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On June 29 2020 15:50 TomatoBisque wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 15:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 14:58 Zambrah wrote:On June 29 2020 14:41 StalkerTL wrote:On June 29 2020 14:24 Zambrah wrote:
Dont most places kind of bastardize foreign food for local tastes? God knows China does it, and god knows the US does it.
In fact, in China they have Dominos, and at first they served basically what they serve in the US, but China wasn't really into it, so now they serve stuff like corn and this weird egg mayo and steak fries pizza. Oh, and they had this pizza I loosely translated to "French style pizza" that had some sort of weird ingredient on it, sadly my translating sucks so I can't CONFIRM it had snails on it, but I do believe one of the words I read near that on the menu was maybe snail.
EDIT: And yeah, I've heard the entire Michelin star system has heavily biased fine dining towards French cuisine, so it doesn't surprise me to hear that bias exists with celebrity chefs. Yeah it absolutely happens worldwide. I don’t think that’s inherently a problem in most cases, a lot of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese chefs who produce European foods are generally trained in Europe and make it pretty clear that their products are not entire authentic. A lot of the mid-range and high end European restaurants I’ve tried in those countries are exceptionally good and I don’t think many Europeans would have major issues with them. The discussion in the article was less about that and more about the choice of people writing the cookbooks and recipes that try to sell their recipes as authentic. Chrissy Teigan isn’t going to make an authentic borscht but somewhere like Food Network will use her to sell her “authentic” Eastern European recipe because she’s more digestible for the domestic market than the Eastern European chef helping her. It’s a very American specific problem but it is definitely an interesting topic on whether or not this is fair on the cultures the media are appropriating for content. A lot of the time it isn’t that hard to bring someone from the culture to do the recipe properly. That’s actually part of the problem Bon Appetit is going through where the ethnic chefs, who have worked in top class restaurants, got side-lined by the white hosts. Instead of getting them to show how to make an authentic tortilla, the white chefs just bumble along and produce some rough approximation of the real thing while kind of selling it as “authentic”. EDIT: @Stratos, don’t forget that plenty of people still enthusiastically believe whatever Trump says, it shouldn’t be surprising that a disturbingly large part of the US might legitimately believe Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food, lol. To our point about what American's think Mexican food is: It's not Taco Tuesday, but you may want to head over to Taco Bell after reading this!
The popular fast-food restaurant was named America's best Mexican restaurant by the Harris Poll. Moe's held the title last year and Chipotle in 2016.
The poll surveyed more than 77,000 consumers, who assessed more than 3,000 brands across more than 300 categories. abc7.com I don't really disagree with your other points, but looking at the harris poll page linked from that article, I'm not sure that this poll is a good reflection of how good people think the food actually is--it's a measure of the brand itself (and "best" is a nebulous word that can be twisted to mean anything). Looking at the harrispoll website, they measure three categories: Familiarity, Quality, and Purchase consideration. Of these, only one actually measures the quality of food which will vary because taste is subjective, while the other two are going to greatly push up a global brand like Taco Bell. Everyone has heard of Taco Bell, so it will get near max points in that category while a locally owned one will get nothing. Purchase consideration could be a measure of a lot of factors such as price vs. quality/amount of food, and again the fact that it's familiar to everyone will probably get it some sort of bump here. Something relatively cheap like Taco Bell is probably not going to get hurt much here, because the fact that it's one of the most well known franchises means people buy from it. So Taco Bell is the "best mexican restaurant" here because it's well known and good enough that people will buy it. That said, there's probably an argument to be made that the fact that it's such a huge brand is reflective of something
I think the main problem here is that Taco Bell is being put in the "Mexican" category, rather than some "Tex Mex", or "Fastfood Fusion" or something. That ties in, btw, a very US-specific problem, where everybody 5 generations down still calls themselves German, Italian, Polish, or Mexican...
