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- From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
- Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
- Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
- Message-ID: <1992Dec23.155759.1@wharton.upenn.edu>
- Date: 23 Dec 92 20:57:59 GMT
- References: <18844@mindlink.bc.ca> <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com>
- Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
- Organization: Newt World Order
- Lines: 44
- Nntp-Posting-Host: fred.wharton.upenn.edu
-
- In article <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com>, tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
- > The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
- > is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
- > (often significant) disposable income.
-
- > While I generally stand foursquare in favor of cultural mixing
- > (which has given us, e.g., much of the best popular music of the 20th
- > century), I confess the practice I've just described makes me uneasy.
-
- Lots of pop music is influenced by gospel music, hymns, and other sacred
- music. Why is it somehow bad to borrow sacred or culturally important
- visual or narrative artforms and good to borrow similar musical
- artforms? Is George Harrison bad for sticking "hari krsna hari rama"
- into the song "my sweet lord"?
-
- Artistic work has often drifted between sacred and mundane usage. For
- instance _the faerie queen_ is a moral tale in the style of standard
- anglican instructional works, but we don't tell athiests who write moral
- tales that they are not allowed to do so by reason of their religion or
- lack thereof, nor do we disqualify Aesop as a moralist because his
- culture didn't quite match ours.
-
- IMO, this boils down to heresy... some people try very hard to avoid
- what other cultures might consider offensive ideas, but I don't this
- will ever be successful if, for instance, the english word "bus" means
- "fuck" in hungarian. By coexisting with a society without adopting its
- culture we implicitly deny that culture, and fanatics will treat that as
- an offense no matter how hard we censor ourselves.
-
- So what can you do to help? How about listening when people tell you
- about themselves, and when they ask you about things tell them the whole
- story? If you're writing fiction based on a culture that is not your own
- you can only use as much as you comprehend of it, but if you want to be
- safe then remind your reader of this.
-
- Acknowledge your sources and your prejudices.
-
- That's good enough, and it's all you can do.
-
- --
- whoah,
- +++++++++++++++++++++++23
- Loren Miller internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu
- Mediocrity is a hand rail. -- Baron de Montesquieu
-