Is it not a good thing to question "accepted" assumptions from time to time?

Maybe, but questioning the same accepted assumptions again and again, in the same way, with the same if you define that as this then they're the same thing arguments, gets a bit wearing.

The exact definition and compartmentalisation is not that important. I'd rather fleetingly enjoy a butterfly on the wing than pin it down so I can stare at it under glass.

Fair enough, but in that case I can't help wondering what attracted you to this thread! Several dog-years ago, on one of the many similar threads, I tried asking whether people who disagreed with (say) Jim's definition of folk music whether they

- didn't care about definitions and didn't want to talk about them
- cared about definitions and wanted to use a different one
or
- cared about not using definitions

Nobody answered, but I still think it's a valid question.

I do sometimes get the feeling they are to the folk music buying public generally (y'know, those souls who buy records by Rachel Unthank and Waterson Carthy and Alasdair Roberts and Seth Lakeman and so on) approximately what the Sparticist International were to labour voters... That's not a pretty thought.

The Sparts in any context aren't a pretty thought. But as a general thing I wouldn't denigrate ideological purity and keeper-of-the-flame attitudes. Sometimes flames need to be kept; some flames are worth keeping.

One final observation (unlike Spleen I'm trying to give these threads up) - There Are No Folk Police. Nobody is telling anyone you can't play that or that's never a traditional song or get those pop songs out of my folk club!. Nobody is even expressing attitudes like that, except right here on Mudcat - and we feel free to unleash our inner traddie curmudgeons, here on Mudcat, because we reckon we're among friends and fellow enthusiasts. Which makes it a bit ironic, to say the least, to be accused of various forms of authoritarianism and personality disorder when we express the 'wrong' opinions.