Talk:Golden Age

message: This article is currently a mess, due mainly to edits by Pictureuploader that look like they may be the insertion of badly translated material. I've left a note at User talk:Pictureuploader#Golden age, and hope to get a response soon about how we might move forward. Failing such a response, I am very inclined to revert. - Jmabel | Talk 03:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A mess 

message: Shouldn't such a concept be found in any works of fiction? I may be wrong, but I think the Golden Age is in the story of Zelda and mentioned in A Link to The Past?
:It's just one of the mythological elements to be found in fiction Pictureuploader 23:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Golden Age in Popular Culture 

message: Surely it should be Golden Age, not age. I would change it, but I don´t know how to change the title. Help anyone? Quicksand2 16:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is fine where it is, and in any event Golden Age redirects here, so the point is more or less moot. - Jmabel | Talk 15:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In keeping with other "Ages" like Stone Age and the like, it should probably be swapped the other way around - so I'll go and do that.  j-beda 16:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There, I did it, as well as made an explicit Golden Age (disambiguation) page. j-beda 16:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: It should be Golden Age.  This is the full name of this classification, much like a person's name, or the name of a place.  Golden age should redirect to Golden Age, and not visa verse.  — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 14:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: From the intro:
:An analogous idea can be found in the religious and philosophical traditions of the Far East. For example, the Vedic or ancient Hindu culture saw history as cyclical composed of yugas with alternating Dark and Golden ages. The Kali yuga (Iron Age), Dwapara yuga (Bronze Age), Treta yuga (Silver age) and Satya yuga (Golden age) correspond to the four Greek ages. Similar beliefs can be found in the ancient Middle East and throughout the ancient world.
At no time has India ever been classified as the "Far East": that designation usually applies to China/Japan/Southeast Asia.  And in any case, while it is interesting that the concept of ages plays such an important role in Hindu culture, it's mentioned after discussing the Greek myths as an example of these beliefs all of the world.
This is a pretty poor example, as Indo-Europeanists might well argue that this is the same Proto-Indo-European myth that has survived in these two cultures. --Saforrest 16:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well taken; I changed the name. Americans you know have no idea that Russia to the north extends over several time zones and contains the ecosystem that contributes the most Oxygen to the atmosphere. To us Central Asia may as well be the moon - it is over there next to Iraq and China and the other middle easterners, far far away. Still, to the editor I say you have to do your homework on these things and not just write off the top of your head. It is established scholarly opinion we are after not your personal opinion. Thanks. Oh by the way we are not interested in what Indo-Europeanists might argue only in what they did argue. The theme can be developed if someone else developed it, but you can't say everything in one paragraph. Wikipedia is concise but it isn't that concise. The original allowed length of articles was expanded as a necessary enhancement years ago. That expansion is for verified scholarly views not for your personal opinion.Dave (talk) 10:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Far East? 

message: For discussion on the title, please see the above "title" section.  This comment is about the fact that there is a strange use of the term "Golden age" in the article itself.  Normal capitalization of not proper terms is that these terms are never capitalized.   It's not "Golden age".  It's "golden age".  However, since "Golden Age" is a proper noun, it should be fully capitalized, not partially.  There's nothing special about the word "golden" by itself that would warrant its special capitalization, but not the capping of "age".  This article needs to be cleaned up to correct the capitalization issue (one way or another).  — fcsuper (How's That?, That's How!) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 14:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Golden age" 

message: This article is currently a mess, due mainly to edits by Pictureuploader that look like they may be the insertion of badly translated material. I've left a note at User talk:Pictureuploader#Golden age, and hope to get a response soon about how we might move forward. Failing such a response, I am very inclined to revert. - Jmabel | Talk 03:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A mess 

message: Shouldn't such a concept be found in any works of fiction? I may be wrong, but I think the Golden Age is in the story of Zelda and mentioned in A Link to The Past?
:It's just one of the mythological elements to be found in fiction Pictureuploader 23:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Golden Age in Popular Culture 

