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This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-poll

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

vmception 5y ago
cultural participation most of the segregationists just need inspiration and aren’t as exclusionary as they’ve been led to
- mise_en_place 5y ago
  It's a bit unfair to categorize Japan as segregationist. While it's true they have gaijin housing and restaurants, that's meant to make the visitor comfortable, especially if they can't speak Japanese conversationally.
Simplicitas 5y ago
Yup. I'll never forget Darryl Hall saying that music is a continuum, which is why most of the times he allows his Hall & Oates sounds to be sampled by Rap artists ..
- redwall_hp 5y ago
  If you look into folk music traditions, one recurring theme you'll find is it's generally not clear who wrote a tune or lyrics, and multiple songs often use the same tune. That's the natural state of music, and the current system of so-called intellectual property is an aberration. We don't know who wrote "Rolling Down to Old Maui" or "Drunken Sailor," other than that they were popular in the 19th century. They both share tunes with other songs that predate them, just like how there are multiple songs that use the same tune as "The Wearing of the Green." Countless people have performed and rearranged them, and the world only benefits from it. Everything in art is inherently memetic, building upon the work of others and evolving.
  - rvense 5y ago
    I think it was Pete Seeger who said that the greatest compliment he ever received was someone saying "Oh you wrote that song? I thought it was just.. there".
    - pantulis 5y ago
      It was Manuel Machado who wrote: "Until the people sing them, the songs, songs are not, and when the people sing them, then nobody knows the author. Try that your songs end up with the people, even if they stop being yours to belong to others. That, by melting the heart in the people soul, what is lost in name one gains in eternity."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
xhevahir 5y ago
IIRC that's actually how a lot of academics in cultural studies, history, etc, used the term "appropriation" until the nineties or so, when the more disparaging usage seems to have won out.
goodpoint 5y ago
That's not correct. See the first paragraphs of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation --- Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption ... cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange ... the concept is often misunderstood or misapplied by the general public, and that charges of "cultural appropriation" are at times misapplied to situations such as trying food from a different culture or learning about different cultures ---
- kevinmgranger 5y ago
  Yes, they're referring to the same misapplication you're referring to.
- quacked 5y ago
  Who defines "inappropriate or unacknowledged"?
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    We all do, including you. It feels like you want to make a point and I feel like I know what it is, but I could be wrong.
    - quacked 5y ago
      Yes, I suspect we know each other's points already, but I always am curious about how this particular element of the topic is defined by adherents of the group-to-which-I-don't-belong. If we both define what's appropriate, and our definitions don't match, how should that disagreement be settled?
      - JohnBooty 5y ago
        First of all, just to make sure we're on the same page about maybe one single thing, I don't think anybody thinks the subject of the linked article is cultural appropriation. I sure don't. Ultimately everything is somewhat of consensus in society, right? I mean, even near-universal truths like "murder is generally bad" or "helping your neighbors is good" are just sort of things most societies kind of agree on. Sometimes those consensuses (consensi?) change over time. Marijuana was legal for centuries, and then it wasn't, and now it kind of is again. Sometimes the consensus is crap. In a lot of places there used to be a societal consensus that marrying your 13 year old cousin, or stoning religious heretics to death was cool. If you've really done the work, and really explored why the groups affected by cultural appropriation think it's kind of a shitty thing to do, and you really just think they're just being crybabies or liars, and you're making an informed decision to disagree then, hey, cool. Might not agree with you but if everybody put that much thought into things the world would be a better place. how should that disagreement be settled When it comes to an issue like this, maybe weigh the cost of giving a care about it vs. the cost of not giving a care about it. Example: suppose I like to use slur XYZ because it's funny to me, and I think humor is a great way to bridge the gaps between people, and it would be better if we all decided to simply not let words hurt us. (I actually do feel that way!) But a lot of people from group ABC feel like it's pretty crappy for me to use XYZ. I could just simply think they're being oversensitive, and keep saying XYZ but like... is using XYZ really that important to me? It's pretty easy for me to stop using a word. That's a pretty small cost. If it might do some good, or at least make somebody else's day better, fuck it. I'm generally happy to pay that small cost.
JohnBooty 5y ago
