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On June 29 2020 23:32 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but isn’t it pretty easy to imagine inauthenticity though? Almost everyone would look at a pizza made from a corn tortilla, ketchup, and spam and say it’s not *really* a pizza. Doesn’t the existence of inauthenticity imply that authenticity does exist in some sense, even if it’s frustratingly hazy to define?
If I go to a Neapolitan pizza joint that is certified by a pizza guild and requires that the pizza joint is using dough quantified by such and such metrics and the cheese only comes from Naples and the tomatoes are San Marzano, I am certainly getting a very different pizza than the one by Elio’s in my freezer aisle. There’s no dispute there. One might even taste better and/or have a more convincing claim to historical pedigree.
But what you are really asking is whether our ability to say that something *is* something implies that to *be* something means to have the essence of that category of things. If you are an Aristotelian you can just say, yea of course that’s what it means. To apply this to pizzas still raises a whole series of epistemological questions that troubles the notion of what an “authentic” pizza might be: it might not bother you to draw a line between “real” pizza and deconstructed mango chutney asian fusion pizza, but is frozen Tombstone pizza “real” pizza? what about Neapolitan pizza accredited by an American-based pizza guild founded in 1996? sidewalk pizza you got in Rome that imports its cheese from France made by a Tunisian immigrant?
The term “essentialist” these days is mostly used as an epithet. It can be a serious charge, indicating intellectual regression and atavistic thinking. Kant’s thinking about objects and appearances kind of put a moratorium on inquiring after what the “real” essence of something is, since all we can ever get a handle on are appearances that we describe in language.
edit: on further thought, it might be that the confusion stems from a scientific perspective of measurement (a science of appearances). We measure things all the time and are perfectly happy to say this is or is not something—alcohol, water, omega-6 fat, curcumin. Why can’t we just define our food by its chemical composition? But a little digging into this idea should make it clear that people aren’t just talking about composition when they refer to authenticity. Tracing the historical changes in composition of various foods is interesting. We can see how soil changes, genetic drift, selective breeding, environmental conditions, changes in planting have affected recipes and diet. We should keep in mind though how spotty the historical record can be about these things.
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Northern Ireland26044 Posts
On June 29 2020 23:45 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 22:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:On June 29 2020 21:52 EnDeR_ wrote:
I feel that food and art should be very different categories when talking about cultural appropriation. Taking somebody else's work, repackaging it for profit and not giving credit is clear cut. Re-inventing a dish because your customers have different tastes seems like plain common sense to me.
I'm always appalled as to what British people call 'traditional Spanish food', but not because I think it's cultural appropriation, but because it just tastes bad -- 'Pollo al ajillo' should most definitely not have barbeque sauce slathered all over it, but the brits like it, so you just have to avoid it. I think taking someone else's music (that's plagiarism - and has nothing to do with cultural appropriation) and borrowing elements from other cultures' music for example are two radically different things. I mean, obviously, if I perform a song by The Beatles and pretend it's mine, I am just stealing them. But is Igor Stravinsky using African rhythm in the Rite of Spring cultural appropriation? And Claude Debussy in his string quartet imitating Javanese gamelans? And Anton Dvorak using negro spirituals in his twelvth quartet? Or Ravel writing a blues in his violin sonata? I won't even start with Brahms, or Beethoven writing Polonaises, or movements "Alla Zingarese" borrowing from gipsy tunes. I mean the whole of music history is made of composers taking folk songs, rhythm, harmonies from diverse cultures, and mixing them together. Again, it seems to me like a huge misunderstanding about how culture works. Folk songs belong to humanity. That's what is great about art. So would you say that plagiarism is exactly the same when its a white band stealing songs from white people, as it is when white people steal songs made by black people specifically as a reaction to their enslavement by white people? Because personally I think that's plagiarism with a little something extra, no?
The something, at least to me comes when it’s marketed or accepted as palatable if it’s a white person doing the same kind of music. Which I think is more pertinent when it comes to more commercially lead popular music than other art forms.
It’s really that element that makes me uneasy, otherwise yeah Biff I do agree. My knowledge of those composers and the contexts they worked in is largely limited to Alex Ross’ ‘The Rest is Noise’ (which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in how these influences intermingle), but my impression is that such individuals were weaving in new influences and approaches to push the envelope of their art rather than just outright lifting things.