message: Surely it should be Golden Age, not age. I would change it, but I don´t know how to change the title. Help anyone? Quicksand2 16:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is fine where it is, and in any event Golden Age redirects here, so the point is more or less moot. - Jmabel | Talk 15:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In keeping with other "Ages" like Stone Age and the like, it should probably be swapped the other way around - so I'll go and do that.  j-beda 16:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There, I did it, as well as made an explicit Golden Age (disambiguation) page. j-beda 16:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: There are quite a large number of historical periods in human history and other aspects of culture that are termed the golden age. These are to be distinguished from the mythical golden age. The original intent of this article was clearly to present the mythical golden age. The historical golden ages are referenced under the metaphorical golden ages. Since that is the established pattern, the three or four historical golden ages are misplaced here. I am taking them out and putting them below as subsections so that you may not lose this information and may put it where it belongs. There is another misplacement as well. A golden age since the origin of the concept in the west in Greek literature is a thing of the past. Any future equivalents are termed the millenium or the resurrection or some such appropriate name. If some future society is not actually named the golden age it is not our business to force it into that mold; that is original research. We are interested in conditions named golden age by someone other than us! So that means more will have to come out. I'm not saying, we shouldn't have articles on these things, and I see we do. I'm saying, they don't belong in this article, which is about the past mythical golden age innovated by the Greeks in Greek literature and taken up subsequently by Romans and others. Moreover, as the article points out, there are other golden ages of the same name and a similar definition in other cultures. Those should be in there as well. On with the show.Dave (talk) 23:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical versus mythical golden age

message: This topic is already in Golden Age (metaphor). What, you want it to be in both places? Then why have two different articles? This is clearly a historical not a mythological use. If you put it in here you will be telling us the golden age of Islam was mythical. I don't think you really want to do that, so let's keep it in the other article and take it out of here.Dave (talk) 23:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islamic Golden Age 

message: This is a supposed historical golden age. I say supposed because you cite no references at all. This is therefore removable. There were many, many such historical golden ages; why select this one? If you had selected the reign of Louis XIV, the sun king, whose very motif was the age of gold, I could understand. In any case this is not a mythical golden age and does not belong here. We could have a golden age for every nation in the world, could we not? Hundreds of golden ages are not what this article is about.Dave (talk) 23:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Early modern Europe

message: Would you like to rewrite this please? For one thing the Greek and the supposed Christian term are not the same thing at all. Christians do not use the term. Second, you were fine until you started talking about the historical golden age. There might be some justification in the reigns of mythical or quasi-mythical kings, but not for historical kings. That is another metaphoric use.Dave (talk) 23:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: Excuse me, Christians do not believe in and never did believe in the golden age. I don't care what you say Whyte and Ashton say, nothing in Christianity calls itself the golden age. The passage you site describes New Jerusalem and that is exactly what Christians call it. From the way you've written this, we have to conclude what you say is entirely Whyte and Ashton's opinion. Do they offer any proof? What is their evidence? How did they detect such an influence? To make such an assertion stick we need to show that some Christians called it the golden age or were influenced in the formulation of these ideas by the pagan notions of a golden age. You haven't done it, from what you say they haven't done it and there are no refs on this section. You just can't start labeling every hypothetical or ideal state as a golden age on your own initiative; there would be thousands. We need some indication that this condition was called a golden age by the persons who formulated it. Thanks, more work, more thought, bye now.Dave (talk) 23:59, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Christianity

message: The golden age is not Utopian. There is a confusion of myths here. A golden age is a golden time in the past when everything was real great and nature and society operated the way it ought. It is put forward as having existed. Utopia does not exist, never existed, never will exist; it is "no place", the way things ought to be, except that social experiments such as Brooke farm typically lay claim to the concept and even the explicit name. America is the great land of Utopias but we never have had a golden age. The memory of the harsh and bitter struggle to build the continent is too near. Moreover, the implication of the rest of the paragraph is too general to say anything and gives no explanatory citations. Again, the editor's opinion is not a high enough standard for Wikipedia. What do you mean, editor, and why are there no references?Dave (talk) 11:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Utopian paragraph

message: I deny this totally. I think they decline into the next age. Have you got any references for catastophes ending a golden age? I would have substituted "often" for "usually" but you have yet to prove any were ended by catastrophe.Dave (talk) 11:13, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The fall of man

