On odds, choose the past

Then again, statistically speaking, the production of the past is bound to look better than contemporary production; all ages probably produce plentiful dross, with, here and there, a masterpiece; but overtime the dross falls by the wayside and only the masterpieces remain; this creates the ocular illusion that the past was much more exciting than it really was; certainly much more exciting than the present. But, when over the centuries, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of masterpieces have accumulated, the very richness of the offerings of the past, their number and quality, means that the modern consumer faced with a choice between a random masterpiece of the past and a random contemporary work on odds alone chooses the past.

We are then -- so to speak -- crushed by our cultural inheritance.