Plus of course some of this was very much in the days before widely available recorded media was a factor, so a composer like Bartok going around recording and cataloguing folk music and incorporating it had more preservative value then.
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On June 29 2020 23:27 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is such any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. I really wish you used your massive brainpower to repeatedly deconstruct whiteness for the people that desperately need it instead of trying to convince marginalized minorities that they would be better off deferring their politics for class reductionism. It's particularly frustrating because unlike a lot of the other discussions which have a silent audience which enjoys them, no one else has any idea what you're doing besides maybe farv. Which, with my luck, your arguments are influencing. You'd have to point me to where I was convincing marginalized minorities that they should be class reductionist so I can refresh my memory.
It's practically every response to me. Essentially trying to undermine identity politics in favor of whatever you'd call it. I'm tempted to post the peaky blinders leftist unity meme. You're surely wise enough to know that I agree with you in a theoretical sense in an abstract society. The disagreement is one of material conditions, where again, your argument inadvertently serves to embolden our supposed common ideological opposition (basically what your argument presumes of my position) in an effort to appeal to it's less stringent adherents (basically what it accuses my position fails to do) imo.
An endless loop of obscure theoretical citations, lived experiences, philosophical babble and esoteric historic references that mostly only serves to stroke our egos. Not that I don't think there's something to be gained there (I feel we're reasonably well matched for that dialectic), but this isn't the time or place. Maybe after the anarchists have stormed the capital and Bernie Sanders has set up his guillotine for Chris Matthews in Central Park we can sit at a leftist table still dripping in the metaphorical blood of our vanquished foes and slam fists over the intricacies of identity and forms. Until then can we focus please?
EDIT: Reading that back I feel like I've said that last bit to you before, ring any bells for you?
edit: on further thought, it might be that the confusion stems from a scientific perspective of measurement (a science of appearances). We measure things all the time and are perfectly happy to say this is or is not something—alcohol, water, omega-6 fat, curcumin. Why can’t we just define our food by its chemical composition? But a little digging into this idea should make it clear that people aren’t just talking about composition when they refer to authenticity. Tracing the historical changes in composition of various foods is interesting. We can see how soil changes, genetic drift, selective breeding, environmental conditions, changes in planting have affected recipes and diet. We should keep in mind though how spotty the historical record can be about these things.
you've got to be trolling lol. You trying to trigger an existential crisis in people to prove a point about tacos?
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On June 29 2020 23:50 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:26 farvacola wrote:
Chief Justice Roberts pulled off another of his trademark pro-gamer moves and sided with the liberals today in striking down a highly restrictive Louisiana anti-abortion law. That is absolutely huge. It always makes me feel a little better that sometimes logic can still win out in the Supreme court. Roberts strikes me as a conservative that wishes other conservatives made less obviously stupid laws.
He won't support something just because its conservative, it actually has to be a sound law.
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On June 30 2020 00:14 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:27 IgnE wrote:On June 29 2020 23:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is such any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. I really wish you used your massive brainpower to repeatedly deconstruct whiteness for the people that desperately need it instead of trying to convince marginalized minorities that they would be better off deferring their politics for class reductionism. It's particularly frustrating because unlike a lot of the other discussions which have a silent audience which enjoys them, no one else has any idea what you're doing besides maybe farv. Which, with my luck, your arguments are influencing. You'd have to point me to where I was convincing marginalized minorities that they should be class reductionist so I can refresh my memory. It's practically every response to me. Essentially trying to undermine identity politics in favor of whatever you'd call it. I'm tempted to post the peaky blinders leftist unity meme. You're surely wise enough to know that I agree with you in a theoretical sense in an abstract society. The disagreement is one of material conditions, where again, your argument inadvertently serves to embolden our supposed common ideological opposition (basically what your argument presumes of my position) in an effort to appeal to it's less stringent adherents (basically what it accuses my position fails to do) imo. An endless loop of obscure theoretical citations, lived experiences, philosophical babble and esoteric historic references that mostly only serves to stroke our egos. Not that I don't think there's something to be gained there (I feel we're reasonably well matched for that dialectic), but this isn't the time or place. Maybe after the anarchists have stormed the capital and Bernie Sanders has set up his guillotine for Chris Matthews in Central Park we can sit at a leftist table still dripping in the metaphorical blood of our vanquished foes and slam fists over the intricacies of identity and forms. Until then can we focus please?
