What’s Dennis Rodman doing these days?
I’m not saying the early proponents like Yogendra who came to the West were without the religious aspects, but they also pushed yoga-as-exercise (except for Vivekananda). You just have to look at some of Yogendra’s book titles to see that.
I am sorry if I’ve confused you by speaking of both yoga overall and yoga-as-exercise together. My point is that both practices were actively encouraged to be exported by Indians, not just appropriated by Westerners.
Primitive alchemical element theory is not the periodic table. Even rough grouping by properties like by Lavoisier (not an alchemist) was not yet there, but it definitely was the first step.
I’m not saying chemistry doesn’t have a foundation in alchemy, it absolutely does, no question. But the periodic table, specifically, is not something alchemists should be credited with in the slightest.
Their approach would never have led to it, and things like still using the alchemical symbols for elements is a red herring - so did astronomy, but we don’t credit astrology with the Copernican Revolution.
This is true, but the converse of that is that we shouldn’t have to cater to someone’s views if we collectively determine that they are being overly sensitive. There’s a difference, as you note, between someone going around in blackface or wearing a sombrero and acting like Speedy Gonzalez while in Mexico on some random night in April vs. many other things that are seemingly, and in many cases are, harmless. Let’s take an example of someone from a minority group “appropriating” something from the majority that did get some pushback from some assholes. Here’s an article about a young Black woman who really enjoys Irish dance.
Some white people did get upset at this, and said she should stick to her own culture. In this case it becomes more obvious that the people crying “cultural appropriation” are just jerks who have racist tendencies. My guess is that a lot of what gets conflated into cultural appropriation is probably part of the same phenomenon. Racist / nativist people from other cultures who don’t like seeing people from other cultures doing something / dressing / enjoying something their group invented.
Rule of thumb: when considering political positions, don’t get too het up over the positions taken by undergrads. They certainly have a right to take whatever positions they want, but generally they lack any real political power, and they’re still trying to figure out how politics works, and they’re young, and they’re gonna say dumb things sometimes.
There’s an entire industry (cough foxnews cough) dedicated to amplifying the dumbest things said by any undergrad anywhere–excuse me, the dumbest things said by any leftist undergrad anywhere. Don’t give those disingenuous motherfuckers the time of day.
This applies extra-specially to “cultural appropriation” conversations. It’s a tricky and complex subject along a continuum. At one end of the continuum might be White Poets Who Want to be Indian, people who monetize a cheap caricature of other cultures in a way that crowds out folks who have grown up in those cultures. At the other end of the continuum are black girls who Irish dance.
People who are at the dumb end of the continuum don’t delegitimize people at the real end.
This quote is something that’s real common, but that I dislike in its implications. Generally it’s put forward that if someone is offended by a certain expression, we shouldn’t interrogate that but should just accept it and move on.
That works prima facie, as long as there’s nothing else involved. But there are certainly some words and phrases that offend people that I’m gonna keep using. First among those is “racist”.
It really gets up some folks’ noses when anyone suggests that they’re racist, or even that they’ve done something racist, or even benefited from structural racism. They’ll try to shut down the use of the R word because it bothers them so much, and they’ll try to stop any discussion until everyone agrees that they’re not racist.
Too damn bad. It might offend a person to be called racist, but that word/concept is entirely too useful as a real-world descriptor to take it off the table. Same thing goes for terms like " privilege" and “fragility”. And some idiots even object to “cisgender.” Their sensitivity around these terms can’t be allowed to stifle discussion.
Note the difference, though: these are all terms that describe real-world phenomena and for which there aren’t common and easily-accessible alternative words that don’t carry their own baggage. Objecting to these useful terms is really different from objecting to a Halloween costume or a term like “illegal alien” or “retarded.”
I took him to mean in the literal sense. We can tell someone that they are being racist / an asshole / insensitive / whatever. But we can’t literally make them stop being those things just by telling them that they shouldn’t be those things.
Consider a Japanese cartoon where the character is a Catholic priest. This is not “cultural appropriation”, because the fictional guy is supposed to be Catholic, nor does it matter if the guy is further said to be Italian or Egyptian or Japanese. What might be annoying or simply bad would be if the writer never so much as looked up “Roman Catholic Church” on Wikipedia and it shows.
Japanese media loves to use Christianity as well as both Christian and Jewish mysticism (as well as various Biblical references, and Evangelion may be the most famous example) and tends to be very bad at it. The result tends to be some weird ersatz take on Catholicism that I suspect would get a lot of angry takes here if the situation was reversed.
Well to be honest, Trinity Blood is a pretty cool show and a lot of that is because of the Anime Catholicism.
The takes might not be entirely accurate, but that’s what makes them fun. I mentioned the PS2 game Xenosaga earlier. Not only is the Pope a boss, but there’s all sorts of other references to Catholicism.
Summary
The main character turns out to be a reincarnation of Mary Magdalene. One of the other main playable characters, who is over 6,000, is one of Jesus’s disciples. The primary antagonist in the game was the Roman emperor at the time Jesus was crucified and turns out to be the main person responsible for his death. Jesus himself is an NPC in the third game, as is Mary.
