I think the key point is that it becomes "appropriation"--vs cultural mixing or exchange--when the ideas are removed of their source context and used in a way that is contrary or even disrespectful of their original intent.
I'm far from an expert, but it seems like a reasonable argument to advance that the linkage of Buddhist practices with corporate and material advancement--and the removal of spiritual or ethical content--is "appropriation", and not merely respectful mixing.
"Jazz drew from ragtime, also “coded” Black, but ragtime drew from marches, drawn in great measure from white men John Philip Sousa and (eep) Wagner."[1]
In your view, is this appropriation or cultural mixing or exchange?
I wasn't claiming to be the authority on what's "appropriation." I was pointing out that the poster--who admitted he didn't read the article past the subheadline[1]--doesn't seem to understand how people use the term "appropriation."
That said, since you asked, no, it's never occurred to me that jazz is appropriation.
[1] Amusingly, the folks who admit to not actually, you know, reading the thing they are debating, are the ones who claim to be defending the free exchange of ideas. I think. Or maybe they're just angry online.
The exact same thing can be said about anything. Judaism appropriated pre existing ideas and disrespected them by insisting on a single god. Christianity appropriated judaism and disrespected it by removing covenant practices such as circumcision and adding new ideas such as the kingdom of heaven being available to anyone not just “the chosen people”. Islam appropriated christianity and disrespected it by demoting Jesus from the son of god to a mere prophet.
This is how ideas work. And it’s not just religion. Think of left wing thought. The original communist ideology was revolutionary. Social democrats appropriated ideas from them but believe working within the system. Many hard left people despise social democrats and believe they do more harm than good.
Islam is Christianity that goes “back to the roots” X Buddhism from Afghanistan/Eastern Persia (including the pilgrimage and washing ritual). Trinitarianism is only one branch of Christianity and not the main one. It was delicately made into the main one much later.
The original communist ideology wasn't original at all. The roots go back at least to the time of the Gracchi in Rome.
It's clear hardly anyone commenting here has any idea what appropriation really is. It's not just disrespecting existing cultures.
It's destroying them by removing the meaning from them. And then repackaging the symbols - usually with a vague implication of profundity and exoticism - as a marketable commodity.
The purpose isn't to spread the original culture but to use the trappings to promote the usual Western corporate neoliberal value system.
Corporate Buddhism is a perfect example. It's clearly a lot more corporate than Buddhist. The goal isn't enlightenment, detachment, or compassion, it's cultural conformity with the aim of increased productivity and a higher share price.
This shouldn't be controversial. All you need to do is look at how people behave to see what motivates them.
> It's destroying them by removing the meaning from them. And then repackaging the symbols - usually with a vague implication of profundity and exoticism - as a marketable commodity.
Sort of like the monarchies of Europe have been turned into republics in all but name, the culture of “divine right of kings” destroyed but the trappings of monarchy are still used but devoid of meaning. And often used as marketing material.
But, surely you don’t yearn for the return of absolute monarchies ruled by gods appointed ruler, do you?
This is the path of humanity. Some things die off, some things survive and some are transformed beyond all recognition. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad in this. It simply is a phenomenon that happens.
A better analogy would be what Disney did to the Brothers Grimm. In fact, Disney is probably the poster child for this shit, given how much they lobbied to extend copyright law so that nobody could do to them what they did to Europe's fairy tales.
No, the point was to provide an example of a cultural artefact being stripped of meaning and most people not being particularly affected by it in a negative way.
In fact, in the example, I would think most people are in agreement destroying the cultural artefact of absolute monarchy and wearing it’s hollow trappings as marketing props to boost the tourism industry is a good thing.
I genuinely don’t understand this obsession with “preserving the original meaning”. As if it actually exists, it does not, everything is a perversion of everything else. Even assuming there was some “original meaning”, why would hollowing it out, or twisting it into the very opposite matter in any way? It’s just another mutated idea in the long line of mutated ideas that make up human thought.
That’s indeed contrary and disrespectful of their original intent, but why does it matter what culture does it?
If people from a traditionally Buddhist country like Nepal disrespected Buddhist ideas, it would presumably be just as disrespectful as if people from America did, so I don’t think “cultural appropriation” is the right way to analyze this.
By the way, practically every religion has been transformed and warped so much over time as to be almost unrecognizable. This again is normal human behavior.
I'm not sure which is more disrespectful, but I do think the two situations are different. If I'm immersed in a culture or practice and I reject some aspects of it, from a place of familiarity, that means something different--maybe something more disrespectful!--that if I display the trappings of a culture without understanding what they mean.
> removed of their source context and used in a way that is contrary or even disrespectful of their original intent.
Ironically all this talk of cultural appropriation is "contrary or even disrespectful of the original intent" of Buddhism. Buddhism never belonged to Magadha, India or Asia, so it is not possible for anybody to appropriate it. It is not anyone's property to begin with
Each of those places has a very different culture.
