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On October 22 2015 07:36 Holyflare wrote:
It's as if cultures miraculously appeared out of nowhere and are sacred and not from generations of invasions/competition/cultural mixing.
It's "damaging" but that's evolution of a culture, it's damaged in a way by ignorance to transform it in to a new culture. You know, culture.
Bingo, Ketara your putting the frankly irrational view that new influences destroy the local culture where the local culture is essential always is getting destroyed or changed anyway regardless of it. Using this as basis for policy change is used a lot in extremist parties to gain members and while it not racist it's narrow minded and based on fear rather than rationality.
Then again what your talking about later isn't orientalism its people that are not used to local customs. Which is a 2 way street where both should respect each other as its impossible to have a perfect understanding of local customs while the other person should try to follow it.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 22 2015 07:38 jcarlsoniv wrote:
Yes, people are ignorant of foreign places and their cultures. This is ubiquitous, and not something unique to the white man.
This would be fine if most Americans also didn't likewise have such polarized opinions when they are introduced to foreign values that go against their Western sensibilities.
Like, you can't simultaneously push your values and beliefs on other people and then be deeply offended when it's done to you without looking like a hypocrite.
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content warning: srs orientalism discussion
re eppa:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 06:43 Eppa! wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 04:08 TheHumanSensation wrote:On October 22 2015 01:42 Scip wrote:
It just feels so... Oriental. Sigh. That's because it's been made to be so!/ your observation is correct. Yoga, in western societies and more specifically in it's popularized form, has been appropriated through the lens of orientalism in a really problematic way. For the others who seem confused as to what is undoubtably scip's intended meaning, orientalism refers to the social construction of Asia as "the orient" - an image that portrays Asian cultures as carnivalized/exoticized in a way that typically doesn't reflect the actual culture very well if at all due to being based on exemplifying the differences from the Western norm. Often, problems with their roots in orientalism stem from people actually believing things they've learned through orientalist works, which is more common then you'd think. "Why weebs can a problem" also stems from this, primarily when they project anime onto reality in a way that actually negatively effects people. gj scip, go tackle those neo-orientalist hipsters with your disdain. h8rs gonna h8 gotta sk8 m8. Hating people for doing something that doesn't hurt anyone that is solely based on their lack of education is pretty embarrassing. I don't think you really read what I said, here. 1.) I didn't say I hate anyone? Unless you interpret "X group causes problems via Y and should be critiqued" as "I hate group X", which is not the case. For example, I hate White supremacy, but that doesn't mean I hate White people. 2.) Orientalism is, as I said, often a contributing factors in things that do hurt people. 3.) Orientalism doesn't merely stem from a lack of education. On October 22 2015 06:54 Eppa! wrote:
Like who [does orientalism negatively affect]? Orientalism is one of those things that is so large and simple to understand that there is no shortage of easily accessible online resources you can find by just googling your exact question, assuming your intention is to learn rather than to argue. That said, I don't Ketara's examples are particularly helpful or simplistic (although the teacher being fired is a very direct and solid example), so here's a much simpler one: Asian American and Asian Canadian women often have to deal with stereotypes and perceived notions of Asian femininity, many of which have their roots in the west stemming from orientalist works.
re holyflare:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 07:36 Holyflare wrote:
It's as if cultures miraculously appeared out of nowhere and are sacred and not from generations of invasions/competition/cultural mixing.
It's "damaging" but that's evolution of a culture, it's damaged in a way by ignorance to transform it in to a new culture. You know, culture. This is an amoral position on the matter, which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's not as though maintaining cultural purity is an objectively good thing - it's that in some cases these misinterpretations, often created intentionally for profit of various kinds, have negative effects on the lives of real people. This is the core problem of orientalism, and discussion regarding it should centre people rather than cultures.
re soniv:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 07:38 jcarlsoniv wrote:
How white man walking in and influencing the culture means that they perceive all Asians the same. I really think it's a smaller, more vocal amount of the population than you're suggesting. And moreover, the world is globalizing, cultures are adapting to that. Some more rapidly than others.
