So What's A White Boy To Do?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

taking money for sacred things strips the sacredness in many Native cultures.

If I don't believe I'm stripping the sacredness* of Christianity when I use holy water to wash my crotch, why should I believe I'm stripping the sacredness from the Sioux if I buy a tribal drum?







*And what the fuck does that mean?  A fetishistic attachment to an inanimate object?

OK, I just got home a bit ago and am only halfway through the thread, but I wanted to say that accepting payment for a supposedly sacred object strips that specific object of its sacredness in many Native American cultures and is therefore considered sacrilegious. ie. someone can make a pipe for you and give it to you and it will be sacred if it was made with sacred intent, but you can't go to a store and buy one and have it be sacred.

Also, I wasn't around to participate so I can't object too much, but this thread couldn't possibly have gone farther off base from what I intended it to be if I'd led it there by the hand.

It's a PD trope.  Once an argument starts, you cannot stop it until it has been beaten into bloody pulp and everyone has a chance to chew on it.

I kinda dig it at times.  Until I get sick of the argument.

Yeah, it can be fun. And eventually it might even get hashed out. Maybe.

Still curious about people's thoughts on the topic in the OP, especially when you consider that the culture we are socialized in as children so profoundly shapes our perceptions and thought processes.

[East Coast Hustle]

Today's conversation in Open Bar contained a passing comment that spurred this thought:

If your own culture is so full of bad signal that you don't actually WANT it, what do you do next? What if that's the motivation behind a lot of modern-day cultural appropriation... not "oh look, that's neat!" but "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"?

What the hell do you do if you find your culture of origin so repugnant that you want nothing more than to repudiate it and walk away?

Short answer: You do just that. You can live in a place with a dominant cultural paradigm without actively participating in that paradigm. Passive participation may be unavoidable, but you don't have to buy into it or perpetuate it. Or you move to a place with a culture that more closely reflects your values if you have the means to do so.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Today's conversation in Open Bar contained a passing comment that spurred this thought:

If your own culture is so full of bad signal that you don't actually WANT it, what do you do next? What if that's the motivation behind a lot of modern-day cultural appropriation... not "oh look, that's neat!" but "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"?

What the hell do you do if you find your culture of origin so repugnant that you want nothing more than to repudiate it and walk away?

Short answer: You do just that. You can live in a place with a dominant cultural paradigm without actively participating in that paradigm. Passive participation may be unavoidable, but you don't have to buy into it or perpetuate it. Or you move to a place with a culture that more closely reflects your values if you have the means to do so.

So after you stand up and say FUCK THIS SHIT I WANT NO PART OF IT, how does that affect and shape your personality? In many ways is it not more appropriate to reach for ideals and standards that you do agree with than to simply reject the ones you don't agree with? What about community? What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

Like those Occupy guys?

It would have worked a few decades ago, before future shock drove everyone batshit.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am going to throw out there that one of the cultural ideals of Western society that I think may be most corrosive and damaging is our emphasis on individualism and independence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

Like those Occupy guys?

It would have worked a few decades ago, before future shock drove everyone batshit.

I don't know if I could say that Occupy was attempting to create a culture movement. A political movement in the form of protest, yes.

[Freeky]

Nigel, I think you may have a good idea, individualism and independence being corrosive.  It sort of begets the whole "I've got mine, fuck you" thing.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, I think you may have a good idea, individualism and independence being corrosive.  It sort of begets the whole "I've got mine, fuck you" thing.

Yeah, exactly!

[Freeky]

Nigel, I think you may have a good idea, individualism and independence being corrosive.  It sort of begets the whole "I've got mine, fuck you" thing.

Yeah, exactly!

Oh, oh, and then there's the people who want to destroy the social safety net, because that sure as fuck has to be rooted in there..

And the people who think if a person can't get ahead in life then they DESERVE to get crushed beneath their heels, and may actively seek to just fuck these people over time and again.  This may be the same thing as above.

