Um, before we start hatin’ on the Middle Ages too much, consider:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about
something, let us say a lamp post, which many influential persons
desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the
Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the
arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my
brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good…” At this
point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a
rush for the lamp post, the lamp post is down in ten minutes, and they
go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality.
But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have
pulled the lamp post down because they wanted the electric light; some
because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness,
because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp
post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal
machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is
war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and
inevitably, today, tomorrow, or the next day, there comes back the
conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on
what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed
under the gas lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.
—G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905