Maybe, but I haven’t seen a lot of objections to Hollywood treatments of far-Eastern religions on this board, Buddhism in particular. Japanese treatment of Christianity has a lot in common with Hollywood depictions of Buddhism.
As for manga and anime, the most offensive characterizations of Western religion and mores are quietly and routinely dropped during localization. Just saying.
“‘You’ve gotta respect everyone’s beliefs.’ No, you don’t. That’s what gets us in trouble. Look, you have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs, and then you have to reserve the right to go: ‘That is f*cking stupid. Are you kidding me?’” – Patton Oswalt
If someone has a strong opinion about something, it is reasonable to acknowledge it. I do not personally think wearing a sombrero is a big deal on any day of the year in Canada or Mexico. But I might be wrong. If someone can convince me with a cogent explanation, great. If they think sombreros make me look silly and do not suit the shape of my face, they are absolutely correct. If sombreros represent something sinister I am unaware of, I would not want to wear it. If this is someone spouting off for no good reason, the above quote may apply. Listening costs nothing.
I can’t say about Mexico proper but Mexican emigres here in the US loved Speedy, and why not – he always won against el gato estúpido.
OTOH Slowpoke Rodriguez, while he’d win too…
That occurred to me. Some Mexicans seem to like Speedy (if not nearly as much as Coco). It wasn’t the best summation of insulting and obnoxious behaviour.
I met a Flat Earther. We had a talk. He had heard tell of Eratosthenes. His arguments were 1) governments do not tell us everything they know and 2) modern technology shows that the apparent reduction in boat size as they move further away in the water can be shown to be a trick of the eye.
There is certainly disagreement among Native Americans over whether a claim of descent from one purportedly Native American ancestor with no solid information is enough to position oneself as being (part) Native American in terms of culture.
OK, it’s been a minute, and I was SOOOO drunk when I wrote this OP (Did it show?). but I still largely hold to what I’ve said in this thread. Some posters got what I was getting at, especially about punching down versus punching up. It seems to me, that if you are worried about “cultural appropriation”, you are worried about punching down. But… and here’s what annoys me: That means you think the culture is “down”. Goddamn ridiculous.
I am all for diversity, but it has to be real human diversity. The casting of the live action Cowboy Bebop misses the mark. Very few roles HAVE to be played by a particular race. Personally, I think Idris Elba would make one Hell of a Gandalf. But, the casting of Cowboy Bebop is just lazy. Here’s how it should go:
Spike: Bad ass Jewish guy. We never see bad ass Jewish guys in cinema. Besides, his last name is “Speigel”.
Jet: Not BLACK! that’s too damn lazy. We have all seen his archetype played by a black actor. It’s a fucking trope. Old ex-cop that’s “too old for this shit”, c’mon. No. What we haven’s seen in the West much is an old bad ass Asian guy that is too old for this shit. So Jet should be Asian. He does after all, really like his bonsai tree. . .
Faye: Probably Eastern European gorgeous white chick because of the whole “Romani” thing (which you know damn well she’s lying about), but to be honest, just find the best actress that can play her. Black might work here if you drop the Romani thing. She’s a Femme Fatale, and though we have seen that with black actresses, we see it more often with others I think.
Ed: Similar to Faye, just the best kid actress. Ed was scooped out of the American Southwest, you could even make her Native American if you wanted to.
Ein: Corgi. If you disagree, I will fucking cut you.
Just checking: are you still drunk?
Because this is goddamn ridiculous. “Down” in this context doesn’t mean “worse”: it means “holding less power in a specific context.”
For example, in Hollywood, Black actors hold less power than White actors. For as long as there have been movies, the highest paid actors have been disproportionately White. White actors have been cast in a disproportionate number of roles. Similar power differentials exist when you’re looking at Latino or Asian or Native American actors, or disabled actors vs. abled actors, or female directors vs. male directors, and so on.
When people complain about Iron Fist being White, for example, that’s because White actors already have plenty of roles available to them, and using the Marvel universe to tell a story about Asian martial arts mythology through the eyes of a White character just maintains that disparity. Sure, the Iron Fist character was white in the comics, but that could have easily been changed, for the better. Their failure to do so was a failure of imagination and kept the institutional racism alive and well.
If you think punching down ever referred to anything beyond power differentials, I’m afraid you never understood the term at all.
My break is ending. I’d just like to agree with what Coolness (Coolness being the Left Hand Of Dorkness) said. I’m a pale white guy. I’ve been stopped by the cops while walking down the street in my own neighborhood a total of once in all my life. It’s sad and infuriating that the first fact explains the second- but that’s the way life is in the USA.
You know who else really likes bonsai trees? This kid from New Jersey:
Uh, yeah, bullshit. “Spiegel” is not a Jewish surname, it’s a German surname, and while there are certainly Jewish people in Germany it doesn’t make him Jewish. That’s like saying everyone named Smith is English.
His ethnicity is never established. He was patterned after a Japanese actor. He looks to me like he could have Asian ancestry. Getting pissy because they don’t cast based on your headcanon is moronic.
Again, the original Japanese studio is working on this and the director of the original anime is a creative consultant, do you recognize this?