Yeah I do prod and provoke you but that’s because you are often the only one saying something remarkable, in the sense that I find it interesting enough to remark on. This thread doesn’t do +1s, and I mostly find assent pretty boring. Maybe if we held regular votes or something we’d have a better barometer of (dis)agreement amongst us in this thread, but really the thread functions as a venue for us to try out different ideas, share news, ask questions, and argue about the answers.
I’ll make only two more points since you didn’t point to anything specific:
1) I think, when advocating for change, that there is a higher burden for laying out detailed, specific plans of action and a higher burden of confidence that those plans will ultimately work in the way intended than I once did. I should say that I think critique is separable from advocating for change. One can argue for the relevance of Marx and Marxist analysis without having a roadmap to utopia. But “prison abolition” is a concrete proposal, and therefore has a greater burden for laying out a plan and fielding genuine questions.
2) I think, in general, that even though you think I am lobbing esoteric, relatively unimportant questions at you, I view most of these questions as at the heart of the disagreement you see all around you, even if they are inarticulable in exoteric terms
re: tacos
nah not trolling
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On June 30 2020 00:40 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2020 00:14 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 23:27 IgnE wrote:On June 29 2020 23:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is such any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. I really wish you used your massive brainpower to repeatedly deconstruct whiteness for the people that desperately need it instead of trying to convince marginalized minorities that they would be better off deferring their politics for class reductionism. It's particularly frustrating because unlike a lot of the other discussions which have a silent audience which enjoys them, no one else has any idea what you're doing besides maybe farv. Which, with my luck, your arguments are influencing. You'd have to point me to where I was convincing marginalized minorities that they should be class reductionist so I can refresh my memory. It's practically every response to me. Essentially trying to undermine identity politics in favor of whatever you'd call it. I'm tempted to post the peaky blinders leftist unity meme. You're surely wise enough to know that I agree with you in a theoretical sense in an abstract society. The disagreement is one of material conditions, where again, your argument inadvertently serves to embolden our supposed common ideological opposition (basically what your argument presumes of my position) in an effort to appeal to it's less stringent adherents (basically what it accuses my position fails to do) imo. An endless loop of obscure theoretical citations, lived experiences, philosophical babble and esoteric historic references that mostly only serves to stroke our egos. Not that I don't think there's something to be gained there (I feel we're reasonably well matched for that dialectic), but this isn't the time or place. Maybe after the anarchists have stormed the capital and Bernie Sanders has set up his guillotine for Chris Matthews in Central Park we can sit at a leftist table still dripping in the metaphorical blood of our vanquished foes and slam fists over the intricacies of identity and forms. Until then can we focus please? Yeah I do prod and provoke you but that’s because you are often the only one saying something remarkable, in the sense that I find it interesting enough to remark on. This thread doesn’t do +1s, and I mostly find assent pretty boring. Maybe if we held regular votes or something we’d have a better barometer of (dis)agreement amongst us in this thread, but really the thread functions as a venue for us to try out different ideas, share news, ask questions, and argue about the answers. I’ll make only two more points since you didn’t point to anything specific: 1) I think, when advocating for change, that there is a higher burden for laying out detailed, specific plans of action and a higher burden of confidence that those plans will ultimately work in the way intended than I once did 2) I think, in general, that even though you think I am lobbing esoteric, relatively unimportant questions at you, I view most of these questions as at the heart of the disagreement you see all around you, even if they are inarticulable in exoteric terms re: tacos nah not trolling
I mean I generally agree, but man you could pitch in with the heavy lifting every once in awhile. On 2) I also agree and was more borrowing our audience's (speaking optimistically) framing* to demonstrate I was integrating their feedback.
Re tacos: you're ruthless
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On June 30 2020 00:21 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:50 JimmiC wrote:On June 29 2020 23:26 farvacola wrote:
Chief Justice Roberts pulled off another of his trademark pro-gamer moves and sided with the liberals today in striking down a highly restrictive Louisiana anti-abortion law. That is absolutely huge. It always makes me feel a little better that sometimes logic can still win out in the Supreme court. Roberts strikes me as a conservative that wishes other conservatives made less obviously stupid laws. He won't support something just because its conservative, it actually has to be a sound law.
Guess we'll know for sure once they decide on Trump's financial cases...
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On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time.
