I definitely think that cultural appropriation can be harmful. I’m just struggling to see the specific harm in this case. Who is hurt by his behavior, and how?
I found it a little hard to swallow.
I tend to roll my eyes as well. What I hear is, “Stick to you own culture,” which I’m sure isn’t what’s meant. I kind of chalk this up to the hierarchy of oppression as appropriation is a one way street depending on who is the dominant culture. But then it gets really complicated. It might anger some Asian Americans if I wear a kimono for Halloween but if any Japanese people are offended it’s probably because I’m wearing it incorrectly.
Still, I’d take care. I wouldn’t put a bindi on my niece but if she wanted to wear a sari for dress up it wouldn’t bother me in the least.
If Doc is eager to talk about it, he could bring it to his rabbi. One would hope he’d get more edification that way than by consorting with us mamzers.
Indeed, it isn’t for sharing with the public. I only allowed that I had done it back in the 1980s and then promptly clammed up. That is all.
Sorry, it has been a busy night.
Does it always have to involve harm? Isn’t the fact that is generally an expression of both disrespect and ignorance (the thing we are supposed to be fighting here) enough?
Other than Israael, in what country is Judaism the dominnat culture? If Judaism is the dominant culture in the USA, when did it happen and why wasn’t I told? If there was a War On Christmas, Christmas totally kicked our asses.
I agree with this. Saris are just one of the varieties of clothing women, and hijras, wear. They belong to the culture of a specific area. But are worn by members of different cultures living in that area. If you see a woman in a sari, or a salwar kurta etc you cannot say if she is Hindu, Muslim, Christian, atheist or something else.
Bindis have religious significance. Different bindis mean different things. I often ask my beloved if she should be wearing them. Yes they look great on her. Nobody ever says anything because she is clearly Desi (rough translation- from India or of Indian dsecent). However, she is not a Hindu. She is Christian. Collecting Hindu devotionary art? I have no problem with that. Just treat it with the proper respect. You want to listen to pagans (pronounced pah -zjahns. basically Hindu hymns sung and accompanied by traditional devotional instruments) fine. I enjoy those as well. Wearing an item of religious significance when you are not a member of that religion? I don’t like it.
I could. I have known the man since I was in high school. He is wise, caring and righteous. I am a big fan. I’m assuming he would be baffled. Which was my initial reaction as well.
I have been educated on a great many things by Dopers. I really don’t think of you as mamzers (that woud be “bastards” in both senses of the word) Mostly, when I think of most of you I am reminded of a phrase (I forget the original Hebrew) used to tzaddiks (righteous people) who are not Jewish “Rigteous among the nations”. Also, in this case I am trying to educate rather than looking to be educated. Kabbalah is a very Jewish thing. I have previously said that if you have modified Kabbalah to ‘fit’ any othe religion, or if you are practicing sometthing that claims to be Kabbalah and is demonstrably just crap somebody made up- that is cultural appropriation.
As I have said elsewhere, I was deeply relieved when the Kabbalah fad that swept America finally faded away. There is reasonable debate on exactly who is fit to practice Kabbalah. But we can all agree- I’m not and Madonna is certainly not.
I remember the dreaded election night thread @Smapti remained positive. I had given up. He was all faithful until the concession speech. Then… well, was a completely different poster type, which is well understood.
Then other post election threads were nasty in general. Posts from him and towards him.
I say we leave him alone for now. Not anything against @DocCathode and this thread. It’s worth discussing for some who are familiar with Kabbalah. I’m not, unfortunately.
This isn’t about him alone. Quite a few people have said ‘Yeah, it is cultural appropriation. But why are you uspet about it?’
I posted the basics earlier in this thread. Here they are again for those who missed them-
You can spend a lite time studying Kabbalh. Those are the basics.
Again, altering Kabbalh to ‘work’ with another religion makse no sense atl. People have been doing it for a very, very long time though.
It didn’t work
Reform Jew chiming in.
