Is the Notion of "Cultural Appropriation" Intellectually Bankrupt?

[Augustus]

Wouldn't the charge of stereotyping cover that sort of abuse? Why create a whole new category of abuse -- and especially such a poorly defined and nebulous one?

It's more annoying for a minority as it is more frequent. It is often also combined with some forms of harmful discrimination.

You probably accept that blacking up is offensive and that white people rapping is not offensive. There is a line somewhere between the 2.

There is also annoying stereotyping and offensive stereotyping. There is plenty of evidence that ethnic names are less likely to get a job interview for example.

So there exists a real problem, but also an oversensitive one. Wherein that line is lies the rub.

 

[McBell]

Indeed, that's what I've been wondering. Or more precisely, if there's an example of "cultural appropriation" that is both oppression and distinctly "cultural appropriation", rather than also something else, such as stereotyping.

My thought is along the lines of if anything, the stories might be able to be twisted and turned a wee bit in the support of "cultural theft".....

But the same hypocrisy I already mentioned would still apply.

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't know.
Is there even one example that can be shown?
I read both links in the OP and did not see anything that resembles "oppression"....
But perhaps there is a definition of the word I am not familiar with?

Only the yoga teacher & students appear to be oppressed.

Btw, I have a solution to the problem of groups demanding that others keep their cultural distance.
Ignore loopy demands.
Once they sense they no longer have the privilege to shut down things they deem "oppressive", they'll not pursue it.
Now the trick is convincing the bureaucrats to ignore the noise.

 

[Sunstone]

It's more annoying for a minority as it is more frequent. It is often also combined with some forms of harmful discrimination.

You probably accept that blacking up is offensive and that white people rapping is not offensive. There is a line somewhere between the 2.

There is also annoying stereotyping and offensive stereotyping. There is plenty of evidence that ethnic names are less likely to get a job interview for example.

So there exists a real problem, but also an oversensitive one. Wherein that line is lies the rub.

To me, blacking up goes beyond offensive. It seems to be form of oppression in so far as it stereotypes a group of people in a way that challenges their dignity and worth. If it were merely offensive, I would still be opposed to it, but I would not see it as something that should be censored. Ridiculed, rejected, condemned, but not censored. However, I don't need to call it "cultural appropriation" to arrive at such a conclusion. The concept of "cultural appropriation" seems to me at best an unnecessary concept. One that, among other things, readily mistakes offense for oppression.

 

[Sunstone]

My thought is along the lines of if anything, the stories might be able to be twisted and turned a wee bit in the support of "cultural theft".....

Part of the problem I have with the notion that one group can "steal" culture from another group is that, often enough, cultural diffusion and assimilation have been the means whereby lives have been enriched. All in all, I would prefer living in a culturally diverse society; the more diversity the better.

 

[McBell]

Part of the problem I have with the notion that one group can "steal" culture from another group is that, often enough, cultural diffusion and assimilation have been the means whereby lives have been enriched. All in all, I would prefer living in a culturally diverse society; the more diversity the better.

I agree.
And not just because I am a fan of Mexican pizza.

 

[Sunstone]

I agree.
And not just because I am a fan of Mexican pizza.

Odd. I thought you were entirely motivated by your singular lust for Mexican pizza!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

There seem to be a lot of people these days who want to have their cake and eat it too - and who don't think other people should even be able to look at cake, let alone have it or eat it.

Things go through phases and cycles. Personally, I can't wait until this current overly-PC incarnation of "social justice warriors," burns itself out. It's probably the most ridiculous trend I've seen in my life, and it's rare to find a movement which is so bankrupt; intellectually, socially, and morally.

 

[McBell]

Odd. I thought you were entirely motivated by your singular lust for Mexican pizza!

You assume my lust is singular.....

 

[Sunstone]

There seem to be a lot of people these days who want to have their cake and eat it too - and who don't think other people should even be able to look at cake, let alone have it or eat it.

Things go through phases and cycles. Personally, I can't wait until this current overly-PC incarnation of "social justice warriors," burns itself out. It's probably the most ridiculous trend I've seen in my life, and it's rare to find a movement which is so bankrupt; intellectually, socially, and morally.

Yeah, but what do you really think of it, Kilgore? I mean, once your done with beating around the bush?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Yeah, but what do you really think of it, Kilgore? I mean, once your done with beating around the bush?

As with most things, if I said what I actually meant or thought, I'd probably end up getting banned from RF in short order.

 

[Sunstone]

It's probably the most ridiculous trend I've seen in my life....

