Modern Medieval Mayhem

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If you have ever looked around at our modern world and wondered, "where have I seen this before?", then you're not alone. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different our lives are today compared to medieval times. No, not the quirky, fun dinner show, or the multi-week celebration that presents itself to Texas every October and November. I mean about looking at the similarities and differences between our modern American society and that of the European Medieval period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance. I mean, back then, your biggest worries were dragons, plague, and whether or not the king’s daughter would find you attractive enough to get you out of the peasants' quarters. These days, instead of dragons, we battle with the never-ending quest for the perfect selfie angle.

This limited series project is intended to be a patently unfair comparison between that time in history when horses once ruled the roads and armor was the hottest fashion trend to … well, today; about how many things are different (like advances in communication and technology), about how many things are the same (like narrow-minded and inflexible thinking). While this may seem like comparing mead to a mocha latte, the parallels are there, hiding behind the layers of chainmail and smartphone screens.

Let's start out with the idea of "perspective". Suppose you are in a forest populated with oak and maple trees. As the old saying goes, even though you *know* you're in a forest, "you cannot see the forest for the trees," so in order to see the forest, you are required to change your perspective to somewhere more elevated, like a nearby hill, in order to see the forest itself. [Remember, you're just looking. No hatchets, axes, or saws, please.] But then, as a consequence of seeing the forest, you are usually unable to see the individual oak or maple trees.

So, using very broad strokes (i.e., the larger picture), it's relatively simple to see that there are similarities between the forest of the old European Medieval period and the forest of the new American Medieval period. If you start looking at the finer details, yes there are differences, but there are still similarities, and the historical echoes of both eras remind us that certain societal challenges persist across time. [From this point onward, I will simply refer to the European period as "old" and the American period as "new".]

It's along that line of thinking that we are going to take our journey.

During the Old Period, society was primarily agrarian with a highly rigid social stratum consisting of kings, knights, and peasants. Your position in that social stratum was typically defined by your birth and mobility between the classes was heavily limited. In the New Period, society is primarily industrial populated with CEOs, influencers, essential workers, and that guy who's famous for eating hotdogs in under a minute. Here, however, mobility between the classes is dependent on your personal talent and ambitions, and sometimes who your parents are. [Have you ever noticed how jousting for a promotion feels eerily similar to jousting on the battlefield? Unfortunately, HR generally frowns on using swords.]

"The mess and the magic, triumphant and tragic, a mechanized world out of hand."

"In their own image, their world is fashioned. No wonder they don't understand."

And yet, despite these advancements, there are some Americans who view their history through rose-colored glasses, craving a return to what they fondly remember as an easier time, where family values and patriotism were hallmarks of society, where religion played a central role in daily life shaping areas like art, culture, and social norms, and when they could point to something like "witchcraft" or "communism" as a generalized specter used to frighten people into good behavior because that specter encompassed ALL of "the evils that men do" in one convenient ideology (regardless of whether it was true or not).

"All the busy little creatures chasing out their destinies. Living in their pools, they soon forget about the sea."

Unfortunately, too many people continue to "live in the past", constantly looking back at what they've lost, both physically and emotionally. They become prisoners of their regrets and losses, trying to recapture their "glory days" and wondering "what could have been" instead of creating new memories and looking to create a future that benefits everyone. As a fan of science fiction, there is a trope regarding time-travel into the past that you cannot change anything because even a small change in the past could have massive repercussions for the future where they came from. Unfortunately, most people don't look at the idea from the other direction: that small changes we make in our present could have significant advantages to everyone in the future where we are going.

Topics in this series:

• Gender Bias [Article Link]
• Combatting Racism [Article Link]
• Censorship, or "What I Know That You Shouldn't" [Article Link]
• The Dubious Rise of Christian Nationalism [Article Link]
• We Need More Robin Hoods [Article Link]