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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pickin_grinnin" data-source="post: 6697188" data-attributes="member: 6697674">I spent many years in cultural anthropology grad school in the late 80s.  The whole "cultural appropriation" thing was just starting to gain some traction back then, and I remember having a lot of classroom discussions about it.  My ex-wife (we were married at the time) was a sociology graduate student, so I was familiar with the thinking on that subject within that discipline as well.  The reality is that almost every human culture is largely made up of ideas, technologies, beliefs, rituals, etc. appropriated from other cultures, current and past.  The Romans did a ton of "appropriating" from the Greeks, for example, as is evident from the writings they left.  It isn't necessarily a bad or destructive thing.  When you start talking about "cultural appropriation" as a bad thing, you enter into a vast minefield of grey areas, exceptions, and more.    It is particularly problematic when the discussion originates with people who aren't members of the culture in question.  It isn't unknown for there to be long arguments at universities, in periodicals, and (today) on online forums about particular issues that most members of the cultures in question don't really care about.  Academic fury (including things like "trigger warnings") often have little to do with life outside the circles that like to debate such things.There are certain aspects to any culture or subculture that those involved will tend to view as important to their group identity.  There are even more aspects that most people in a culture under consideration don't really feel are part of what binds them together, or that are exclusive to them.  There are no hard-and-fast rules or black-and-white definitions when it comes to this topic.</blockquote>

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