Cultural appropriation is a wonderful thing. In my country we now have pizza's from Italy, durum from Turkey, fries from France and Belgium, mashed potatoes from The Netherlands and the past 50 years or so multi-culturalism has been celebrated and we all wanted to copy things from each other's cultures and try it all out and see what we thought of it. And yes: flags are burning. Symbolisms are improperly used. And statues are peed on. Shameful! But also keeping things in perspective.
Most of it's great.
I guess appropriation hints at the people whose culture has been shared, wanting to see something in return? Do they want money? A thank-you note? Don't be so stingy with culture. It's all intermingling anyway. It's like trying to hold on to water. What are you doing? That will never work. We have Turkish, Moroccan, Egyptian, Surinamese, South-African, Belgian people living in this street. They all take things with them from their home countries. I learned about Russian tea a couple weeks ago from a Russian lady. She was happy to share. Was that cultural appropriation? Are the Russians going to be angry now? At me? At the lady? At both? Their customs are being seen and copied and edited by other cultures. And there's nothing we can do about it. That's what happens when you have people from different cultures living together. This world is becoming smaller by the day. Tomorrow we'll be living on each other's backs.
It's pointless bickering.
The only argument I can find that sounds robust is that there is the fear of cultures disappearing. And that could be a shame. That could be something we want to preserve. But other than that, I see no reason to be so precious with our cultures. And cultures change over time. We'll constantly lose and gain things. All cultures changed dramatically over time. New regimes rose. Art went through periods. Techniques were discovered. None of it is static. I guess that's scary. What do you hold on to? You hold on to your principles. Your intentions. You want the best for people. That's what you hold on to. Because that will never have to change. That's something solid you can hold on to, to remind you of who you are. You don't need anything else to hold on to. Let the world flow.
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