Agree completely, though, I also don't feel like this sort of (awesome) thing is what anybody is talking about when they discuss cultural appropriation! Cross-pollination like this is, I dare say, universally loved and recognized as vital. Generally when people speak of "cultural appropriation" it's a situation where you have a majority and/or oppressing group capitalizing on the culture of a minority and/or oppressed group. Think of the difference between two prison inmates building on each others' ideas is collaboration, and a prison guard stealing their music.
- elefanten 5y ago
  Maybe that nuance was originally intended, but look around and you will find plenty of claims that wearing dreadlocks, rapping or making sushi at home are examples of cultural appropriation, if done by the wrong person. Actually, that’s a good gut check to test whether emancipatory movements have lost their plot: how often do their prescriptions hinge on identity.
  - asdff 5y ago
    It's gotten to the point where people are even criticized for tanning too much beyond what is supposedly acceptable for their identity.
    - JohnBooty 5y ago
      That's a pretty fringe outlook. A good piece of advice would be: Every belief, good or bad, has a lunatic fringe that takes that belief to some stupid extreme. If we judge every belief by its most deluded lunatic fringe, then we would be forced to conclude that there are literally zero beliefs or ideas worth subscribing to. The lunatic fringe is always there, and it is always scary and/or really, really dumb. Learn to recognize the fringe.
      - cc81 5y ago
        I agree but it is also worth how/if the majority reacts to those kind of fringe ideas.
npteljes 5y ago
QuestionCopyright.org has the same observation. They made a nice music video to further spread the idea, how "all creative work builds on what came before": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
winternett 5y ago
The problem in enjoying the "cross-pollination" is that it never rewards the founders, and often rewards others that deliberately copy the overlooked artists. Many modern works completely lift sounds and rebrand them as founded by someone else new. That is where the problem lies in modern appropriation. It's sad that social media now encourages people to completely copycat ideas and totally steal credit for innovation... We should support original culture and artists just as much as those who sample them.
- elefanten 5y ago
  Founders being rewarded is completely orthogonal to culture, in this picture. Any knowledge or innovation could be “stolen” and used by someone else, whether its origin is cultural or not. Using the possibility of value extracting theft as a reason why (certain) people should never find inspiration in (certain other) cultures… is just bigoted and nonsensical. It’s racist territorialism. Especially when all culture is built on something that came before anyway.
  - winternett 5y ago
    I disagree. There is a history of issues in the industry, and with audience exposure that makes things much more complex than with certain other genres. If reggae has been around this long yet Sting, UB40, Boy George, Snow, 311, Sublime, and Matisyahu are probably the people most Americans would think of as the best musicians making reggae music, it might show a bit of inherent cultural bias for both the industry and listeners...
    - zuminator 5y ago
      History must be replete with situations such as where a music producer buys a song outright from a semiliterate performer for 50 bucks and then turns it into a million selling hit with no royalties for the original writer. And that type of exploitation has historically been enabled or facilitated by a classist or racist framework where the original writer would have no conceivable access to fair compensation nor to proper legal representation. And that is certainly appropriation. But the fact that it's cross-cultural may be relevant to the appeal of the stolen good, but it's incidental to the act of thievery. Hence, if Sting stole musical licks from specific performer(s), that's a problem. If those people would've been entitled to compensation but for the fact that they were poor island countryfolk incognizant of their rights, that's a problem. But if he just borrowed his musical aesthetic from reggae or from "Jamaican culture," that seems morally uncontroversial to me. Maybe musically derivative, but that's a matter of taste.
sithadmin 5y ago
I don't buy that using a default demo sample from an electronic keyboard could ever count as cultural appropriation. Even in the most extreme case, the 'rock' sample in question that Casio offered up would ostensibly trace its roots to afro-caribbean origins anyway.
- aembleton 5y ago
  A Japanese person creating this after inspiration from listening to reggae music is cultural appropriation.
  - tomcam 5y ago
    I assume you're kidding, but if not... get a load of this. https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+cholo+culture&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&biw=1956 https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+cholo+culture&sourc...
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    A Japanese company doing market research and selling products to reggae artists in Jamaica who like and adopt the included rhythm is... what?... according to your calculus.
bobsil1 5y ago
All culture is mongrel.

vmception 5y ago

cultural participation most of the segregationists just need inspiration and aren’t as exclusionary as they’ve been led to

mise_en_place 5y ago
It's a bit unfair to categorize Japan as segregationist. While it's true they have gaijin housing and restaurants, that's meant to make the visitor comfortable, especially if they can't speak Japanese conversationally.