And in general, I agree that if Taco Bell is marketing itself as authentic Mexican food or something, that could be cultural appropriation. But Taco Bell taking tacos, reinventing them and selling them as fastfood is not cultural appropriation in and of itself. Just as most of the sushi restaurants here are not owned or run by Japanese and sell stuff that Japanese would barely recognize as sushi. In fact, a California Roll has it in the name that it isn't traditional Japanese food. Nevertheless, California rolls are popular not just in California and here in Spain, but in Japan as well (although they generally have different names).
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He allready told everyone a few posts ago, that we should go read up something on it.
Why do you even expect an explanation? It's GH... Somewhere in a Book or on the Internet someone wrote an explanation for why Cultural Appropriation is bad that he agrees with, so now it's your job to read the same source and also agree with it.
It's really next level debate tactics.
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Norway28618 Posts
On June 29 2020 18:22 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 17:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:+ Show Spoiler +In Norway, bastardized taco is ubiquitous, and it's nothing like authentic mexican tacos, however it's also branded as tex-mex, not mexican. (I'm not gonna claim that this is necessarily something all Norwegians do or know, but everybody I know with any interest in food are well aware of the fact that the tacos eaten for taco friday (a very real thing in Norway) are not real mexican tacos.
But I mean, this applies to all really good food everywhere (because good food gets replicated), and I can't help but feel that the same principle that would make it 'morally objectionable' for a white guy to serve bastardized mexican food claiming that he's serving tacos would also make it morally objectionable for a black guy from chicago to serve deep dish pizza while having pizza in the name of the dish served. Italians generally don't consider what many americans consider pizza, pizza, and indeed, if you have pizza in Italy, you'll notice it differs greatly. And hell, many people who come to Italy, home of the pizza, are actually somewhat disappointed by the Italian pizza because they feel it needs more topping..
Chinese food in the west is very different from Chinese food in China. But it's generally made by Chinese immigrants, be it first or second or third generation, and they made the calculus themselves that a) genuine chinese food wouldn't sell that well and b) difference in availability of ingredients would mean some adjustments would have to be made either way.
I mean, at some point along the journey, the white guy's mexican food chain having mariachi bands of white guys wearing sombreros and fake over-sized mustaches and eminem singing my salsa becomes offensive. But I fundamentally disagree that there's anything intrinsically wrong with people whose 'heritage' is with one culture making food with it's origins from another culture, and indeed, being opposed to this principle sounds like arguing for cultural segregation, which I'd consider really negative. There are ways for the fusion of cultures to be done in a tasteful manner and ways for it to be done in a tasteless manner, and I'm totally in agreement that there should be done a better job communicating that the bastardized food does not resemble the authentic food.. (Although, again, Chinese people serving westernized Chinese food might not want to do this.)
So I really can't agree that only people from culture x should be allowed to make food from culture x. And I can't really envision that there's any way to possibly effectively 'police' that it should always be done in a tasteful manner. Furthermore, I think some of the most interesting culture is 'produced' through the meeting and melding of cultures. Again - this is why I consider myself a multiculturalist, it's because I think the blending of different cultures produces some fantastic outcomes. Food is one area, the nearby store selling asian ingredients has vastly enriched my dining experience, even if I can't claim to make authentic asian food. Music is another. Listening to The HU blending mongolian throat singing with rock/metal is amazing, aforementioned eminem did actually make some very good rap, there's some great rock produced by a whole lot of white people.
Maybe there's a different discussion to be had around whether the commercial profits derived from product originating from culture x should go to culture x or culture y, but I don't think that really relates to the topic of cultural appropriation vs cultural appreciation, and I overwhelmingly favor a different distribution of wealth and income from what we see in both the world and within individual countries anyway. (However, I think adding a tax to tex-mex products claiming to be mexican and giving the money to mexican communities really doesn't sound like a practical way of going about this. ) Show nested quote +So I really can't agree that only people from culture x should be allowed to make food from culture x. Isn't the proposition. It's that there's more to appreciation than exploitation. Cultural appropriation deals with the latter. The notion that only culture x can make food from culture x is a poison strawman, often made unwittingly, to undermine the concept of cultural appropriation. This is very much "don't you get the joke/It's not fair if they can do it/I don't see the big deal/etc" replaced with "don't you get it's adoption/appreciation" and the other two are the same. I'm telling folks it's offensive (and destructive, not collaborative), they google it and find scores of literature on the topic (so not something I made up), they can accept it as real, read up on it and ask informed questions/make informed critiques, or just keep supporting/maintaining the offensive position. Beyond that I'm fine just disagreeing on it and hoping the extremely racist stuff (the white mariachi band doing My Salsa stuff) is as universally discouraged as possible.