I think this is the core of the issue. We really should just stop caring about stuff being authentic. Food is food. The main question you should ask is if it is good. Maybe also if it was ethically produced. Whether it is "authentic" is irrelevant.
I knew a person who was studying archaeology, and apparently that involved doing some "experimental archaeology". For example, they tried to really authentically reproduce ancient egyptian food. Apparently it was a lot of work to figure out exactly which kind of grain they grew, how they built their pots, what they used to fuel their fires and so forth. So in that context, authentic might be relevant.
In everyday food? It is usually used as some version of a naturalistic fallacy. "Oh, this is authentic italian food, thus it is far better then the fake italian food you are used to." If the fake italian food tastes better and is healthier, why would the "authentic" stuff be better? And if the "authentic" stuff tastes better and is healthier, you don't need the "authentic" qualifier, you can just say that it tastes better and is healthier. I generally dislike this idea that stuff is automatically better if it is "natural" or "authentic". Use actual reasons.
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On June 30 2020 01:00 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. I think this is the core of the issue. We really should just stop caring about stuff being authentic. Food is food. The main question you should ask is if it is good. Maybe also if it was ethically produced. Whether it is "authentic" is irrelevant. I knew a person who was studying archaeology, and apparently that involved doing some "experimental archaeology". For example, they tried to really authentically reproduce ancient egyptian food. Apparently it was a lot of work to figure out exactly which kind of grain they grew, how they built their pots, what they used to fuel their fires and so forth. So in that context, authentic might be relevant. In everyday food? It is usually used as some version of a naturalistic fallacy. "Oh, this is authentic italian food, thus it is far better then the fake italian food you are used to." If the fake italian food tastes better and is healthier, why would the "authentic" stuff be better? And if the "authentic" stuff tastes better and is healthier, you don't need the "authentic" qualifier, you can just say that it tastes better and is healthier. I generally dislike this idea that stuff is automatically better if it is "natural" or "authentic". Use actual reasons.
You happy now Igne?
It's not about the food or the music, it's about the systemic dynamics represented by the food and music. Cultural appreciation is good, cultural appropriation is bad. Inspiration is good, plagiarism is bad. Immigration is good, colonialism is bad.
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While conservatives argue a face mask directive during a pandemic is oppressive, they mourn a ruling that the state can't regulate a woman's reproductive rights
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On June 30 2020 00:05 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 23:32 ChristianS wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but isn’t it pretty easy to imagine inauthenticity though? Almost everyone would look at a pizza made from a corn tortilla, ketchup, and spam and say it’s not *really* a pizza. Doesn’t the existence of inauthenticity imply that authenticity does exist in some sense, even if it’s frustratingly hazy to define? If I go to a Neapolitan pizza joint that is certified by a pizza guild and requires that the pizza joint is using dough quantified by such and such metrics and the cheese only comes from Naples and the tomatoes are San Marzano, I am certainly getting a very different pizza than the one by Elio’s in my freezer aisle. There’s no dispute there. One might even taste better and/or have a more convincing claim to historical pedigree. But what you are really asking is whether our ability to say that something *is* something implies that to *be* something means to have the essence of that category of things. If you are an Aristotelian you can just say, yea of course that’s what it means. To apply this to pizzas still raises a whole series of epistemological questions that troubles the notion of what an “authentic” pizza might be: it might not bother you to draw a line between “real” pizza and deconstructed mango chutney asian fusion pizza, but is frozen Tombstone pizza “real” pizza? what about Neapolitan pizza accredited by an American-based pizza guild founded in 1996? sidewalk pizza you got in Rome that imports its cheese from France made by a Tunisian immigrant? The term “essentialist” these days is mostly used as an epithet. It can be a serious charge, indicating intellectual regression and atavistic thinking. Kant’s thinking about objects and appearances kind of put a moratorium on inquiring after what the “real” essence of something is, since all we can ever get a handle on are appearances that we describe in language. edit: on further thought, it might be that the confusion stems from a scientific perspective of measurement (a science of appearances). We measure things all the time and are perfectly happy to say this is or is not something—alcohol, water, omega-6 fat, curcumin. Why can’t we just define our food by its chemical composition? But a little digging into this idea should make it clear that people aren’t just talking about composition when they refer to authenticity. Tracing the historical changes in composition of various foods is interesting. We can see how soil changes, genetic drift, selective breeding, environmental conditions, changes in planting have affected recipes and diet. We should keep in mind though how spotty the historical record can be about these things.
