When Albinoni was writing his music do you think he thought of himself as Baroque? Or was Michelangelo busy sculpting because he knew that was his part in the Renaissance? It would be amusing to tell Socrates he was living in Classical Greece.
None of us know what our classifications will be in the future and how our centuries and times will be taught, if they are taught at all but so far we haven’t missed out centuries and even those we don’t teach fully we give a generic name – usually a misnomer of sorts such as The Dark Ages. I don’t actually think it should worry us too much what our descendants will call us though many people try to pre-empt the categories by calling things ‘Modern’ and ‘Post Modern’ making sure that those terms will have to be used by future commentators.
I have heard some people say the twentieth century will be seen as part of those centuries that are the ‘Dawn of Science’, broadly speaking going hand-in-hand with the Industrial Revolution. This post sounds like a list of essay titles for seventeen year olds. The point is we have a pretense to see ourselves as one thing but that will be swept away by those who come after us.
After all this century coming may be seen as the most selfish in history and the age of natural disasters, whilst we confidently think it will be the Century of Asia and the beginning of the space age.