I started a conversation with Jim Tailor on another thread and thought it was worth one of it's own.

My comment was that when I first became involved with folk music in the late 50's and early 60's, one of the things that attracted me to it was how openly people were welcomed. Or at least, that was my perception. I've always thought of the folk community as welcoming, without a lot of prejudice (think broader than racial) or judgmentalism.

Looking back at the folk community in the early 60's in Greenwich Village, I was welcomed into the circle with no consideration of whether or not I was a Christian. I don't even remember ever discussing religion when I spent so many nights hanging out in coffee houses. I was also "straight" in a mostly "bent" community. I wasn't in to drugs as quite a few people were. That wasn't a barrier. I never felt that people thought there was something wrong with me, and I didn't reject anyone because they used drugs. It was pretty much a "live and let live" community. It was the music that brought us together.

Jim sees the folk community bound together by protest music, and that's his experience. There certainly were groups within the folk community that were more left-leaning in their philosophy, but up until Dylan and company, protest songs were only a small part of the music sung in coffee houses. Even at the peak of protest music when I was writing anti-war songs and singing at rallies, the bulk of the songs being sung in coffee houses were still a mix of traditional music, and new songs on many subjects in addition to protest. For every Masters Of War, there were five Puff The Magic Dragons, or Tom Dooleys.

I made a lot of friends in those days, some of which I still keep in touch with. I was as comfortable with Tom Paxton as I was with Dave Van Ronk, and they were great friends, even though their ideologies were very different.

When I've gone down to Washington, D.C. and sung with friends from FSGW, I still find that same warm acceptance. We don't sit around and take potshots at each other about religion or politics, and I feel as welcome there as I did when I walked into the Gaslight Cafe on McDougal Street in the Village, back in 1960. A total stranger, welcomed in.

And then, I look at Mudcat. And I wonder, has the folk community changed that much, or is Mudcat just a cyber-distortion? In the BS threads, politics and religion make up a major portion of the topics and the threads are filled with insults and attacks. There doesn't seem to be much room for differences of opinion in here. Or at least, not much of that "live and let live" attitude, where people find a common bond in the music. I think it's different with our British friends, too. They don't seem as pre-occupied with politics (Fer shure.)

I wonder.. is all this animosity that is interchanged in here because this is a cyber community? Or has the folk music community atrophied that much? I know so many Catters who say they don't stop in here as much any more because they are sick of all the in-fighting. How can a group like the Washington Folk Song Society, or at any folk festival be so warm and inviting, and yet Mudcat have such a hard edge to it?

I'd really like to hear your perspective on this.

Jerry