glad to see the art of enlightened & intelligent dicussion is still alive...

How can one have an enlightened & intelligent discussion with people who believe it is any way justifiable to black-up in the name of some indulgent recreational hobby? The only excuse for a white person to have a black face in this day & age is in the context of a hard day's work - like my coal-men.

Tradition in the context of The Revival amounts to an ossified pedantry wholly at odds with the notions of mutability, adaptability, change, transference, etc etc. seemingly enshrined by early folklorists, such as Maud Karpeles in her definition of folk song in 1954. In the context of the revival, as we've established elsewhere, The Folk Process is long dead. Doing things how things used to be done is not, therefore, traditional - it is revivalist re-enactment. In any case, just because something was done once upon a time is no justification for doing it now, be it having surgery without anaesthetic or lowering the age of consent to twelve. Tradition? History? Bullshit.

I must point out I love Morris Dancing; I saw the Silurians dancing at the Morris Ring in Durham many moons ago & it was one of the most exciting things I'd ever seen. Truly awesome - but with dancing like that, they'd be awesome whatever colour they painted their faces.