Abstract
Mahler’s relationship with the political and intellectual currents of his time was complex. This essay uses a 1903 article from the Berliner Tageblatt, ‘Der Kampf gegen die Dummheit’ (‘The Fight against Stupidity’), briefly commented upon by Mahler in a letter to Alma, as a touchstone for unravelling some of this complexity. Although the article was primarily a critique of contemporary fraudulent spiritualist mediums, it implicitly framed this critique in the wider political context of Liberalism. Mahler’s response to it, along with related comments made in other letters, provides evidence of the composer’s sophisticated and uncertain positioning within the conflicting developments of the political, philosophical, religious and scientific thought of his generation.