Yes, people are ignorant of foreign places and their cultures. This is ubiquitous, and not something unique to the white man. You're right in that this is not a problem unique to white people. However, Ketara's example was a specific example rather than a universal truth. Orientalism specifically refers to the interpretations of Asia by western societies, a distinction that is historically very significant due to the disparity in power between the two groups. In some cases this isn't very dangerous (ex the elephant example Ketara gave) but in some cases it becomes very dangerous (more common for asian diaspora living in western societies - ex Japanese Canadian internment). Power disparity is the major factor, so if for example the white person in Ketara's elephant story was say Donald Trump, who is rich and holds a large amount of social influence that allow him to reshape many aspect of the world to his desires, then things could get messy. A more complex example (notably, not orientalism but similar) that centres race specifically would be foreign development workers who go to a place thinking they're helping people by building schools or whatever, but end up being very demanding / entitled / etc and end up taking more out then they put in. A great academic take-down of this focused on the intersectional forces of white women in international development work is Desire for Development: Whiteness, Gender, and the Helping Imperitive by Barbara Heron. So, there's a lot to it, but race is far from the only factor for sure.
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On October 22 2015 07:38 jcarlsoniv wrote:
How white man walking in and influencing the culture means that they perceive all Asians the same. I really think it's a smaller, more vocal amount of the population than you're suggesting. And moreover, the world is globalizing, cultures are adapting to that. Some more rapidly than others.
Yes, people are ignorant of foreign places and their cultures. This is ubiquitous, and not something unique to the white man.
In our example the white man thinks that all Asian cultures have elephants when that's not true.
Ignorance of foreign places is fine. It's normal.
What's not normal is when our example white guy goes somewhere, doesn't see the stereotype he had pictured, and then instead of adapting his viewpoint to what he sees, he forces the local population to abandon their culture and behave in a way that more closely resembles his stereotype.
THS adds a big point that I didn't mention. Said stereotype often didn't start in asia at all, its entirely a for profit western invention.
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"Why aren't you Irish people drunk and eating potatoes?"
We're scottish.
"ALOCOHOL AND POTATOES"
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On October 22 2015 07:51 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 07:38 jcarlsoniv wrote:
Yes, people are ignorant of foreign places and their cultures. This is ubiquitous, and not something unique to the white man. This would be fine if most Americans also didn't likewise have such polarized opinions when they are introduced to foreign values that go against their Western sensibilities. Like, you can't simultaneously push your values and beliefs on other people and then be deeply offended when it's done to you without looking like a hypocrite.
Well that's a larger issue, and I completely agree with you there.
On October 22 2015 08:00 Gahlo wrote:
"Why aren't you Irish people drunk and eating potatoes?"
We're scottish.
"ALOCOHOL AND POTATOES"
to be fair, I don't think you'd find any shortage of alcohol in Scotland
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But yeah I think maybe my first example was too complicated/written poorly. THS gave a good example :>
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On October 22 2015 08:01 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 08:00 Gahlo wrote:
"Why aren't you Irish people drunk and eating potatoes?"
We're scottish.
"ALOCOHOL AND POTATOES" to be fair, I don't think you'd find any shortage of alcohol in Scotland
Potatoes are also common in Scottish cuisine.
