Cultural Sensitivity/Appropriation and Anger

Parnerium wrote: One of the concepts of cultural appropriation is that there is a lasting, generational impact of appropriation or mistreatment that happened in the past. That certain groups are disadvantaged as far as cultural exchanges go because of events in history.

native americans are not disadvantaged as a result of the fact that some college girl wore a head dress to a keg party somewhere, or that new agers like to host sweat lodges with drum circles, and i think it is not accurate or useful to confuse or conflate one with/for the other

im not really informed enough to give specific recommendations as to how to improve the plight of native peoples, but the kinds of problems that i recognize as disadvantages are problems of economy, infrastructure, education, health care, political representation, and access to "upward economic mobility"

that sort of thing

therefore, the kinds of recommendations that i would give in order to address the advantages that [strike]native[/strike] any disadvantaged people face, would be along the lines of direct community building, by actually helping to improve infrastructural efficiency and increase access to quality education, health care, and incentives and investments for entrepreneurship, all of which result in more sophisticated and impactful involvement with general society and with the political process, generally speaking

now, i dont really know if those are the kinds things that natives need help with or if they would want that help from the rest of society, but to me, addressing disadvantage doesnt have anything at all to do with telling everyone else they arent allowed to wear this or do that
rather its about actually being there in someones community and identifying the actual needs of the people, and finding a way to meet those needs directly

and providing whatever resources are appropriate to increasing peoples ability to better their own lives

the college keg party costumes, hipster peace pipes, and new age drum circles, are all totally irrelevant to that

many people find these things offensive and dont i mean to say that it isnt fair for people to find it so, especially natives, but these things really are not causing actual harm to natives or anyone else, and it might be that natives wouldnt be so worried about it if they felt that their local economies and communities were really healthy and thriving i.e. if the real problems were being addressed in effective ways

Parnerium wrote: I find that article relevant because it can be seen as fallout from that historical appropriation you're talking about. Native Americans are still being barred from practicing cultural traditions in parts of the country.

in the example you posted the natives were being barred by other native americans so i dont know what im supposed to say

but my belief is that no one has the right to bar anyone else from practicing their religion or exploring their spirituality

i fully support every persons (native american, africans, midgets, albinos, liberals, rednecks, EVERY PERSON'S) right to engage in whatever religious practice that they feel drawn towards or that they believe will enhance their life

i would encourage them to be disciplined and thorough in learning about whatever ideas and practices they adopt, but i understand that being disciplined and thorough are learned traits and not everyone has learned them

Parnerium wrote: Meanwhile, those cultural traditions are being "shared" amongst people who have no connection to those cultures.

i first started martial arts when i was like 6 yrs old and in the course of my life i have trained in taekwondo, aikido, krav maga, and muay thai, and am currently i am training in brazilian jiu jitsu and sanshou/sanda (also boxing but i think i am "allowed" to do that one)

other than the martial arts, i have no cultural connection to korea, japan, israel, thailand, brazil, or china

ive also done a variety of meditation from numerous cultures, as well as yoga, lucid dreaming, mandalas, bungee jumping, archery, paper mache, and spear fishing

i love all kinds of music and eat food from everywhere, im not even going to try to name all the cultures which have contributed to my diet and my artistic pleasures, its impossible

i have benefited greatly from exposure and participation in the activities of other cultures (and im betting that you have too) and because of how much these things have improved my life, i encourage everyone from every culture to investigate and explore everything that fascinates and inspires you, because in my personal experience, that exploration can help you develop you into a cultured and mature person

Parnerium wrote: And the justification is usually "I'm not hurting anybody." Maybe, in an indirect way, they are because they're contributing to the trivialization, commodification, and/or Christianization that is still ongoing and that impacts Good Christian Cree Communities™ who are deciding whether they want to allow a sweat lodge.

