White people need to stop saying 'namaste'.

[Metaphor]

You are a huge fucking SJW.

Thank you for your considered and detailed critique.

 

[Rhea]

But Metaphor's 'take' seems to be to hold other people's perspective in disdain and disrespect--without actually taking the time and effort to actually..learn something about the other person's point of view and why they might see things the way that they do.

Was he disdaining the yoga? Or the idea that he's not "allowed" to like only 40% of "yoga" and must be required to like 100% of yoga or none at all. I guess I have disdain for that view point, as well.

And honestly, I have disdain for the violence of Judaism, even though I put chocolate coins on my Solstice Tree at Channukah and gamble with a glass (not clay) driedel. I _drip_ with disdain for the legalism of Catholicism while loving stained glass windows.

Is this functionally different from wanting to do yoga exercises without spirituality or to say namaste without a bindi?

An interesting contrast that came to mind as I typed this is that my platinum-blonde daughter, with blue eyes, dresses _repeatedly_ in saris and bindis and gold jewelry hanging from her hair and red-painted feet and dances with the local India Association at festivals and events. She's invited by the local Indians to join their celebration and the Indians watching all come and tell her how wonderful it is to have her culturally appropriate their Holi or Diwali festival.

And another contrast is a friend of mine who is Native American and very active and does object to white people dressing as Natives. We've discussed it a few times, but I honestly don't see how it is disrespectful to take parts of her culture and ritual and care about it. Yes, I completely get hating on the cartoonish insults of "redskins" and the like. But I don't get hating on little kids dressing up as pocahantas.

As far as people still being able to have what they had before: that's not really true, as cultural beliefs and practices become mainstreamed and sanitized and Disney-fied for mass appeal, they often crowd out the authentic in favor of a shallow, plastic version. Market forces can drive out what is authentic in favor of what has the most mass appeal. And then when the fad dies, there can be little left of the authentic to reclaim.

Cultures change - constantly, inevitably, inexorably. Getting mad about it is like signing up to support the campaign to stop yesterday. IMHO.

They have what they had before for as long as they are the ones to maintain it. Look at the Amish and the FLDS. Likewise, I look at various martial art schools. Some are "traditional" some are more modern self-defense. Am I doing cultural appropriation because I do TaeKwoDo and we have the mamby-pamby inauthentic practice of speaking English, meeting only 3 hours a week and using Olympic rules and wearing shin-pads? Should all TaeKwonDo schools be required to speak Korean and knock shin bones together to toughen them up?

That's "cultural appropriation"? I am not understanding the sense that no one is ever allowed to change it.

Our world is just not like it was. We have train travel, car travel, air travel, videos, phones and magazines. We know SO MUCH MORE about each other than we ever did. Trying to stop the sharing of ideas in the name of "cultural appropriation" seems counter to the nature of humans.

 

[Rhea]

For that matter, just being English Speakers is one massive, constant unending cultural appropriation, isn't it? Every single word we speak was stolen from someone else and the meaning shifted to new glossy modern washed out definitions.

Every. Single. Word.

Again, I have great interest in preventing the extinction of most cultures (I'm okay with FLDS going extinct) and have respect for the existence of other traditions. I don't actually let Disney into my house, so I'm not a part of that. I agree with having respect for the fact of differeing cultures and I absolutely reject the idea of deliberately making cultures die like forcing people to learn a new language or taking children or destroying art.

But saying it's wrong to do yoga because you're not doing it right? I'm not down with that. The religionists try to say that about marriage for gays. Fuck that.

 

[Toni]

Was he disdaining the yoga? Or the idea that he's not "allowed" to like only 40% of "yoga" and must be required to like 100% of yoga or none at all. I guess I have disdain for that view point, as well.

My reading of his posts was that he was disdaining the idea that anyone can voice objections to the mass commercialization of important pieces of their cultural and/or religious heritage.

Cultures change - constantly, inevitably, inexorably. Getting mad about it is like signing up to support the campaign to stop yesterday. IMHO.

They have what they had before for as long as they are the ones to maintain it.

Which is what they are trying to do, under the onslaught of mass commercialization of aspects of their culture.