I mean if cultural appropriation is only applied to the more egregious examples/ if it's a movement more about giving credit to the originator than about shaming the bastard child, if it's more about exploitation of symbols associated with the culture of an already otherwise exploited and abused group of people, then it's not something I have big issues with, but there's still some problematic issues, and it's hard for me to find an internal consistency that makes sense to myself.
For example, + Show Spoiler +, I'm guessing this will largely go under the umbrella of cultural appropriation and be considered negative. And my gut reflex is one of sympathy to that claim.
However, every year around may 17th, (norway's national day), there are some racist Norwegians that turn this debate sideways through claiming that people not 'ethnically norwegian' should not wear the traditional Norwegian piece of clothing called 'Bunad'.+ Show Spoiler +
And aside from the obvious that one side is a member of the majority culture wearing an item associated with a minority culture in the case of the war bonnet while the Pakistani girl wearing Bunad is an example of a member of a minority culture wearing an item associated with the majority culture, these examples to me, in principle look much the same; it's someone wearing a piece of clothing that they think look cool. I mean, I want to be sympathetic towards exploited minorities and hear them out and adjust my behavior in accordance with their wishes (and I haven't ever worn a war bonnet and I don't have tattoos and frankly I think I'm absolutely a non-offender myself), but the people who want the Norwegian Bunad to be only worn by ethnic Norwegians also tend to consider Norwegian culture a threatened minority culture on a global scale (even if we're not exploited) and one that has to be protected from outside bastardization. As long as the intentions are positive (wanting to use something from a different culture because you think that thing from that culture is awesome) then it's hard for me to really have issues with the behavior. Totally agree that negative intended use or slurs like washington redskins is unacceptable, but reading the entire wikipedia on cultural appropriation there's a whole lot that at least by some people is considered cultural appropriation that I myself can't find issues with.
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On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation?
I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?"
There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw).
I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works.
Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to.
When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own).
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On June 29 2020 19:43 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 15:50 TomatoBisque wrote:On June 29 2020 15:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 14:58 Zambrah wrote:On June 29 2020 14:41 StalkerTL wrote:On June 29 2020 14:24 Zambrah wrote:
Dont most places kind of bastardize foreign food for local tastes? God knows China does it, and god knows the US does it.
In fact, in China they have Dominos, and at first they served basically what they serve in the US, but China wasn't really into it, so now they serve stuff like corn and this weird egg mayo and steak fries pizza. Oh, and they had this pizza I loosely translated to "French style pizza" that had some sort of weird ingredient on it, sadly my translating sucks so I can't CONFIRM it had snails on it, but I do believe one of the words I read near that on the menu was maybe snail.
EDIT: And yeah, I've heard the entire Michelin star system has heavily biased fine dining towards French cuisine, so it doesn't surprise me to hear that bias exists with celebrity chefs. Yeah it absolutely happens worldwide. I don’t think that’s inherently a problem in most cases, a lot of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese chefs who produce European foods are generally trained in Europe and make it pretty clear that their products are not entire authentic. A lot of the mid-range and high end European restaurants I’ve tried in those countries are exceptionally good and I don’t think many Europeans would have major issues with them. The discussion in the article was less about that and more about the choice of people writing the cookbooks and recipes that try to sell their recipes as authentic. Chrissy Teigan isn’t going to make an authentic borscht but somewhere like Food Network will use her to sell her “authentic” Eastern European recipe because she’s more digestible for the domestic market than the Eastern European chef helping her. It’s a very American specific problem but it is definitely an interesting topic on whether or not this is fair on the cultures the media are appropriating for content. A lot of the time it isn’t that hard to bring someone from the culture to do the recipe properly. That’s actually part of the problem Bon Appetit is going through where the ethnic chefs, who have worked in top class restaurants, got side-lined by the white hosts. Instead of getting them to show how to make an authentic tortilla, the white chefs just bumble along and produce some rough approximation of the real thing while kind of selling it as “authentic”. EDIT: @Stratos, don’t forget that plenty of people still enthusiastically believe whatever Trump says, it shouldn’t be surprising that a disturbingly large part of the US might legitimately believe Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food, lol. To our point about what American's think Mexican food is: It's not Taco Tuesday, but you may want to head over to Taco Bell after reading this!