While i recognize that there are forms of cultural appropriation that are disrespectful, insulting, or otherwise harmful, in general I’m a fan of people taking stuff from any culture they are in contact with and modifying it to suit their needs. My father did a lot of Chinese cooking. I do a lot of Indian cooking, and some Chinese. And i modify the recipes a little, to suit my tastes. My husband does a lot of yoga. His teacher was an American taught by a well-known Indian yogi. Mostly, he’s in it for the exercise, but he’s gotten somewhat into the spiritual aspect, as well. I think all of these are good. And i think that lots of great music and art have been created by people who were inspired by the music and art of a culture not their milk-culture.
Is Smapti’s vaguely kabbalistic ritual cultural appropriation? Yes, i think so. Is it harmful, disrespectful, or insulting? No, i don’t think it is. He seems deeply respectful of Jewish religion and culture, in fact. Is he perhaps misunderstanding some things? Yeah, probably. And yes, he’s modifying the ritual to suit his needs. Personally, i think a person’s sincere attempt to gain spiritual benefits by practicing some other culture’s ritual in a respectful and safe way is generally a good thing, whether or not the person modifies the ritual based on his best understanding and on his own needs. And i think that’s true whether the ritual started out as native American, Indian, Jewish, Japanese, or Catholic.
Yeah, I know. If we look at the sentence immediately after the one you quoted
Modifying Kabbalah to fit any other religion is inherently disrespectful. “Modifies the ritual based on his best understanding” Again, a basic understanding of Kabbalah would make you aware that you do not modfiy the rituals to suit the needs of any other religion.
One more time-
I’ve encountered this idea before in other contexts–“take my stuff 100% or take none of it, or else you’re disrespecting me”–and I’m just not convinced by it.
People got one short primate life to live, and shit’s hard. If taking parts of a ritual from here, and parts of a ritual from there, is making their life better, and if the only harm is that someone else feels disrespected when they find out, the simplest solution to me is for the person feeling disrespected to shrug it off and wish the other person happiness in their short monkey life.
Sure: the folks who invented Kabbalah want to be masters of their creative work. They don’t want fan fic. But I’m just not convinced that fan fic actually hurts them. Let them do the rituals they want, and let others do the rituals they want, and happiness and satisfaction to both.
The larger problem is that @Smapti doesn’t really have any deep understanding of the Jewish traditions from which the Kabbalah emerged, and so his musings on it come out as ill-informed, naff, and even offensive to scholars who have spent years studying at yeshiva to understand both the mundane and esoteric aspects of Talmudic interpretation and study of mishnah as relates to both Jewish belief and cultural life. He gives the appearance of skipping all of that in order to dive head-forward into the more fantastical aspects of Lurianic Kabbalah. I personally don’t care because I’m not religious and don’t have any traditions or beliefs to be offended about but I can certainly understand how someone taking a nickel tour through your belief systems without even bothering to check their ‘research’ with someone who actually has studied in this tradition can seem offensively obtuse, especially when making comparisons like this:
If someone made an images of Sylvester the Cat up on the Crucifix saying “Sufferin’ succotash!”, I’m sure many Christians would be offended at both the desecration of their core iconography and the lack of decorum or respect in how fundamental what that representes is to their belief. That doesn’t mean that someone shouldn’t use that imagery in service of a particular message–personally, I think “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian effectively eviscerates the seriousness that Christians take in the religious traditions and institutions built around their core myth while actually treating the personage of Christ with utmost respect–but you also shouldn’t be surprised when some people find the treatment of their cherished beliefs opprobrious.
I’m sure this seemed like sage wisdom to you when you wrote it but…it’s not.
Stranger
Hmm. Just curious: is being asked for proof limited to claims of messiahdom, or are other assertions fair game? Like f’rinstance:
I think cultural appropriation is a concept that would be best retired. Minimal cultural respect I can get behind. Part of respect is refraining from explicit mockery. But another part is avoiding mockery via outright ignorance.
If Smapti’s organization wants to borrow aspects of different cultures, I say that’s fine provided they maintain a truth in advertising ethic. Don’t pretend to be something you’re not.
