Oof. That does sound pretty bad. Just let the good thing be good. Just let the future get better over time.
Ugh I am so tired of that stupid misconception.
The Renaissance as understood in comments like this didn’t exist, because the “dark ages” weren’t a time of social, cultural, scientific, and artistic, darkness, they’re a time with few surviving records. That’s it.
That scene is even worse than when Elon Musk (go isn’t even actually an engineer, and frankly seems to be fairly stupid) was mentioned alongside actual great scientists.
The contribution of the “dark ages” to the renaissance is that there are clear through lines from the early Middle Ages to the renaissance. You can look at art history and development after development and see how artists got to the point they did by the time people started inventing dumb stories about how bad the previous age was. Same thing with science, philosophy, music, etc
Education rose during the Middle Ages! Europes first hospitals, universities, attempts to spread literacy, all happened over the centuries we call the Middle Ages.
Hell the unwashed peasants who have never left their village trope isn’t even true, as even tiny thorps in Europe had public bath houses, and the roads were full of travelers of all kinds, including tourists and adventurers, people escaping bad landlords to live in a city and find work (or turning to banditry), pilgrims, and of course tradesfolk.
No Renaissance without the terrible Dark Ages…good lord.