[Dixielandjazz] "Revivalism"

[PLadd36932 at aol.com]

In a message dated 30/04/03 20:00:40 GMT Daylight Time, 
futurecon at earthlink.net writes:


> I think we can all
> say that in the past 50 years we've seen "progress," but are we better off
> today than we were 50 years ago? 

I would not dream of elevating any of my thought processes to the giddy 
heights of `philosophy` but it seems to me that argueing about `progress` is 
a bit pointless.
Progress implies improvement, and who will decide what is an `improvement`? 

The interface of Cro magnon amd Neanderthalensis produced the demise of the 
`farmer` and the survival of the `hunter gatherer`.
The `farmer` was a quiet, peaceloving character and he was killed off by the 
tough, more agressive, hunter. Was that `progress`? The survival of the 
`farmer` may well have produced an agrarian based, steadily changing 
civilisation instead of the confrontational, might is right, conquest based 
pattern which we in fact have.
On the face of it the `farmer ` based pattern is the one to be desired, but 
it may well be that without the agressive, survival instincts of the 
`hunter`, civilisation may not have survived at all.
To the `farmer` it certainly was not `progress`. He died.
One may certainly argue about `change`.. `Change, like s***t, happens, but to 
substitute `progress` for `change`, in the equation makes the whole thing 
meaningless.

The introduction of the `flattened fifth` into popular music was `change` but 
unless you liked `bop` it was not `progress`. There were fights about it. I 
remember!

Cheers

PatL