That's "cultural appropriation"? I am not understanding the sense that no one is ever allowed to change it.

Here's a definition from wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture.[1] Cultural appropriation is seen by some[2] as controversial, notably when elements of a minority culture are used by members of the cultural majority; this is seen as wrongfully oppressing the minority culture or stripping it of its group identity and intellectual property rights.[3][4][5][6] This view of cultural appropriation is sometimes termed "cultural misappropriation."[3][6] According to authors in the field, cultural (mis)appropriation differs from acculturation or assimilation in that the "appropriation" or "misappropriation" refers to the adoption of these cultural elements in a colonial manner: elements are copied from a minority culture by members of the dominant culture, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressed, stated wishes of representatives of the originating culture.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Often, the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or distorted, which means that these uses may be viewed as disrespectful by members of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration. Cultural elements which may have deep meaning to the original culture can be reduced to "exotic" fashion by those from the dominant culture.[7][8][13] When this is done, the imitator, "who does not experience that oppression is able to 'play,' temporarily, an 'exotic' other, without experiencing any of the daily discriminations faced by other cultures."[13]

Our world is just not like it was. We have train travel, car travel, air travel, videos, phones and magazines. We know SO MUCH MORE about each other than we ever did. Trying to stop the sharing of ideas in the name of "cultural appropriation" seems counter to the nature of humans.

Except that what 'we' are doing is cherry picking what we do and do not want to 'know' and after we have gleaned that which will generate some profit, we use those cherry picked pieces to define an entire culture, while remaining (willfully) ignorant of the whole or even large enough parts of the whole to have a genuine understanding. We reduce a people, a religion, a religious practice, a culture to a stereotype. That is the opposite of 'knowing' more about someone else. It's a way of not needing or caring to know anything else about them beyond whatever stereotype we've established and continually reinforce.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

For that matter, just being English Speakers is one massive, constant unending cultural appropriation, isn't it? Every single word we speak was stolen from someone else and the meaning shifted to new glossy modern washed out definitions.

Every. Single. Word.

Again, I have great interest in preventing the extinction of most cultures (I'm okay with FLDS going extinct) and have respect for the existence of other traditions. I don't actually let Disney into my house, so I'm not a part of that. I agree with having respect for the fact of differeing cultures and I absolutely reject the idea of deliberately making cultures die like forcing people to learn a new language or taking children or destroying art.

But saying it's wrong to do yoga because you're not doing it right? I'm not down with that. The religionists try to say that about marriage for gays. Fuck that.

Cwene! Hwæt ðu leásspellung be?^*

Translation:
Harlot! What you false-talking about?

^*Yes you damn Anglo-Saxon speakers, it is not grammatically correct and there is probably a borrowed Viking word in there. SHUT UP!

 

[Rhea]

My reading of his posts was that he was disdaining the idea that anyone can voice objections to the mass commercialization of important pieces of their cultural and/or religious heritage.

Oh. Hmm. I took it as a complaint against someone trying to say we weren’t allowed to say “Namaste” because we were white and therefore couldn’t do it right.

Every time I use the word “amok” am I insulting Malays by using a term for mass murder to describe toddler children destroying a living room?

Because it seriously sounds like that’s what she’s saying in that quote. And I don’t get how that’s a reasonable thing to say.

Cultures change - constantly, inevitably, inexorably. Getting mad about it is like signing up to support the campaign to stop yesterday. IMHO.

They have what they had before for as long as they are the ones to maintain it.

Which is what they are trying to do, under the onslaught of mass commercialization of aspects of their culture.

I didn’t get that from the OP. She wasn’t trying to open her own yoga shop, or even give an interesting explanatory blog to enlighten the exercising masses. She was complaining about the existence of a yoga shop that she thought was doing it wrong and didn’t deserve to do it because they weren’t authentic enough, or brown enough.

That's "cultural appropriation"? I am not understanding the sense that no one is ever allowed to change it.

Here's a definition from wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation

Often, the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or distorted, which means that these uses may be viewed as disrespectful by members of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration.

