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WHY "CULTURAL APPROPRIATION" IS BASED

The phrase "cultural appropriation" gets tossed around here and there these days. I am going to tell you why everything you probably hear about it from soy American leftist retards is wrong and is actually evil and that "appropriation" is actually great and should be encouraged.

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE CONCEPT

When I was first entering college around 2012, I remember having an experience which was one of my first major wakeup calls to how the modern American left was starting to become insane. I grew up supporting broadly liberal and left-wing politicians and thinkers for two reasons:

1) They were and continue to be the only people in the United States who care about cutting back on carbon emissions in order to try to mitigate the planet heating up to unlivable levels, no matter how weak and ineffective their action might be.

2) When I grew up, I associated values of freedom of expression with left-wingers. Who was it who tried to ban Harry Potter books from libraries for promoting witchcraft? Old, right-wing Christian conservatives. Who was it who tried to "cancel" people for speaking out against the Iraq War? Right-wing war hawks. It seemed that the liberal concept of defending to the death someone's right to say something even if you disagreed with it was only respected by the left.

Unfortunately, I am still tethered to supporting the left-wing American establishment over the right for the simple reason that they have made no attempt to change on the first of the two points. But I was disillusioned and upset to find that no side of the aisle, left or right wing, cares about the latter these days.

I can't help but feel gaslit when so many left-wingers in the US complain about the "fascist" Republican party attempting to remove books from school libraries. Don't get me wrong, as a defender of freedom of expression, I think it is terrible. But who were the ones who led huge campaigns against "old white male" authors? Who was it who demanded "triggering" texts be removed from the curriculum? Who was it who mocked people who cared about the concept of freedom of speech throughout the whole second half of the 2010s? It was young left-wingers, and I will not forget it. If they will change and abandon their hypocrisy now, I will welcome them. I don't hold grudges if I see genuine attempts to change. But forgive me for not believing that their current attempt to brand themselves as defenders of freedom of expression is simply posturing. In general, very few people actually care about the principle of freedom of expression. They only care when the thing they support gets attacked. This has, sadly, not changed.

And the first thing that made me aware of this was seeing leftists start to tell people what themes and motifs they had the right to use in creative expression. It was in 2012 when I first saw a poster campaign online around Halloween called "We Are a Culture, Not a Costume." You probably know them. They show a sad-looking native person holding a picture of someone wearing a war bonnet, a black person holding a picture of a guy dressed as a blackface "gangster," a Mexican person holding a picture of someone dressed as a panchovilla, and an Asian-American woman holding a picture of someone dressed in a kimono. At least those were the ones I saw.

Now, I immediately thought that this was deeply bizarre. The last one especially made me call bullshit. I had visited Japan multiple times at that point and been involved in a lot of Japanese societies in America as well. The first time I went to Japan, I received a kimono as a gift from the ryoukan owner I stayed at. It was one of the most special gifts I ever recieved, and I could tell that they were simply overjoyed when I showed my respect by wearing it. Many other Japanese in Japan and in America have felt the exact same way: they are so happy to see me wear something that reflects their culture. I suppose I don't have absolute proof that they weren't just "pretending," but at some level you have to just intuit how people feel. And I felt genuine appreciation and happiness from them when I did it. In fact, I knew a Japanese person who encouraged me to wear the kimono to a Halloween event at my school! They didn't see how it would be offensive to wear it as a "costume" at all. It's just another way of wearing it. This shouldn't be a surprise, because Japanese culture in general is very pro-"costume." How can I think it's offensive to turn their own traditional clothes into costumes or accessories for characters when they do the very same thing themselves? Go to a cosplay event in Japan if you don't believe me.

Indeed, I see it as a form of profound American ignorance to assume that people in other countries will feel "offended" by the same things that they do. Because a native person expresses offense over someone wearing a war bonnet, you now assume that every person from a "foreign" country feels the same way? What is that if not the most extreme form of American ignorance? The kimono immediately set off my bullshit alarms for that reason, but there are other cultures with similar feelings. Most all Chinese I have met love it when people where Chinese clothes like a qipao. Most Indian people I have met love it when people try henna tattoos. So that is the first point I want to make clear: not all foreign peoples can be assumed to feel the same as a native tribe.

So the kimono one immediately set off my bullshit alarms. In general, I found the set of costumes to be so different that it was strange to lump them together. What is different about dressing as a panchovilla from dressing as a cowboy? I have family in Texas not far from the Mexican border, and know from experience how permeable and interconnected the cultures of the border region are and how little people care about "guarding" these things. Those two immediately were ones I wrote off completely. But it made me think about the war bonnet example. This is the most prototypical symbol of "cultural appropriation" that gets brought up most commonly, so I will think about native tribes and their traditions particularly here. Really, when people talk about "cultural appropriation," they are talking about native tribes in the Americas and lump other non-white people in with them, not realizing how actually racist and ignorant this is.