Simplicitas 5y ago

Yup. I'll never forget Darryl Hall saying that music is a continuum, which is why most of the times he allows his Hall & Oates sounds to be sampled by Rap artists ..

redwall_hp 5y ago
If you look into folk music traditions, one recurring theme you'll find is it's generally not clear who wrote a tune or lyrics, and multiple songs often use the same tune. That's the natural state of music, and the current system of so-called intellectual property is an aberration. We don't know who wrote "Rolling Down to Old Maui" or "Drunken Sailor," other than that they were popular in the 19th century. They both share tunes with other songs that predate them, just like how there are multiple songs that use the same tune as "The Wearing of the Green." Countless people have performed and rearranged them, and the world only benefits from it. Everything in art is inherently memetic, building upon the work of others and evolving.
- rvense 5y ago
  I think it was Pete Seeger who said that the greatest compliment he ever received was someone saying "Oh you wrote that song? I thought it was just.. there".
  - pantulis 5y ago
    It was Manuel Machado who wrote: "Until the people sing them, the songs, songs are not, and when the people sing them, then nobody knows the author. Try that your songs end up with the people, even if they stop being yours to belong to others. That, by melting the heart in the people soul, what is lost in name one gains in eternity."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

xhevahir 5y ago

IIRC that's actually how a lot of academics in cultural studies, history, etc, used the term "appropriation" until the nineties or so, when the more disparaging usage seems to have won out.

goodpoint 5y ago

That's not correct. See the first paragraphs of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation --- Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption ... cultural appropriation differs from acculturation, assimilation, or equal cultural exchange ... the concept is often misunderstood or misapplied by the general public, and that charges of "cultural appropriation" are at times misapplied to situations such as trying food from a different culture or learning about different cultures ---

kevinmgranger 5y ago
Yes, they're referring to the same misapplication you're referring to.
quacked 5y ago
Who defines "inappropriate or unacknowledged"?
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  We all do, including you. It feels like you want to make a point and I feel like I know what it is, but I could be wrong.
  - quacked 5y ago
    Yes, I suspect we know each other's points already, but I always am curious about how this particular element of the topic is defined by adherents of the group-to-which-I-don't-belong. If we both define what's appropriate, and our definitions don't match, how should that disagreement be settled?
    - JohnBooty 5y ago
      First of all, just to make sure we're on the same page about maybe one single thing, I don't think anybody thinks the subject of the linked article is cultural appropriation. I sure don't. Ultimately everything is somewhat of consensus in society, right? I mean, even near-universal truths like "murder is generally bad" or "helping your neighbors is good" are just sort of things most societies kind of agree on. Sometimes those consensuses (consensi?) change over time. Marijuana was legal for centuries, and then it wasn't, and now it kind of is again. Sometimes the consensus is crap. In a lot of places there used to be a societal consensus that marrying your 13 year old cousin, or stoning religious heretics to death was cool. If you've really done the work, and really explored why the groups affected by cultural appropriation think it's kind of a shitty thing to do, and you really just think they're just being crybabies or liars, and you're making an informed decision to disagree then, hey, cool. Might not agree with you but if everybody put that much thought into things the world would be a better place. how should that disagreement be settled When it comes to an issue like this, maybe weigh the cost of giving a care about it vs. the cost of not giving a care about it. Example: suppose I like to use slur XYZ because it's funny to me, and I think humor is a great way to bridge the gaps between people, and it would be better if we all decided to simply not let words hurt us. (I actually do feel that way!) But a lot of people from group ABC feel like it's pretty crappy for me to use XYZ. I could just simply think they're being oversensitive, and keep saying XYZ but like... is using XYZ really that important to me? It's pretty easy for me to stop using a word. That's a pretty small cost. If it might do some good, or at least make somebody else's day better, fuck it. I'm generally happy to pay that small cost.