On October 22 2015 08:05 Ketara wrote:
But yeah I think maybe my first example was too complicated/written poorly. THS gave a good example :>
<3
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 07:52 TheHumanSensation wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 06:43 Eppa! wrote:On October 22 2015 04:08 TheHumanSensation wrote:On October 22 2015 01:42 Scip wrote:
It just feels so... Oriental. Sigh. That's because it's been made to be so!/ your observation is correct. Yoga, in western societies and more specifically in it's popularized form, has been appropriated through the lens of orientalism in a really problematic way. For the others who seem confused as to what is undoubtably scip's intended meaning, orientalism refers to the social construction of Asia as "the orient" - an image that portrays Asian cultures as carnivalized/exoticized in a way that typically doesn't reflect the actual culture very well if at all due to being based on exemplifying the differences from the Western norm. Often, problems with their roots in orientalism stem from people actually believing things they've learned through orientalist works, which is more common then you'd think. "Why weebs can a problem" also stems from this, primarily when they project anime onto reality in a way that actually negatively effects people. gj scip, go tackle those neo-orientalist hipsters with your disdain. h8rs gonna h8 gotta sk8 m8. Hating people for doing something that doesn't hurt anyone that is solely based on their lack of education is pretty embarrassing. I don't think you really read what I said, here. 1.) I didn't say I hate anyone? Unless you interpret "X group causes problems via Y and should be critiqued" as "I hate group X", which is not the case. For example, I hate White supremacy, but that doesn't mean I hate White people. 2.) Orientalism is, as I said, often a contributing factors in things that do hurt people. 3.) Orientalism doesn't merely stem from a lack of education. Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 06:54 Eppa! wrote:
Like who [does orientalism negatively affect]? Orientalism is one of those things that is so large and simple to understand that there is no shortage of easily accessible online resources you can find by just googling your exact question, assuming your intention is to learn rather than to argue. That said, I don't Ketara's examples are particularly helpful or simplistic (although the teacher being fired is a very direct and solid example), so here's a much simpler one: Asian American and Asian Canadian women often have to deal with stereotypes and perceived notions of Asian femininity, many of which have their roots in the west stemming from orientalist works. Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 07:36 Holyflare wrote:
It's as if cultures miraculously appeared out of nowhere and are sacred and not from generations of invasions/competition/cultural mixing.
It's "damaging" but that's evolution of a culture, it's damaged in a way by ignorance to transform it in to a new culture. You know, culture. This is an amoral position on the matter, which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's not as though maintaining cultural purity is an objectively good thing - it's that in some cases these misinterpretations, often created intentionally for profit of various kinds, have negative effects on the lives of real people. This is the core problem of orientalism, and discussion regarding it should centre people rather than cultures. Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 07:38 jcarlsoniv wrote:
How white man walking in and influencing the culture means that they perceive all Asians the same. I really think it's a smaller, more vocal amount of the population than you're suggesting. And moreover, the world is globalizing, cultures are adapting to that. Some more rapidly than others.
Yes, people are ignorant of foreign places and their cultures. This is ubiquitous, and not something unique to the white man. You're right in that this is not a problem unique to white people. However, Ketara's example was a specific example rather than a universal truth. Orientalism specifically refers to the interpretations of Asia by western societies, a distinction that is historically very significant due to the disparity in power between the two groups. In some cases this isn't very dangerous (ex the elephant example Ketara gave) but in some cases it becomes very dangerous (more common for asian diaspora living in western societies - ex Japanese Canadian internment). Power disparity is the major factor, so if for example the white person in Ketara's elephant story was say Donald Trump, who is rich and holds a large amount of social influence that allow him to reshape many aspect of the world to his desires, then things could get messy. A more complex example (notably, not orientalism but similar) that centres race specifically would be foreign development workers who go to a place thinking they're helping people by building schools or whatever, but end up being very demanding / entitled / etc and end up taking more out then they put in. A great academic take-down of this focused on the intersectional forces of white women in international development work is Desire for Development: Whiteness, Gender, and the Helping Imperitive by Barbara Heron. So, there's a lot to it, but race is far from the only factor for sure.
Wtf what your talking about economic exploitation and has nothing to with orientalism or exoticism.
The example of asking where your from is very common as is more about curiosity rather than racist at worst it's ignorance and if its ignorance; its ignorance that is the problem not a common social construct.
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United Kingdom30774 Posts
This is an amoral position on the matter, which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's not as though maintaining cultural purity is an objectively good thing - it's that in some cases these misinterpretations, often created intentionally for profit of various kinds, have negative effects on the lives of real people. This is the core problem of orientalism, and discussion regarding it should centre people rather than cultures.
Of course it's amoral because culture is not a thing based on morals. Of course when something changes some people are less fortunate than others and in this case the bias of one culture influences another and what you and Ketara are saying is that it impacts some people super negatively.
Well that's what culture does, it fucks people over to adapt to the rich and powerful, that has been the way for eternity. Tough titties.
In all honesty Ketara is arguing for the standpoint of maintaining cultural purity which is about as great as saving pandas (useless) while you're saying he's not.
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I'm not really arguing for "maintaining cultural purity" in the way that you're referencing, although I can see how you might think that.