in an indirect way, electricity and computers have allowed crooks to embezzle funds and defraud the public, but electricity and computers are not the culprit of these actions, the people who did them are

whether i trivialize or venerate sweat lodges or medicine wheels will literally have zero bearing on whether the Cree of Mr Mianscum's community will harass him about his sweat lodge

that is not an issue of cultural appropriation, it is an issue of one group of people telling someone that they dont want him to practice the religious custom that he wants to practice, and not only do i personally support his right to practice what he wants, but so does american law, which guarantees every citizen the right to practice his or her religious beliefs (within reason: you cant just say its your religious custom to eat babies)

wherever the religious rights of natives (or anyone else) are being violated, the law is being broken and whoever the violator is, they are in the wrong

imo everyone has got the right to practice whatever religious, spiritual, sexual, recreational, culinary or artistic custom that they wish, so long as they arent directly hurting anyoen else

you (or anyone) can certainly be offended if you like, that is your right as a free person and i would defend that right too, but poor taste, naiveté, and even outright stupidity, are not crimes in and of themselves and there are good reasons for that

where there is a con job going on, my complaint is not that the con is using some or other cultural practice, my complaint is that they are conning people

where someone is being shallow in their understanding and is acting out of silly assumptions and unreasonable associations, my complaint is that they are shallow and they dont actually understand what they are doing

at no time do i think that the cultural origin of a p[ractice is grounds to feel that one is obligated to engage in a practice or to abstain from it

people are free and we should be free, and that is how i see it

steamboat28 wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote: the thing isnt to tell someone "no you cant do that because your skin is wrong"
the thing is to tell people "be sincere and diligent and responsible in what you do, and who you trust"

1. Culture is not race.
2. That does not discount the existence of cultural appropriation. In fact, it supports the argument that it both exists and is a problem.

i didnt say race, i said skin, which btw, is also not race (not meaning to imply that you didnt know that, only taking the opportunity to clarify something that i think is useful for people to understand)

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2009/05/skin-color-is-not-race/

http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-race-and-color/

i dont identify cultural appropriation as a problem, i identify poor critical thinking, tendency of generalization, acting on assumptions, and being dishonest with people, as problems

the first few are much more often the result of insufficient education than they are of any real ethical or moral corruption

and im glad you decided to drop in again, i was hoping for your feedback on this:

OB1Shinobi wrote:

steamboat28 wrote: Cultural appropriation is a very serious topic. It is, however, often misdiagnosed.

misdiagnosed how?
what are the criteria for proper diagnosis and who gets to define them?

this is a legitimate question

you can even disregard the part of "who gets to define them?" if youd like

the wikipedia definition for cultural appropriation is: "...the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture"

which means i am appropriating every time i meditate, eat a taco, or do karate

im not going to feel bad about doing those things and honestly i would laugh at anyone who thinks that i should

i would also offer them a taco and immediately flying wheel kick them right in the temple whether they accepted it or not

steamboat28 wrote: Thought Exercise:

Say tomorrow morning, interest in this site explodes wildly. People start grabbing bits of doctrine, pasting them in memes, getting tattoos of them, drawing the TOTJO logo on themselves in class. Maybe they wear hoods or robes or carry toy lightsabers to the grocer's with them. Maybe they look at each other over bowls of popcorn and say "Dude, I'm totally a Jedi now, wanna see some of the sweet Jedi wisdom I got?"

But none of them--not a single individual who stopped by, not a single individual who borrowed something from TOTJO, not even one of them--were actually interested in learning the significance behind the doctrine, or the meaning of the logo, or anything. They didn't come to learn, they just came, thought something was neat, and took it.

How would you feel about that?

weeeellll,,

i understand plenty of others would have their hearts crushed but i honestly would not care much at all lol

i might be sad for their loss if i thought about it but probably not, its the way of the world that 2of 3 are shallow and enraptured by the dazzle of blinking lights

it would be annoying with all the extra traffic around here being ignorant and superficial, that part would bug the crap out of me and much as people think i am a jerk right now, i would really be getting on some asses big time if this place suddenly got overrun by a bunch of stupid new agers lol

now that youve got me thinking of it i guess that might even be kind of fun actually hehe, for a minute at least

but otherwise i would see it as advertising and have confidence that it would eventually bring in people who really were sincere ,and who would stick around and grow with us

even one such person is worth a bunch of idiots running around their own neighborhoods with glow sticks and hoodies lol

net result would be to our benefit because it doesnt really hurt us - what silly people do in their own space does not detract from the value of the IP or an apprenticeship or being exposed to the different ideas and perspectives that we find here

also i understand that people often start off not knowing what the heck they are doing

it is through exploration and experimentation that we learn

I just wanna make a point about offense then I will be done. We live in a society that feels they have a right to be offended and you just gotta deal with it. My early age if I even asked a question about something it was, "Shut boy mind your business!" That was just accepted in my early years. Now, espically in America if you don't accept everything whether it be at work, church, religion really, politics, ect your gonna offend someone. My encouragement is accept that someone is always gonna be offended at you or something you cannot change that. Second, people who are easily offended I try to avoid or a very negative person.

