Thursday, November 13, 2008

World History Question of the Day - 3

Please read the question below and post your answer in the form of a comment.

After the fall of Rome in 476 C.E. Europe began a period called "The Dark Ages" by many historians. During this time they ignored much of the scientific, mathematical and philosophical learning of the Greek and Roman Empires. Why do you think Europeans chose to remain ignorant of Roman and Greek achievements?

82 comments:

benm said...

FIRST TO POSTT

Anonymous said...

I am not realy so sure but what i would imagine is that Rome and Greece both began conquering the rest of the world. They stretched their empire to the corners of Europe took all the land that wasn't theirs so i dont think the rest of europe would be too happy about this.

Anonymous said...

i think that they are ignoring what the greeks and romans did because of the way they treated people during their empire

Anonymous said...

i agree with tom on this one

satocha said...

I think(not sure) that they remained ignorant because while the Romans were ruling over Europe they didn't like the way they ruled and didnt like them so they didnt want to recognize their great achievments.Also I think they didn't want to give any more power to the two fallen empires.

Anonymous said...

well Tom is pretty much got it, that could also be taken from ym comment but yeah Tom got it

Anonymous said...

eddie also has a good point i think that they dont want people to lead them and also with tom , they dont like the way they were traeted

Anonymous said...

and i also agree with stephanie

benm said...

They were not succeeding anyway, so the Roman and Greek tactics were probably incorrect, so they ignored them to try to do better.

Kelsie said...

These achivements were not European achievments.

Anonymous said...

ya i think stephanie made a good point :D

EdouardMassih said...

i think me (edy) and tom have pretty much same answer which makes sence to most people.

Anonymous said...

like mitch said if someone took something like mine i don't think i would complement them..

Anonymous said...

I think that they were trying to start their own ways of thinking without using the romans and greeks ways, who had just conquered them, and were trying to get rid of them the best that they could

TDuggan said...

I think that they remained ignorant because while the Romans were ruling over Europe they didn't like the way they ruled and didnt like them so they didnt want to recognize their great achievments.Also I think they didn't want to give any more power to the two fallen empires.

Anonymous said...

the igore what they did beacuse they dont like them and they feel that what they are doign is better

Catherine H. said...

i think they remained ignorant because the romans were the rulers of euope and they didnt like how they were ruling so they ignored them.

Dong said...

It's religion's fault. Some religious leaders broke away and didn't like them so the people were gullible enough to listen.

katys said...

i think that there was a thought that new ways were needed. Like they no longer beleived in the ways romans and greeks lived their lives. They might have thought that it was out dated, and would no londer work because its been done before!

Anonymous said...

i also think that it's called the dark ages because they were almost starting over and had no prior knowledge except for the roman and greek knowledge and they didnt want to use their knowledge anymore

TDuggan said...

also i htink that they might have been in denile. and they were strating all over again, and had no clue of what was going around in the world they livedi in. nad when they did, im not sure, they just would not accept it

Sarah B said...

I think that also the europeans felt they were better and only their ideas were the ones they should use.

Dong said...

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Anonymous said...

yu yang, i think that it could have been religion but i beleive most of the people would have been a little upset with the romans and greeks for taking all their property and belongings and basically their lives, so i imagine most of the population would have been against it

TDuggan said...

yu yang, i think that it oculd have neem religion, but most people would have been upset with the romans and greeks, for taking their property and ideas an

Anonymous said...

i think maybe that they didnt want to believe that the greek and roman empires were better..so they just ignored what they had acomplished

katys said...

But religous leaders are always there and never leaving there people. They may work against there people and do bad thing but they will always be there. Religion will never break away, its too strong!

AlGey said...

Once again Yu Yang copied me

These are my wise words

"It's religion's fault. Some religious leaders broke away and didn't like them so the people were gullible enough to listen."

These words are mine !!!!!

ScottL said...

i think that the Romans were jealouse of the Europeans and didnt want to give their enimies success

AlGey said...

Tom also copied one of my ideas

"i think that they are ignoring what the greeks and romans did because of the way they treated people during their empire"

Good idea

JessW said...

I think that Europe is mad at greece and rome because they conquered and took over their land when each civilization was at their rise of each of their empires and were their strongest. They were ignoring them because they used to rule them and europe doesn't want to follow their ideas

Dong said...

Nice try.

ScottL said...

Tom I agree with you that makes sense

AlGey said...

Yu Yang
Stop getting off topic !!!!

"The < font face="" > tag is not allowed by the server."


We are talking about the "dark age" There were no computers during the "dark age"

patriciam said...

Because maybe they had just been a war with them. So there were enemies, which might have made them not want to have anything to do with the Romans...they belittled them!

ashleyw said...

I think that they would not want to learn the scientific, mathematical, and philosphical learning intentionally. Maybe they thought that theyre ideas weren't good enough for them.

AlyssaK said...

I think that europeans remained ignorant, because they wanted to begin thinking in different ways rather than what other people were thinking such as the rulers which were the romans, so they didn't like all of the romans decisions of everything.

ashleyw said...

whats belittled?

Gee Nicolas said...

In my opinion, Europeans chose to purposely ignore the accomplishments because they refused to beleive that the accomplishments were not worth it

patriciam said...

m_kayserman u r not the question...please elaborate on ur message!

AlGey said...

Yu Yang
Stop copying me
And get to work !!!!

One comment
"The dark age" was a dark time
Many people were poor and there were almost no discovories

Gee Nicolas said...

were worth it *

patriciam said...

Asheley...belittled meansmaking them seem lower than they actually are.
Ex: what the Nazis did to the Jews.

Dong said...

Geyyer, shut up, we don't need a spam war.

patriciam said...

