how would you rate drinking tea that doesn’t come from china?
1 Like
Hm, I think “cultural appropriation” is basically non-attributed reuse of artwork writ large. The whole problem is when a bully or someone already in a position of privilege takes without compensation, let alone attribution. It’s the same problem, just on a cultural instead of a personal scale.
On the one hand, we want cultures to mix, to appropriate from one another. Look at what the mixture of black music traditions with klezmer gave us with jazz! Look at the street art, at punk rock! Look at, well, all the happy mutations we all like and love here!
But on the other hand, we need to be disdainful of pastiches. Look at how insulting “Indian” cliches are to Native Americans, or blackface, for example. It isn’t cool if you just pretend to take inspiration, and really are just ridiculing.
There, have I oversimplified all arguments enough?
Why do you want to do that?
6 Likes
I don’t really, I just started writing my own thoughts down, realise how inadequate they are, and by pointing out my own failure hope to encourage more enlightened comments.
I know, sometimes it’s better to metaphorically keep my mouth shut, but sometimes I just have to state my half-baked thoughts like everyone else.
3 Likes
I often feel this way. But then there’s one little point that I wonder about which is this: we is who? Like for most white people in the US we want this because it makes our lives better. The whole world is like a buffet for any of us who are not too xenophobic to enjoy it. But I think some of the people raising issues of cultural appropriation are doing so because they didn’t voluntarily share, aren’t seeing improvement from it, and if anything are seeing their own culture be removed from any context that includes them existing at all or are treated worse for it. Like “we love your food and will happily make money from your arts and crafts but we’ll also gladly murder your people and the money we make off of you is ours too” Sharing isn’t sharing anymore when the answer to “can I take this” never gets to be “no.”
8 Likes
1 Like
That’s kind of the dilemma, as I am trying to look beyond the USA. How much did, say the Japanese or the Chinese appropriate and how much was imposed? Are Germans appropriating from the Turks? Did Italians like Sergio Leone appropriate American culture and turn it into their own thing?
I get a feeling that we are looking at a blip, at something that is biased by the unique way the USA came about and how its behaviour in the 20th century reached a peak. I am trying to look beyond my own horizons, as my contacts with colleagues out of India and China have me trying to dump my Europe-centric view and see things from their point of view. So yeah, I am exposing my own flawed thinking, because I like the thoughtful people here.
2 Likes
Saying it is a blip ignores a fuck ton of colonialism from… various other nations.
(That’s a metric fuck ton, for those following along from Europe.)
4 Likes
Oh yeah. Think of how Alexander’s invasion of the Indian subcontinent. Or the Roman appropriation of former territories of Carthage, or of Gaul. But we don’t have that clear a picture of how other cultures appropriated, thus my reference to a “blip”. Which might turn out to be a single note in a cascade of notes.
2 Likes
7 Likes
The local university has left JSTOR open to local residents. If you’re lucky to be in as imilar situation, it’s a more interesting place to learn about cultural appropriation than twitter.
Currently reading
Claire Sponsler
“In Transit: Theorizing Cultural Appropriation in Medieval Europe” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Volume 32, Number 1, Winter 2002, pp. 17-39 (Article)
fascinating stuff!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