And I am not understanding this complaint. If someone takes the culture on purpose in order to stamp it out – say, like Genghis Khan raping all the women so that his people’s DNA replaces and wipes out the DNA of the conquered – that that is wrong and should be stopped by laws and popular peer pressure. But to say you can’t even like our culture enough to want to try some of it?

I don’t get that. I don’t get why they feel entitled to that. I don’t get why they feel threatened by that. I don’t get why that’s wrong. I like moccasins. I love wearing them. They are comfortable and durable. I am not trying to stamp out native culture.

Our world is just not like it was. We have train travel, car travel, air travel, videos, phones and magazines. We know SO MUCH MORE about each other than we ever did. Trying to stop the sharing of ideas in the name of "cultural appropriation" seems counter to the nature of humans.

Except that what 'we' are doing is cherry picking what we do and do not want to 'know' and after we have gleaned that which will generate some profit, we use those cherry picked pieces to define an entire culture, while remaining (willfully) ignorant of the whole or even large enough parts of the whole to have a genuine understanding. We reduce a people, a religion, a religious practice, a culture to a stereotype. That is the opposite of 'knowing' more about someone else. It's a way of not needing or caring to know anything else about them beyond whatever stereotype we've established and continually reinforce.

That can be combatted by providing more information, not by prohibiting use. There’s an Indian who started 40 or 50 years ago drawing comic books about Indian religion, culture, fables, morals. There are hundreds of these cartoons. It is to educate people about India and Hinduism. My kids love them and learn more.

I don’t think you improve cultures by building walls – only bridges.

Personally.

 

[whichphilosophy]

For that matter, just being English Speakers is one massive, constant unending cultural appropriation, isn't it? Every single word we speak was stolen from someone else and the meaning shifted to new glossy modern washed out definitions.

Every. Single. Word.

Again, I have great interest in preventing the extinction of most cultures (I'm okay with FLDS going extinct) and have respect for the existence of other traditions. I don't actually let Disney into my house, so I'm not a part of that. I agree with having respect for the fact of differeing cultures and I absolutely reject the idea of deliberately making cultures die like forcing people to learn a new language or taking children or destroying art.

But saying it's wrong to do yoga because you're not doing it right? I'm not down with that. The religionists try to say that about marriage for gays. Fuck that.

Our cultures are composites of others, but frequently with alterations as well as time goes on.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm micro-aggrieved.

 

[Toni]

Oh. Hmm. I took it as a complaint against someone trying to say we weren’t allowed to say “Namaste” because we were white and therefore couldn’t do it right.

Every time I use the word “amok” am I insulting Malays by using a term for mass murder to describe toddler children destroying a living room?

Because it seriously sounds like that’s what she’s saying in that quote. And I don’t get how that’s a reasonable thing to say.

Cultures change - constantly, inevitably, inexorably. Getting mad about it is like signing up to support the campaign to stop yesterday. IMHO.

They have what they had before for as long as they are the ones to maintain it.

Which is what they are trying to do, under the onslaught of mass commercialization of aspects of their culture.

I didn’t get that from the OP. She wasn’t trying to open her own yoga shop, or even give an interesting explanatory blog to enlighten the exercising masses. She was complaining about the existence of a yoga shop that she thought was doing it wrong and didn’t deserve to do it because they weren’t authentic enough, or brown enough.

That's "cultural appropriation"? I am not understanding the sense that no one is ever allowed to change it.

Here's a definition from wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation

Often, the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or distorted, which means that these uses may be viewed as disrespectful by members of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration.

And I am not understanding this complaint. If someone takes the culture on purpose in order to stamp it out – say, like Genghis Khan raping all the women so that his people’s DNA replaces and wipes out the DNA of the conquered – that that is wrong and should be stopped by laws and popular peer pressure. But to say you can’t even like our culture enough to want to try some of it?

I don’t get that. I don’t get why they feel entitled to that. I don’t get why they feel threatened by that. I don’t get why that’s wrong. I like moccasins. I love wearing them. They are comfortable and durable. I am not trying to stamp out native culture.

Our world is just not like it was. We have train travel, car travel, air travel, videos, phones and magazines. We know SO MUCH MORE about each other than we ever did. Trying to stop the sharing of ideas in the name of "cultural appropriation" seems counter to the nature of humans.

