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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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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