I did not mean, in any degree, to minimize the struggles of the struggling or the suffering of the suffering. There is no doubt there are grim and awful conditions that some people in this country have to endure -- and even more people in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and India have to endure. I have visited the tawdriest slums in Mexico and in the urban dumping ground of MOrocco, and thank my stars I have not had to live in either. I have visited jungle homes where a good snake in a frying pan over an outdoor fire is a meal on good day. I have sometimes found myself on the street, for short periods. Not for long, and not often.

But I do not think "the Dark Ages" is a useful term in describing the economic, informational or cultural comditions in the West today. I think it is a histrionic exagerration, compared to the general shape of things, including the decline of superstition, even if it is insufferably slow.





A