Pandemic Diary: Living in the Contemporary Dark Age

I read on Wikipedia that Dark Ages were a period in the history when human race experienced intellectual darkness.

The stark difference is that in our contemporary Dark Age we witness the abundance of records. Everyone, literally everyone, can make records of their own most trivial thoughts and emotions.

Though it’s progress in itself compared to the past, human race fail to recognize which records to trust and which to disregard and omit.

Other characteristics of Dark Age are violence and backwardness.

Despite all the progress in almost all sectors, we are now struggling to prevent humans from hurting and killing each other. Myanmar’s repressive military actions which took more and more tolls, the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrants all over the US, and UU Cipta Kerja mayhem in Indonesia showed just that hideous face of civilization.

Speaking of backwardness, we are now stranded in an epoch when science is doubted by laymen and bureaucrats. How Donald Trump treated Fauci, and in Indonesia how Indonesia’s ministers and public officials simply belittled the coming of Covid-19 in this country in February 2020 showed us this backwardness. They trusted their own intuition and prediction instead of listening to science. Sheer positivity that turned to be toxic and idiotic. Because look at where we are now! Stranded somewhere in the pandemic curve, not knowing when it’ll end with the vaccination process taking this long while the virus keeps on mutating and evolving at a faster speed.

And the advent of identity politics even showed us more this backwardness characteristic. Humans are defined and treated based on their ethnicity, races, and religions.

Look at the British Royal Family chaos with Meghan Markle accusing the royals of being racist and the Papuans being mistreated and even called “apes” in Java.

It all happened when we thought we already left this dark part of human sides behind. Way behind. The thing is it follows us, like our shadow.

It’s all about opressing other weaker and marginalized groups of human. And the systematized structure built over centuries allows such oppression to continually happen.