message: I fixed the most blatent confusions in this article but I'm getting back to golden age Latin now. Still this article should be on my list. It is in essence a stub. We don't have enough tie-ins to archaeological and other spin-offs of the Greek scheme and we have not covered the development of the concept in the classical authors. I'll be back, I don't know when. Meanwhile if you want to fill this out, I have to say to you, references, references, references, and don't want to fill it out unless you intend to try to do a good job.Dave (talk) 11:28, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "Stub", no! It is a Scribble Board of anything that come to the mind of the passers-by. Nevertheless, come back ASAP! ... said: Rursus (mbork³) 10:05, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: I'll be back

message: This is not a concept of heaven. It is not a currently existing place requiring belief in it, is not a place where you go when you die (or do not go), is not the special abode of God or the gods. There is a tendency on the part of some editors to lump all these concepts together. Utopianism, Millenialism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Paradise, Garden of Eden, and so on. Excuse me but this is original research. You are developing a grand unified thesis and are presenting it to us as encyclopedic knowledge. Almost none of these articles have any references on them and certainly none for the grand thesis that there is a conceptual mold they all fit. You overreach yourself; you fly too near the sun and your wings are melting, you are trying to climb into heaven from the tower of Babel and will shortly be cast down. Pride goeth before a fall. You also lack reverence to think you can devise a universal plan into which all these things fit. Who do you think you are, hey? Is this your plan of things? Using Wikipedian philosophy, I say to you, stick to each topic at hand, put references in for everything you say, stop injecting original research, stop presenting grand themes of your own, such as the golden age being an instance of the concept of heaven. If someone else said that (which I for one seriously doubt) let us have them identified and referenced. As a lot of these articles are crossing my path you can look forward to my insistence on total back-up for each and every one. Actually this is a post-factum statement; someone else has already questioned just about all of your theses. You can look forward to my backing that person or person.Dave (talk) 18:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice work Mr. Dave, but just calm down. There is no need to accuse the editors for "pride" or scold them with lines such about as "Who do you think you are", nor making parallels with the Tower of Babel or Icarus. 94.65.205.46 (talk) 07:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes! They're prideful, and proud! (Which might be a good thing!:) Yet the article is a mess of this and that. ... said: Rursus (mbork³) 11:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Concept of Heaven

message: Raising the Mess Issue again: the article contains to much of this and that, verses here, references there, without a main thread. The reason is of course that there is no clear separation between the different cultural Golden Ages. The intro beginning with Greek mythology, then tripping over to a:
:An analogous idea is
and then messing around with Vedic and other mythologies, that doesn't have a similar time scheme and doesn't play the same role in those cultures as the Western Ages of Man, is one of the central reasons for this messup. Ideas shall not be mixed-messed up, they shall be compared. There is a tendency among this and that non-Western culture to hold forth their cultural concepts and say: "Look here, we did do the same thing as you!" ― "Yeah, but yet you did it very differently, with no less quality!". We need to distinguish the concepts of Yugas much more from the Greek Ages of Man in order to be able to compare correctly — and comparisons will need external references. (BTW, the article Ages of Man is also a mess of the same kind as this article, because of trying to mix Vedic Mythology with Ancient Greek Mythology). 
The cultural contexts as I have read it myself, are:
* Vedic: the Yugas are phases in cycles repeating themselves infinitely, for the cyclic nature of the mythocosmology, the Yugas are much more a way to describe and explain nature and homeostasis, than a moral discourse (my interpretation — pardon for all mistakes!),
* Old Greek (now disused, except for idiomatic use): the Ages of Man reflects godly regimes of deteriorating quality, from the creation from Chaos up to today, much more directed towards explaining a moral deterioration of man, but still providing a millennial hope of the return of Dike/Astraea the goddess of Justice, and the Golden Age (my interpretation here too).
The article should be replaced by a very simple overview of Golden Ages of "Paradisic" nature, in opposition to some reactions above, it is OK if Paradise, Garden of Eden and such are in this article, but most information that is pertaining to a certain culture should go into special articles Golden Age (Greek), Golden Age (Vedic) and Golden Age (/IMAGINE WHATEVER/). Then this article becomes the page of CITABLE comparisons, and until we find comparing external sources, then this article should remain a skeleton that mostly refers to main articles and makes shallow reviews of them. ... said: Rursus (mbork³) 10:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: MESS!!

