[RD] Cultural Appropriation

[aelf]

I realised that the battle to convince 'moderates' through exemplary behaviour is lost once I found out that the other parties can simply point to a few black sheep to taint whole movements.

 

[Lexicus]

*shrug* look at what white Americans thought of the civil rights movement in the '60s. Your whole post is predicated on the assumption that white people ought in some way to be the object of anti-racist politics, but I simply don't think the evidence from history bears this out at all.
Just by way of example,

A very brief reply about this point specifically, though: I think there are ways to generate conflict and disagreement that are helpful to creating progress, and ways that are not.

Would 'helpful to creating progress' here mean 'keeping white people (and in particular white men) comfortable?'

A lot of the 'SJW' types (along with 'anti-SJW' types who pop up to counter them) argue in ways that lead to unproductive discussion and seem designed to maximize outrage. I think this is resulting in a major backlash against 'PC' or 'SJW' stances, including in liberal circles. On the right, it seems to be fueling right-wing populism and outright white nationalism.

And here I thought we were in agreement that the fundamental causes of these things was neoliberal economics, not that I think you're wrong here. My answer would be, Reconstruction galvanized the Klan. The movements in the '60s certainly produced right-wing backlash. So what?

There are a lot of important points that are made by the 'SJW' side of the debate on cultural issues, but how the arguments are conducted is turning away a lot of people who might be sympathetic if it weren't for the internet outrage culture. And of course, these potentially convincible types are mostly privileged white people. This matters a lot because the bottom line is that, as long as white Westerners are the dominant culture, they have to be communicated with in ways that don't cause them to use their overwhelming power to stop or reverse progress in cultural understanding.

And once again we come back to this notion that anti-racist politics are okay only to the extent that they don't make white people uncomfortable. I think they're useless if they don't make white people uncomfortable. I like making myself uncomfortable with critical race and gender theory.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

*shrug* look at what white Americans thought of the civil rights movement in the '60s. Your whole post is predicated on the assumption that white people ought in some way to be the object of anti-racist politics, but I simply don't think the evidence from history bears this out at all.

By and large white Americans in power went along with the civil rights movement because they were scared of the consequences if they didn't. I make no value judgement on that as a strategy. I point it out because the evidence of history, at least in that case, does suggest that YES, white people do currently have to be the object of anti-racist politics.

 

[Lexicus]

By and large white Americans in power went along with the civil rights movement because they were scared of the consequences if they didn't. I make no value judgement on that as a strategy. I point it out because the evidence of history, at least in that case, does suggest that YES, white people do currently have to be the object of anti-racist politics.

In the 1960s a majority of Americans said that the civil rights movement was moving too fast, that it was violent, that its activities were counterproductive to its cause.

So no, the history supports the opposite conclusion.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In the 1960s a majority of Americans said that the civil rights movement was moving too fast, that it was violent, that its activities were counterproductive to its cause.

So no, the history supports the opposite conclusion.

Please rephrase, as I am not seeing the sense here.

Clearly, the civil rights movement was "gone along with."
Clearly, the people in power that went along were indeed white.
So, clearly, the people who were the object of the anti-racist politics had to be the white people or it wouldn't have worked.

I don't see how what you said about the opinions those people expressed supports an opposite conclusion.

 

[Bootstoots]

(note: I quoted the middle of this post first and then the first and last parts together)

And here I thought we were in agreement that the fundamental causes of these things was neoliberal economics, not that I think you're wrong here. My answer would be, Reconstruction galvanized the Klan. The movements in the '60s certainly produced right-wing backlash. So what?

Most large-scale cultural and political movements have many causes and feedbacks. Neoliberal economics is a huge factor in the rise of right-wing populism - I suspect it is the single biggest one - but it's not the only one. When these people stand up and say that they are upset with how 'political correctness' has taken over, I do believe them to some extent.

As for the backlash from the '60s, it led more or less directly to Reagan's "tough on crime" policies and mass incarceration in the period 1980-2005 (continuing but losing support after that). It was also a major factor in Reagan's rise against more moderate Republicans and the dominance of Reaganite thinking through that same period, leading the Republican Party to gain support from working-class white people even as it destroyed their livelihood, and then also led to the Democratic Party lurching right and take on the same policies in order to be electorally successful. Then there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of both neoliberal policies and mass incarceration in the Clinton era, making them both even worse than they may have been if there were substantial mainstream resistance to them.

