"SS, you're joking, right?" John P

It wasn't SS posting.

Right, sorry, it was Dave, who goes on to say:

Have you never been to a Folk event and noticed that there are distinctly folkie modes of dress? or styles of hair and beard?

Well, sure. Most groups of people have a mode of dress that they tend to prefer. Business people wear suits. Surfers like to be tan.

It should be clear that people are making a bigger committment to a particular lifestyle than merely supporting a preferred genre of music.

You've lost me here. Preferring a particular style of non-costume dress automatically means that someone is making a big commitment to a particular lifestyle? Can you offer any support for that statement?

I don't wear a powdered wig to go to a Bach concert, or evening dress for Lizst!

Whew, I'm glad. I don't either. And I often show up at folk festivals in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

It is very understandable that people who have incorporated a particular musical genre closely into their self image, are going to see an attack on their music as an attack on their very selves, and will use any supporting evidence for their definition as a vital part of their defensive argument. Lovers of traditional folk have the 1954 definition- of course they will think that it is important, and will refer to it constantly.

Again, you are making an assumption that I don't see supported by any evidence in the real world. I'm a lover of traditional music who never heard of 1954 before a couple of weeks ago. I do think that traditional music is part of my very self, but I feel the same way about the blues and about playing drums. I certainly don't need to go to any definition to defend my tastes in music - or dress, for that matter. No one I know actually refers to 1954 in any way.

On the other hand, there are those who have noticed that the stereotypical folkie can hold the wider movement up to ridicule

Who? Where? Ridicule? When? What did they say? Are you suggesting that anyone who doesn't think modern composed songs ought to be called folk music is ridiculing anyone? Isn't it possible that they are just arguing over the definition of a word? Besides, every traddy I know who actually cares about such things (a very small group) gave up on trying to contain the use of the word folk decades ago. Everyone just plays the music they like, and calls it by the best name they can come up with. And somehow manages to get along with everyone else.

In order to sustain their wider definition, it becomes important to marginalise the trad group in the quest for wider public acclaim. One strategy is to ridicule as obsolete a definition arrived at by a previous generation.

Well, OK, I've seen some of that here, although I'm not sure about the quest for wider public acclaim. I've never seen it in the real world. Everyone just plays the music they like, and calls it by the best name they can come up with.

I've said it before- this argument cannot be settled by rational debate. It means too much at a much more fundamental human level.

If you are talking about agreeing on "what is folk?", I agree. If you're talking about investigating whether or not anything about folk music is decided from above, I think we all know the answer.