“All the knowledge in the ancient world was within those marble walls… The destruction of the library is a warning to us 1,600 years later: “we must never let it happen again.” Carl Sagan
Parallel to this, the Dark Ages began, and often seen by some historians as being caused by the fall of the Roman Empire. Along with the fall of the Empire came another: the loss of knowledge. Libraries fell into disrepair. The unifying languages of Greek and Latin fell out of social use and people could no longer communicate with each other. With Rome no longer producing a safe environment for learning, philosophy, or science; nobody could keep up the Great Conversation, or make scientific discoveries. The architecture and learning and thoughts of the Empire were completely forgotten in the wake of its fall from greatness, plunging the world into darkness. Perhaps the fall of the Roman Empire provides us with a historical timeline for when the dark ages emerged, but it can be strongly contested that one
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of the true causes of the Dark Ages was due to the loss of information, learning and understanding that had been cultivated for thousands of years until then, and destroyed within years. What emerged during that period? Famine, extreme climates, plague, and a major reduction or halt in global travel. In Carl Sagan’s series ‘The Cosmos’, he states, if he could travel back in time, it would be to the Library of Alexandria.
“All the knowledge in the ancient world was within those marble walls… The destruction of the library is a warning to us 1,600 years later: “we must never let it happen again.” Carl Sagan
The critical issue of information loss in the dark ages was not simply the loss of any information, but rather, the loss of quality information. Through the dark ages, information was still plentiful; however, this information was often based on the perspectives of rulers and conquerors rather than scholars; and a boom in misleading information and false understanding of the way in which the world works. Flat earth theories and many more ‘fake news’ stories became ‘fact’ of the time. In a world basing everyday decisions and making collective choices on false information, human progress was stalled by irreparable atrocities and a slowing of progress for hundreds of years in an era of Witch Hunts, Crusades, constant violence and extreme inequalities.