STEELMANNING THE ARGUMENT

I've thought about and engaged with this thought enough to have a deeper understanding of it. After my first encounter with this idea, I was so taken aback and offended by it that I consumed a lot of "anti-SJW" content, because these were the only people I could find who agreed with me and made me feel like I wasn't insane. However, none of them really understood what the argument was and they tended to strawman it. They would say things like "they want us to return to old America with the races/cultures segregated" or "all cultures have taken from others around them, it's impossible not to." Now, these statements aren't wrong. Obviously all cultures have indeed evolved by consuming bits of others. And obviously the logical endpoint of the "cultural appropriation" argument is something very frightening indeed. But we should actually take their argument as it is presented to argue against it.

When colonial powers came to the United States, they treated the natives appallingly, to put it lightly. Words fail to describe the level of callous devastation to the beautiful, wise, and much more spiritually ADVANCED cultures that already lived on Turtle Island. I won't bother describing all the hideous actions of western colonial powers and the ways they still play out today. You can read any number of books about it and while the details often get overlooked, it's not exactly a secret that colonial states in the Americas were build on bloodshed and oppression.

However, the strength and dignity of the natives means that many of their traditions continue to exist to this day. Many modern descendents from colonists have also become interested in them. Therefore, there is interest even among non-natives in things like dreamcatchers and other native arts and crafts, war bonnets and similar native regalia, ritual music and dances among the natives, etc. But as we have not grown up in native cultures, we don't always have the same associations or a full understanding of their meaning. They are ultimately still somewhat "foreign" to us. As such, we might pick them up and use them in ways that are very distorted and different from the original way they are supposed to have meaning.

There are a number of examples. For example, some regalia like war bonnets or body modifications like piercings and tattoos might only have been awarded after particular acts of bravery and other important life events. I remember reading about a particular example of this when it came to traditional Inuit tattoos. Inuit women traditionally have simple lines and other small pictures in thin black lines that are imprinted on their faces (especially chins and foreheads) or other parts of the body as a certain coming-of-age symbol. Oppressive colonial powers had stamped out the practice, and only recently some young Inuit women have started to re-adopt it. But there are also non-Inuit people who have been inspired by it and gotten similar tattoos.

This isn't the best example for me to give a neutral opinion on, because personally I dislike tattoos and have trouble finding them appealing in any circumstance. Of course, I don't expect to impose this value on the Inuit; that is their culture and it is up to them. But certainly I can appreciate the tattoos people in traditional cultures like the Inuit, Maori, Ainu, etc. get far more than the attention-seeking scribbles that people in modern western countries get. Not only does it look silly to get a tattoo like that with no associated attachment to that culture, but I can see how it is a particularly troubling thing for an Inuit. Here the Inuit have been unable to have tattoos for years and years, and now suddenly everyone around them wants to adopt them? It feels like it cheapens the meaning they have as a particular ritual of growing up in an Inuit society if just anyone can have them. It's a form of stolen valor, basically. At least, this is what I think most people who dislike the idea of it feel.

There are even more silly ways that this phenomenon comes into existence. Perhaps the best one I can point out is growing up as a very nerdy weeb who loved anime, manga, games at their most fanservice-laden, pandering, normie-offending. In the early 2000s, this was grounds to get shoved in a locker, no questions asked. Even the guys who liked shit like Naruto and Bleach were liable to get made fun of and called losers, god forbid if you were like me and loved much more "uncool" shit than even those. Things have completely changed. Now anime is very much in the mainstream in America and all kinds of people watch it.

But this broad acceptance hasn't made us veteran weebs feel accepted in turn. What has become accepted is not the culture we were brought up in. It is rather that anime has just become a prop for the mainstream American values that people already had. The anime they love and adulate is neutered, pozzed, mass-marketed, Americanized trash. Or if they are hipsters they love anime when it is "high art" only, afraid of their own sense of pleasure because they have not removed the shackles of their Abrahamic cock-cage that reaches for the whip whenever it sees a boob. In becoming open to everyone, it has lost that bit of elitism that made it special and created true bonds.

In spite of all that, I still think that "cultural appropriation" is a good thing and do not agree with the way people go about enforcing these barriers around cultural heritage. Why is that?

