Not to disagree with your first and most basic premise (of course there's such a thing as B sharp), and not to denigrate music theory (I received a good musical education, thank you very much)

But your "damaging our culture" ideas seem strange, given where we are?

You are aware that one of the basic ideas which motivated the collection of folk music was that culture wasn't just in the hands of people who could read music and discuss the technicalities of music theory? That culture was something that was in the hands of living people going about their everyday lives - and that the music they used as they lived those lives was worth collecting and learning?

Isn't traditional music part of the foundation of our culture? And that music was often transmitted among people with none of the basics of music theory that you talk about! They may not have been able to read key signatures. Surely they were building up our culture, not damaging it!

If you're implying that culture can only survive in a context of technical education, then surely that torpedoes much of the culture that many of us here love, study, and learn to sing or play?


(To recap: absolutely there's such a thing as B-sharp, absolutely learn your music theory if you have the opportunity - BUT I think you've got a pretty distored idea of culture. "Western culture" is not in the hands of only the technically educated, and "western music" is not in the hands of those who have studied music theory. To say otherwise is to deny the contribution to the history of music of those who were not educated in music theory. Which is bonkers, and downright perverse in a community of those who listen to and play traditional music!)