It depends on your criteria, says Aaron M. Renn. A golden age of accessibility and consumption? Yes. But is it better to be in an era of plenty, or an era of creation and discovery?
Renn was inspired by a back-and-forth between two writers discussing whether this is a good time or a bad time for classical music.
He writes:
"...when we think about a golden age in the past, we think of the time in which those greatest of works were produced. We talk of the golden age of Athens, when those most primal works of western civilization were created. Would you rather be here reading Plato talk about Socrates, or would you rather have had a front row seat at his trial? Or, perhaps yet, would you have rather have been engaged on the field of battle, to have been one of the participants of those great debates on the ultimate questions of human existence, to strive to be one of the names written in the history books?"
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