I'd rank it up there as among the most ridiculous I've seen. I hesitate to call it the most ridiculous -- there's always tomorrow and with it, a new absurdity.

 

[Orbit]

"Cultural Appropriation" is the notion that the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture is a largely negative phenomenon. "Generally, an assumption that the culture being borrowed from is also being oppressed by the culture doing the borrowing is prerequisite to the concept. This view of cultural borrowing is controversial, both in academic circles, and in general society." [Source]

Recently, a student at the University of Ottawa complained that a yoga class held on campus was "cultural appropriation". Apparently, as a consequence of one student's complaint, the class was cancelled:

[Source]

It seems to me that the notion of cultural appropriation is entwined with the notion that borrowing an element of some other person's culture can, under some circumstances be a form of oppression. That would appear to me on the face of it to be an intellectually irresponsible notion with no backing in science whatsoever.

It is nevertheless a notion that is growing in popularity. For instance: "Eating Ethnic Food Has Now Become 'Cultural Appropriation'."

Among other things, I think the notion that borrowing, using, or adopting elements from someone's culture is oppressing them might be born of today's tendency to confuse anything that gives offense with something that oppresses. But such confusion is not justified. To be offended is not the same as to be oppressed.

But what do you think?

I have actually given this some thought. It's funny, we used to call this "multiculturalism" and "appreciating our rich mixture in the melting pot of the US". Thinking about it sociologically, I think it is a reaction by some members of ethnic groups who fear that their distinct culture is disappearing into the "melting pot". It's an attempt to salvage distinctive cultural elements. So that explains what I think is going on, but the value-judgment remains, "is it right or wrong"? I think that is a more delicate question, and what I am saying here is just one person's opinion. To me, if something is clearly offensive, like wearing another group's religious regalia as a "costume", as in the use of Native American headdresses, then I do think it is wrong. But in the case of ethnic food, which many ethnic restauranteers gladly market to the general public, regardless of ethnicity, or yoga, which is used divorced from its religious context as a physical exercise, I am inclined to think these are the natural and inevitable results of the mixing of diverse cultures in a country of immigrants, and is part of the diversity that we should celebrate.

 

[Laika]

Among other things, I think the notion that borrowing, using, or adopting elements from someone's culture is oppressing them might be born of today's tendency to confuse anything that gives offense with something that oppresses. But such confusion is not justified. To be offended is not the same as to be oppressed.

But what do you think?

I'm not going to make this about Yoga, but I will try to deal with the concept of Cultural Appropriation. My apologies in advance if this reads as a little bit like I'm "pissed off" (it's not you btw- just me being confused by "life").

The offence is really a cultural assertion of superiority of western values of individuality and personal choice, over the "inferior" values of tradition, of their authenticity and preservation. Lets be absolutely clear: individual liberty is not a universal human value, nor is it a universal aspiration. Liberalism represents about 200 or 300 hundred years of over 10,000 years or so of human civilisation. it is not "natural" or "eternal" or "universal".

"Cultural appropriation" represents a form of commoditisation, whereby an object or practice in one culture, is mass produced, marketed and consumed in the "marketplace of ideas". It is taken out of it's indigenious context and then becomes something nice to hang on the wall, or a nice bookend for a shelf. Depending on the object, this could well be represented as something sacred, something which has great value to an indigenous people, only to be treated as an empty symbol which will end up in landfill when it gets broken. Worse, these symbols often then find there ways onto Television or Film screens where they are almost always accompanied by racist sterotypes of the "savage".

What is difficult, is that it is closely related to cultural genocide. The assertion of western values of individual liberty was founded on the basis on mass murder, on the systematic oppression, enslavement and extermination of entire peoples. i.e. all the things we did which we now feel, in the most sincere expression of our humanity, that everyone else who does it is the personification of evil and should be killed.

The enslavement of those who are now considered african americans, as well as the forcible opening up of markets in China to opium was done in on the basis of "free trade". We convinced ourselves of our cultural superiority, and then sought to rationalise it in terms of "scientific racism" and white supremacy. Each time, we insisted that it was our "christian duty" to civilise the savage, to destroy their culture and their language and to make them in our image, because we were the "correct" version of humanity. We sit in judgement of all societies and all cultures, professing how "equal" they are, after we have annihilated them and crushed them under the heel of the jackboot in the name of our "compassion" for the "savage people". And though machine guns, ironclad battleships and bombers, for forced these people to be "free" in our image. everything's fine now because they get to behave like white people.



