History Channel Calls Dark Ages Godless!
Tomorrow, the History Channel will be running something it bills as a documentary about the Dark Ages. I don’t get cable television, and so I haven’t seen the show, but I have seen the advertisement for the show, which I can most charitably characterize as a nasty, dishonest, bigoted slur. The advertisement describes the Dark Ages as “600 years of degenerate, godless, inhuman behavior”.
Godless? How were the Dark Ages godless?
The History Channel describes the Dark Ages as stretching between from the years 408 to 1095 CE. The Christian Church controlled almost all of Europe. Muslims and few indigenous non-Christian, but god-worshippping, remnants controlled the rest. There were no godless nations. There were no godless cities. There were no godless armies. There were no godless organizations. Anyone who was godless during the Dark Ages did their best to conceal their true identities, out of fear of being imprisoned, tortured, and killed by the religious rulers of Europe.
There is absolutely no way in which Europe was godless during the Dark Ages. The people at the History Channel ought to know that. They ought to know that, in fact, it was religious authority that was responsible for the brutal living conditions of the time. Religious leaders were creating conditions of almost constant war, stifling ignorance, and crushing poverty and disease. It was out of the desire to prevent godlessness that the Dark Ages lasted so long.
The History Channel apparently believes that godlessness is the same thing as wickedness. If it insists on taking this attitude, I suggest that it rename itself The Religious Revisionist History Channel.
I am sending an email to the viewer relations office of the History Channel protesting this insulting and inaccurate description of the Dark Ages. I have also emailed Christopher Cassel, who directed the documentary misleadingly advertised by the History Channel.
It is too late to prevent these ingorant slurs from being broadcast around the world. We can send our messages of protest, however, to ensure that the History Channel does not make this kind of mistake again.
Geeee…took you long enough to notice! The “History Channel” has been run by the Far-Right Wing from it’s inception. Almost everything I’ve ever seen or heard on this channel has had a Republinazi slant to it. It’d be better named as the “History according to Falwell/Robertson Channel”. I love watching it, if for no other reason than to pick out the more subtle inaccuracies they slide in…
Lately, though, there seems to be a greater likelihood of hearing Goebbels’ “Big Lie” in action. Who knows? Maybe we really will be finally convinced that, in the words of Alan Furst’ book “Night Soldiers”, “…two plus two equals seven, and aren’t we lucky to have so much?”
I think what the History Channel is describing is known by historians as the ‘medieval period’. The popular phrase ‘dark ages’ is not used by historians to describe this European time frame, but refers to a much earlier period in Greek history. They should get some historians on their payroll so they don’t make those glaring errors.
But they don’t need Historians, Anonymous! They have PROPAGANDISTS! That’s much more important to our youth, don’t you see? We can’t have our children knowing the Truth…Hell, they might start to think. And you know where THAT leads, right? My Gawd, they might start believing the Truth! What would happen to our politicians? Our system of laws? Our way of life? Why, Hell’s Bells, the “Great Unwashed” might actually start demanding their RIGHTS! Historians, indeed…What are you going to believe: the Truth, or what the government tells you?
What are you going to believe, the truth, or what the History Channel tells you?
Why do you say it’s right wing? I mean history is history, isn’t it? (I don’t have cable.)
And the truth and what the government tells you is the same thing….reminds me of a line from I, Claudius–after killing a few people in bizarre ways Caligula goes to his uncle Claudius with the burning question “people are saying I’m insane, do you think it’s true?” Jacobi gulps visibly and answers “You set the standard of sanity for the entire empire.”
Ugh. Where do I begin?
A preface: yeah, it’s insulting. Hardly a surprise, though; this is a nation considers used car salesman more trustworthy than atheists. But, setting that aside…
First, a rule of thumb: anybody who talks about the “Dark Ages” is not interested in history; it’s a discredited term.
Second: the History Channel is not actually interested in history; they’re an entertainment channel for people who find “the old days” interesting. (I remember seeing a “history of model trains” which was actually a propaganda piece for the Lionel company. The entire profusion of HO- and N-scale trains which currently dominate the hobby was glossed over in a couple of sentences.) Railing against them for historical inaccuracies is like flaming the American Beef Council for not supporting vegetarianism.
Third: I do not agree that the violence of early medieval Europe was created by churches. The violence was a byproduct of the collapse of Rome. Rome hadn’t exactly been a libertarian paradise; but they had more or less kept the peace for several centuries, providing the social and physical infrastructure that peaceful commerce depended on. When Rome fell, trading networks decayed rapidly, leading to widespread poverty (which was exacerbated by a worldwide cooling cycle). Local strongmen rose to power by raiding their neighbors’ crops, and by defending their people against their neighbors’ strongmen. Centralization had set in by the 8th century, when Charlemagne consolidated his rule over what we would call France and Germany (more or less); but even Charlemagne had to contend with local lords in rebellion, invasion from outside his realm, etc.
In all this chaos, the central Church in Rome didn’t have much practical authority. Local lords generally controlled the local church, with the power to appoint bishops and abbots. When the Pope crowned Charlemagne Emperor in 800, he wasn’t so much conferring power as looking for an ally. After that, the Emperor appointed the Pope, and vice versa. So it would be more accurate to say that the secular and spiritual power structures were interlocked, but neither was strong enough to rein in the chaos of the time.
Fourth: your complaint is based on a misunderstanding. The History Channel is not claiming that Europe was godless; they’re claiming that there was “godless behavior”–meaning the kind of behavior that modern Christian religions would disapprove of. I don’t think there can be any doubt of that; it was a time when local strongmen went raiding on little pretext or none (they didn’t even have to claim the enemy had WMDs), raiding included rape and murder, and law was nonexistent. Pointing out that everybody nominally worshipped a god or gods misses the point.
Since when does “godless” refer to anything that modern Christian religions would disapprove of?
That’s a might big rhetorical leap for you to make, John.
Rape and murder are godless? Then why have there been so many murderers and rapists who believe in God?
It doesn’t, of course, but that’s what the History Channel ad actually means when they say “godless behavior”.
How do you know that? That’s a big assumption you’re making, in order to be generous to the History Channel?
I don’t think that’s a generous assumption John’s making. I think it’s an indictment.
Exactly. American conservative Christians think that you can’t be good without being religious, so, to them, “godless” is a synonym for “evil”.
But “godless” in the cold war sense means something completely different. It used to be the West against “godless communism”. Stories abounded about how communism considered religion to be the opiate of the people and used their power to forcibly close churches or deny jobs to anyone who was a churchgoer. This might be the current fear about atheists–how does enyone know that if atheists got ahold of the government they wouldn’t just try to keep everyone from having a religion, just like the Godless Communists did in Russia and China?
Huh? The Cold War sense? So now the Dark Ages were supposed to be a time of rampant Communism?
No freedom and nothing to eat…sounds about right.
No, Communism is not just the lack of food and the lack of freedom.
It’s a specific ideology. So, no, the Dark Ages = Communism claim does not sound about right.
Yeah, with monks and their noble libraries cowering inside high monastery walls while the bloodthirsty heathen swarmed outside. But if you start getting into the history of Irish monasteries, you will find they got attacked by monks from other monasteries as much as they got attacked by pagans.
Joke.