Was that backlash worth not having Jim Crow laws and segregation? I would argue so, but it imposed a terrible price that is still being paid today. I want to minimize the damage from the next backlash which is already taking shape.

*shrug* look at what white Americans thought of the civil rights movement in the '60s. Your whole post is predicated on the assumption that white people ought in some way to be the object of anti-racist politics, but I simply don't think the evidence from history bears this out at all.
Just by way of example,

[middle part, quoted above]

Would 'helpful to creating progress' here mean 'keeping white people (and in particular white men) comfortable?'

And once again we come back to this notion that anti-racist politics are okay only to the extent that they don't make white people uncomfortable. I think they're useless if they don't make white people uncomfortable. I like making myself uncomfortable with critical race and gender theory.

I, personally, am fine with being made uncomfortable and actively seek it out too. But the vast majority of people - probably >95% - do not seek out being made uncomfortable, avoid it whenever they can, and fight against whatever makes them uncomfortable instinctively. Humans are fairly predictable this way. So yes, it is actually extremely important in general to avoid making most white people uncomfortable, because they hold most of the power and can make things go very wrong if they get uncomfortable enough with the direction our society is going.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

How is that a good post? What it demonstrates is that Manfred Belheim has never read any serious treatment of cultural appropriation by someone who 'agrees with' it as a concept and thinks it's problematic.

Why do I need to read anything "serious" on an external site (and jezebel indeed? no thanks) in order to address things I actually see? I mean, in this very thread there have been multiple examples of what I'm talking about.

Of course it is, because 'conflict and disagreement' is the means by which progress occurs.

So you see being antagonistic and creating conflict as being a good thing in and of itself? Why do you think that? You think using language in a way that obfuscates intent and creates artificial disagreements is productive?!

Would 'helpful to creating progress' here mean 'keeping white people (and in particular white men) comfortable?'

I mean... did you even read what I actually said? What part of any of what I said can be interpreted in this way?

 

[Lexicus]

Why do I need to read anything "serious" on an external site (and jezebel indeed? no thanks) in order to address things I actually see? I mean, in this very thread there have been multiple examples of what I'm talking about.

Probably because it would allow you to correctly interpret what you 'actually see' but why bother trying to understand when you can proudly dismiss strawmen all day?

So you see being antagonistic and creating conflict as being a good thing in and of itself?

No, but I do have a qausi-dialectic theory of progress in which it emerges from the interplay (or "conflict") between a thesis and antithesis, which eventually produces a synthesis.

Why do you think that? You think using language in a way that obfuscates intent and creates artificial disagreements is productive?!

Naturally I don't see it this way.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You think using language in a way that obfuscates intent and creates artificial disagreements is productive?!

What if he is actually illuminating a real disagreement so it can be discussed rather than ignored?

That's really the issue in race relations, at least it was in the civil rights battle of the sixties. The politics were directed at the large majority, which would be best described as 'white, powerful, and unconcerned.' That majority initially, if pressed, would side with the white supremacists because, well, white. Eventually that majority sided with civil rights, mostly because of fear of consequences. A generation later that majority includes a bunch of people raised with civil rights who just recognize white supremacy as bad...but they can mostly still be described as 'white, powerful, and unconcerned' and have to be pressed into taking a side.

 

[Lexicus]

Please rephrase, as I am not seeing the sense here.

Clearly, the civil rights movement was "gone along with."
Clearly, the people in power that went along were indeed white.
So, clearly, the people who were the object of the anti-racist politics had to be the white people or it wouldn't have worked.

I don't see how what you said about the opinions those people expressed supports an opposite conclusion.

We aren't talking about the relatively tiny political class but about ordinary whites, part of the 95% of the population Bootstoots is talking about. The point is that people have a rose-tinted view of the civil rights movement as a sort of lovey-dovey thing that everyone who wasn't a Klansman totally loved, but that is completely inaccurate and in its time it was viewed a lot closer to the way the "SJWs" are viewed now. The concerns of the "SJWs" are, in many cases, clearly being taken seriously by institutions and those in power.

@Bootstoots I don't think we're going to see eye-to-eye here.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Probably because it would allow you to correctly interpret what you 'actually see' but why bother trying to understand when you can proudly dismiss strawmen all day?

What are you talking about? I pointed out what I see as a problem with the terminology used, or at least the problems that can occur when using them, and you talk about me "dismissing strawmen"? That doesn't even make sense. Can you not drop your ideological bias and engage with what's actually said with honesty for 5 minutes? Is it that hard? By all means tell me I'm wrong and explain why, but don't just dump a reading list on me and then pull completely fallacious nonsense like this out of nowhere.

