Songs of Conscience (SongsofConscience.com)
The Issues
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From time to time, we'll post various "raves" here about issues germane to the Songs of Conscience themes. Here is a first installment:

Keeping the Unity of Civil Discourse and Common Interest

As a longtime manager of a mailing list for musical endeavors, and a member of many others, I have struggled more and more recently with the tension between the freedom to express our concerns as citizens, and the laudable principle of keeping an interest-based forum focused on the scope for which it was created and for which people sign up and participate. I've resolved this tension in various ways in the past by sending out individual messages to my list when I felt very strongly moved, but trying to remain respectful of different views. I've learned not to make assumptions about people's political or religious views based on other common areas of interest.

But the urgency of these times is such that I feel a desperate and growing need for more sustained avenues of dialogue. I fear for the state of our civil discourse when our open discussions as citizens wind up only taking place among the "already converted," while in our other contacts around work, hobbies, passions, we maintain a careful and cautious silence. I worry that we will wind up fiddling while Rome burns. I long for the days when we gathered in the barber shops and taverns and let fly with opinions without always looking over our shoulder.

It's precisely when we come together around some common interest that makes us rub up against people of very different backgrounds and beliefs, that we have a chance of hearing these diverging views while hanging on to our sense of the humanity and basic goodness of the speaker. Without that grace of shared time and task, I worry that the extreme polarization we see around us will only get worse, and I shudder to think of the interests that only such divisiveness serves.

So I think it's important that we create transitional forums where we can discuss (and debate if need be) the important problems of our time, specifically through the "lens" of a particular area of concern. These would not be self-selected "fellow traveler" groups formed for a political purpose; nor would they be carefully maintained non-partisan interest groups. (In fact, I don't even know what to call these beasties yet. I just hope we bring them more into existence—soon!) Rather, they would explore the implications of broad and general issues for specific areas, be they localities (neighborhood groups) or less geographically defined interests (orchid societies, fiddlers' lists). And they would seek to unearth insights springing from those particular concerns that might help to enlighten that broader and more general conversation.

I can't think of a common interest more powerful in this regard than music. And I think those with an interest in traditional folk music have a special opportunity, since this is music that does bring together people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. All of those years of good old boys from North Carolina putting up with Northern college-boy longhairs, and vice versa, and somehow finding a basis for mutual respect when it came to—can they actually pick? could stand us in good stead now.

 
 
 

Songs of Conscience (SongsofConscience.com) is a social action initiative of
Mark Simos.
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