JohnBooty 5y ago

Agree completely, though, I also don't feel like this sort of (awesome) thing is what anybody is talking about when they discuss cultural appropriation! Cross-pollination like this is, I dare say, universally loved and recognized as vital. Generally when people speak of "cultural appropriation" it's a situation where you have a majority and/or oppressing group capitalizing on the culture of a minority and/or oppressed group. Think of the difference between two prison inmates building on each others' ideas is collaboration, and a prison guard stealing their music.

elefanten 5y ago
Maybe that nuance was originally intended, but look around and you will find plenty of claims that wearing dreadlocks, rapping or making sushi at home are examples of cultural appropriation, if done by the wrong person. Actually, that’s a good gut check to test whether emancipatory movements have lost their plot: how often do their prescriptions hinge on identity.
- asdff 5y ago
  It's gotten to the point where people are even criticized for tanning too much beyond what is supposedly acceptable for their identity.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    That's a pretty fringe outlook. A good piece of advice would be: Every belief, good or bad, has a lunatic fringe that takes that belief to some stupid extreme. If we judge every belief by its most deluded lunatic fringe, then we would be forced to conclude that there are literally zero beliefs or ideas worth subscribing to. The lunatic fringe is always there, and it is always scary and/or really, really dumb. Learn to recognize the fringe.
    - cc81 5y ago
      I agree but it is also worth how/if the majority reacts to those kind of fringe ideas.

npteljes 5y ago

QuestionCopyright.org has the same observation. They made a nice music video to further spread the idea, how "all creative work builds on what came before": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

winternett 5y ago

The problem in enjoying the "cross-pollination" is that it never rewards the founders, and often rewards others that deliberately copy the overlooked artists. Many modern works completely lift sounds and rebrand them as founded by someone else new. That is where the problem lies in modern appropriation. It's sad that social media now encourages people to completely copycat ideas and totally steal credit for innovation... We should support original culture and artists just as much as those who sample them.

elefanten 5y ago
Founders being rewarded is completely orthogonal to culture, in this picture. Any knowledge or innovation could be “stolen” and used by someone else, whether its origin is cultural or not. Using the possibility of value extracting theft as a reason why (certain) people should never find inspiration in (certain other) cultures… is just bigoted and nonsensical. It’s racist territorialism. Especially when all culture is built on something that came before anyway.
- winternett 5y ago
  I disagree. There is a history of issues in the industry, and with audience exposure that makes things much more complex than with certain other genres. If reggae has been around this long yet Sting, UB40, Boy George, Snow, 311, Sublime, and Matisyahu are probably the people most Americans would think of as the best musicians making reggae music, it might show a bit of inherent cultural bias for both the industry and listeners...
  - zuminator 5y ago
    History must be replete with situations such as where a music producer buys a song outright from a semiliterate performer for 50 bucks and then turns it into a million selling hit with no royalties for the original writer. And that type of exploitation has historically been enabled or facilitated by a classist or racist framework where the original writer would have no conceivable access to fair compensation nor to proper legal representation. And that is certainly appropriation. But the fact that it's cross-cultural may be relevant to the appeal of the stolen good, but it's incidental to the act of thievery. Hence, if Sting stole musical licks from specific performer(s), that's a problem. If those people would've been entitled to compensation but for the fact that they were poor island countryfolk incognizant of their rights, that's a problem. But if he just borrowed his musical aesthetic from reggae or from "Jamaican culture," that seems morally uncontroversial to me. Maybe musically derivative, but that's a matter of taste.

sithadmin 5y ago

I don't buy that using a default demo sample from an electronic keyboard could ever count as cultural appropriation. Even in the most extreme case, the 'rock' sample in question that Casio offered up would ostensibly trace its roots to afro-caribbean origins anyway.

aembleton 5y ago
A Japanese person creating this after inspiration from listening to reggae music is cultural appropriation.
- tomcam 5y ago
  I assume you're kidding, but if not... get a load of this. https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+cholo+culture&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&biw=1956 https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+cholo+culture&sourc...
- fsckboy 5y ago
  A Japanese company doing market research and selling products to reggae artists in Jamaica who like and adopt the included rhythm is... what?... according to your calculus.

bobsil1 5y ago

All culture is mongrel.