So What's A White Boy To Do?

[Juana]

Holist, go read up on enculturation, you mouth breathing moron. And then go read the BIP.

McMegaDeff, Americans who've been here for a long time - generationally - can't go back. There might be bits that stick around, but by far, most if our "ancestral" culture has been subsituted by the core culture here and that there's no going back. I don't think there's anything wrong with being interested in said culture(s), but many Americans, particularly white Americans can't go back without being Plastic Paddies.

[Dildo Argentino]

What I think I'm hearing a lot of in this thread sounds similar to, "If I'm offended, it's offensive."  Which sounds like a tautology, I know.  But there seems to be some adoption of cultures that's tolerable, and others that's intolerable.

If it's only appropriation when the one being taken from is on the low side of a power imbalance, and only if the one being taken from is offended by it, then does it only take one offended oppressed person to invalidate the whole thing, or does it take a certain consensus before a particular act, mode of dress, or phrase becomes offensive?

Well, I'd definitely want to go with a definition of "offensive" that allows me to say a particular event, act, etc. can be offensive even if nobody is offended by it (successful mega-villain scenario: evil maniac bent on world domination builds super-lazor that eradicates all living things in a flash, apart from him: as he cackles with glee, his act is still... offensive, no?). Which implies that someone being offended by something is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for that thing being offensive.

Of course, it also depends on the act concerned.

Taking a shit in the middle of the street: possibly not offensive if there is noone else in the street and you clean up afterwards.

Slowly torturing a dog to death: I'd say offensive, even if you do it in private.

Making money off the symbols, customs, art of a culture that's dead: I don't see how whether you are descended from members of that now defunct culture can make much of a difference. All we can say is, it would have been offensive to the members of that culture.

Making money off a culture that is not dead: I think there's no general rule here, entirely depends on how you go about it.

Using elements of a culture that's not really your own, but not for financial gain, only for entertainment, self-validation, whatever, personal, private purposes: while members of the culture may find it offensive, I definitely prefer to live in a culture that is more forgiving of that kind of behaviour. If I don't want Monthy Python persecuted for taking the piss out of Christ, I can't be (don't want to be) hypocritical about it.

[Dildo Argentino]

Holist, go read up on enculturation, you mouth breathing moron. And then go read the BIP.

People generally tend to opt for insults when they don't wish to invest enough of their energy/intellect for an actual counterargument.

There are several possible reasons for that, one being they couldn't if they wanted to, another that they enjoy insulting other people for no good reason, a third one that, being pack animals, they follow the general concensus.

You may choose to explain what elicited your contempt, or you may choose to insult me more. Either would be fine.

But I would like to assure you that I have read more about enculturation than you have, and that I have read the BIP more attentively than you have. You impolite, cocky git.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think it's amazing when otherwise intelligent people (Garbo, etc), spend that much time responding to obvious trolls and/or damage cases (MacDeff, Holist, etc).  You KNOW you aren't going to have any meaningful conversation or exchange of ideas, it's plain as fucking day.  It's not why they're here.  And yet here you are, doing it again.

[Dildo Argentino]

I think it's amazing when otherwise intelligent people (Garbo, etc), spend that much time responding to obvious trolls and/or damage cases (MacDeff, Holist, etc).  You KNOW you aren't going to have any meaningful conversation or exchange of ideas, it's plain as fucking day.  It's not why they're here.  And yet here you are, doing it again.

I think you are wrong. I also think you have made it very clear that this is your opinion, which makes it quite difficult to interpret the above as anything but the exercise of peer pressure. To say the least.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think you are wrong.

Watch me not care.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

No, I only read the initial top of this thread...

I think the american white man gets confused, lacking connection to the mother countries. I certainly feel this way and am just drawn to Europe for reasons I can't exactly name other than a pull to reconnect with my roots..

I think when anything gets out of hands it's good to get back to square one and remember who you are...

roots...cuz we all have them

Oh, I see your point. But that is the kind of thing that leads to Pacific Northwesterners in kilts (COYOTE I AM LOOKING AT YOU!  ).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I find this thread verry interresting.

All of it, and in particular this claim:

Also, abandoning one's culture is impossible.

I'm not so sure.

I think there is a way in which it is trivially true: it is not possible to undo what has already happened, the childhood encounter with one's culture and some variety of enculturation into that culture.

There is also a way in which it is trivially false: people have switched cultures a lot, especially in the last several hundred years. This guy became an honorary Inuit and the first representative of Inuit people in the Canadian parliament, despite the fact that he was born and raised a Scotsman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Pryde.

