JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Credentials, opinions, songs..

Hi folks,

All good thoughts, keep them coming.

My original post was muddled as I was conflating several problems together.

I truly find the fact that social media makes the sharing of opinions immediate and level to be a vexing problem, and find myself sometimes a hypocrite when I like it cuz it's favoring me and hate it when it's not.

I agree with FD, there's things we talk about that clearly fall into objective or subjective categories, as in liking a song is a subjective thing, but certain basic properties of what makes a song "good" may fall more into the objective.

I'll throw this out there. Probably not a new thought and definitely not meant to stir up trouble, but the mood of this place changes with the folks who populate it, true, but I strongly believe it changes also because of the greater emotional landscape we are in as USA citizens and as World citizens. It seems we are all just a little more short tempered and quick to pass judgement on our peers, and I have to wonder why..wonder where it comes from..as I sit back in my chair and worry over Korea, potential future wars, border problems, etc...we are ALL affected by what is transpiring in our Country and in the World, on many levels, and by a man who is a de facto role model, like it or not.

So when I see potential fights break out over (to me) silly things (in the BIGGER picture) like "this artist is better than that one" or even when it's more personal and about not liking a line in our own song, I have to step back and go "whoa..time out..this was supposed to be fun.." Yes, it's also fun to get passionate when talking about the quality of a song, but let's also be aware that we used to be a little more tolerant of others' thoughts. THIS is the key change I think our current climate has brought on. It feels to me like our levels of tolerance of others who have differences of opinions has dropped significantly. It is not hard to look out into the world and see how this could easily happen. It's the basic fractal nature of..nature: what is happening on a grand scale is also happening when you dive down into the nitty-gritty of places like this.

Let's find a way to retain our humanity and maybe try to be a little more tolerant of others' opinions about subjective things?

Where's our sense of humor? Our current state of seriousness is definitely one trait I can see as having trickled down from the greater emotional landscape engulfing our Country.

Mike