Man with PhD in subject is pedantic about that subject on Hacker News, film at 11. ;)
There are, of course, stylistic norms, and a lot of those norms are shared across lots of kinds of Western music. The thing I'm pushing back against is a misconception I see a lot that people who teach music theory are arbiters of quality in music, and that music that doesn't "follow Bach's rules" is somehow less good than music that does. (That misconception is probably well deserved, because that is how music theory was presented for a long time. I think that has changed, though, and that you'd be hard-pressed to find someone in the field that holds that position these days.)
There are, of course, stylistic norms, and a lot of those norms are shared across lots of kinds of Western music. The thing I'm pushing back against is a misconception I see a lot that people who teach music theory are arbiters of quality in music, and that music that doesn't "follow Bach's rules" is somehow less good than music that does. (That misconception is probably well deserved, because that is how music theory was presented for a long time. I think that has changed, though, and that you'd be hard-pressed to find someone in the field that holds that position these days.)