#sheintiates

[lookingformyperfectsandwich]

“It is A.D. 476. The theater is plunged into darkness. Despite the blackout, the observer is aware of movement on stage. Props are being shifted about; the unmistakable sounds of human grunts and whispers suggest considerable activity. The intermission lasts five hundred years. When the lights come up again, the stage is completely rearranged. Gone are the elegant architrave and soaring cupola. Roads and aqueducts have fallen into ruin. Cramped, semi-isolated cities and towns have replaced the sweep of Roman hegemony. Commerce is all but nonexistent. Travel has become exceedingly dangerous; bandits roam the countryside. There has been a near-total breakdown of civil authority. Everyone appears dirty and everything seems grimy. The characters no longer speak Latin or Greek. Instead, a polyglot of immature vernaculars impinges on the ear. The dramatis personae are dressed in costumes of red, black, and brown. The Church has become the dominant institution and reserves black - like the ink of its vellum books - for itself. Red is for the nobility, who rule their petty fiefdoms that checkerboard the land. The vast mass of drab serfs who labor for a meager living wear brown shapeless shifts. They depend on the warrior aristocracy to protect their lives in this world and the clerics to save their souls in the next, and to each of these benefactors/oppressors, the serfs must tithe a hefty portion of their modest yield.

Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image