Whenever I try to engage with you on something the discussion immediately gets trapped in a sinkhole of linguistics or epistemology. That’s probably my fault - I’m not very well-read on those subjects+ Show Spoiler +not to imply I am especially well-read on any other subjects
In this case I’m not sure we need to get into Platonic ideals though. I’m thinking of “pizza” as a useful abstraction used by a community with some mutual understanding of its meaning. I’m well-aware different communities will have different mutual understandings, and perhaps it would be easier to consider those homonyms rather than actually the same thing. Chicago and New York certainly like to argue with each other about what pizza is, but if you listen to their arguments it tends to be some form of “it’s fine if they wanna cook it like that, just call it something different.” (I think I recall a Jon Stewart joke that was something like “it’s not pizza it’s lasagna.”) That means outside of one of those communities the word becomes ambiguous, so people start trying to construct a global namespace with disambiguating modifiers (Chicago-style or Brooklyn-style).
Hopefully I’ve climbed out of the sinkhole enough to say that when someone outside a community decides to create “their take” on one of the community’s cultural products, that’s a very different creative process than it is for someone inside of (and probably more well-versed in) that community’s cultural traditions. It might be more imitative, leaning on conspicuous features to evoke familiarity like a caricature artist. It might be more (if I can divorce this word from it’s negative connotations for a moment) appropriative, trying to fit this “foreign” cultural product into their own cultural framework like some kind of cultural transliteration.
Those are not necessarily bad things, and approached with humility I think that kind of project can be very worthwhile. But there’s still a clear difference, both in process and in product, compared to a “native” instance. Might that difference not be part of what people are referring to when they discuss “authenticity?”
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Canada11370 Posts
On June 29 2020 15:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2020 15:00 Falling wrote:
@GH
Are you a prescriptionist or a descriptionist when it comes to language?
While being rather traditional myself and holding on to older meanings of words, in the English language anyways (without something like the French Immortals), a great many things come to mean something they didn't mean before and words that once held meaning, lose it. I don't much like it, (don't much care for the non-literal use of 'literally' for instance), but I am rather resigned to this endless march of changed meaning.
Maybe those crunchy yellow things can be rebranded as something other than tacos- though 'crunchy yellow things' is unlikely to catch on. But it's neither a supplanting of culture nor an appropriation. (Aside from the general all-pervasive mass culture from mass media- loss of local languages is probably a far great cause of the decline of smaller cultures.) People need a short hand to describe the thing they are eating and 'taco' has come to have a wider meaning over time- a reflection of the sort of food the fast food is riffing off of.
But same with the Polish example (or let's say some hippy is making some vegan substitute and calling it Mennonite sausage)- it's only offensive, if I'm offended by it. It might be annoying- but I think there's where getting out of your bubble more is helpful. A great side benefit of some of my friends being Chinese or Japanese descent is they take me around town and show me where the real stuff can be found. Then I show other people where it is. I don't know- mass fast food, mass media, mass culture- it's all overwhelming to every form of culture- it's an unthinking, all-consuming behemoth. But if you search, you can find.
I think this part: Show nested quote + it's only offensive, if I'm offended by it. It might be annoying- but I think there's where getting out of your bubble more is helpful. is unintentionally revealing of what I think is part of the core reasoning I mentioned to Drone was being revealed as inadequate at the moment regarding sexual misconduct and to a lesser degree (as evidenced by the "displacement"- genocide thing imo) racism. I think Stalker (ChristianS on the genocide thing) is better equipped to bridge the gap between our positions (meaning you too Weg) in a way I can then reengage with.
Well that's lovely. Found something Freudian in there? I thought about whether I could stand by that statement, and then included it in the end. I think there are some things that are inherently more offensive than others- messing with people's folk religions and songs used for their sacred traditions- there's an argument to be made that I can understand. But it is you that decided to draw the line at the diffusion of foods. But there are some things that can be found to be offensive only when they have been taught to find it offensive: the spread and changing nature of food being one of them.
Are you a prescriptionist or descriptionist when it comes to language?
And then is Little Caesar's offensive and also a matter of cultural appropriation?
