Regarding that bs tweet on learning in the “Dark Ages”, the fact that anyone calling it that should automatically get discounted since I know of a single historian (and he’s an old white dude) who still calls the period that.
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And the guy seems to be coming from this from an AUS perspective but that is far from “average” and statistically most 18 year olds across the planet probably know at least two languages.
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I knew three by 18. Not very well but okay enough. That was not unusual. Near everyone I was in school with knew two languages. And so many others took another language in school. French and German were popular.
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Damn I had a friend who knew four languages, no problem.
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We all read loads of books. We also have other forms of knowledge dissemination through newspapers, magazines, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, articles, etc.
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The capacity for knowledge is the same then and now. But it is just not correct that 18 year old students knew more.
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This isn’t their fault, they knew what they did based on current world views and what they had access to.
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Also I really need my fellow historians to stop saying Britain is a cultural backwater at this time. That is inaccurate and unhelpful. It was not any better than anywhere else, but it was not worse or less relevant.
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