OB1Shinobi wrote: 2) if he had really understood what a sweat lodge is and how they work, and the risks involved in what he was doing and how to accurately evaluate the capabilities of his followers, then he could have hosted a sweat lodge without anyone being hurt

This is what I'm calling appropriation.

This is also why I keep coming back to "culture is not race." The problem was not that James Ray was white. That is entirely irrelevant. The problem is that he used a cultural element that a) he did not understand and b) cashed in on the cultural legacy of those that do understand it (in other words, calling it a sweat lodge added legitimacy to it because of the associations his patrons had with the Native American practice it was derived from).

If he really understood how it worked, really understood the risks involved, and really understood how to accurately evaluate the capabilities of his followers, I wouldn't say he was appropriating it. Even if he wasn't in direct consultation with someone who is racially Native. Even if he was only doing it to make money.

It also wouldn't matter whether or not he charged for the experience. If he was offering it for free out of a genuine desire to aid in the spiritual development of people but he still didn't understand the practice I would call that cultural appropriation. Because calling it a sweat lodge uses that cultural legacy to lend it legitimacy.

Irresponsible people do irresponsible things. And, like I've said, no real action exists in a vacuum. I provided a real life example to try to demonstrate how cultural appropriation could play into real life. There's never going to be a non-hypothetical situation where the only problem is pure cultural appropriation, especially because the problem I see with it is that it effects other parts of life.

OB1Shinobi wrote: other than the martial arts, i have no cultural connection to korea, japan, israel, thailand, brazil, or china

Martial arts is your connection.

If you had learned those martial arts from a guy who saw Enter the Dragon once then made up a bunch of nonsense moves and called them The Ancient Chinese Art of Wushu I'd say that guy was appropriating and that you've been duped. However, if that guy did all those things but called it Punchy Punchy Knockdown or some other made up name, he wouldn't be manipulating the cultural legacy of Chinese martial arts and I wouldn't call it appropriation. Importantly, if he convinced you that this was a useful fighting style and it wasn't, I would still call him a con-man. But his method of con job wouldn't involve appropriation (which is a separate issue but that overlaps).

As a real example, I don't think MMA is appropriative of anything.

OB1Shinobi wrote: wherever the religious rights of natives (or anyone else) are being violated, the law is being broken and whoever the violator is, they are in the wrong

This seems like an oversimplication of how people work. If I say "throwing gay people off of buildings is wrong" but then only try to solve that by addressing the individual actions of the specific people doing the throwing, I'll be much less effective at preventing such a thing in the future than if I address the greater causes. It's better to address the attitudes that the entire society holds about gay people, the systems of power being used to initiate the throwing, and the reasons that the people who watch/hear about the throwing have for intervening or not intervening.

Doing that isn't shifting the blame, either. I'm not blaming anybody other than the Cree that moved to stop that guy from having his sweat lodge. But those Cree didn't wake up one morning and decide to be hateful bastards, with the sweat lodge as their arbitrary means for doing so. They exist as part of an interconnected system of human thoughts and actions and are impacted by them.

OB1Shinobi wrote: i fully support every persons (native american, africans, midgets, albinos, liberals, rednecks, EVERY PERSON'S) right to engage in whatever religious practice that they feel drawn towards or that they believe will enhance their life

So do I. If somebody who knows nothing about sweat lodges makes one in their backyard for their own spiritual growth, more power to them. But as soon as they start telling people that they know what they're talking about, I think that's where appropriation can start. Because that's when they start using other people for their own gain.

Parnerium wrote: Christianity aims to spread itself, so no, it's not "theft." It's hard to steal something that missionaries came specifically to give you.

I'd also challenge the use of the word "theft" in relation to cultural appropriation. Theft is a zero sum act. If I steal your candy you don't have candy any more. Cultural transmission (through sharing, appropriation, or something else) isn't like this.

everything I read about "cultural appropriation" links it to theft. The argument the snowflakes make against it is it causes the permanent destruction of the culture, instead of its evolution. Of course anyone with half a brain and a clean pair of eyes can tell the opposite has obviously been true throughout the ages, but it's their argument, not mine.
Then there's the dictionary definition of appropriation.

