Mahler and us

Mahler, the late 19th to early 20th century composer known for, among many other very admired works, his Symphony No. 2 “Ressurrection” and No. 9 “Das Lied Von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth) knew he was the last in a long Austro-German Symphonic tradition that started with Haydn, then was inherited by Schubert, Wagner, Bruckner and Wagner respectively. We are similarly the last generation that inherited the Enlightenment culture, which is the accumulated result of around 4000 years of aggregated knowledge and values. We seem to be on the brink of such a biological and social revolution that I argue that people born 200 years from know will not see us as their ancestors to a greater extent that we see cavemen as ours.