 

[Lexicus]

It makes perfect sense. You are dismissing something not only having made no effort to actually understand it, but actually having actively refused to make an effort to understand it.

Every single serious treatment of cultural appropriation I've ever read is emphatic that person from culture A doing some activity from culture B is not necessarily cultural appropriation, and that context (in this case the context of white supremacy, colonial domination, and so forth) is essential. You have never given any indication at all that you know this.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

What if he is actually illuminating a real disagreement so it can be discussed rather than ignored?

That's really the issue in race relations, at least it was in the civil rights battle of the sixties. The politics were directed at the large majority, which would be best described as 'white, powerful, and unconcerned.' That majority initially, if pressed, would side with the white supremacists because, well, white. Eventually that majority sided with civil rights, mostly because of fear of consequences. A generation later that majority includes a bunch of people raised with civil rights who just recognize white supremacy as bad...but they can mostly still be described as 'white, powerful, and unconcerned' and have to be pressed into taking a side.

Look... this is going off on a tangent again. I made a specific point about how I think the term "cultural appropriation", by virtue of it lumping very disparate phenomena under one umbrella term, can create misunderstandings, people talking across each other, and artificial conflicts. I'm not accusing of anyone doing this deliberately. I'm not accusing of one "side" being worse than the other. I'm not saying anything like that. So yes, if you think I'm wrong then say as much, but merely saying that "conflict is how progress is made" (paraphrasing obviously) is sidestepping my actual point because my point was about unnecessary, meaningless conflict. That means my proposed view is not about genuine disagreement by definition. And I'm certainly not talking about civil rights battles of the sixties or anything of the sort, I'm talking about all the current guff surrounding "cultural appropriation".

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It makes perfect sense. You are dismissing something not only having made no effort to actually understand it, but actually having actively refused to make an effort to understand it.

Every single serious treatment of cultural appropriation I've ever read is emphatic that person from culture A doing some activity from culture B is not necessarily cultural appropriation, and that context (in this case the context of white supremacy, colonial domination, and so forth) is essential. You have never given any indication at all that you know this.

Can you not see that this is an actual example of the very thing I was describing? I mean this is... literally what I described.

Look... whatever. Maybe someone else can have a go at addressing it, if only to please Bootstoots.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We aren't talking about the relatively tiny political class but about ordinary whites, part of the 95% of the population Bootstoots is talking about. The point is that people have a rose-tinted view of the civil rights movement as a sort of lovey-dovey thing that everyone who wasn't a Klansman totally loved, but that is completely inaccurate and in its time it was viewed a lot closer to the way the "SJWs" are viewed now. The concerns of the "SJWs" are, in many cases, clearly being taken seriously by institutions and those in power.

Okay, rephrasing didn't work.

It makes no difference whether the white majority went along because they were "lovey dovey" or because they were scared out of their complacency, the point remains that they had to go along or it wouldn't have happened because they were in fact the majority and had the power. So, once again, yes, the target of civil rights politics or anti-racist politics or whatever else is and always needs to be that powerful white majority, as it has always been. This will remain true as long as there is a powerful white majority.

 

[NovaKart]

I tried to read te Jezebel article but I couldn't view more than the first few paragraphs on my iPhone.

One thing that really sticks out to me is the "permission" thing. Maybe that would work with tribes consisting of just a few thousand people who have a governing body but what if you're talking about groups of millions? Who are you supposed to get permission from? One person may say it's fine for you to write about their culture or wear their jewellery and another not. Maybe the article clarifies this at some point.

It also looks like the cultural appropriation opponents themselves can't really decide what it is, even though they spend a lot of time focusing on it.

And then to compare this to moderate whites in the civil rights movement, come on. People not allowed to enter certain restaurants is a lot more serious than designers showcasing tribal inspired outfits at fashion shows.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Look... this is going off on a tangent again. I made a specific point about how I think the term "cultural appropriation", by virtue of it lumping very disparate phenomena under one umbrella term, can create misunderstandings, people talking across each other, and artificial conflicts. I'm not accusing of anyone doing this deliberately. I'm not accusing of one "side" being worse than the other. I'm not saying anything like that. So yes, if you think I'm wrong then say as much, but merely saying that "conflict is how progress is made" (paraphrasing obviously) is sidestepping my actual point because my point was about unnecessary, meaningless conflict. That means my proposed view is not about genuine disagreement by definition. And I'm certainly not talking about civil rights battles of the sixties or anything of the sort, I'm talking about all the current guff surrounding "cultural appropriation".