In regards to christianity, how would you know? You only hear this from people who copied a long line of others.

Serious question, is there any reason we keep conflating race and culture? Or are there just two different conversations happening (one about racial stereotyping and one about cultural appropriation)?

Isn't it obvious? Races and cultures are born of the same parents, people are bond to think those two are siblings.

steamboat28 wrote: Thought Exercise:

Say tomorrow morning, interest in this site explodes wildly. People start grabbing bits of doctrine, pasting them in memes, getting tattoos of them, drawing the TOTJO logo on themselves in class. Maybe they wear hoods or robes or carry toy lightsabers to the grocer's with them. Maybe they look at each other over bowls of popcorn and say "Dude, I'm totally a Jedi now, wanna see some of the sweet Jedi wisdom I got?"

But none of them--not a single individual who stopped by, not a single individual who borrowed something from TOTJO, not even one of them--were actually interested in learning the significance behind the doctrine, or the meaning of the logo, or anything. They didn't come to learn, they just came, thought something was neat, and took it.

How would you feel about that?

Pretty good. There's a bit of me in the doctrine. Even if they only like some of it, or don't understand the message, it's still a lot better than ignorance, indifference, dislike or outright hate of it.

ren wrote: In regards to christianity, how would you know? You only hear this from people who copied a long line of others.

How would I know that missionaries exist? Or that they existed in the past? Or that evangelism is common in Christianity? Or that people practicing Christianity heard about it because of evangelism?

I don't think I understand the question.

steamboat28 wrote: Thought Exercise:

Say tomorrow morning, interest in this site explodes wildly. People start grabbing bits of doctrine, pasting them in memes, getting tattoos of them, drawing the TOTJO logo on themselves in class. Maybe they wear hoods or robes or carry toy lightsabers to the grocer's with them. Maybe they look at each other over bowls of popcorn and say "Dude, I'm totally a Jedi now, wanna see some of the sweet Jedi wisdom I got?"

But none of them--not a single individual who stopped by, not a single individual who borrowed something from TOTJO, not even one of them--were actually interested in learning the significance behind the doctrine, or the meaning of the logo, or anything. They didn't come to learn, they just came, thought something was neat, and took it.

How would you feel about that?

An interesting exercise. I'm not going to lie, I think there is a part of me that would be a little upset. But, I also think that I would then just ignore it and move on. It's not that dissimilar to what people think of Jedi now. To most of the world we are already a bunch of cosplaying, robe wearing, telekinesis practicing, mouth breathers who live in our mothers' basements. I live with it well enough now and I will continue to live with it. I have never felt a need to make the outside world understand or take us seriously. I take it seriously and know the difference and that's good enough for me.

steamboat28 wrote: How would you feel about that?

As an entity, this place is more defined. A culture by contrast seems vastly harder to define to me.... too dynamic and with porous 'borders'. We'd not want to start making boundaries around something which is no longer bounded. Whatever changes need to be made to the law will be used and tested, so what will this change really be once it becomes manifest outside of our own personal justified concerns!

But what you describe happens all the time, wherever the laws and/or circumstance allow it, as I mentioned earlier it seems to be human nature to copy, mimic, borrow or steal. It's happened to me personally on more then one occasion. Heck it even happens within the same culture - where if it continues its classified as change or difference but its actual originality is only measured by its survival, not its genuine creativity - as it might have well be stolen from someone else within that culture to begin with.

So it seems to come down to how well you protect what is yours, how willing and able you are to defend it.... but we are not wild animals. We now know the concept of 'ownership' is conditional upon the society itself! So what is society founded upon, probably the quality of its laws. So while culture seems to exist both within and across society these days, it seems clear that in the past the norm for a society was to have emerged within cultural boundaries - yet the most successful civilizations were the inclusive ones which allowed mixing of cultures..... depending how one defines 'success'
:S

But in nature the same things happen, survival itself, and in the same way in human abstraction it is ideas which will either survive or die. Ideas become practices, and practices become absorbed into cultures, and cultures become mixed with other cultures. What is important perhaps in survival is both the continued details but capacity for existence/demonstration/practice according to that detail. If something is private, then it should be kept private and no concern would be noted for inaccurate appropriation because its unrelated and you wouldn't benefit from it anyway since its private. If something is public, then I think it becomes or should be more in line with intellectual property law, but it will then be in the details. It will not stop interpretations and variations - how can it?

