1) folk music, which I love, has been swallowed up by this category

This would be folk music, as in Irish, English, Scottish, Shetland, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Norwegian or other traditional? or the various derivatives of those such as Appalatian or Cape Breton? or blues-inspired folk from Big Bill Broonzy and Mississippi John Hurt? or subsequent American singer-songwriter stuff from Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Tom Paxton and co? or subsequent British, French, etc singer-songwriter stuff like Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jacques Brel? or folk-rock from Pentangle and Fairport Convention? or folk-punk-rock from the Levellers or the Pogues? or electronic folk-rock from the Blue Horses and others? or pop bands like Crowded House who write acoustic-heavy songs?

By putting this music onto a shelf and labelling it "World Music", you are creating a genre

A genre is *always* a rather arbitrarily-created category to hold many things which may be loosely related to each other but which are not themselves the same. And it doesn't mean that the genre is self-enclosed either.

Folk music is such a genre. So is "world music". So is blues. Some people in all three have been influenced by each other, and by other genres such as pop and rock. Some people within that genre may *not* have been influenced by other sub-categories within that genre - for instance, I doubt like hell that Bob Dylan has had any significant connection with the Shetland or Cape Breton fiddle traditions - but that doesn't stop them all being loosely grouped into the "folk music" genre. This doesn't mean that the genres shouldn't exist, does it?

Or if it does, and you're saying that all genres should be split into more accurate descriptions of music types, then *you* must also also give up the existence of the "folk music" genre, where you say you like music from that genre but have not thought to describe in detail which of the *many* sub-cultures of folk music you like. By saying simply that you like "folk music", you've rather exploded your own argument there.

The old argument that we hear time and time again is that in a multi ethnic society, we must open our ears to all types of music and that if you do not, then you are narrow minded – and by implication, racist.

If you're not prepared to at least give all types of music a fair go, then you're certainly narrow-minded. If you're rejecting it simply on the basis of it coming from a different culture, you're likely also racist. If, after listening to a bunch of examples of that type of music, you realise that it's not for you, then that's fine - we don't all have to like the same kind of music. But dismissing it (and criticising its very existence) without being willing to experience it is the very definition of narrow-mindedness, is it not?

there is something a little self-righteous about these listeners who give themselves a moral superiority which they do not in any way deserve

*All* listeners to "world music", you say? You feel yourself able to generalise about all these people you've never met? See definition of narrow-mindedness above...

Graham.