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FWIW, I am good friends with and regularly meet with 4 PhD's (postdocs/profs) in Philosophy. Myself I'm in tech and run a software shop so they all like to style on me in conversations to make up for our difference in material success :D
"trying to convince marginalized minorities that they would be better off deferring their politics for class reductionism." is what all 4 of them do 100% of the time in conversation with me (brown man in USA). It's annoying. I can see why they feel this way, though, and I do not fully disagree with them.
IgnE just brings back all those conversations lol. And not that it matters much, but he has done it in this thread, although I don't dare even try to prove that he did, he'd outargue me easily.
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On June 30 2020 01:18 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2020 01:00 Simberto wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. I think this is the core of the issue. We really should just stop caring about stuff being authentic. Food is food. The main question you should ask is if it is good. Maybe also if it was ethically produced. Whether it is "authentic" is irrelevant. I knew a person who was studying archaeology, and apparently that involved doing some "experimental archaeology". For example, they tried to really authentically reproduce ancient egyptian food. Apparently it was a lot of work to figure out exactly which kind of grain they grew, how they built their pots, what they used to fuel their fires and so forth. So in that context, authentic might be relevant. In everyday food? It is usually used as some version of a naturalistic fallacy. "Oh, this is authentic italian food, thus it is far better then the fake italian food you are used to." If the fake italian food tastes better and is healthier, why would the "authentic" stuff be better? And if the "authentic" stuff tastes better and is healthier, you don't need the "authentic" qualifier, you can just say that it tastes better and is healthier. I generally dislike this idea that stuff is automatically better if it is "natural" or "authentic". Use actual reasons. You happy now Igne? It's not about the food or the music, it's about the systemic dynamics represented by the food and music. Cultural appreciation is good, cultural appropriation is bad. Inspiration is good, plagiarism is bad. Immigration is good, colonialism is bad.
The only thing that would distinguish between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation here would seem to be something like "manners." One simply doesn't make tacos a certain way if one is white and driving around in a food truck. It's gauche. I don't think there's any real conceptual coherence beyond that, and it's not at all clear to me that this form of intercultural politeness is an unalloyed "good." At the very least one would have to elaborate pros and cons. When the norms for politeness rapidly shift some people are going to be upset. If the best reason you can offer them for the shift is some mystification about "authenticity" and cultural property you are going to get some push-back.
"Cultural appropriation" has a fuzziness that is linked to uncritical uses of "colonialism." Such uncritical uses are by no means restricted to the layperson, but can often be found in the polemics of erudite scholars. There are serious temporal objections to throwing around "colonialism" in 2020. What does anti-colonialism mean? Different things to different people. What would a world free of colonialism look like? Different visions for different people. How far back in time do we have to go to find a world not corrupted by colonialism under the broadest reasonable definition? Back before the advent of agriculture. So how useful is this term? Is it a term like "capitalism" which also has an indefinite number of varieties but is still useful, still describes something real, still clarifies material relations?
Maybe. Given its use in the last couple years alone, though, I am not so sure about that anymore. It has come to signify a nostalgia for originary plenitude and a vision of a static utopia. We might as well all talk about how one day we will be in heaven endlessly singing the glory of god. Any real grappling with colonialism has to find a way to usefully distinguish it from the very ordinary process of socialization. To become an adult you need to be colonized—a foreign culture is forcefully imposed on you without your consent. A white person with a lineage back to the Mayflower is no less colonized in this sense than a second generation immigrant.
