[Smt-talk] Wiki

[Michael Morse]

  Thanks to Devin Chaloux for his forthright contextualization of Wikipedia. The real problem we face is not even the replacement of peer review with arbitrary, profoundly nihilistically-fuelled relativist opinion, nor yet the laziness of a generation schooled to electronic distraction instead of long hours in the library. Wikipedia represents the establishment of credulous indifference to sources, of undifferentiated and undifferentiating faith in what's available that is at poles from the critical spirit that, so we like to think, has powered inquiry since Aristotle.

  If monsieur Chaloux is right that Wikipedia is at least occasionally a starting point rather than an intellectual terminus ad quem, then the prudent course for those of us who take musical concepts seriously is to ensure that the further reading sections at least are stuffed with the vestiges of an ancient respect for learning now badly on the rocks, if not doomed.

MW Morse
Trent University
Peterborough/Oshawa
 		 	   		  
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