message: From the "The Golden Age in Europe: Greece" section:
[Men] lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all devils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace my social studies teacher is the best. Plato in his Cratylus referred to an age of golden men and also expounded at some length on Ages of Man from Hesiod's Works and Days. The Roman poet Ovid simplified the concept by reducing the number of Ages to four: Gold, Bronze, Silver, and Iron. Ovid's poetry, known to schoolboys from Antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond, was likely a prime source for the transmission of the myth of the Golden Age during the period when Western Europe had lost direct contact with Greek literature.
I'm assuming the highlighted section isn't part of the original version, if someone would care to research & correct? (I don't know whether it's an addition or whether it's replaced original text)
---- 
Caroline  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.137.204 (talk) 10:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schoolboy prank? 

message: Isn't it true that gold was the first metal used by men, because (before people took it all out) it was in fact a fairly common component of the gravel in river beds and easy to acquire, needing no smelting? I think I heard the oldest golden treasures were found in Bulgaria, not that far from Greece. Doesn't that mean that there is some truth to saying there was a "Gold Age" before the "Bronze age"? I don't know about silver though, no idea if it's also easier to get than bronze (though obviously harder than gold because you need to smelt it). -- 92.224.247.182 (talk) 18:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical core? 

message: Should this article be moved to Golden Age (mythology)?It will make more sense, and will be less confusing, to use the title "Golden Age" for the article currently at Golden age (metaphor), which mentions real and historical, not mythological golden ages. Khestwol (talk) 11:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move suggestion 

message: The omission of Africa from this page is appalling. The wealth of African history has even been written out of Wikipedia, what a shame. 
Consider the following: 
It can be said with a strong degree of certainty that Africa has had three Golden Ages. The first two reached their climax and were in decline before Europe as a functioning entity in human society was born. Africa's first Golden Age began at the beginning—with the birth of man and the development of organized societies. It is general conceded in most scholarly circles that mankind originated in Africa; this makes the African man the father and the African woman the mother of mankind
In his book The Progress and Evolution of Man in Africa, Dr. L.S.B. Leakey states that:
In every country that one visits and where one is drawn into a conversation about Africa, the question is regularly asked, by people who should know better: "But what has Africa contributed to world progress?" The critics of Africa forget that men of science today, with few exceptions, are satisfied that Africa was the birthplace of man himself, and that for many hundreds of centuries thereafter, Africa was in the forefront of all human progress.
In the early development of man, the family was the most important unit in existence. Through the years the importance of this unit has not changed. The first human societies were developed for reasons relating to the needs and survival of the family. The early African had to make hooks to catch fish, spears to hunt with, and knives. He searched for new ways of building shelter, gathering and raising food, and domesticating animals. Our use of fire today simply continues the process started by the early Africans—the control of fire. In the making of tools that sets man apart from all living creatures, Africans started man along the tool-making path.
With the discovery of metals and how to use them all Africa took a great leap forward. Man had learned how to take iron from the ground and turn it into spears and tools. Iron cultures spread rapidly across Africa and there were very few parts of Africa that were not influenced by these Iron Age cultures. Iron cultures had their greatest development in the area of Africa that is now the Eastern Sudan, in the great city-state of Meroe. The use of iron accelerated every aspect of African development and introduced a new danger—the eventual use of iron weapons in warfare.
 Africa: The Passing of the Golden Ages By John Henrik Clarke (May 1988)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.78.130.22 (talk) 01:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Africa's Estimated Three Golden Ages  

message: Prometheus made mankind at the request of Zeus, so how could Kronos preside over the Golden Age when he was cast down into Tartarus at this point? And Zeus couldn't have tasked Prometheus before Titanomachy because he was hiding from Kronos on Crete Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 01:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prometheus created mankind after Titanomachy?