As for musing, pose your muses as questions if you don’t want to be an inadvertent jackass.
ETA below: TVtropes has a decent article on Anime Catholicism.
So you are watching an anime and here comes a 12-year-old boy in some interesting, religious-looking robes and… wait, this pre-teen is supposed to be a Catholic priest? But, 12-year-olds can’t be priests! That isn’t typical Catholic priestly attire, either, that robe looks like it’s made of 100% pure awesome, and… oh look, he’s pulling out guns and shooting up a demon. And there’s a hot, glasses-wearing nun sidekick casting magic spells.
Well, there really is no explanation other than you’ve just seen a case of Anime Catholicism.
This story is a work of fiction. The names of all the characters, organizations, and so on are imaginary. It also bears no connection to any specific real-life events.
Even better example from Japan (besides all the other examples of vaguely Catholic quasi-Christianity in anime) for both Judaism and Christianity simultaneously: practically everything about the setting in Evangelion.
But why is that offensive to those scholars? Sure, they might think he’s an idiot, but how does his practice of it or lack of knowledge have any effect on them?
Someone like smapti should not tell Jews how to practice their religion, or go to temple and try to get the people there to do something his way. But if he wants to do some wacko version of a ritual in his own home by himself, where’s the offense?
According to wiki, Christians have borrowed from Jewish Kabbalah for literally hundreds of years:
From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists and Hermetic occultists.[33] The syncretic traditions of Christian Cabala and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Judaic Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universalist ancient wisdom preserved from the Gnostic traditions of antiquity.[34] Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Jewish understanding, to merge with multiple other theologies, religious traditions and magical associations. With the decline of Christian Cabala in the Age of Reason, Hermetic Qabalah continued as a central underground tradition in Western esotericism. Through these non-Jewish associations with magic, alchemy and divination, Kabbalah acquired some popular occult connotations forbidden within Judaism, where Jewish Practical Kabbalah was a minor, permitted tradition restricted for a few elite. Today, many publications on Kabbalah belong to the non-Jewish New Age and occult traditions of Cabala, rather than giving an accurate picture of Judaic Kabbalah.
Smapti might be practicing a variant of Hermetic Qabalah, a tradition going back hundreds of years, but not thousands.
A primary concern of Hermetic Qabalah is the nature of divinity, its conception of which is quite markedly different from that presented in monotheistic religions; in particular there is not the strict separation between divinity and humankind which is seen in classical monotheism. Hermetic Qabalah adheres to the Neoplatonic conception that the manifest universe, of which material creation is a part, arose as a series of “emanations” from the “godhead”.
Because extremists feel that they should be able to dictate how others behave. Publish a disrespectful drawing of Allah? Die! Write a disrespectful story of Islam? Die! Dare to follow a religious ritual without getting prior approval from DocCathode? Fuggedaboutit!
This is from someone (a Jew, by the way – with bonafides as bonafide as @DocCathode – who happened to fall into a job because the previous person had to leave town under fear of death for publishing a cartoon of Allah.
Yeah. As much as people throw about claims of “disrespect”, they are the ones who are being controlling at best. And we know from history and the news how it often ends in violence.
Why do Native Americans (or indigenous people of any nation) view the unconversant and poorly rendered application of their rituals in service of sports and other amusements offensive? Because it makes a mockery of their beliefs and traditions, and not even one that is an intentional satire informed by an actual understanding of the background of those traditions but rather from the implication that their opinions and beliefs don’t even merit enough consideration to learn about them.
Frankly, I doubt that many Jews outside of some fairly esoteric sects actually care much about non-Jewish people appropriating Kabbalistic-inspired practices because it is so far outside the mainstream that it is the equivalent of Gnosticism in early Christianity or Swedenborgianism; it isn’t even relevant to mainline religious practices but is kind of an embarrassment exaggerated by the ill-informed interpretation of someone who doesn’t actually understand anything about it beyond a very superficial, essentially cursory amount of study. It’s essentially taking a piss on something that the actor doesn’t even understand with sufficient depth to satirize.
Stranger