"Dark Ages" comes from Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars saying, "Thank God we're so smart. Those people were morons."

Also, it was after Rome really fell apart, darker times then the Empire certainly.

in a way i think yes. in the dark ages at least any insane cults and ideas couldn't spread far. if your village or castle happened to have dark ages version of ben shapiro then his words aren't going to go far (unless they infected the local ruler as well, and even then it'd still be contained within your area, or your country at worst). If you were on the receiving end of insanity you could always just kind of– pack up and move to another village, walk 30km away and you're like a new man! Worst case scenario find your way to a port, fuck off to another country - passports or border control did not exist, passage was often granted for free to those able bodied that joined the crew for the voyage.

obviously i'm romanticising here a bit, modern medicine and technology makes day to day life easier. but it also makes other things much harder. our privacy is going extinct at an alarming rate, freedom of movement across borders belongs to distant memories of our great grandparents, (unless you're french) your protests will be ignored and/or vilified, and if you dare care about other humans and speak up about it you can be labelled as a terrorist in some places

i do truly hope that those years of unrest aren't here to stay...

Maybe þere are repeatedly recurring golden ages?

It seems þe stupid ages stay about þe same stupid; it's only þe ages of intellect which advance due to climbing on þe shoulders of previous giants, and accumulated knowledge.

Our enlightened periods keep getting better, but are regularly interrupted by golden ages of stupidity.