HANSON: Are we witnessing a return to the Dark Ages?

Western civilization arose in the 8th century B.C. Greece. Some 1,500 city-states emerged from a murky, illiterate 400-year-old Dark Age. That chaos followed the utter collapse of the palatial culture of Mycenaean Greece.

But what re-emerged were constitutional government, rationalism, liberty, freedom of expression, self-critique and free markets — what we know now as the foundation of a unique Western civilization.

The Roman Republic inherited and enhanced the Greek model.

For a millennium, the Republic and subsequent Empire spread Western culture, eventually to be inseparable from Christianity.

From the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and from the Rhine and Danube to the Sahara, there were a million square miles of safety, prosperity, progress and science, until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.

What followed was a second European Dark Age, roughly from 500 to 1000 AD.

Populations declined. Cities eroded. Roman roads, aqueducts and laws crumbled.

Walls, stones kept people safe

In place of the old Roman provinces arose tribal chieftains and fiefdoms.

Whereas once Roman law had protected even rural people in remote areas, during the Dark Ages, walls and stone were the only means of keeping safe.

Finally, at the end of the 11th century, the old values and know-how of the complex world of Graeco-Roman civilization gradually re-emerged.

The slow rebirth was later energized by the humanists and scientists of the Renaissance, Reformation, and eventually the 200-year European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Contemporary Americans do not believe that our current civilization could self-destruct a third time in the West, followed by an impoverished and brutal Dark Age.

Societal collapse is hauntingly familiar

But what caused these prior returns to tribalism and loss of science, technology and the rule of law?

Historians cite several causes of societal collapse and today they are hauntingly familiar.

Like people, societies age. Complacency sets in.

The hard work and sacrifice that built the West also created wealth and leisure. Such affluence is taken for granted by later generations. What created success is eventually ignored or even mocked.

Expenditures and consumption outpace income, production and investment.

Child-rearing, traditional values, strong defence, love of country, religiosity, meritocracy and empirical education fade away.

The middle class of autonomous citizens disappears. Society bifurcates between a few lords and many peasants.

Tribalism — the pre-civilizational bonds based on race, religion or shared appearance — re-emerge.

National government fragments into regional and ethnic enclaves. Borders disappear. Mass migrations are unchecked. The age-old bane of antisemitism reappears.

The currency inflates, losing its value and confidence. General crassness in behaviour, speech, dress and ethics replaces prior norms.

Transportation, communications and infrastructure all decline.

Yet, the West historically is uniquely self-introspective and self-critical.

Reform and Renaissance historically are more common than descents back into the Dark Ages.

But the medicine for decline requires unity, honesty, courage and action — virtues now in short supply on social media, amid popular culture and among the political class.