Sensitivity Writers. AKA: avoiding cultural appropriate in writing

[Bedrockgames]

Illustrating the second: It’s hard to apply the golden rule to a plea that “X is sacred to me, please don’t use X like you’re intending” if you don’t have a genuine understanding of what sacred means; that it is more than just “really important”. There’s no basis for a mutual understanding of what that violation would feel like.

You are assuming a lot here. A lot of us grew up with very real sense of the sacred and what it means. That doesn't mean we have to think it is reasonable for people to be able to extend that sense of the sacred outside their own cultural boundaries. A lot of people were bothered by Piss Christ. I'd much rather exist in a world where that sort of artwork is viable, than one where it it isn't (or where the artist gets chased out). For a lot of Christians that imagery was very painful to have to see. But I also think the artist was making a profound statement. I think what you are advocating treats people from these cultures like children (i.e. they can't handle this the way I might be able to handle piss christ). Yes they can. You are just making people weaker when you tell them they can't handle this stuff, or when you act like someone playing a melodic scale is going to vanquish their culture. Their stronger than that and so is their culture. What threatens cultures isn't appropriation. It is much more concrete things (like war, conquest, etc). Again, people are not museum pieces.

 

[Wiseblood]

IME, those who counter “it wouldn’t bother me” in such discussions are usually being intellectually dishonest in some way OR don’t have an analogous potential grievance to give them the proper perspective.

Illustrating the second: It’s hard to apply the golden rule to a plea that “X is sacred to me, please don’t use X like you’re intending” if you don’t have a genuine understanding of what sacred means; that it is more than just “really important”. There’s no basis for a mutual understanding of what that violation would feel like.

Alternatively they do understand and have such a grievance but do not feel the need to give it air.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You are assuming a lot here. A lot of us grew up with very real sense of the sacred and what it means. That doesn't mean we have to think it is reasonable for people to be able to extend that sense of the sacred outside their own cultural boundaries. A lot of people were bothered by Piss Christ. I'd much rather exist in a world where that sort of artwork is viable, than one where it it isn't (or where the artist gets chased out). For a lot of Christians that imagery was very painful to have to see. But I also think the artist was making a profound statement. I think what you are advocating treats people from these cultures like children (i.e. they can't handle this the way I might be able to handle piss christ). Yes they can. You are just making people weaker when you tell them they can't handle this stuff, or when you act like someone playing a melodic scale is going to vanquish their culture. Their stronger than that and so is their culture. What threatens cultures isn't appropriation. It is much more concrete things (like war, conquest, etc). Again, people are not museum pieces.

I assumed nothing. I was illustrating how problematic it is for someone who has a void or shallow understanding of sacredness to even begin to comprehend what sacredness means to someone for whom it is a deep element of life itself.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I assumed nothing. I was illustrating how problematic it is for someone who has a void or shallow understanding of sacredness to even begin to comprehend what sacredness means to someone for whom it is a deep element of life itself.

I don't have a shallow understanding of sacredness.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't have a shallow understanding of sacredness.

He didn’t say that you do?

 

[billd91]

I don't have a shallow understanding of sacredness.

Of all forms of sacredness? Or just the ones you know?

 

[billd91]

So, in fairness, I would say that the arguments against cultural appropriation go a little bit beyond the Golden Rule, in a way that I think really betrays how woefully inadequate the Golden Rule actually is. The problem with the Golden Rule is that it universalizes the particular; one could argue "well, this wouldn't bother me" and be fully covered under it. I'm sure that a certain comedian that's come up in this thread wouldn't particularly mind having done unto him what he did unto others. That doesn't make it anything reasonably close to OK.

Understanding and avoiding cultural appropriation is actually a matter of following the Platinum Rule: do unto others as they'd have done unto them. In some ways, it's actually a lot simpler to follow to the Golden Rule, as it doesn't even require any measure of self-awareness. You just need to listen to people. And take them in good faith.

