Perhaps we should change the name of this one to "The Personal Attack Permathread"?

There is nothing personal about any of this; on the contrary, it's about as impersonal as it gets seeing as how, for whatever reason, the central protagonist seems to have eliminated actual living humanity from their somewhat perplexing philosophy of English Culture.

As for an attack, one would hope the only wish on anyone's mind here is to let said protagonist know just how misguided & ill-informed such ideas are in the hope something might be done about them.

When it comes to culture, living humanity is all that matters. It doesn't matter if the English people of 100 years ago sang their Traditional English Folk Songs unaccompanied, the fact is, barring a tiny minority of revivalist folk song enthusiasts, they don't now.

Why don't they? Well, because they're all dead for a start; notwithstanding some very serious questions over just how many of them sang these Traditional English Folk Songs in the first place, and how much of it is a myth perpetuated, however so unwittingly, by the revival. To go back to an earlier point on this thread (see above, Walkaboutsverse 24 Apr 08 - 01:27 PM) in a very real sense, as babies boomed, it was folk-year-zero.

I'm sure such issues have been dealt with elsewhere, but when entire lifetimes were spent without ever once encountering a single folk song in any sort of traditional context, then one must begin to wonder to what extent, if any, Traditional English Folk Song ever permeated English Culture as a whole. If it did, then it certainly didn't do so in a vacuum, though one might at least postulate the sort of circumstances in which it could well have done, but chances are we'll end up tripping along the leafy lane to Lark Rise.

Seductive as such idyllic visions undoubtedly are, they remain just that - idyllic visions with little or no baring on reality whatsoever; not then, and certainly not now. So to suggest that Our Own Good English Culture is any way, shape or form defined by Traditional English Folk Song is perhaps a little wide of the mark - but to then go on to advise on how said Traditional English Folk Song should (or more to the point should not) authentically be performed is surely to enter into realms of the absurd.

Worst of all, however, is to suggest that this barely legible footnote in the social history of a culturally impoverished lumpenproletariat is somehow good for our National Identity and Well-being. Good for the elite minority who love such things perhaps, but for the majority it is, and understandably so, absolutely meaningless - indeed, as ghastly, as the man said.

True English Folk Culture is out there doing whatever it is that people are doing; it's listening to whatever it is that they're listening to, and playing whatever it is that they're playing and, get this, it's loving every fecking minute of it. True English Folk Culture is getting on with the daily reality of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-faith life without ever once stopping to trouble over the anachronistic minutiae that might provide such endless fascination to the likes of us.

In fact, I dare say most of us are doing just that anyway...