Except that what 'we' are doing is cherry picking what we do and do not want to 'know' and after we have gleaned that which will generate some profit, we use those cherry picked pieces to define an entire culture, while remaining (willfully) ignorant of the whole or even large enough parts of the whole to have a genuine understanding. We reduce a people, a religion, a religious practice, a culture to a stereotype. That is the opposite of 'knowing' more about someone else. It's a way of not needing or caring to know anything else about them beyond whatever stereotype we've established and continually reinforce.

That can be combatted by providing more information, not by prohibiting use. There’s an Indian who started 40 or 50 years ago drawing comic books about Indian religion, culture, fables, morals. There are hundreds of these cartoons. It is to educate people about India and Hinduism. My kids love them and learn more.

I don’t think you improve cultures by building walls – only bridges.

Personally.

Nor do I. But cherry picking and taking only the most shallow re-interpretation of someone else's culture and then presenting it as whole while commercializing it and overwhelming the authentic is building a pretty big opaque, sound proof barrier around the authentic

 

[ksen]

I don't have relationships with groups

There's a surprise.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

OK. I agree to never say “Namaste”. Instead I will say Whammy Whipsnake Wheeze! There! Problem solved for me at least.

 

[barbos]

What if I have never started saying it?

 

[ideologyhunter]

But I thought whities like me were too smug about the world, can't dance, and have to learn to be multicultural. What about those Harry Belafonte LPs we bought in the early 60s?? Don't they count for anything? So, I'm supposed to be a Whitey McWhiterson?? Hindu people need to stop saying "Good gracious golly" in every sentence (in my whitey fantasy of how they talk that is.)

 

[repoman]

The person in the OP wants to feel special but probably hasn't done anything to deserve it. So she just gloms onto her ancestors achievements.

 

[dismal]

I agree with Metaphor's take on this. The complaint of "cultural appropriation" confuses me as it seems to insist that culture is somehow made static at some magic moment of awareness and even though it changed massively to arrive at that pinpoint of cultural awareness by that one group, they now want to thing, whatever it is, to become completely unchanged forevermore by anyone else who encounters it, owned by a special people.

And I don't get that.

I do get caring a lot about disrespect and disdain of a tradition. BUt I don't get claiming to own it such that no one else can want to do it, honor it, spread it or wear it because they're doing it wrong. They're doing to it exactly what your ancestors did to it (we know that Homo Erectus did not say "namaste," for example, so at some point someone changed the thing that was used before. And Hindi is not a proto-language, it's a morphed and evolved thing like all the others.

So respect, yes. But I think most yoga places are thinking repectfully when they say "namaste" or even when they just say, "hey these Hindu exercises are really very good for the body (we don't believe in souls) (or we feed our souls elsewhere)." Disrespect would be trying to stamp it out.

Montessori schools come in a variety of flavors and adherences to the original, and they just try to carefully disclaim what level of purity they follow.


So yeah, as JayJay says, go ahead and make a "traditional yoga" studio to bring back the perfect. But the others using it aren't stealing from you because you still have everything you had before - which is a knowledge of the kind of yoga you were taught.

Goddammit, have you seen those Indian people wearing blue jeans, after all!? Appropriating American Culture!!!! And Bollywood!? Seriously!

But Metaphor's 'take' seems to be to hold other people's perspective in disdain and disrespect--without actually taking the time and effort to actually..learn something about the other person's point of view and why they might see things the way that they do.

So what?

I mean seriously, so-the-fuck-what?

Who is hurt by white people saying "namaste"? Who is hurt if white people write "namaste" on toilet paper and wipe their ass with it?

There is no divine right to have your culture and beliefs respected by others in a free society.

 

[ksen]

Honestly, it's the elves' fault . . . just like everything else.

 

[ronburgundy]

...to hold other people's perspective in disdain and disrespect--without actually taking the time and effort to actually..learn something about the other person's point of view and why they might see things the way that they do.

This is a good definition for what it means to accuse others of cultural appropriation.

 

[Achwienichtig]

I think cultural appropriation arguments of the kind this woman presents are not necessarily as philosophically wrong as much as they are factually wrong.