The platinum rule is also challenging - who actually has the authority to make that judgment, particularly when something being written about/used is generations in the past? Current descendants are, by necessity, going to have a different perspective from their ancestors a century or more in the past and that's going to mean they will have a somewhat different understanding. People today can be shockingly ignorant of the context in which their grandparents or even parents lived.

It is, however, at least a place to start...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

I feel that everybody has the right to use ideas, music, and other cultural elements.

I mean, sure, that's terribly convenient.

But, as is usual when someone invokes rights... the fact that every right comes with responsibility kind of gets forgotten. Try this - this isn't an argument over whether you have the right to do a thing. Imagine, for the moment, that we stipulate that you have the right.

Then, the argument is over whether (and how) as an outsider to a culture, you have the understanding to exercise this right responsibly. This puts it in the realm of ethics. Whether you can do it isn't the functional bit. We are talking about whether (and/or how) you should do it.

Alternatively - let us say you have the right to use ideas, music, and other cultural elements. Every right we have ever recognized in the world has limits! Where are the limits?

Speaking broadly, you don't have the right to harm people, and you admit that you have no desire to harm people.

So, here's the ticket - cultural appropriation is very often harmful to the people you take from. As a very simple item - it often leads to trivialization and formation and perpetuation of stereotypes, as the majority view of the culture becomes dominated with the elements that have been appropriated, rather than the reality and fullness of the culture you borrow from.

Thus, again, we come around to the same basic point - just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should. Repeated assertion of your rights, without attendant acceptance of the responsibilities.. is not a good look. Exercise of rights without attending to responsibilities has a name - "abuse".

 

[Kaodi]

I want to say upfront that I think cultural appropriation is a useful concept and captures something meaningful about the the world. I think it could stand to use some refinement though.

Back at the beginning of the thread it was mentioned that Europeans do not tend to complain much about their cultures being "appropriated" . That is true to an extent, but I have seen more than once that in these conversations a particular kind of appropriation fundamentalist that I have an intense dislike for: the kind that insists using white culture can never count as appropriation. I think this notion probably morphed from the idea that you cannot be racist to white people (which I do not want to debate the validity of). But it seems noxious to me because it posits that to be white is to be uniquely deficient in the ability to have some kind of ownership of your own culture (or cultures, more specifically, because "white culture" mostly just inheres in European cultures). Since the keystone of human rights is the idea that we are all fundamentally equal I think that this fundamentalist version of the cultural appropriation must necessarily be wrong. Especially as it bears a resemblance to one of histories worst idea: terra nullius, which I think should be counted as a misnomer. The land was never empty - what the Pope decreed was that as far as he was concerned the people that lived their did not get to count as having possession of it: Homo nullius.

Beyond that general point I think it is "debatable" whether "spirit animal" should count as a prime example of cultural appropriation. I do not think the way people tend to use it bears much resemblance to the notion of a spiritual guide. People use it purely for spiritual resemblance, which is hardly a unique idea, Richard the Lionheart being one of the most obvious examples. Families used all manner of creatures on their heraldry though. That said, I would not say those examples are quite enough to prove my case. What it comes down to for me is that "spirit animal" is just the most elegant way of describing any number of related but still separate concepts. And language matters too: "spirit" and "animal" are not indigenous words. An indigenous spirit animal has other names in other tongues. Like how we are moving towards differentiating between the Holocaust and the Shoah, depending on whether we are referring specifically to what the Nazis did to the Jews or not, we could just come to adopt the indigenous words for when we mean what they mean by spirit animal. And if, having done that, people start appropriating those words, then those people can definitely die in a fire.

On a final note I am kind of surprised this thread was not locked a long time ago. This is very "religion or politics" adjacent. Which reminds me - I think there is an argument that can be made that it is impossible to appropriate certain aspects of religion to do with at least the existence of at creator deities: If someone says you are "appropriating" who they claim is your creator then either 1) they are wrong about the appropriation or 2) they are wrong about their religion, and I think we can safely assume that most religious people would rather be wrong about appropriation.