[East Coast Hustle]

Today's conversation in Open Bar contained a passing comment that spurred this thought:

If your own culture is so full of bad signal that you don't actually WANT it, what do you do next? What if that's the motivation behind a lot of modern-day cultural appropriation... not "oh look, that's neat!" but "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"?

What the hell do you do if you find your culture of origin so repugnant that you want nothing more than to repudiate it and walk away?

Short answer: You do just that. You can live in a place with a dominant cultural paradigm without actively participating in that paradigm. Passive participation may be unavoidable, but you don't have to buy into it or perpetuate it. Or you move to a place with a culture that more closely reflects your values if you have the means to do so.

So after you stand up and say FUCK THIS SHIT I WANT NO PART OF IT, how does that affect and shape your personality? In many ways is it not more appropriate to reach for ideals and standards that you do agree with than to simply reject the ones you don't agree with? What about community? What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

Well I can't speak as someone who hates the culture I was born into, but I can speak as someone who hates the culture I've been living in for most of my life which I imagine leads to much the same place. And that's probably why I'm a misanthropic bastard who has trouble finding people that I actually enjoy hanging out with for more than a few minutes a month and/or when I'm completely sober. In other words, I have no answer to that question that isn't fairly self-destructive, though I really wish I did.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Today's conversation in Open Bar contained a passing comment that spurred this thought:

If your own culture is so full of bad signal that you don't actually WANT it, what do you do next? What if that's the motivation behind a lot of modern-day cultural appropriation... not "oh look, that's neat!" but "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"?

What the hell do you do if you find your culture of origin so repugnant that you want nothing more than to repudiate it and walk away?

Short answer: You do just that. You can live in a place with a dominant cultural paradigm without actively participating in that paradigm. Passive participation may be unavoidable, but you don't have to buy into it or perpetuate it. Or you move to a place with a culture that more closely reflects your values if you have the means to do so.

So after you stand up and say FUCK THIS SHIT I WANT NO PART OF IT, how does that affect and shape your personality? In many ways is it not more appropriate to reach for ideals and standards that you do agree with than to simply reject the ones you don't agree with? What about community? What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

Well I can't speak as someone who hates the culture I was born into, but I can speak as someone who hates the culture I've been living in for most of my life which I imagine leads to much the same place. And that's probably why I'm a misanthropic bastard who has trouble finding people that I actually enjoy hanging out with for more than a few minutes a month and/or when I'm completely sober. In other words, I have no answer to that question that isn't fairly self-destructive, though I really wish I did.

I think that is a better response to my OP than any this thread has received so far.

[Dildo Argentino]

How in the fuck is that a put-down?  Most people who haven't taken sociology or psychology aren't particularly familiar with it in the context I used it in, and your reply indicates that you aren't, either.

No. My reply indicates that I have different views about it to you. The first question is... well, you know. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

This is an interesting discussion... as volatile as drugs, anarchy and paganism, but somehow still remaining civil. I like it.

I've read through this thread and there are some things I find out of sorts with my experiences and view.

1. Sacred Object + Money = Object stripped of sacredness/misappropriation/badwrong

Exhibit A: Cherokee, North Carolina. Cherokee is a Native American reservation which was inhabited by the Cherokees that hightailed it into the dense Smokey Mountain forests rather than walking the trail of tears. I was 13 when my parents took us on vacation to the Smokies and we spent a couple days in Cherokee. The inhabitants basically run a giant tourist attraction. There's a Native guy in full costume, including a headdress, he will happily have his picture taken with you for $5 (maybe more now given inflation). There were many shops where you could buy little fake headdresses and tomahawks for your kids. There were high end "art" shops where you could drop several hundred dollars and get a authentic headdress (including war bonnets). You bought them right from a Native American, they were made by Native Americans and they even stick the things on your head so you can look in the mirror and pick the one you want.

You can also pay some money to watch their sacred dances (four shows daily).

