Why are musicians so musically closed-minded?

Musicians. Sometimes I don't get them - even though I AM one.

Read Spin, Rolling Stone, or an interview with a musician in any publication and you will see that people in my profession have a very "morally relative" bent. "Anything is acceptable so long as you're not hurting anyone," they will say. "Don't impose your arbitrary moralities on others," they will demand. "It's all relative - what's truth for you may not be truth for me," they will enlighten. Without a doubt musicians are mostly post-modern in their ideologies. In other words - "Who is to say what is right or wrong?"

Okay. That comes with the territory, right? The open-mindedness, the relativism, the lassez-faire attitude toward values, the moral flip-flopping and vacillating from one belief to another depending on the mood of the day - that's just the way musicians are.

But not so when the subject is music itself. Listen to how so many liberal folk musicians become self-righteouss and indignant when someone plays the "wrong" sort of guitar - like Bob Dylan did in the sixties and was booed off the stage. Listen to hard-edged metal guys totally decimate anything that sounds pretty. Hear jazz musicians opine on how jazz music should and should not be played. To hear one of my biggest heroes, Pat Metheny, explain it - Kenny G is musically immoral and evil for playing along with Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." Really? Who is to say what is right or wrong? Don't impose your arbitrary morality upon me. It's all relative - what may be musically right for you may not be so for me.

It amazes me how musicians will assume a posture of self-righteoussness over other art forms they deem "lesser." Seriously - if there's anything that should be left open and free of judgement - it's music (lyrics aside). There really and truly IS NO basis for any concept of right and wrong when all you're doing is creating sound purely for creative expression! Of course, lyrics are a different story - they can be judged by a moral standard - but music itself? Sounds, pitches, rhythms, harmonies, melodies, timbres, textures? Those things can be deemed good or evil, right or wrong? ***By people who believe there are no real moral truths except those we invent?***

My Christian brothers and sisters and I believe there can be a spirit attached to music, which can be transferred upon the listener. Maybe secular musicians have a sense of this, too. But I doubt it. I think, for them, their music is actually an extension of themselves, an anthem of their own culture, a statement of affirmation of who they are as opposed to everyone else. When they demonize certain music, they're actually demonizing the people that music represents to them. When they say "that music is bad music," they're really saying "those people are bad people," which is a sideways way of saying "I am good." To me - that makes them the opposite of what they claim to be. It makes them closed-minded, musically speaking.

The truth is this: If you truly believe in anything at all - you instantly become sort-of closed-minded to whatever contradicts that belief. If you believe anything at all to NOT be true, you have by definition closed your mind to the possibility of it being true - and for all you logically know, it MAY BE true.

So I don't mind being accused of closed-mindedness, it just means I believe something to be true or untrue. I just wonder if my musical colleagues are self-aware enough to admit this for themselves.

That's enough ranting for today.

Blessings in Jesus Christ.