Buddhism is not a monolithic entity. It took on vastly different forms in each of the places it landed. Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism have different scriptures, different approaches to bodhisattvas, different paths to awakening.
Was it disrespectful of the Chinese to take Buddhist teachings when they arrived and transform them to fit their cultural context? Should we go eliminate Buddhism from China because it's not native there and they twisted it to fit their culture?
Spot on. This is a perfect example of appropriation.
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Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from minority cultures.
According to critics of the practice, cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange in that this appropriation is a form of colonialism. When cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context ─ sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture – the practice is often received negatively.
This definition is so broad you can basically classify anything you don’t like as “cultural appropriation” depending on how loosely you define “minority”, “majority” and “context”. And in fact that’s what usually ends up happening. Certain forms of blatant “cultural appropriation” are not criticized or even considered as such as long as they conform to the cultural zeitgeist of Western academia.
For example, famous BLM activist Blair Imani is convert to Islam. After her religious conversion she soon after came out as a proud queer woman and upon being questioned she claimed there is no conflict between homosexuality and Islam. She subsequently gave media tours proudly proclaiming to the world her marginal view of Islam. This idea obviously only exists in some marginal Muslim communities in the west and goes against the beliefs of 99% of Muslims in the global south. Is this not blatant cultural appropriation? She took Islam and warped it to fit her western morality much to the anger of its emotional adherents.
Obviously we will never see an article calling her or the Nation of Islam cultural appropriators.
"majority" and "minority" are not about raw numbers but power dynamics in this context.
"colonialism" refers to extracting whatever idea or artifact is seen as valuable from a culture or a land without consent and/or without respecting the moral rights of who invented or made it.
Additionally, you can read the wikipedia page.
(edited for clarity: different people use majority/minority differently depending on the context. In this context it's not about raw numbers.)
(edit: an example of power dynamic could be a large multinational food chain that takes a lesser-known dish from some culture and sells a butchered version worldwide without clearly indicating the origin and/or that it's not the real thing. By doing this it can easily distorts the idea of the dish in the minds of millions of people.)
> "majority" and "minority" are never about raw numbers but power dynamics.
Sure, I’m aware of this distinction. I’m asking what are the power dynamics between Asian Buddhists and random American businessmen hypocritically adopting Buddhism? They don’t even live in the same countries, and there is not any colonial relationship or other power relationship between them as far as I can tell, so what makes one “majority”?
Sure, in general, the West has exploited Asia many times throughout history; is this the only reason? If so, then wouldn’t any cultural exchange whatsoever between Asia and the West count as appropriation?
> "colonialism" refers to extracting
This is a really vague and ahistorical definition of colonialism that seems made up to justify your point, but anyway, nothing has been “extracted” — people in traditionally Buddhist cultures have the same access to the same Buddhism that they did before. Unlike actual historical colonialism in which physical resources are stolen, people are forced to work, traditional culture is banned or heavily distorted in the places where it’s practiced, and so on.
I’ve heard the power dynamics argument before and admittedly it’s never held much weight for me. There are just too many edge cases for a heuristic like that to make any sense, in my mind.
So culturally powerless people may extract from culturally powerful people until what point? If a Ukrainian appropriates a part of Russian culture to be their own, who is the victim here? Recently, being Ukrainian has become a much more respected cultural identity than being a Russian, does that mean the power dynamic has shifted?
The more you pick away at the idea of cultural appropriation, you realize that the rules people set out for it make very little sense outside of the egregious examples of something like headdresses at Coachella, etc. My personal rule is just not to disrespect people and parts of their culture they find important. The color of my skin or the actions of either of our ancestors shouldn’t play into it, IMO.
To me, disrespecting you is any behaviour which _I_ find disrespectful. If I was mistaken, I'd apologize. I can't control how you feel, burrows, I can only control what I say.
> My personal rule is just not to disrespect people and parts of their culture they find important
In the Simbari culture, it is considered important for young boys to be taken away from their families, be beaten and forced to fellate the older members of the tribe.
Does your personal rule of not disrespecting "people and parts of their culture" hold in their case?
In Hebrew culture, it is considered important to remove part of the genitals of an infant boy in a long and bloody ceremony. Personally I'd never subjugate myself or my kin to it, but I know plenty of Jewish people and have never tried to debate them about it.
If a Simbari person wanted to have an earnest discussion about whether the practice you're describing was acceptable, I'd of course tell them that I think it's barbaric and insane. But if you're asking whether I'd seek out Simbari people out to tell them I feel that way? No, I would not. So my heuristic holds true, but I do appreciate the gotcha :)
I'm far from an expert, but it seems like a reasonable argument to advance that the linkage of Buddhist practices with corporate and material advancement--and the removal of spiritual or ethical content--is "appropriation", and not merely respectful mixing.