Here's a different example based on THSs example that I liked.
There's a stereotype in the west that Thai people are very sexually promiscuous.
This is NOT TRUE. I'm not sure what it's based on at all.
But so many rich westerners come to Thailand expecting to pay money for sex, that the Thai people actually start doing it, and now human trafficking is a huge problem in Thailand. All evolving from a stereotype that may not have originated in asia or been about Thai people in the first place.
The last bit is really where orientalism differs from other cases of cultural ignorance.
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On October 22 2015 08:10 Holyflare wrote:Show nested quote +This is an amoral position on the matter, which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's not as though maintaining cultural purity is an objectively good thing - it's that in some cases these misinterpretations, often created intentionally for profit of various kinds, have negative effects on the lives of real people. This is the core problem of orientalism, and discussion regarding it should centre people rather than cultures. Of course it's amoral because culture is not a thing based on morals. Of course when something changes some people are less fortunate than others and in this case the bias of one culture influences another and what you and Ketara are saying is that it impacts some people super negatively. Well that's what culture does, it fucks people over to adapt to the rich and powerful, that has been the way for eternity. Tough titties. In all honesty Ketara is arguing for the standpoint of maintaining cultural purity which is about as great as saving pandas (useless) while you're saying he's not.
Saving pandas isn't actually useless. Even if the Pandas seem to be insistant on becoming extinct, there are a lot of animals in the same area that warrant protection but don't elicit the same "cute factor" in humans. They, as a result get some measure of aid as a result of their hopeless neighbors.
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Man, family issues suck. I just have no desire to do anything because I feel like shit 
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content warning: srs orientalism discussion:
re eppa:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 08:09 Eppa! wrote:
Wtf what your talking about economic exploitation and has nothing to with orientalism or exoticism. Uh, no, these things are definitely related in many but not all cases. For easy references, there is a long history of people who made their living as anthropologists creating Orientalist ethnographies, "japonaise" art (which refers to a specific time/period of French oreitnalism) is still commonly displayed in museums and such, and orientalist operas like Madame Butterfly are still common (within opera, which is uncommon as a whole I guess). In all of these cases, the people profiting from their production/display/recreation are not the group they negatively effect, and they are rarely used in a manner that creates serious discussion about contemporary orientalism within a given context (aka doing it for good reasons). On October 22 2015 08:09 Eppa! wrote:
The example of asking where your from is very common as is more about curiosity rather than racist
at worst it's ignorance and if its ignorance; its ignorance that is the problem not a common social construct. Er, I'm not sure I understand your example. What exactly is the ignorant person choosing to ignore in this example? And why is this example reducible to only a singular problem (aka why can't it be both)? I understand the phenomena you're describing and have regular experience with it. I think you're somewhat oversimplifying the phenomena when you say it's "more about curiosity [than racism]". I do agree with you that the intent certainly aligns with that statement and while it may be more about curiousity than racism it's certainly a racialized example and there are many factors at play, here, many of which are social constructs.
re holyflare:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 22 2015 08:10 Holyflare wrote:Show nested quote +This is an amoral position on the matter, which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It's not as though maintaining cultural purity is an objectively good thing - it's that in some cases these misinterpretations, often created intentionally for profit of various kinds, have negative effects on the lives of real people. This is the core problem of orientalism, and discussion regarding it should centre people rather than cultures. Of course it's amoral because culture is not a thing based on morals. Of course when something changes some people are less fortunate than others and in this case the bias of one culture influences another and what you and Ketara are saying is that it impacts some people super negatively. Well that's what culture does, it fucks people over to adapt to the rich and powerful, that has been the way for eternity. Tough titties. 1.) You misunderstood my point - the argument I'm proposing (orientalism is bad) is a fundamentally a moral argument. Your counterpoint (culture is constantly changing) was amoral. Your counterpoint is true, but it's not relevant to a moral argument in the same way that my jeans being made of denim isn't relevant here. I'm not saying that culture is intrinsically moral, which is what you seem to be responding to. 1.5) unless I misunderstand you and you mean to also posit that "culture is changing => everything cultural is ok morally" (aka cultural relativism). 2.) That's a terrible interpretation of culture. Not terrible as in depressing, but terrible as in I'm not sure how you came to this interpretation. It sounds like you're actually describing capitalism, or some other system of economic exchange, or maybe even social power, but you're using the name "culture" to refer to the wrong phenomena. On October 22 2015 08:10 Holyflare wrote:
In all honesty Ketara is arguing for the standpoint of maintaining cultural purity which is about as great as saving pandas (useless) while you're saying he's not. That's fine, I may in fact be misinterpreting Ketara. I'm open to that idea. If so, my bad.
