Cultural appropriation and individualism

[sqbr]

Two related topics I have strongly held opinions about which I can't quite put into words are cultural appropriation and the flaws in an overly individual focussed point of view.

But as it happens posts on both have come up in racism_101 in the last few days which deal with them reasonably well, so here they are, plus some attempts to express myself:

First: A link to, and discussion of, the video "yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool", about american appropriation of asian culture (while american and australian attitudes to race and culture differ in some ways, I think the history and treatment of people of asian descent is pretty similar)

It doesn't spoonfeed it's ideas, it's more a series of images and interviews which add up to a pretty compelling experience if you watch it all the way through (thus I included the discussion, for those who can't be bothered. There's also Cultural Appropriation 101, and more cultural appropriation links at my delicious)

Second: Individualism as enabler for racism about the way treating everyone as an "individual" allows people with unfair advantages to avoid taking responsibility for the inequalities of society.

And now a disconnected ramble about individuality, and how it relates to my POV as a white ex-protestant left wing atheist. Do not search for a point, there isn't one :)

I have a rather conflicted view of individuality, and always have, and I think this conflict is fairly core to my sort of counterculture left-wing WASP(ish) background. On the one hand (my upbringing says), we all need to pull together and form a cooperative collective, and should bond with the Everyday Little Guy etc. On the other, since most people aren't counterculture and left-wing, the Everyday Little Guy is wrong and we need to stick to our internal sense of right and not be sucked into the beliefs of the culture around us. This conflict is less extreme in left-wing-ish places like Australia than it is in say America (where afaict most left wing types simultaneously despise the poor as mindless republican drones and put them on a pedestal as helpless victims of a cruel system), but I think it still exists.

Anyway, starting from that point my POV has gotten even more complicated. I've been learning about history, and reading POVs outside the WASP paradigm, and am slowly realising how much of my "individuality" (and most of materialist humanist thought) is just a manifestation of the same WASP society I am "rising above", and truly transcending it and seeing the real truth (or at least something less false and limited) requires getting my head around the attitudes of other, often less individualistic societies (though I may just be misinterpreting them because they don't fit into my neat little mental boxes).

Yet being less individualistic means diving back into the same society I am reacting against, or something at least superficially similar (eg I am deeply uncomfortable opening my mind to any opinion with even a whiff of religious assumptions, and this makes it hard to engage with a lot of aboriginal writings) and so I feel, well conflicted. Still, one of the tenets of being a "rational individual" is being willing to face hard facts and stretch my brain, so I do it anyway. Hopefully at some point it will coalesce into a less flaily POV.

Comments

have I bored you yet??

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more about this last night, and two thoughts came to mind, which may or may not be related to your thoughts (but I think it should be put into consideration).

1. I think it's important to try and define what culture sometimes, but I think that's almost impossible, I don't know if culture can be defined, it's not as absolute as nationality or ethnicity, although ethnicity can be tricky as well. And it's difficult to say that there is an overall Western culture, because Western culture is a bastardisation of so many different cultures.

2. There is a line of reasoning, that I've seen around in the anthropological forums, and through reading books, that a stagnant culture is a dead or dying culture. If a culture doesn't change, or adapt, or is flexible to changes in the world, it will stagnant, and it will die (although, does a culture ever truly die, if some of it's traditions continue...). I guess in some ways, that would mean that the strongest cultures in the world are the ones that allow for diversity, allow for change. Bit like biology in a way. Inbreeding is death.

And then you look at 'our culture' or let's say British culture, look how much that has changed over the last thousand years. If you look at the big picture, that little island that is now England, has changed so radically, due to imperialist occupation by the Romans, the Normans, the French, goodness knows who else - do we have anything left over from before Roman times? If so, is it because we adapted and changed some of those traditions to suit?

It's just a thought, I'm not sure how it relates, but I think it good to keep in mind that culture is damn hard to pin down, possibly because it's so changeable.

And of course, this is probably something that everyone has seen a thousand times before - so I'm not looking to be groundbreaking here ;)

Re: have I bored you yet??

[alias_sqbr]

1. I agree it's hard but I think Western culture (and all the subcultures ie us, American western culture etc) are moderately distinct, even if they do get all blurry at the edges

2. I don't see that change is neccesary => more change makes you strong. I mean salt is necessary but past a certain point too much of it will kill you...

Also I think all cultures change. To go back to our previous conversation, China and Japan have changed an incredible amount in the last 50 years, but so has Australian Aboriginal culture, the various African cultures etc, and not just in passive response to external changes beyond their control. They are creating new cultures for themselves out of what colonialism etc left behind, the same way that England did after the Romans left.