The popular fast-food restaurant was named America's best Mexican restaurant by the Harris Poll. Moe's held the title last year and Chipotle in 2016.
The poll surveyed more than 77,000 consumers, who assessed more than 3,000 brands across more than 300 categories. abc7.com I don't really disagree with your other points, but looking at the harris poll page linked from that article, I'm not sure that this poll is a good reflection of how good people think the food actually is--it's a measure of the brand itself (and "best" is a nebulous word that can be twisted to mean anything). Looking at the harrispoll website, they measure three categories: Familiarity, Quality, and Purchase consideration. Of these, only one actually measures the quality of food which will vary because taste is subjective, while the other two are going to greatly push up a global brand like Taco Bell. Everyone has heard of Taco Bell, so it will get near max points in that category while a locally owned one will get nothing. Purchase consideration could be a measure of a lot of factors such as price vs. quality/amount of food, and again the fact that it's familiar to everyone will probably get it some sort of bump here. Something relatively cheap like Taco Bell is probably not going to get hurt much here, because the fact that it's one of the most well known franchises means people buy from it. So Taco Bell is the "best mexican restaurant" here because it's well known and good enough that people will buy it. That said, there's probably an argument to be made that the fact that it's such a huge brand is reflective of something I think the main problem here is that Taco Bell is being put in the "Mexican" category, rather than some "Tex Mex", or "Fastfood Fusion" or something. That ties in, btw, a very US-specific problem, where everybody 5 generations down still calls themselves German, Italian, Polish, or Mexican... And in general, I agree that if Taco Bell is marketing itself as authentic Mexican food or something, that could be cultural appropriation. But Taco Bell taking tacos, reinventing them and selling them as fastfood is not cultural appropriation in and of itself. Just as most of the sushi restaurants here are not owned or run by Japanese and sell stuff that Japanese would barely recognize as sushi. In fact, a California Roll has it in the name that it isn't traditional Japanese food. Nevertheless, California rolls are popular not just in California and here in Spain, but in Japan as well (although they generally have different names).
Actually, where I live, there is a whole business of food trucks. And most of then are absolutely shit. The funny thing is, there are two italian ones. One sell absolutely horrible pizzas, domino's level and is owned by italians. Then there is this guy from Sweden who makes amazing italian street food, with traditional recipes and items that are much more specific (arrancinis, piadinas, stuff like that.)
As far as I am concerned, he is more respectful of italian culture than the italian folks from the frozen pizza food truck. How does that enter the whole cultural appropriation debate?
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On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own).
It's like, the fifth time you talk about "freirian sense" in a week.
Can you please explain your point of view? You still haven't. What constitutes exactly cultural appropriation and can you provide examples and explain why other examples are not relevant since you claim we are strawmaning?
Don't tell us to read X and Y, don't mention "relevant scholarship". Just explain us what your point of view is.
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Norway28618 Posts
On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own).
This is something I'm entirely on board with. I don't think this stuff is quantifiable and I don't think you can say 'once it's above 6 on a 0-10 scale it's unacceptable', so I'm not asking for that. But this realization, that it's not quantifiable and always up for debate and a never ending process, must also be coupled by a very pedagogical approach to honest mistakes and I think that is often sorely lacking. (Not you in particular, here. )
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On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own).
Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now.
Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules.
Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations.
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On June 29 2020 20:04 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now. Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules. Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations.
That's problematic though.
First because if you can't put a line or even explain what the difference is other than saying that one is exploitation and the other is appreciation, you open the way for everyone being accused of cultural appropriation all the time with very little ways to defend themselves.