Are they guilty of destroying the sacredness of their own culture? Or, are they making a buck, because its a crappy place to live and alcoholism  is far more prevalent than employment?

If a white person goes there and buys some authentic something or other and wears it, are they guilty of something bad... since they bought it from the culture that owned it?

2. Culture is to be respected

This seems a bit off to me. Culture, in some sense, are the bits of your BiP, handed down from your ancestors that you're really proud of. I don't think I need to respect someone's attachment to bits of brick and bars.

3. My actions ruin their culture?

If a culture considers something important, special, sacred, or whatever... why is it expected for anyone else, not in that culture, to treat it in the same way? Culture A says war bonnets are sacred, so you gotta respect it. Culture B says their particular deity is sacred and you gotta respect it. Culture C says "heterosexual marriage" is sacred in their culture, so you gotta respect it. I say if its sacred to them, then they should respect it and leave the rest of us out of it.

4. Who's got the beef?

I often wonder if its white privilege that leads some people to find indignation in things like cultural appropriation. Even some of the comments here... "Well, their culture got fucked [by us inferred], so you should respect it". If you travel to India, you'll find Indians selling tourist junk with Shiva on it. If you go to Cherokee, you'll find Native Americans selling 'sacred objects' to white people. They seem more "entrepreneurial" than "indignant".  If the Cherokees sell me a war bonnet, who the fuck are you (meant generically) to be pissed off if I wear it?

5. Hail Eris

As has already been mentioned, we appropriate Eris from the Greeks. Is it OK because, we (white people) aren't the ones that fucked the Greeks over? Or is it because most of the Greeks are Orthodox these days so no one cares about a minor deity from a dead culture? If right and wrong here is based on who did what to who, or how long ago it was done... that seems arbitrary and IMO fueled by guilt.

I would probably get behind a movement that was focused on countering alcoholism in reservations... or the horrific prevalence of rape among Native American women. Headdresses and Shiva shorts seem like piffle compared to actual, real problems.

Particularly, from the perspective of My Discordia... the whole concept of cultural misappropriation being badwrong seems absurd to me. The underlying bit of Absurdism is that there is no meaning to life, except the meaning that you choose to give it. If some spag chooses their great-great grandparents culture as the meaning of their life... bully for them. If another spag chooses to upset as many cultural apple carts as possible... bully for them. If some third party gets pissed off and decides that telling the other spag "they're doin it wrong" is their purpose in life... well bully for them but I'm more likely to consider them an asshole.

[LMNO]

So after you stand up and say FUCK THIS SHIT I WANT NO PART OF IT, how does that affect and shape your personality? In many ways is it not more appropriate to reach for ideals and standards that you do agree with than to simply reject the ones you don't agree with? What about community? What about finding the others and trying to create a movement large enough to change the destructive elements of the dominant culture?

I think you can't life an entirely full life only by saying "NO" to things.  Because then all you believe in is an absence, a lack of substance. 
From where I'm standing, you have to say "NO" for a while, to give yourself that space, and then you have to do the hard work fo saying "YES" to what you truly want to accept into your life.  Like ECH says, there will probably always be engaging is some sort of passive participation, but in your personal sphere, you can try to build something of meaning for yourself, instead of accepting the culture you're living in simply due to geography.

[Bu🤠ns]

It would be kind of cool if our culture provided a place for dropouts that allowed one the space to not participate but also benefited the society in some way.  I'm sort of thinking about the India Sannyasa in the sense that they're 'spritiual dropouts' yet still hold a place in the culture.  I'd like to draw the line between the rebel and the dropout in that the rebel is a reaction the cultural norm but the dropout allows a sort space one can stand to look back at the culture as a whole without necessarily being A PART OF the culture. 

In our culture I don't think we have anything like that and if we do it's considered all 'rebel.'  Our culture doesn't seem to allow someone to drop out...it's like the game is YOU MUST PARTICIPATE!  And because there's no alternative, there's a sort of expectation that you will WANT to participate and there you have a double-bind.