On 03/21/2011 11:47 PM, Matt Barber wrote:
My apologies for that remark -- it's not quite how I meant it. I did not mean this particular discussion or anything anyone here said. What I mean is that the broad "what is music" discussion overall tends to annoy me and make me sad, sick at heart, etc. In fact it's one that I quite enjoy when the parties are discussing responsibly and in good faith. I suppose I feel the same way about the "is there a god" or "what is god" question -- it can be a fun and sometimes even fruitful discussion, but most often there is astonishingly little new territory to cover, many reasons for nasty partisan disputes and so forth. I guess I've had too many "potentially distasteful" conversations turn to actually distasteful ones, so "the discussion" (in the broad sense) feels distasteful to me. Nothing any of you have said have made me sad yet.
Matt
That makes me feel better. I suppose this is a subject that doesn't necessarily belong on this list and most answers on this thread give away the reluctance to discuss it. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing.
Anyway, starts to feel like swimming upstream :).