I agree with u tdelsignore

patriciam said...

I agree with u tdelsignore

Jessica W. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kelsey C. said...

I think that the Europeans were trying to remain ignorant because they wanted to get rid of the Roman and Greek ways so they could follow and make up their own.

micaelan said...

i think the Europeans may have been happy to have a chance to prove that they could rule the countries without help form the Greek and Roman empires. They didn't want to admit that they needed help so they continued to try to figure it out on their own.

jgaudette said...

i think they may have tried to remain ignorant of Roman and Greek achievements because they did not have the same beliefs and certain aspects like relgion. If two areas did not have the same beliefs then they could possibly not agree with the things being learned because some things may be based of the religion. Like science and how the world was created can be based off of different gods and peopole of different religions dont want to believe things about other gods.

Mkelly said...

i agree with jen

MattMalloy said...

My theory is that the Europeans were not in favor of Roman rule. They were relieved when the Roman Empire collapsed. They did not want to be like these empires because they were against them or were jealous of their accomplishments.

jgaudette said...

way to be matt

OliviaH said...

Jen........you heard Mr.Paulson tell me the answer clearly.

jgaudette said...

matt kelly that is but you too matt malloy

Feeney said...

matt kelly clearly doesnt know what he is talking about

Eric Newton said...

I don't know, maybe they were ignorant af all of the achievements of the romans because they were jealous and wanted a chance to prove themselves. Igorance is bliss

Unknown said...

I think Europe chose to ignore the Greek and Roman advances because it was a way to sort of rebel against the Empires. By not following the advances of the Greek and Roman Empires, there would be no way for their empires to advance any further if their ideas can't spread.

LCerruti said...

They were not friends of these empires and did not want to give them credit for achieving the goals they did. They might have not wanted to use these ideas after these empires had already created them

MCjoasiwitzJR/ aka G. Bonica said...

The Hitstorians are very un smart to think that

Anonymous said...

They are ignorant losers and think they are always right

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

maybe there was conflict between the them both and the Europeans thought that whatever they were doing was working and didn't need improvement.

LCerruti said...

rawr

Anonymous said...

i have no idea but my common sense would say that christianity was spreading throughout the roman and greek empires when they collapsed. So the Europeans were all christian(who believe in one god) and the greeks and romans believed in more than one gods so the europeans ignored their ideas.

Anonymous said...

I think that the europeans were to confident about their ideas and thought that they were superior to the romans

AScott said...

I think it's because that rome was gone, and they may have thought rome was weak.

awong said...

can random people folo these threads?

Jessica W. said...

Maybe the Europeans were ignorant to the greeks and romans due to the fall of the roman empire, so they didnt want that to happen again, so they wanted to do things on their own? they wanted to have their own way to do things, other than following the Roman Empires, along with them maybe not believeing with the Romans in all aspects

Anonymous said...

I believe after the fall of Rome they needed a scapegoat for there failure so they turned to God for all knowledge and avoided anything else that was actually fact.

Zarina B. said...

I don't think that they "chose" to ignore the developements. I think that they might have just been so wrapped up in their own personal problems that they forgot about what was happening around them.

Alex L. said...

I HAVE NO IDEA BUT...

I will guess that because of how the Romans and Greeks treated the people of their empires then people of later generations despised the Romans and Greeks and decided to ignore their knowledge.

Symoneiw said...

Because they were jealous that the Greek and Romans were moving ahead and they were not.

Zarina B. said...

I agree with Alex but why would they not try to use the new ideas or technologies when they were so in need of help?

J-Raymond said...

Europeans chose to remain ignorant of these acheivements because......

uhmmm I don't get this question but from what i can understand I'd have to say they chose this because they really didn't know what to do. Europeans couldn't really side with the achievements if nobody else was siding with them as well.

MKalesinskas said...

Europeans chose to remain ignorant of Roman and Greek achievements because they didnt want to know the scientific or mathematical learning of the Greek and Roman Empires and they were jealous of them.

J-Raymond said...

in response to Zarina's comment

because people are people. grudges are held, so even if it would make them more advanced, they might not want to just because of how they had been treated.

Eric Newton said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alex L. said...

zarina, maybe people lacked the knowledge to develop and use new technologies...

AScott said...

I also think that mabye it either took a long time for ideas to reach europe or everyone hated them. That is my OPINON only!

EdouardMassih said...

so mr. paulson who won the best answer?

Mr. Paulson said...

Ok, so this was the toughest question and no one really "got it", though a few people who asked me for help (which was the appropriate thing to do) sort of got it.

Greeks and Romans, as you all remember from middle school, were polytheistic and worshiped many gods. The Christians of the latter Roman Empire and Europe after the fall of Rome viewed polytheism as "paganism" and therefore wrong. Since the Greeks and Romans were "primitive" in their religious views than it followed that their science, math and philosophy were also suspect.

Interestingly enough the myth that Columbus discovered that the Earth is round can be somewhat blamed on this intentional ignorance. The Greek scientist Ptolemy had calculated the circumference of the earth fairly accurately during the 2nd century C.E., about 1300 years before Columbus' journey. But during the "Dark Ages" myth often trumped science and somehow for many uneducated Europeans the earth became flat.

Ok, the "Best Post of the Day" awards for this question are:

Katy Sheehan (spelling corrected

"i think that there was a thought that new ways were needed. Like they no longer believed in the ways Romans and Greeks lived their lives. They might have thought that it was out dated, and would no longer work because its been done before!"

and

Micaela Nannery (an incorrect answer, but an interesting thought nonetheless)

"i think the Europeans may have been happy to have a chance to prove that they could rule the countries without help form the Greek and Roman empires. They didn't want to admit that they needed help so they continued to try to figure it out on their own."