I remember watching clip from 1975 BBC series Survivors, set in Britain decimated by apocalyptic plague, in which character explains couple of survivors why they can't take what remained of civilisation for granted with exactly the same argument. Something like that actually happened in 7th Century AD when early Muslim conquests wrecked trade routes in Mediterranean and later archaeologists finding certain artefacts in Europe much scarce or significantly more primitive in comparisons with 6th Century.