Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
And why's this thread called 'patter' - I thought that meant the spiel a magician or salesman comes out with to pull the wool over your eyes? Or is it patois for 'patois'?
Because I felt it was "prepared".
And why's this thread called 'patter' - I thought that meant the spiel a magician or salesman comes out with to pull the wool over your eyes? Or is it patois for 'patois'?
who decides what is harmless and what is not? you? if not, who? and in cases where it's not clear (i.e., between different minority groups) how is it determined which groups are more & less powerful in relation to each other? and thus when it's "usurping" and when it's a "survival technique"?
firstly, culture is fluid. and - for better or worse - increasingly fluid as the world becomes, as/re access to information at least, smaller. secondly, are you not speaking for minority groups here, e.g. usurping them?
obv there are examples that are accurate - the one I immediately thought of was Native Americans, who get a particularly raw deal when it comes to cultural expropriation & usurpation. I don't think your points are totally invalid - what's wrong is the sweeping generalizations & as Vim alludes to the oversimplification of what are in fact complex & dynamic "power relations". and your/whoever positioning as a gatekeeper of what is "authentic" and what isn't.
I don't think 'mate' is (c) the working class anymore. But it's the best to use if you bump into someone in the pub and say "Sorry, mate". Saying "Sorry, pal" or "Sorry, friend" sounds like you're gearing up to glass them.
I'd say that the thing that makes yer public school cockerneys and oxbridge rastas embarassing is that they give the appearance of making a grab for cultural capital and failing - and you lower your opinion of them because they seem to need to make a try-hard attempt to act like something they're not in order to get on socially. It's embarassing in the same way as someone's dad trying to use slang. (http://xkcd.com/166/)The white rasta is embarrassing in his naive overidentification--polite society knows how to play it cool and maintain distance (but it's a difference in degree, not in kind, and at times you do have to wonder whether the ironic inhabitant of other cultures is really more self-aware than the naive enthusiast, but that's for another time).
No, I'm sorry. White rastas are wrong and should be criminalised. You can trot out as many arguments to the contrary, produce as many sociological examples as you like. But Spiral Tribe / Back To The Planet fucked it up for all 'white rastas' in 1992 and there's no point of return, ever.
but if you're saying anything goes
Not speaking for minority groups, rather suggesting they MIGHT not want their culture used in that way.
Surely by this rule, a truly authentic person or culture is one which entirely static. I wouldn't call that authentic at all, I'd call that dead. Or if I'm not being sarcastic, set in their ways, nobody is like that, and no society has ever been.It's not the particular quality of that which is assumed that riles people, but that this borrowing is considered necessary in the first place - it's a diss to the prevailing culture and an inauthentic move.
Behaviour can be more or less authentic, if we take authentic to mean 'fitting to context (the context being, for example, past behaviour or the surrounding culture).
Surely by this rule, a truly authentic person or culture is one which entirely static. I wouldn't call that authentic at all, I'd call that dead. Or if I'm not being sarcastic, set in their ways, nobody is like that, and no society has ever been.
right, people like YT, Collie Budz, Gentleman, etc, etc, etc, etc, should be locked up.
No, I'm sorry. White rastas are wrong and should be criminalised. You can trot out as many arguments to the contrary, produce as many sociological examples as you like. But Spiral Tribe / Back To The Planet fucked it up for all 'white rastas' in 1992 and there's no point of return, ever.
Hey man, it wasn't me who broght sociology into it. Hate Spiral Tribe all you want, but I'm arguing against the possibility of sociological explanations for your personal likes and dislikes.
I'm - very clearly - not saying that. I am saying that there is no universal law of authenticity that allows you or anyone else to sit around determining in the abstract on what is and isn't acceptable. I am saying you have to use your best judgment & common sense based on the context of each situation, & indeed, sometimes it will be very clear whether something is or isn't right. sometimes it won't be so clear. I am also saying that you run into trouble very quickly when you start trying to synthesize vague absolutes about "power relations" & so on.
so you're defending - but not speaking for - hypothetical minority groups who may or may not feel the same way you do about who is and is not allowed to, depending on the pov, usurp/venerate pieces of their cultures? that it, pretty much? cos I'm not sure how it's different from every other middle-class white guy (not excluding myself) telling mostly other middle-class white guys, on the behalf of non-middle class white people, what is & isn't cool. albeit a version dressed up w/a bit of garbled sociology - as opposed to sneering hipster condescension or whatever - & run through a p.c. wringer.
Anyways, I think the key question is - why does most (not all, obv) inauthentic behaviour (again, talking from real life experience, not in the abstract) involve, for example, white people trying to ape the stereotype of black people's style, and not vice versa? If there was true miscegenation of culture, I think that would be cool- but there quite clearly isn't. Most of it runs in one direction.
Most of it runs in one direction.
Just seen this comment - yes!Hey man, it wasn't me who broght sociology into it. Hate Spiral Tribe all you want, but I'm arguing against the possibility of sociological explanations for your personal likes and dislikes.