THE IMPORTANCE OF APPROPRIATION

a. Appeals to "lived experience" only go so far

To first address something, I know several people will say it is ridiculous that I even offer a perspective on this topic because I am not a native American. I think this is a corrosive and terrible way to think. When I was in college, there was an especially violent pendulum swing towards what I call the "cult" of "lived experience." I understand why. For a long time, the academic world has not given adequate space to perspectives from cultures that do not have as traditional of a culture of writing and scholarship. Therefore there is an assumption that in order to undo the prejudices of the "oppressive" academic world, we have to listen to the "lived experience" of "marginalized peoples."

I am skeptical of the idea that someone's "lived experience" is inherently more "correct." I think that in many cases, being an outsider to a culture actually gives you a privileged position to understand it better, because you can look at it more objectively. Why do you think that Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville is still regarded as one of the people who understood early American culture better than anyone else? Of course, it's not to say that "lived experience" inherently makes people LESS able to give valuable insights. They are simply a different kind of insight. One is from the inside, and one is from the outside. Both are important.

Of course, there is a lot that makes this cult of "lived experience" even less tenable. A lot of people from certain groups, sadly, don't have much background in their own culture. There are people of native descent in the United States who have spent their whole lives in cities and know almost nothing about their own heritage. Of course we can recognize this when the shoe is on the other foot, because we know how ridiculous it looks when someone with Irish descent in the US tries to make claims about what it means to be Irish when he knows almost nothing about Ireland. As part of the strange American obsession with race above everything, a lot of this comes across as an almost racist-sounding concept where we assume that because of the color of someone's skin they are inherently connected to some kind of mystical Akashic records that they can access to know everything about their ancestors' culture. This is, of course, bullshit. If a white person was born and raised in a small tribal settlement in Ethiopia, I would trust him more than someone with Ethiopian heritage who grew up in a big city in the US with no awareness of his "people." Too often, the cult of "lived experience" comes across as a benevolent form of racism because of this.

And that doesn't even get into the other important factor: no group of people is a monolith, even ones who have grown up "authentically." Ask 20 natives about what they think about any cultural issue, and you'll get 20 different answers. Not all members of a "marginalized" people are geared towards preservation and tradition above all. Not all of them are anthropologists in the making. There are natives who find it offensive when whites engage in their traditions, ones who find it flattering, and ones who don't care one way or the other. As it is with any group. Indeed, I find it offensive to say that we should always "listen to the natives," because it implies that there is one agreed-upon way that all natives think other people should act.

It also seems inherently dishonest to me. If you always listen to people with "lived experience," you're going to hear some ideas you disagree with. It is dishonest to pretend otherwise. But all too often that is what American liberals do. They assume that because a native says it, it must be true because they are all inherently wise and correct. That is basically treating them like children. If you respect natives and see them as people, they must have the ability also to be wrong! And so you would agree with the ones who you think are correct and politely agree to disagree with those you think are wrong, just as you would with anyone else. This is how it should be.

Of course, with all that said, I do think it is important to listen to natives with "lived experiences" in their own cultures. They are important and all-too-often overlooked. And I find myself agreeing with them on a great deal of things. But we have to be very careful not to fall into the "cult" of lived experience. It is where authentic intellectual thought goes to die. And that is to the detriment of everyone.

b. Imperfection is a part of cultural diffusion and survival

No matter how insular a culture is, it will somehow be known to those around it. Perhaps if the culture is aggressively secretive, it can avoid this. And I don't think that's a bad thing. But it is hard for any culture to survive in our globalized world without some degree of engagement with the world outside of it. And if that happens, it will be known by those around it to some degree or other. However, the more removed we are from the "original" culture, the more hazy and uncertain of an image of it we will have. For a good example, when I was a kid most people in the US thought of the Buddha as a sort of "jolly fat man." This is mistaken, and it is the result of a long process of imperfect knowledge. The ancient Chinese monk Budai was an eccentric figure in Chan Buddhism who became a well-known cultural hero of sorts. A number of statues and images of him were produced in China and these eventually found their way to Europe as part of global trade. Through a number of mistaken assumptions, it was assumed that these were depictions of Gautama Buddha. And the mistaken iconography has stuck, although recently become less common.

If culture is to spread, such mistakes like this are inevitable. Even when people in other cultures do their best to understand, they are bound to make some mistakes. With the internet, it is much easier to get an accurate picture than it ever has been, but mistakes still exist. For better or worse, when any piece of culture survives and becomes more well-known around the world, there will be some mistakes along the way. This simply seems inevitable. The question now becomes the following: Is it worth it for the culture to become more widely known if some things get mistaken and misunderstood along the way? Or is it better to keep all knowledge and engagement with it pure and limit it to a smaller group of people? I generally am a big supporter of gatekeeping and thus am sympathetic to the latter. But I do want to offer a few points on the former.

