Jazz for aficionados

Rok, Schubert asked me a question, and I posted links that answered his question without making any comment about the links. Those links were deleted.

The link you posted will require much thought for an intelligent comment. If my links without comment got "deleted", making a long thoughtful comment on your link would not be wise on my part.

Contact me by e-mail.

Alex, I like directness and lack of ambiguity. Btw, speaking of ambiguity, I am not sure what you found “ambiguous” about my comments in the “other” thread; comments that, from my perspective, should have remained there. I thought my comments were quite clear and unambiguous, even if you seem to have misunderstood them. Since you took it upon yourself to move that discussion including my comments and your reaction to them to this thread, a thread where I have made clear I don’t want to stray from the subject of music, I will keep my comments brief; or, at least more brief than they would be otherwise....maybe 😊

With respect, this is obviously a very sensitive subject for you. You seem intent on engaging in a debate about the topic since you offered no comment of your own to the “other” OP, but did challenge mine. Unfortunately, you made some assumptions that are not accurate and, in the process, missed some of the more nuanced aspects of the issue and of what I alluded to in my comments.

**** Suggesting that somehow people would have lesser moral values without such (religious) education is something that I could not agree less ****

I suggested nothing of the sort. The nuances:

We live in an age of the preponderance of social media and other aspects of “modern” culture which have demonstrably (arguably?) eroded some traditional societal values. As a parent I can attest to the fact that, not only do many parents, mostly out of convenience, surrender at least some of their parental responsibilities to the schools (“official”), the schools actively impose the “official” viewpoint on various topics and override the parent; ostensibly, for “the greater good”. From MY vantage point, one of the main and most damaging examples of this has been the (as I said in the “other” thread) “concerted effort to remove God and spirituality from education” (Btw, you continue to ignore the distinction between God/spirituality and religion). It is MY belief that, at least, some exposure to the role that belief in God or general appreciation of the role that spirituality can play in a person’s life is nothing but a positive for a young person being educated. Not to inculcate or convert to any one religion, but to help understand the role that these values play(ed) in the lives of some; in the case of this discussion, Bach. Personally, I don’t see how belief in a force greater than oneself and the kind of personal humility that comes with that can be anything but a positive. However, that’s just my viewpoint and I recognize that in an age when for many it’s all about “me” many would disagree.

Now, in the absence of strong positive parental examples as is case in sadly more and more modern families, if one then also removes the sense of accountability to some entity or belief outside of oneself it is not surprising to me that SOME might be lacking in the moral (to use your word) values that would stop someone contemplating vandalizing and disrespecting an important symbol (the church in question) of all of the above.

THAT was my point. No more, no less. Of course, a religious upbringing or education is not necessary for someone to be a moral person and the absence of those does not make one immoral. However, there is no question in my mind that SOME need the help and guidance from one source or another; especially in their developmental years. When none is forthcoming we see the negative results. In the context of the “other” OP, that was my premise.

I hope this makes my “other” comments less ambiguous.

Regards.

https://youtu.be/Qn3BExSUafs?t=2

A true homage to the man himself, Sidney Bechet .


A note from above .I have met Atheists who have very high morals and Christians who talk Jesus and live Satan .
Lots of them .


I have also seen , more than once, children who are voracious readers but grew up in horrible families turn out to be people of the highest morality .My late wife , a great elementary teacher and principal for 40 years, could spot these children a block away and made sure they  got there own Dickens , Walter Scott etc .And did her best to teach this to other teachers .

Frogman, thank you for your answer, your point of view is quite clear to me.
I really do hope that I did not cause any inconvinience to you with shifting the subject to a thread where it was not meant to be.
My perspective is different, as is our background, education or our social world.
However I fully respect and understand yours, no matter that I do not agree with it.
Of course that I could write number of reasons that would support my thoughts, but as you said, none of them would have anythinig with music.
Since this is not the place to discuss the criticism of religion or its influence on society or people in general,(do not want to generalise, but I do not find them to be so positive) I guess we should wait for such topic to arise on some other thread.
In meantime, I would use the words of Schubert for conclusion of this small talk
Just to answer to your question, I think that nobody has or should have an exclusive rights for spirituality

The irony of this supposed disagreement is that I completely agree with Schubert’s comments. He is exactly right. However, respectfully, I am left with the feeling of “so what?”. This does not in any way change the fact that I know of many for whom God and spirituality has been their pathway to morality. If anyone thinks that this is not so, or that there is no value in this, then there really is disagreement. What is getting lost here is that I was not advocating for one approach in “official education” vs another since clearly both bring their own problems. I am describing a symptom of one approach as I see it. Btw, I don’t see where it has been suggested that anyone would have an “exclusive right to spirituality”. Simply opening the door, or more accurately keeping the door open, to it seems to me to be far less exclusive than actively shutting the door to it; and there lies the problem.