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ETHNICALLY_AUTHENTIC

                                                 December 11, 2005

   World Music fans insist on
   traditional ethnic music,
   the pure thing, uncorrupted
   by Western influence.



What exactly is that about?

Is it the job of ethnic
people to live authentically
ethnic lives so that westerners
can ooh and aah over their
beautiful simplicity?


Who gets to decide where this                PRIME_DIRECTIVE
"prime directive" gets applied?

Shouldn't, for example, American white
folks be constrained to living their
lives according to their own traditions
(presuming anyone can figure out what
those are), uncontaminated by the
influences of "world music"?


           I suggest that there are no
           countries, no peoples, that
           deserve to be isolated from
           the world.

           Everyone gets to contribute,
           everyone is allowed to live on
           the world stage.

           If some Austrailian aborigines
           want to do a Western techno
           version of their music ("Yothu         And if some folks
           Yindi"), there's nothing               in Indonesia want to
           wrong with that.                       push the limits
                                                  of "experimental"
           If some middle eastern people          music, that's
           want to do music about modern          great too (e.g. the
           subjects, using hybridized             totally brilliant, and
           western instruments ("Axiom            unfortunately obscure
           of Choice"), there's nothing           "New Music of Indonesia"
           wrong with that either.                series from Lyrichord).





  If a hybrid music sucks, e.g. chinese-western
  pop, it's hardly a surprise, because western
  pop sucks so badly, so often.

  But the solution is not to build
  a Great Firewall of China to keep
  out the West.




              Perhaps the West needs to
              heal it's own sickness,
              rather than insist that
              other cultures fight the
              contagion.


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