When I was a little kid, I watched a very silly movie called Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls featuring Jim Carrey acting like a doofus among some fictional African tribes. From a perspective of cultural anthropology, it's laughable. But this stupid movie actually made me very interested in tribes living in Africa. It made me pick up some some National Geographics. It made me go to the library and borrow books about Africa to learn about traditional tribal lifestyles there. And that never would have happened without first having some inkling of impression of what those tribes were like based on this incredibly inaccurate, stupid movie. It could have been different of course. I could have learned about African tribes without this movie. But I do think that the way people engage with and react to seeing bits of cultural respresentation is so unpredictable and complex that we should be careful about writing any of it off as inherently bad.

As a dedicated gatekeeper, I understand the value in keeping everything private instead. But once the cat is out of the bag and a tradition is to some degree known by the outside world, it's probably better to make the best of it. In general, this is why I support the idea of all cultures and communities having an "exoteric" and "esoteric" side. That way you can share something of its greatness with the world so you don't raise suspicion and risk being attacked, but also keep the most difficult parts of it pure and true. It's the way Japanese Shintou operates: The shrines are open to all and people can take whatever they want from them, even if all they take from them is "this is a beautiful area." They can dress like miko and kannushi in cosplay. But there are also rituals and elements of the tradition that are limited to those who prove themselves. And the "superficial" side is never seen as somehow perverting the esoteric side or making it less real.

c. Ownership of the creative spirit is colonial tyranny

Human beings will always appropriate what is around them. All creativity, ingenuity, sympathy, etc. takes place by appropriating what is around us. Quite simply, as someone who loves creative human expression, I cannot support drawing barriers about what is "okay" to take up as a theme and what is not. Indeed, much great art takes place not only on a background of appropriation, but even of mistaken and distorted appropriation. Perhaps the best example I can think of is the obsession with the Middle East in 19th century academic painting. Much of these paintings were based on completely fantastical, exoticized, imaginary views of the Middle East. But we would lose so much if they were not allowed to use Middle Eastern themes in order to evoke something different and unique. Art stagnates if it can't do this. And in many cases, I think that an "imperfect" grasping of these themes is the first step towards an "authentic" grasping of them. In any case, I believe that it is always tyrannical to try to place barriers around the play of the imagination.

Some people who talk of "cultural appropriation" speak ill of people who like native designs, regalia, etc. just because they "look cool." I think this is bad. Thinking something "looks cool" is the beginning of all authentic spiritual growth. Saying "it looks cool" is the simplest and most immediate way anyone verbalizes having their spirit authentically moved. An authentic spiritual engagement encompasses much that appears "superficial." In fact, I think it is a poisonous remnant of Abrahamic religion that teaches western people that for something to be spiritually meaningful it has to be somber and cut off from anything "fun." I think a true full-hearted embracing of spirituality will have it pierce through and fill up everything, from the dignified and majestic to the silly and base.

In short, I believe strongly in allowing people to have a creative, personalized use of cultural traditions that are "not their own." There are native artists who integrate their traditional music with things like rock and roll or hip hop. If they can do it, why can't others? Their culture was denied to them and they were forced to repress it for so long. Why now deny it to others? I can't see that as being the right thing to do, no matter what other bad actors have done in the past or continue to do in the present. If that makes me a western chauvinist obsessed with the idea of individualism, so be it. But I think that all authentic spirituality has to some degree be "syncretic," because all authentic spirituality calls back to something universal to all and distinguished by the land we live on. And no one needs a greater awareness of this authentic spirituality than people in post-colonial states, both natives and descendents of colonists.

When we speak of being against war, we do not speak of being against soldiers. We see that soldiers are often unfortunate individuals whose idealism is spat on when they are chewed up and spit out as meat on the altar of a violent military-industrial complex. Colonialism is often the same. Those who came to settle the Americas included some real horrible people. But it also included a lot who had no choice but to be separated from their loved ones and go to some unfamiliar land to line the pockets of some faggot king who never left his throne. Those who reach out for native traditions are throwing off their Abrahamic yoke, they are listening to the voice of the land around them, and they are taking a step towards discovering the universal spiritual truth that permeated the entire world in time immemorial.

I understand the trauma response that comes with non-native people "extracting" something from a native culture. It seems that now many whites are extracting cultural properties the same way they used to extract resources. It seems like the last in the line of colonialists stealing treasures and giving smallpox blankets in return. But the only way we can together shed our traumatic pasts is to have some kind of relation to the traditions that belong to the land. It's up to any native person and their tribe what to think of "cultural appropriation." All I can do is offer my own perspective. But personally I recommend following the Shintou route of acceptance and mutual creative openness to the spirits and not the Abrahamic route of hatred, exclusion, and castigation.

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