[Callers] Politically Correct?

[Ron Blechner]

"Living Tradition"

Preserving tradition and being appropriate to our day and age are not
mutually exclusive.

I actually love rich traditions that we keep alive. We talk about "living"
traditions, so what do we mean by this phrase?

For something to be alive, it changes. It adapts. What it doesn't do is
stay stagnant and unchanging. The whole reason contra dancing is still
alive today is because it's alive and changing.

By insisting on holding onto traditions verbatim, we are actually doing
more to kill them than save them. Sure, we'll preserve them this way - as
one does a taxidermied animal: perfectly preserved, sitting on a shelf,
dead.

I'd prefer my traditions alive. I'd like to keep sharing them with younger
generations. That means that people like Rich are asking the right
questions. That means we need to consider that language changes and that we
need to speak in a language that reaches an audience not merely just our
own.

Hey, isn't that the whole point of being a dance caller? Being heard by
your audience?

In dance, again,
Ron Blechner

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 1:33 AM Ron Blechner <contraron at gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to echo the words of Alex D-L and Dave Casserly.
>
> I'm also appalled at the casual use of the n-word on this thread without
> anyone whatsoever calling it out. This is really giving me pause. :(
>
> Contra's attendance is dwindling - I hear it from every organizer I talk
> to, with a couple exceptions. I also hear about the desire to "get the
> young people to dance". Hmmm.
>
> Ron Blechner
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 11:39 AM Dave Casserly via Callers <
> callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> Rich,
>>
>> I don't think your situation here is exactly what Colin describes--
>> you're not worried about any of the particular words, as many of us are
>> regarding the word "gypsy," for instance.  The question here is whether the
>> phrase has an offensive *meaning* of "women are things," and if so, is
>> that a good reason not to use it.  Personally, I'd probably alter it or do
>> a different singing square.  I don't subscribe to the extreme position that
>> you should never sing lyrics to a folk song unless you agree with those
>> lyrics; that would make singing folk songs very difficult to do at all.
>> That said, there are some times where the meanings of lyrics are offensive
>> enough, without any redeeming qualities, that I leave a verse out or alter
>> a few words in the singing sessions that I lead.  There is nothing
>> sacrosanct about a particular set of lyrics to a folk song; people have
>> been changing them for whatever reason for generations, and will continue
>> to do so.  If future singers don't like my revisions, they can sing a
>> different version, just like I sometimes prefer to ignore Victorian-era
>> revisions to bawdier songs.
>>
>> Here, I'd lean toward not using the lyrics for three reasons: 1) they
>> imply that women are objects; 2) there's nothing redeeming or valuable
>> about them, as they're the only things sung, with no context; and 3)
>> similarly, they don't represent the meaning of the song, and when repeated
>> on their own, sort of pervert that meaning (at least going by the lyrics
>> Yoyo posted).
>>
>> I also think there are good reasons to err on the side of inclusive
>> language, particularly in our community.  Contra dancing is overwhelmingly
>> white, and for a long time, contra dance calling was dominated by men.  The
>> loudest voices on this forum are those of older white men.  Contra dancers
>> and particularly organizers are disproportionately white baby boomers.
>> We're seeing the effects of that now; dance attendance has been dwindling
>> as older dancers stop attending and aren't replaced by younger dancers.  If
>> we want our dance form to continue to thrive, when there's a question on
>> which there's a generational divide (as you, in my view correctly, note
>> here), I would err toward using the language less likely to turn off our
>> younger generations, which are also our most diverse generations.  This
>> isn't an issue where changing the lyrics is going to bother people-- very
>> few would know the original lyrics well enough to notice-- and certainly
>> nobody would know if you selected a different singing square instead.
>>
>> -Dave
>>
>> --
>> David Casserly
>> (cell) 781 258-2761
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
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