But I do not know law, and how it applies to 'culture'!? I do know that cultures have been mixing for as long as anyone can figure, and in a globalized society the frontier of culture is not so much demographic anymore. Once something is expressed within a culture the only thing's restricting its replication is the desire for it to do so, and the legal system is meant to provide protections to avoid theft of things which can be clearly defined as possessions. So I think it's a legal question, and any consideration needs to be done in the broader context of the impact of any changes in the law to all other activity.

So yea, it also has to be practical, but in the short term its probably good to remember that someone might be copying someone who copied someone who copied someone who copied someone who belongs to the culture you think has been appropriated... and that is a normal part of human cultures itself!? I think we need to be more realistic about deliberate theft or abuse to authenticity and not generalities. To me what needs to be protected is not so much the contemporary representations existence but the claim to historical authenticity - and that this be the main thing protected by law and most especially used by those originating cultures to stand out above the pretenders. No-one else should be able to claim historical authenticity other then the proven direct descendants.... perhaps even with a requirement for uninterrupted practice (under the provision they had the capacity to do so, and the desire). While its fun to define oneself by certain things it becomes another thing entirely when you claim ownership and limit the capacity of someone else to do the same, but that is what laws are for... what defines our society, how we define ourselves and how we relate with our fellow human being - hopefully in the least discriminatory way possible.

There are two parts to the cultural appropriation hypothesis. 1. Cultural appropriation oppresses a culture, and oppression only occurs to those in positions of no/less power. 2. Cultural appropriation is theft of intellectual property.

Many of us think of oppression in terms of enslavement, inequitable laws, etc. However, oppression has another definition. It can mean to cause emotional distress or make uncomfortable. The "SJW" use the second definition of oppression and it certainly supports the hypothesis. It's reasonable to believe a Native American, for example, could be upset if a person outside their culture does a rain dance in poor context. But oppression must come from a position of power. There are basically two types of power. One comes from duress such as making someone perform an act under threat of physical violence. An example might be forcing someone to pick cotton under penalty of corporal punishment or death. There is another type of power which comes from voluntarily giving up power to another. An example is voting for a politician, or joining the military voluntarily. Here's where cultural appropriation becomes irrational in my view. To go back to the Native American example, the Native American is oppressed because a person outside his culture is doing a rain dance. Oppression comes from power and where does the power originate? The power isn't given under duress in this case, it's given voluntarily by the Native American. To be blunt, if a person is being an asshole and I get upset, I've given power to the asshole to make me upset. If this is the case, everything can be cultural appropriation.

The second part of cultural appropriation is intellectual property. I'm not an expert on law, but I think a good question to ask ourselves is something like the following: What if I really love this type of bread an Amish person makes and sells as Amish Bread, I go home and after several tries make a bread that tastes exactly the same. Can I call it Amish bread? The Amish person has no copyright on the recipe, and though the person was Amish it certainly isn't the same bread the Amish community makes that live 100 miles away.

Parnerium wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote: 2) if he had really understood what a sweat lodge is and how they work, and the risks involved in what he was doing and how to accurately evaluate the capabilities of his followers, then he could have hosted a sweat lodge without anyone being hurt

This is what I'm calling appropriation.

This is also why I keep coming back to "culture is not race." The problem was not that James Ray was white. That is entirely irrelevant. The problem is that he used a cultural element that a) he did not understand and b) cashed in on the cultural legacy of those that do understand it (in other words, calling it a sweat lodge added legitimacy to it because of the associations his patrons had with the Native American practice it was derived from).

If he really understood how it worked, really understood the risks involved, and really understood how to accurately evaluate the capabilities of his followers, I wouldn't say he was appropriating it. Even if he wasn't in direct consultation with someone who is racially Native. Even if he was only doing it to make money.

Just my two cents here, but if someone were to set up a clandestine office and practice medicine without being a doctor, no one would call that "culture appropriation", it would simply be fraud, where you claim to be someone you are not and to be qualified for something you aren't.

The burden of faithfully representing cultures should not be upon regular citizens, or even mass media (especially entertainment). If after watching Borat I assume all middle-eastern people copulate with goats, then I am the idiot, not the producers of the film.