This guy:

http://static.polityka.pl/_resource/res/path/ea/12/ea127c69-97ab-41ae-89f4-5888b062e6c0_260x

Was born in Canada to a Native American chief father and Polish mother (who was drawn there by a gold rush). He spent his first 10 years or so as a Native American tribeschild. Then his mother got homesick and went home to Poland, taking him, the only fair-haired, blue-eyed one among her three half-Shawnee kids. They got home for WWII. He spent a lifetime being Polish, but writing books about his Shawnee childhood - which culture is his one? When, much later, having become a sailor, he visited his tribe, they shunned him - because he, already a man with a name, had abandoned the tribe. And I am sure that while most people don't go very far from the culture they are raised in, many do.

Is there a sense in which it is non-trivially true?

It certainly seems to be the case that it is impossible to abandon one's language. I don't mean it is not possible to take a vow of silence and keep it: but as long as you keep thinking like a human being, indeed keep making sense of the world around you as a human being, I think you can't but use the linguistic competencies and habits that you acquired when you first learned to speak. And language, after all, is a cultural construct, so in that sense, yes, as long as you remain a human being, you remain a user of cultural competencies and habits.

My only worry there is the status of enlightened people who sit in deep meditation for years, without a thought: have they abandoned language? Are they still human?

And the other question here is, are there other cultural traits that are essential constituents of being human, or at least being a particular human person? Was Duncan Pryde the honorary Inuit and representative of his people the same Duncan Pryde that, at the tender age of 18, responded to a newspaper ad for trading reps in Canada? He would probably have said yes.

It reminds me of the old philosophical conundrum about the ship which sails for decades, and every single piece of wood and iron and canvas that composes it is replaced, bit by bit, as it suffers damage and is repaired. Is it still the same ship?

And the answer, of course, as it often is, is: "depends how you look at it".

My two cents and all that.

Are familiar with the concept of "socialization"? Culture is, by definition, encoded into our early socialization. You can move physically away from your culture of origin, and yes, it is possible to be adopted into another culture, but it is impossible to abandon your culture of origin while remaining physically embedded in it.

[Don Coyote]

No, I only read the initial top of this thread...

I think the american white man gets confused, lacking connection to the mother countries. I certainly feel this way and am just drawn to Europe for reasons I can't exactly name other than a pull to reconnect with my roots..

I think when anything gets out of hands it's good to get back to square one and remember who you are...

roots...cuz we all have them

Oh, I see your point. But that is the kind of thing that leads to Pacific Northwesterners in kilts (COYOTE I AM LOOKING AT YOU!  ).

Dude, my kilt has pockets, is not plaid, the pleats are sewn instead of being pressed, and is worn at the hips instead of the waist, in no way am I trying to pretend I am participating in one of my ancestral cultures.
And part of my reason for wearing it because it messes with people who are into the whole, "what clan are you fro...wait why is there no tartan?"

[Juana]

I think it's amazing when otherwise intelligent people (Garbo, etc), spend that much time responding to obvious trolls and/or damage cases (MacDeff, Holist, etc).  You KNOW you aren't going to have any meaningful conversation or exchange of ideas, it's plain as fucking day.  It's not why they're here.  And yet here you are, doing it again.

Because I had been awake for about five minutes and my judgement at that time of day for me is questionable. I really shouldn't post until I've been awake for about an hour.

[East Coast Hustle]

If I don't want Monthy Python persecuted for taking the piss out of Christ, I can't be (don't want to be) hypocritical about it.

As much as it pains me to admit it, the troll raises a very good point here.

[Juana]

People can make fun of their own culture and similar ones, whether or not they subscribe to the part they're making fun of. Cultures steeped in wider memes, like Christianity, can make fun of those memes, again, whether or not that person subscribes to them.

Or at least that's what makes sense to me.

[LMNO]

We may as well just say the whole thing is arbitrary and subjective, and there's no good way to draw a line that will apply to any particular culture in any particular era.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm gonna go with "I can make fun of whatever the fuck I feel like making fun of".

[Juana]

We may as well just say the whole thing is arbitrary and subjective, and there's no good way to draw a line that will apply to any particular culture in any particular era.

I can roll with that, I suppose. I think it's important to listen to the culture*, though, and be careful of what and how something is used.

*To jump back to "how many people have to be offended?", I don't have an answer, but if a lot of people are expressing offense, stopping is probably a good idea.