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United Kingdom30774 Posts
On October 22 2015 08:19 Ketara wrote:
I'm not really arguing for "maintaining cultural purity" in the way that you're referencing, although I can see how you might think that.
Here's a different example based on THSs example that I liked.
There's a stereotype in the west that Thai people are very sexually promiscuous.
This is NOT TRUE. I'm not sure what it's based on at all.
But so many rich westerners come to Thailand expecting to pay money for sex, that the Thai people actually start doing it, and now human trafficking is a huge problem in Thailand. All evolving from a stereotype that may not have originated in asia or been about Thai people in the first place.
The last bit is really where orientalism differs from other cases of cultural ignorance.
Yes which again is what has been happening globally for millenia. It's only "orientalism" now because people love to attach labels to everything they can when in fact it's no different from any other form of discrimination. Culture is basically capitalism in the truest sense. People adapt to the trends and want to be hip and get the most out of the situation and fit in with everyone and exploit it as best they can which in turn leads to a mass trend in the acts that people do and the traditions people follow (bastardisations of previous cultural traditions + new ones), the adaption of this leads to illegal activities because people are inherently greedy etc etc, people suffer at the expense of greed and the world keeps turning. It's no different just because you stick the label orientalism onto it.
People are dicks, people are selfish. Selfish acts drive the world. The circle of life is complete.
Yes it's bad but you'll never change something so intrinsically built into the human psyche. There will always be "that guy" to fuck shit up.
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It sounds to me like you understand what THS and I are arguing, you just think it's a good thing instead of a bad thing, or a thing that is unavoidable and therefore not worth discussing.
Let me know if this is an accurate interpretation.
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United Kingdom30774 Posts
On October 22 2015 08:42 Ketara wrote:
It sounds to me like you understand what THS and I are arguing, you just think it's a good thing instead of a bad thing, or a thing that is unavoidable and therefore not worth discussing.
Let me know if this is an accurate interpretation.
Yes, it's unavoidable and not worth discussing basically. It's the course of social nature.
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Okay.
I would argue that it's not unavoidable.
In fact, id argue that things are a lot better in this particular discussion than they were during the height of the colonialism period, and globalization and better access to internet and education has made things better, rather than worse.
It's still something that causes real problems, though.
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On October 22 2015 08:43 Holyflare wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 08:42 Ketara wrote:
It sounds to me like you understand what THS and I are arguing, you just think it's a good thing instead of a bad thing, or a thing that is unavoidable and therefore not worth discussing.
Let me know if this is an accurate interpretation. Yes, it's unavoidable and not worth discussing basically. It's the course of social nature.
Sounds like a climate change argument.
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United Kingdom30774 Posts
Yes but that is the whole conversation. Those problems will never stop. Ever. There will always be a new form of orientalism due to the fact that the globe is so vast and people are also inherently lazy. Everything will always be misinterpreted, bastardised and then the original meaning will eventually be lost or misconstrued to negatively effect the original people.
This is the basis of culture. People get fucked and the culture evolves to a new form. You can take the individual person moral ground if you want but the topic itself is an amoral one about inherent human desires and adaption.
On October 22 2015 08:49 WaveofShadow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2015 08:43 Holyflare wrote:On October 22 2015 08:42 Ketara wrote:
It sounds to me like you understand what THS and I are arguing, you just think it's a good thing instead of a bad thing, or a thing that is unavoidable and therefore not worth discussing.
Let me know if this is an accurate interpretation. Yes, it's unavoidable and not worth discussing basically. It's the course of social nature. Sounds like a climate change argument.
Well if you wanna get real you'll never stop climate change really.
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EPT
