You are imagining antipathy that never arises and some sort of malicious intent on my part that simply never happens.
If someone tells me they are offended by me using/adapting a cultural practice for my own purpose, I will listen, I may even discuss it with them, then I’ll likely carry on doing exactly what I want. No default “sneering”, no “snarling” In real life I’m perfectly polite. They are absolutely entitled to feel whatever they feel. They are not entitled to expect any action from me or anyone. No culture has, or should have a veto over how their practices propogate in the world.
The “so fucking what” comment by Stephen Fry is a comment on the fact that merely being offended does not a valid point make. Immediately prior to that I quoted Christopher Hitchens who puts it thus “you say you are offended? I’m still waiting to hear your point”. The fact of some degree of personal offence is not enough, there has to be more.
e.g. If you say you are offended and then go on to point out that someone was making Native American War Bonnets and passing them off as authentic, that is a different matter altogether, that seems a valid issue to be offended about to me.
But if you say the source of your offence is me creating my own radical spin on a north-african recipe for my restaurant? Sorry, you’ll get a blank stare and query as to whether you want to make a reservation or not.
This is similar to the excuse a male dominant society uses to keep the status quo with women.
Or to suppress homosexuals. Or to keep trans people from using toilets of their choice.
Its enough for Daryl Morey of NBA and the entire NBA to grovel before the Chinese. Its enough to remove stereotypical Asian villains from Hollywood movies. …
Most of the world doesn’t want to follow the Chinese model, but looks like you are saying that’s the only model that works.
I know a bunch of people from France, having met them in the French West Indies. I know people with Italian sounding last names who participate in Italian fairs, do they count?
I’m not even sure what a fucking fascist sign is. A billboard?
Similar? in what way similar? It has sod all to do with people having full equality.
In fact my response above would be a perfect, fitting response to anyone who does claim offence at full equality for women, homosexuals, other ethniciites, trans people etc. They tell me they are offended by any of that? then I refer you to the response above.
I’m sure most people will understand that a common reaction to seeing a swastika is to think “nazi”. I’m not claiming otherwise.
That has no bearing on whether some cultural groups (including the hindus that you are not familiar with) can and do still the use the swastika with its original meaning intact for them.
There’s a movie called Master of the Flying Guillotine which is a 1976 Hong Kong martial arts movie. The main baddie is a blind martial artists who uses the flying guillotine, and he proudly displays a rather large swastika on the front of his robes. I first saw this movie around 1999, and when the bad guy made his first appearance we burst out in laughter because we were completely surprised. None of us thought this was a pro-Nazi display as we understand the symbol means something different in other parts of the world. It’s true, when I see a swastika the first thing that comes to mind are Nazis and unless I spend a lot of time in India or another place where it’s still commonly used I don’t think that’ll change. I sure don’t expect anyone in India, Japan, or China to stop using the symbol just because of what I associate it with. But anyone using it here in the United States shouldn’t be surprised when they make a negative impression on others.
Is there less usage by Google? You would have to ask them. Less usage by locals in Japan? Unconfirmed. But the continued usage is an issue discussed by some people in Japan.
OK, but that’s all stuff happening in Europe. Never been there, no plans to visit. A German living in the US who chooses to display a celtic cross as a neonazi symbol is not someone I’d have anything to do with.
I’m guessing the Italiians and French retained the fasces as part of their symbolism because it predated the Fascists, being a Roman thing. And why should the French have lost it? Is this some sort of post-Napoleon thing?
And the Japanese flags predated WWII, and anyway Japan didn’t undergo the same sort of dramatic regime change that the Italians and Germans did, with the Emperor remaining technically in power. So it makes sense that the Imperial flags and symbols would remain as well, even if a lot (all?) of the institutions that used them have since changed (e.g. it’s the JMSDF now instead of the Imperial Japanese Navy, but they still fly the Rising Sun flag).
In my view, the concept of cultural appropriation ought to be applicable only when the accused appropriator is part of a historically imperialistic or oppressive heritage and the accused appropriatee was dominated or oppressed by that specific accused appropriator’s nation, or cultural forebears.
For example, I don’t think I’m appropriating anything if I start wearing a tartan kilt, a fez, and a cheongsam, and record an album of Celtic harp and bagpipe music under the name Temujin Khan.
The swastika predated the fascists too. But it was not a majority white European sign (at least most Europeans don’t know that) - so it was singled out for getting banned.
You know, I would have said the concept itself is inherently ridiculous, but one example in this thread did strike me as reasonable: the swastika example. Which also leads me to see exactly where the line is, as far as I’m concerned.
It is when something becomes so overwhelmingly associated not only with something different than its origin but something negative, to the point where it can no longer be used it in its original context without constantly having to provide defenses and explanations to the majority of people who now associate any use of the thing in question with whatever negative connotation has been attached to it…that’s where it becomes a problem.
Well, even that minimal amount of consideration and empathy is a significant shift from your haughty declaration back in post #142 that everyone should simply pay no attention at all to anyone objecting to their choices:
It’s basically a double standard used to imply that the offended party’s position is merely subjective “feelings”, whereas the other party’s position is an objective standard of conduct. As this observer noted:
In other words, contrary to what you just asserted, you won’t actually “listen to” anybody making any objection concerning cultural appropriation, unless you’ve already decided that the issue in question counts as “a valid issue to be offended about” (according to your own subjective feelings, of course). You’ll simply ignore them right from the get-go.
Yeah, I’m not imagining the antipathy I see here. You really seem to have quite a bit invested in the mission of not paying any attention to a different cultural perspective if you haven’t already decided you agree with it.