Also because it seems to me that if the concept was solid and founded it would be easy to differentiate clearly. I just think it's not a very good notion to start with, and when it's subjected to the test of specific examples it becomes totally absurd immediately. How is the non italian food truck guy doing the italian food around not guilty of cultural appropriation? He is making money out of a culture that is not his. How is that fundamentally different than Taco Bell?
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I think a better example of cultural appropriation than food is Led Zeppelin, whose early career was built on stealing old blues songs and slightly repurposing them for profit without giving credit to the original artists.
It took legal claims on behalf of many black blues artists to get their credits finally added to reissues of their albums.
The food example is a strange one. The UK's most popular national dish is chicken tikka masala, which is a bastardization of indian food using cream among other indredients. It very much is a product of our empire and the terrible things that were done to indian people. Yet the food is never brought up, because english versions of curry are actually pretty nice.
I've eaten terrible versions of english food abroad, even though most english food is admittedly already terrible. I wasn't offended, I was just like... this is bad food, man.
And that's the key with food... people will be less offended if its good food, which to me means the offense taken at the alleged cultural appropriation is all mixed up with the offense taken at the food being bad.
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On June 29 2020 20:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 20:04 Artisreal wrote:On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now. Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules. Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations. That's problematic though. First because if you can't put a line or even explain what the difference is other than saying that one is exploitation and the other is appreciation, you open the way for everyone being accused of cultural appropriation all the time with very little ways to defend themselves. Also because it seems to me that if the concept was solid and founded it would be easy to differentiate clearly. I just think it's not a very good notion to start with, and when it's subjected to the test of specific examples it becomes totally absurd immediately.
Out of curiosity, do you think the notion that a Black man can be a white supremacist is absurd?
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On June 29 2020 20:11 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 20:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 29 2020 20:04 Artisreal wrote:On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now. Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules. Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations. That's problematic though. First because if you can't put a line or even explain what the difference is other than saying that one is exploitation and the other is appreciation, you open the way for everyone being accused of cultural appropriation all the time with very little ways to defend themselves. Also because it seems to me that if the concept was solid and founded it would be easy to differentiate clearly. I just think it's not a very good notion to start with, and when it's subjected to the test of specific examples it becomes totally absurd immediately. Out of curiosity, do you think the notion that a Black man can be a white supremacist is absurd?
Very illogical and irrational certainly, and I would be interested in knowing his motives. Why?
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On June 29 2020 20:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 20:11 farvacola wrote:On June 29 2020 20:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 29 2020 20:04 Artisreal wrote:On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now. Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules. Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations. That's problematic though. First because if you can't put a line or even explain what the difference is other than saying that one is exploitation and the other is appreciation, you open the way for everyone being accused of cultural appropriation all the time with very little ways to defend themselves. Also because it seems to me that if the concept was solid and founded it would be easy to differentiate clearly. I just think it's not a very good notion to start with, and when it's subjected to the test of specific examples it becomes totally absurd immediately. Out of curiosity, do you think the notion that a Black man can be a white supremacist is absurd? Very illogical and irrational certainly, and I would be interested in knowing his motives. Why?
Not a bad answer. I ask because it ties into your absurdity argument relative to the cultural appropriation of food. I don't think it's absurd at all that a non-Italian could make food that fits the category of "authentic Italian cuisine" better than an Italian, the ethnic identities of the actors are one among a host of variables at play in parsing the cultural context in which individuals trade in ethnic items like food. This is also why, as others point out, formulating hard rules about this kind of thing is rather unhelpful unless they're narrowed into specific notions that no longer look like rules at all really.
