teacher I’ve ever had.
Unless this is a joke and I’m just being dense, I believe Natanox was talking about Martin Luther, and not Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (MLK).
I asked my teacher why we were so christianity-centric in the class, we literally never talked about things like Shintoism, Islam and more. She then loudly proclaimed to the class that I “wanted to have an extra (!) block about FOREIGN religions” (of course causing 90% of the class to scream at me - bullying was rampant there anyway). She then smiled at me in the most fucking dense way possible to basically say “see, nobody wants that” and from then on ignored all my protests and just left, ignorantly smiling like the idiot she was.
We proceeded to not learn anything about them, therefore the only influence we had (since it was the countryside) were the news talking about islamic terrorists.
Also same about MLK of course. He existed and he had a dream, end of history.
Dark ages didn’t happen is the issue with your point. There were many new technologies developed and progress being made.