I know very little about the man but I remember this because Malcolm X made an intresting point: the reason he signed he name "X" was because he didn't know what his african name was. his european name, inherited from the white slave owner, was Malcolm Little. If he were to think of his identity as connected with his race, he was denied knowlege of his "original" name and identity; that is, of his ancestors before they were enslaved. Should a black person have a white-european name like "smith" or "jones"? That is what is expected of him in the western world. Of course, that isn't cultural appropration. it's just perpetuating a reminder that black people were a form of property and their slaveowners could do with them and call them as they wish. They were "free" to choose what happened to their "property" in the same way europeans treated entire continents as their "property". The very concept of "nationhood" is itself a western one, so for someone to rebel against the west even speaking of "national self-determination" or "national liberation" is a tacit admission that the West won and they have been made in our image.

the problem here is the way a particular object, or in this case the practice of yoga, is taken totally in isolation from its cultural roots to be mass produced in the West is not an expression of freedom as a "universal" or "human" value. it is a western value. it is an assertion of cultural dominance that we get to decide how another person's culture can and should be used. We didn't get that right by asking nicely. we got it by force. it is not an expression of "individual freedom", it is a legacy of political and socio-economic power.

I don't know what to say about whether yoga can or cannot be practiced because I honestly don't have a clue what it was meant for, or what it's value is, or symbolism is. my impression of it, is that its for when vegans want to relax and feel "spiritual" are a purifying bowl of lentil soup and herbal tea.

 

[Tumah]

I think "cultural appropriation" is a side effect of the melting pot that is America.
Most people like to be special. When everyone else is doing their thing, they lose that to some degree.
I imagine that immigrants that want to be accepted by their host country, don't see cultural appropriation as quickly as their children do.

Personally, I think its silly both ways.
On the one hand, if I would see a Caucasian woman walking around in a kanga, I'd be like, "what are you even...?"
On the other hand, since yoga has demonstrable benefits to people, saying, "that's mine", is really just being childish.

 

[Flankerl]

@Tumah
Thing is, people who usually whine about "cultural appropriation" aren't from a culture that is appropriated.

It has become a thing in the US to find something to be upset about.

 

[Revoltingest]

Jerry Seinfeld holds forth on cultural appropriation.....

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I have actually given this some thought. It's funny, we used to call this "multiculturalism" and "appreciating our rich mixture in the melting pot of the US". Thinking about it sociologically, I think it is a reaction by some members of ethnic groups who fear that their distinct culture is disappearing into the "melting pot". It's an attempt to salvage distinctive cultural elements. So that explains what I think is going on, but the value-judgment remains, "is it right or wrong"? I think that is a more delicate question, and what I am saying here is just one person's opinion. To me, if something is clearly offensive, like wearing another group's religious regalia as a "costume", as in the use of Native American headdresses, then I do think it is wrong. But in the case of ethnic food, which many ethnic restauranteers gladly market to the general public, regardless of ethnicity, or yoga, which is used divorced from its religious context as a physical exercise, I am inclined to think these are the natural and inevitable results of the mixing of diverse cultures in a country of immigrants, and is part of the diversity that we should celebrate.

Meh, I was going to write something along these lines, but someone more credible has already done it.

 

[SomeRandom]

I'm from two different cultures and I think it's nothing but buzzwords to make some people feel all high and mighty.

All it does is encourage segregation. "No, you can't even wear a sari because you're white and you're appropriating Indian Culture." Give me a break.

If you have a solid foundation for your own cultural identity, chances are you wouldn't give two ****s about so called "appropriation."

The people (generally speaking) who scream cultural appropriation about nonsense crap often can't even tell you the basics of that culture, let alone the nuances. And it's racist, imo. Because it's often the white or raised white (those of mixed backgrounds will know what I mean by that) folks who label themselves the protectors of these cultures. As if we even need defending like a bunch of weak children. Bugger off, mate.

I can understand being hurt when someone takes something from your culture and "waters it down." But cross cultural exchange is important and you have to take the good with the bad. And unless you are literally mocking someone's culture I don't know how you can "appropriate it."
Besides, throughout History everyone appropriated from everybody else.
Look at Britain (more specifically England) for example. If we took out everything from English culture that started as an import or "appropriation" there'd literally be nothing left. Even tea is not originally English!!

 

[Revoltingest]

I wonder.....whose culture am I appropriating by wearing Hawaiian shirts?
The shirt structure is Americastanian, but the shirts are Hawaiian, but the fabric designs were Japanese, but the market was tourists.
Should no one wear them?