Member-only story
Let’s Hear It For 1096
Why we’re all living in the medieval period again
According to a thought-piece in this month’s edition of The Economist’s 1843 Magazine, we’re returning to the Middle Ages. It’s an amusing article with some pertinent observation but the central thesis is wrong. We’re not returning to a medieval mindset because we never left it behind.
While many people living in north-west Europe did for a brief moment in time seem to emerge from medieval superstition into something approaching a more modern perspective, the rest of the world remained unmoved. The vast majority of the population of the USA, nominally a Western nation, mentally never left the Middle Ages. 40% of US citizens believe angels walk among them; an even greater percentage believe in a literal heaven and hell. Even those who abjure primitive mythologies still remain deeply embedded in magical beliefs ranging from powers of attraction to healing crystals to detox foot baths to enneagrams, Myers-Briggs, and of course our perennial favorite, the tiresome infantile nonsense of astrology.
Meanwhile in China 1.3 billion people still conform to Confucian notions, albeit lightly papered over with contemporary quasi-communist mythological accretions. The Islamic world seems increasingly eager to return to the period 800 CE, and India under the pathetically inadequate Modi…
