Jim,
Please do not expect any further reaaction from me to your posts on Mudcat after this one. It is become increasingly clear that discussion with you gets nowhere. You make an exchange of views impossible. We get the same old points being made over and over again rather than responses to points that are being made. This caused one regular here to exclaim-
We are coming full circle again. Back to the beginning.
He has it spot on. Your circumlocution is an impediment to structured argument.
We are discussing Folk Song In England and yet you constantly respond with references to your opinion of the situation in another country and when another ex-pat in that country suggests that you may not have it totally right. it is met with demeaning put-downs.
Another well-respected poster reacted by saying:-
I think Jim's conflation of the 'print origins' theory with the practices of English folk clubs since the 1980s muddies the water.
Again this is spot on and follows quickly on another example of conflation or confusion or both pointed out by myself over your attitude towards different attitudes shown by the academic community.
A difference in attitude is normally healthy and stimulating in debate. I don't think anyone minds that your opinion on the origins of folk is so strongly held. It is your unwillingness or inability to concede even the smallest point, to back up your strongly held opinions with evidence, to answer questions without prevarication or obfuscation that stultifies progress in discussion.
When a pair of religious pamplet-wavers come knocking on my door, I gently send them on their way because experience shows that to reason with extreme fundementalists is not possible because they know and I don't so why is it that I won't accept; reason does not come into it; belief dominates.
Sadly, Jim, I feel that I have reached this stage with you for the same reasons.