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On June 29 2020 20:17 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 20:14 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 29 2020 20:11 farvacola wrote:On June 29 2020 20:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 29 2020 20:04 Artisreal wrote:On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). Good post, thank you. I was struggling to formulate something like the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph for a while now. Social interaction is not engineering with its caluations and generally / everywhere in the same manor valid rules. Asking for specific rules always reminds me of incels and companies prying to find a way around regulations. That's problematic though. First because if you can't put a line or even explain what the difference is other than saying that one is exploitation and the other is appreciation, you open the way for everyone being accused of cultural appropriation all the time with very little ways to defend themselves. Also because it seems to me that if the concept was solid and founded it would be easy to differentiate clearly. I just think it's not a very good notion to start with, and when it's subjected to the test of specific examples it becomes totally absurd immediately. Out of curiosity, do you think the notion that a Black man can be a white supremacist is absurd? Very illogical and irrational certainly, and I would be interested in knowing his motives. Why? Not a bad answer. I ask because it ties into your absurdity argument relative to the cultural appropriation of food. I don't think it's absurd at all that a non-Italian could make food that fits the category of "authentic Italian cuisine" better than an Italian, the ethnic identities of the actors are one among a host of variables at play in parsing the cultural context in which individuals trade in ethnic items like food.
Sure, but then again, the problem is that it considers culture in a purely defensive way, as something static that needs to be protected. There are more ways to cook carbonaras than there are italians; there is very little basis to say that this or that recipe is "traditional" and "authentic". Hell I've seen italian restaurants in Italy make carbos with cream, which is frankly, a crime against good taste. And then again, you go to any top chef restaurants and you will constantly see reinvention of dishes in surprising ways with surprising ingredients - which is exactly like making carbos with cream except that there is quality to it.
The moment you identify culture as an item to defend against appropriation, you have removed all its fluid and dynamic character.
i just don't see how the concept can actually function without either tying it totally to ethnicity and then the food truck guy is stealing, or to a question of quality and then the italian guy putting cream in his carbo is guilty of cultural appropriation and shouldn't call his restaurant italian. It just doesn't work. Which is why it ends up with extremely vague arguments about exploitation versus appreciation, which defines nothing at all.
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As a side note, I object to the concept of cultural appropriation for the exact same reason I object to people saying that foreigners threaten their cultures. I think in that case the woke and xenophobic propositions are based on the same - false - premisses about what culture is and how it works.
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This conversation has me wondering if the owners of Taco Bell voted for Trump and his wall.
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I think that gets to the heart of the issue, which is whether identifying cultural appropriation as a bad thing that needs to be addressed means it must be regarded as a thing to attack or that "genuine" culture is a thing to defend. I don't think that's the case, I think we clearly have work to do in developing a proper language for describing these kinds of cultural issues in terms that better reflect the temperamental, marginal nature of culture as an emergent by-product of both individual and group identity. I prefer something along the lines of respect, sincerity, and recognition, but those terms bring along their own problems as well.
I should add that this is also a left/right problem; the right has always had an easier time accessing the colloquial power of the language of culture, which is why fascism cannot exist without it. The left, on the other hand, has never developed a robust and persuasive approach or set of ideals other than flimsy, over-general concepts like multiculturalism.
As a self-professed foodie who also inhabits a liminal space of ethnic identity, I am very interested in these kinds of questions 
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On June 29 2020 20:02 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 19:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 19:41 Uldridge wrote:
So GH, I think I understand what you're trying you say, but maybe we should understand the rules of the game a bit better in general so we don't all talk over each other because of misunderstandings.
At what point does cultural adoption/appreciation become appropriation? I would say it's sorta like asking "when does a race joke become a racist joke?" There isn't a exactly a crab gauge for racism where you can just pick something up out of a bucket and measure it with your pocket racist gauge and separate things into keep or release piles (this applies to things like the rash of popular gaming figures facing sexual misconduct/racism allegations too btw). I know a lot of people who normally don't have to deal with this stuff (except when obnoxious sjw's like me or whatever bring it up) want a simple strainer they can just dump everything into and then strictly drink the righteous juice of not perpetuating racism/sexism/homophobia/etc, but that's not how it works. Gotta do a lot of critical thinking informed by victim experiences, relevant scholarship, etc and it's hard damn work we don't really want to do except when we remember we don't have to be better people that treat each other better, we want to. When we think we're "good enough" or that we've arrived at a centrist nirvana we start dying (in the Freirean sense). This stuff is a never ending process, not a simple rehab detox (which can be quite harrowing on it's own). This is something I'm entirely on board with. I don't think this stuff is quantifiable and I don't think you can say 'once it's above 6 on a 0-10 scale it's unacceptable', so I'm not asking for that. But this realization, that it's not quantifiable and always up for debate and a never ending process, must also be coupled by a very pedagogical approach to honest mistakes and I think that is often sorely lacking. (Not you in particular, here. )
Libs gunna lib, by which I mean bastardize revolutionary thought in an attempt to make it palatable for the masses but instead of popularizing radical concepts, they act as a perpetual Alan Colmes for the reactionary right.