I think it is the same conversation conducted in much the same way. Call it "guff" if you want, but it does get people talking about the larger issue that they would rather not even think about, much less discuss...where the "genuine disagreement" actually lies. In a way this is just a reflection of the comments about protests that take the form "I appreciate their right to protest, I just wish they would do it in a way that I wouldn't hear it, see it, or be inconvenienced in any way so that I could completely ignore it."

 

[Traitorfish]

Take it that way if you want. I probably pay more attention to these topics than you do, and that's what the posting history I've observed tells me. Besides, the anti-SJW movement is pretty mainstream by now, such that catchphrases like #triggered is now a common mainstay of internet lingo. It's not one neat little camp of people anymore.

I think it's unwise to conflate dislike or mockery of progressive phraseology with the "anti-SJW" identity. Just because somebody disagrees with a particular theory or stance or tendency doesn't make them an enemy of progress.

If the left, of all people, cannot tolerate disagreement, what hope do any of us have?

No, I think SJWs will be like Maoists in the 1960's. People were baffled at their clownishness then, people think of them as clowns now.

That may not be an unfair comparison. The Western Maoists of the late 1960s were, as a rule, high in enthusiasm but weak in understanding, and when the cultural zeitgeist shifted, the movement dissipated almost as if it had never been. Given the similar emphasis on performance and in-group identity exhibited by the strain of progressivism that for want of a better word I'll call "the SJWs", I wouldn't be shocked if they went the same way.

The thing is, the Maoists may have been ineffective clowns, but they weren't always entirely wrong. Anyone who had imagined, in 1969, that concepts like "the Third World" and "anti-colonialism" would disappear from public discourse would have been mistaken, even if the particular version of those concepts espoused by the Maoists proved untenable. Likewise, a lot of what can easily dismissed as "SJW nonsense" may prove, in some form, to be tomorrow's common sense.

Every single serious treatment of cultural appropriation I've ever read is emphatic that person from culture A doing some activity from culture B is not necessarily cultural appropriation, and that context (in this case the context of white supremacy, colonial domination, and so forth) is essential.

Perhaps the objection, then, is that some treatments of cultural appropriation do not seem to qualify as "serious".

You can't say that everyone on your side of an issue is sober and sensible and even-handed, because the ones who aren't don't count.

 

[Akka]

Probably because it would allow you to correctly interpret what you 'actually see' but why bother trying to understand when you can proudly dismiss strawmen all day?

If only you could apply to yourself all that you preach...

 

[Flying Pig]

I'll read those articles once I have time (exam at 7 pm this evening - I really need to get off the internet now).

A very brief reply about this point specifically, though: I think there are ways to generate conflict and disagreement that are helpful to creating progress, and ways that are not. A lot of the 'SJW' types (along with 'anti-SJW' types who pop up to counter them) argue in ways that lead to unproductive discussion and seem designed to maximize outrage. I think this is resulting in a major backlash against 'PC' or 'SJW' stances, including in liberal circles. On the right, it seems to be fueling right-wing populism and outright white nationalism.

There are a lot of important points that are made by the 'SJW' side of the debate on cultural issues, but how the arguments are conducted is turning away a lot of people who might be sympathetic if it weren't for the internet outrage culture. And of course, these potentially convincible types are mostly privileged white people. This matters a lot because the bottom line is that, as long as white Westerners are the dominant culture, they have to be communicated with in ways that don't cause them to use their overwhelming power to stop or reverse progress in cultural understanding.

I think it is certainly worth saying that it's very easy for people to say 'please be reasonable, and play by the rules of polite, civilised discussion', when they are the ones who laid down those rules, so that they have the upper hand in any argument fought along those lines. To my mind, rights are not something you need to ask politely for, to be granted only when powerful people decide that you've grovelled enough: people have every right to get angry and demand decent treatment, whether or not others want to give it to them. With that said, I understand that you're basically cutting a pragmatic line rather than a moral one, and it's certainly true that making those demands might be entirely morally justified, while also being practically completely counterproductive. With that said, however, I think we should be very careful about demanding that people who feel oppressed express their feelings calmly and politely, and refusing to listen to them until they do.