On June 30 2020 01:33 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2020 00:05 IgnE wrote:On June 29 2020 23:32 ChristianS wrote:On June 29 2020 23:01 IgnE wrote:
I think it's a big mistake to assume that there is any such thing as authenticity. Look at how food has changed in the US in the last 50 years. Do you know what the baby boomers were eating? Garbage. Why Americans tend to think that food supply chains and corporate food makers have only affected what Americans actually prepare and eat in America is beyond me. Mexican food has only a vague resemblance to what it was 100 or 300 years ago, so talking about an "authentic tortilla" is kind of silly to me when the very corn itself in Chihuahua or wherever has changed in the last 50 years. All we have is a fantastic genetic lineage that we reconstruct and represent to ourselves. Food dishes are one of the best metonyms for Derridean iterability because it is so obvious that the ingredients are the "same" but "different" every time. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but isn’t it pretty easy to imagine inauthenticity though? Almost everyone would look at a pizza made from a corn tortilla, ketchup, and spam and say it’s not *really* a pizza. Doesn’t the existence of inauthenticity imply that authenticity does exist in some sense, even if it’s frustratingly hazy to define? If I go to a Neapolitan pizza joint that is certified by a pizza guild and requires that the pizza joint is using dough quantified by such and such metrics and the cheese only comes from Naples and the tomatoes are San Marzano, I am certainly getting a very different pizza than the one by Elio’s in my freezer aisle. There’s no dispute there. One might even taste better and/or have a more convincing claim to historical pedigree. But what you are really asking is whether our ability to say that something *is* something implies that to *be* something means to have the essence of that category of things. If you are an Aristotelian you can just say, yea of course that’s what it means. To apply this to pizzas still raises a whole series of epistemological questions that troubles the notion of what an “authentic” pizza might be: it might not bother you to draw a line between “real” pizza and deconstructed mango chutney asian fusion pizza, but is frozen Tombstone pizza “real” pizza? what about Neapolitan pizza accredited by an American-based pizza guild founded in 1996? sidewalk pizza you got in Rome that imports its cheese from France made by a Tunisian immigrant? The term “essentialist” these days is mostly used as an epithet. It can be a serious charge, indicating intellectual regression and atavistic thinking. Kant’s thinking about objects and appearances kind of put a moratorium on inquiring after what the “real” essence of something is, since all we can ever get a handle on are appearances that we describe in language. edit: on further thought, it might be that the confusion stems from a scientific perspective of measurement (a science of appearances). We measure things all the time and are perfectly happy to say this is or is not something—alcohol, water, omega-6 fat, curcumin. Why can’t we just define our food by its chemical composition? But a little digging into this idea should make it clear that people aren’t just talking about composition when they refer to authenticity. Tracing the historical changes in composition of various foods is interesting. We can see how soil changes, genetic drift, selective breeding, environmental conditions, changes in planting have affected recipes and diet. We should keep in mind though how spotty the historical record can be about these things. Whenever I try to engage with you on something the discussion immediately gets trapped in a sinkhole of linguistics or epistemology. That’s probably my fault - I’m not very well-read on those subjects + Show Spoiler +not to imply I am especially well-read on any other subjects , and I ask questions that get into those subjects. In this case I’m not sure we need to get into Platonic ideals though. I’m thinking of “pizza” as a useful abstraction used by a community with some mutual understanding of its meaning. I’m well-aware different communities will have different mutual understandings, and perhaps it would be easier to consider those homonyms rather than actually the same thing. Chicago and New York certainly like to argue with each other about what pizza is, but if you listen to their arguments it tends to be some form of “it’s fine if they wanna cook it like that, just call it something different.” (I think I recall a Jon Stewart joke that was something like “it’s not pizza it’s lasagna.”) That means outside of one of those communities the word becomes ambiguous, so people start trying to construct a global namespace with disambiguating modifiers (Chicago-style or Brooklyn-style). Hopefully I’ve climbed out of the sinkhole enough to say that when someone outside a community decides to create “their take” on one of the community’s cultural products, that’s a very different creative process than it is for someone inside of (and probably more well-versed in) that community’s cultural traditions. It might be more imitative, leaning on conspicuous features to evoke familiarity like a caricature artist. It might be more (if I can divorce this word from it’s negative connotations for a moment) appropriative, trying to fit this “foreign” cultural product into their own cultural framework like some kind of cultural transliteration. Those are not necessarily bad things, and approached with humility I think that kind of project can be very worthwhile. But there’s still a clear difference, both in process and in product, compared to a “native” instance. Might that difference not be part of what people are referring to when they discuss “authenticity?”
Cultural products are always different. But there's no "clear difference" between a "native" instance and a "non-native" instance because there's no stable binary between "native" and "non-native." You might say something like there's a closer family resemblance among these kinds of pizza than among these other kinds, and we could say we were playing language games that mediate what it means to *be* a pizza within a specific game. But that's quite different from saying that there really *is* such a thing as authentic pizza.
So what about traditions passed down from generation to generation? Riffing from my above comments to GH we might say that the prior generation is colonizing its descendants, imparting to them some methods for making a pizza with a certain je ne sais quoi "cultural" specificity. But you'd be hard pressed to convince me that this cultural specificity has anything to do with the biological identity of the chef preparing it. And if you care about rewarding the patrimonial transmission of knowledge as an extended family property, by all means, pay more for food prepared by people with blood connections to people who made some earlier iteration of that thing a generation ago. But let's be clear that that is all you are really doing. Rewarding and preserving a certain line of filiation.