Most people that do it are unwitting and well-intentioned. Very few turn it into a career like that guy though.
Particularly insidious are those on the reactionary right that amplify the most oblivious examples (especially as ostensibly sincere advocates). Feel like there was some thing about food trucks pushed by reactionaries a while back. It was the same thing then where an extreme bastardized example was used to undermine the legitimate issue of cultural appropriation in the food industry.
"I support xy but z is a step to far", with every intent to come back for y and x once you agree with the reasoning for why z is too far. They do so by then arguing x and y are really z.
A lot of this stuff is pretty formulaic and a lot of the rhetoric is reused across topics and dated. The very nature of conservatism vs revolutionary thinking makes the latter more capable of adaptation. The former acts as a check against disadvantages adaptations to momentary temporal circumstances.
They aren't enemies. Ideally, balanced and wielded responsibly, the stone wears away while sharpening the blade. Wielded irresponsibly they are the same sword and stone but only work to damage one another.
EDIT:+ Show Spoiler + Libs are the wetting agent in this blade and stone example btw.
EDIT2: I can probably dig them up but you can see this in action with me short circuiting xDaunts arguments by skipping the set-up, whereas he'd go on endlessly with liberals/well-meaning leftists that walk right into every time. Worth noting they don't even need a liberal to participate, they can do this between themselves and just get liberals to nod along.
"Mexicans should be able to make egg rolls right!?"
"Of course, it'd be silly otherwise"
"So you agree, it's stupid we're focusing on this cultural appropriation from a celebrity (or whatever bastardized/marginal/grey area example) instead of this other issue that isn't racism right?"
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On June 29 2020 20:36 farvacola wrote:I think that gets to the heart of the issue, which is whether identifying cultural appropriation as a bad thing that needs to be addressed means it must be regarded as a thing to attack or that "genuine" culture is a thing to defend. I don't think that's the case, I think we clearly have work to do in developing a proper language for describing these kinds of cultural issues in terms that better reflect the temperamental, marginal nature of culture as an emergent by-product of both individual and group identity. I prefer something along the lines of respect, sincerity, and recognition, but those terms bring along their own problems as well. I should add that this is also a left/right problem; the right has always had an easier time accessing the colloquial power of the language of culture, which is why fascism cannot exist without it. The left, on the other hand, has never developed a robust and persuasive approach or set of ideals other than flimsy, over-general concepts like multiculturalism. As a self-professed foodie who also inhabits a liminal space of ethnic identity, I am very interested in these kinds of questions
Well, I think we on the left should have other angles of attacks against, for example, the big actors of the food industry than this kind of cultural reasonings. The problem is that it ends up with "scandals" like Jamie Oliver making the front page of newspaper because some woke morons are outraged that he puts chorizo in his paella recipe and accuse him of racism.
The problem is that it's obviously grotesque and that meanwhile we don't address the real issues of the food industry selling absolute garbage to people, engeneering horrible food to be addictive, making meals with six times the calories you need in a day, and so on and so forth. Hell if I was Mc Donald's CEO, I would love this kind of debates.
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I think it's important to keep addressing what is acceptable and what isn't and why it is or isn't acceptable. It's what has been done for smoking and drinking and driving. Some time in the future people will generally accept the things as they are now as being wrong.
However, if the discussion is one inherently of shifting goal posts, how can you prevent it from becoming a slippery slope? Where does the discussion end? When things are truly equal? When things have been compensated for? How do you know things have equalized?
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