In my observations, cultural appropriation of this kind serves as an introduction to the more authentic tradition behind it. People don't typically wake up one day and think to themselves, "You know this entirely foreign tradition that plays no part in my everyday life, yeah, I'm going to look into that and practice it authentically." First they encounter the idea in its appropriated form. This peaks their interest, and then they choose to delve deeper into it. It doesn't happen in the reverse order. The appropriated form helps to spread the authentic form.

Again, in my observations, when it comes to Hinduism and Buddhism, the spread of these appropriated ideas is the result of Hindus and Buddhists from the authentic tradition modifying their practices for a Western audience. When they do so, they are typically careful to single out the essential from the non-essential. This is certainly not true of all appropriation, but I think it holds very much for oriental practices like Yoga and Zazen.

 

[JonA]

I agree with Metaphor's take on this. The complaint of "cultural appropriation" confuses me as it seems to insist that culture is somehow made static at some magic moment of awareness and even though it changed massively to arrive at that pinpoint of cultural awareness by that one group, they now want to thing, whatever it is, to become completely unchanged forevermore by anyone else who encounters it, owned by a special people.

And I don't get that.

I do get caring a lot about disrespect and disdain of a tradition. BUt I don't get claiming to own it such that no one else can want to do it, honor it, spread it or wear it because they're doing it wrong. They're doing to it exactly what your ancestors did to it (we know that Homo Erectus did not say "namaste," for example, so at some point someone changed the thing that was used before. And Hindi is not a proto-language, it's a morphed and evolved thing like all the others.

So respect, yes. But I think most yoga places are thinking repectfully when they say "namaste" or even when they just say, "hey these Hindu exercises are really very good for the body (we don't believe in souls) (or we feed our souls elsewhere)." Disrespect would be trying to stamp it out.

Montessori schools come in a variety of flavors and adherences to the original, and they just try to carefully disclaim what level of purity they follow.


So yeah, as JayJay says, go ahead and make a "traditional yoga" studio to bring back the perfect. But the others using it aren't stealing from you because you still have everything you had before - which is a knowledge of the kind of yoga you were taught.

Goddammit, have you seen those Indian people wearing blue jeans, after all!? Appropriating American Culture!!!! And Bollywood!? Seriously!

It's the hypocrisy I find most astounding.

As if some Hindi fella shat out the concept of yoga one day fully formed in its present state and then bequeathed it on his cultural brethren for their sole use and enjoyment.

I mean, really! How the hell does this women think yoga came to be?

It was the product of cultural innovation - involving some original content perhaps, but like with most cultural changes it's largely the product of successive layers of borrowing and adaptation.

And the only one who needs any cultural sensitivity training is the person who doesn't know shit from sand about what cultures are or how they work but who thinks they own rights to something they played no role in creating.

Pathetic.

Also, how do I rep your post? This software has me baffled.

 

[Metaphor]

My reading of his posts was that he was disdaining the idea that anyone can voice objections to the mass commercialization of important pieces of their cultural and/or religious heritage.

I'm going further than that. Although it is more convenient to say 'my culture' than 'the culture I was raised in', the 'my' part is just a manner of speaking. Nobody owns yoga or has the moral right to police it.

Mass commercialization implies something has been refined and revised so that more people can enjoy it. You appear to believe I should instinctively object to it. I do not. What a wonderful thing and moral good it is to take an idea and let more people enjoy it.

Except that what 'we' are doing is cherry picking what we do and do not want to 'know' and after we have gleaned that which will generate some profit, we use those cherry picked pieces to define an entire culture,

"We" don't do that at all.

Do you think it is morally wrong for a secular choir to sing Catholic songs in Latin, without knowing or understanding any of the context, or caring that Catholics have been persecuted and indeed have died for their faith?

while remaining (willfully) ignorant of the whole or even large enough parts of the whole to have a genuine understanding. We reduce a people, a religion, a religious practice, a culture to a stereotype. That is the opposite of 'knowing' more about someone else. It's a way of not needing or caring to know anything else about them beyond whatever stereotype we've established and continually reinforce.

I've already explained this is a red herring; it would not satisfy the cultural appropriation mythicists if some white devil learned all about yoga and then rejected the spiritual elements.