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On June 30 2020 01:33 Mohdoo wrote:
While conservatives argue a face mask directive during a pandemic is oppressive, they mourn a ruling that the state can't regulate a woman's reproductive rights
This is weird, in my world, a LIBERAL would dislike both facemasks and restrictive abortion rights. Afaik, US conservatives are actually extremely liberal in many ways (guns, civil liberties), but restrictive in others (abortion, drugs.) Is it even a coherent ideology? My own points of view as a Scandinavian raised cynic and die-hard social liberal are probably not completely coherent either, but I don't understand how the GOP is knit together of seemingly opposing values.
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They don't see abortion restrictions as restrictive laws.
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On June 30 2020 02:35 IgnE wrote:
The only thing that would distinguish between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation here would seem to be something like "manners." One simply doesn't make tacos a certain way if one is white and driving around in a food truck. It's gauche. I don't think there's any real conceptual coherence beyond that, and it's not at all clear to me that this form of intercultural politeness is an unalloyed "good." At the very least one would have to elaborate pros and cons. When the norms for politeness rapidly shift some people are going to be upset. If the best reason you can offer them for the shift is some mystification about "authenticity" and cultural property you are going to get some push-back.
The only reason the shift seems rapid to you is that those who are on the receiving end of "impoliteness" (and much worse stuff) only get to come out and redefine the norm once there is enough power to support it, which really takes years and years of slow progress; its not a rapid shift even if it seems so from the outside and to someone who is not on the receiving end of this "impoliteness".
On June 30 2020 02:35 IgnE wrote:
"Cultural appropriation" has a fuzziness that is linked to uncritical uses of "colonialism." Such uncritical uses are by no means restricted to the layperson, but can often be found in the polemics of erudite scholars. There are serious temporal objections to throwing around "colonialism" in 2020. What does anti-colonialism mean? Different things to different people. What would a world free of colonialism look like? Different visions for different people. How far back in time do we have to go to find a world not corrupted by colonialism under the broadest reasonable definition? Back before the advent of agriculture. So how useful is this term? Is it a term like "capitalism" which also has an indefinite number of varieties but is still useful, still describes something real, still clarifies material relations?
Many of these different definitions and visions of colonialism can be unified under a loose umbrella (and have, among many different tribes/groups of people). To me the term is very useful as we can be proactive in trying to suppress and prevent some of these harmful patterns from repeating themselves, and to do that we need to have some sort of identification and classification of it.
On June 30 2020 02:35 IgnE wrote:
Maybe. Given its use in the last couple years alone, though, I am not so sure about that anymore. It has come to signify a nostalgia for originary plenitude and a vision of a static utopia. We might as well all talk about how one day we will be in heaven endlessly singing the glory of god. Any real grappling with colonialism has to find a way to usefully distinguish it from the very ordinary process of socialization. To become an adult you need to be colonized—a foreign culture is forcefully imposed on you without your consent. A white person with a lineage back to the Mayflower is no less colonized in this sense than a second generation immigrant.
Wow.  This disheartens me too much to respond right now. Hopefully I can collect my strength and call you out on this later. It is sad that someone as intelligent as you thinks this. Many people's ancestors do not look very kindly upon your words.
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@IgnE:
GH made this about food. Among artistic endeavors, I think food is probably one of the easiest for the layman to come into a foreign cultural context, understand what is happening, and produce their own version of it that doesn’t totally miss the point.
But come on. You’ve never seen someone decide they’re going to insert themselves into a foreign context and fumble through making their own version of a cultural product they don’t really understand? Have you ever heard an all-white choir perform “Shut De Do” or “Day-O”? It’s not about familial connection (at least, not necessarily), but art exists in a cultural context and you perceive, understand, and create it differently when you are immersed in its cultural context than when you are not.
Again, approached with humility I think seeing a product of a foreign context and trying to understand it, imitate it, and transplant it to your own cultural context can be a valuable endeavor, but that is what you’re doing. Absent that humility it’s easy to instead diminish that product to a limited set of caricatures, which can look like (and often is) mere mockery
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EPT
