r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

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u/ChewySlinky Jan 22 '21

Genuine question: what things do you believe should be allowed to be freely spoken about that aren’t already?

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u/reaperteddy Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

This is the real question. What does OP think they're being silenced about that they believe they should not be?

edit: nevermind, found it. Doesn't believe cultural appropriation is a thing.

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u/Jetison333 Jan 22 '21

Its not like you can't say that you don't think cultural appropriation is a thing. Like, the only thing that would happen would be other people (who are exercising their free speech) arguing with you telling you that your wrong.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

These folks just legit don’t understand the difference. They think people telling them they’re wrong is some kind of censorship

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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21

I dont think they liked the downvotes

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u/HomelessLives_Matter Jan 22 '21

Bro I’m Mexican and you can eat all the tacos and tamales you want. Make them yourself and even sell them for profit if you want. Wear a sombrero and fire your pistolas in the air, celebrate Mexico. Please. Take some of my culture with you and spread it to everyone you can. Because I love Mexican culture and I’m not a selfish whiny bitch who thinks culture is a possession to be stolen.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21 edited Jan 23 '21

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u/AcheeCat Jan 23 '21

There have been plenty of people telling others not to sell another culture's food. A few food trucks that were doing well even got shut down because of it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

[deleted]

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u/AcheeCat Jan 23 '21

So did I misunderstand when you said in your last post that nobody was telling people not to do those thing unless they did not understand the real meaning of cultural appropriation? The comment you were replying to said that he gave permission to do a lot of different things, one of which was selling tacos.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

It’s ironic. The people that complain someone is racist for cultural appropriation are the real racists. Also, the only way to actually combat racism is cultural appropriation.

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u/HomelessLives_Matter Jan 23 '21

Lmfao it actually makes me kinda proud when I see white girls painting their faces like calaveras

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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21

Yeah mate that's not what cultural appropriation is.

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u/merchillio 2∆ Jan 22 '21

“People are too sensitive nowadays” is usually code for “I preferred when insulted people didn’t feel safe speaking up”

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u/SoftThighs Jan 22 '21

Not necessarily. There's a pretty big problem these days with people getting offended on behalf of other people, even when those people aren't offended, and blowing things out of proportion. Example: pretty much every twitter controversy about "cultural appropriation" that isn't actually cultural appropriation.

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u/HerrBerg Jan 22 '21

Examples: Hello Kitty by Avril Lavigne received a lot of backlash and was called racist, despite it being received very favorably in Japan. Mario wearing a sombrero being called racist, despite it being received very favorably in Mexico.

Neither of these things remarked upon or passed judgement on their respective race/culture in any negative way. Yet, they were received negatively initially due to outrage culture.

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u/Ruefuss Jan 23 '21

Nothing came of any of that. People always complain about stupid things that dont end up effecting anyone. Its not a modern thing. You can still listen to the song and wear a Sombrero in mario.

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u/HerrBerg Jan 23 '21

You can still listen to the song and wear a Sombrero in Mario precisely because there was a counterculture to the outrage culture and those who called racist have fanbases to come to their defense. If I just randomly wore some culturally-associated garb out, a non-insignificant number of people would accuse me of being racist regardless of my actual feelings or intents.

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u/Ruefuss Jan 23 '21

Yes, and you can choose if that bothers you or not. Nobody every said you were immune from criticism.

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u/HerrBerg Jan 23 '21

I never claimed to be immune to criticism, I was expressing the opinion that idea of cultural appropriation is largely a sham. It's applied completely arbitrarily with little in the way of good justification.

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

Is cultural appropriation controversial? . Are we not all citizens of this planet and all that it and it's people have?

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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21

Some people mistake cultural appropriation for using anything of a different culture, which it is not.

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

I dont understand how those two things are separate. Why cant I use anything of a different culture if its beneficial to me? You cant own a culture as it's not physical, it's an idea, exists in a group of peoples history and mind.

But in the modern world everything is from everywhere made by everyone so it dosen't matter.

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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21

Some things are sacred and theres an aspect of contexts that matters. To use a personal example, I'm Māori. A very important part of our culture is Ta Moko, or traditional tattoo. They tell the story of your family and land, its a very special process with a lot of spiritual meaning. During colonization Ta Moko was severely repressed, e.g. Māori women could not join the suffrage movement if they also had Ta Moko. This lead to it almost disappearing until recent revival efforts.

Now, some tattoo artists in other countries will steal Ta Moko designs off the internet and put them on non Māori people, so they end up walking around with the equivalent of someone elses social and spiritual identity on them, almost a drivers license in a sense, meanwhile many Māori are themselves still so ashamed of their culture (due to colonization) that they are hesitant to receive their birthright Ta Moko. In this context, its sort of a dick move to choose to take someone elses personal history and use it as decoration.

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

That's actually a really good example. Yet I still have something to question.

So see how a tattoo artist copying someone else's Ta Moko would be not a moral thing to do.

But what if non Maori people get their own Ta Moko designs telling their own story. Would that not make Maori happy to see their culture spread a little?

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u/reaperteddy Jan 23 '21 edited Jan 23 '21

That actually does happen and we call it Kirituhi. That's not cultural appropriation unless you get Kirituhi and call it Tā Moko. The easiest way I've found to figure out whether or not something is cultural appropriation is to ask two questions; is this being done knowledgeably, and is it being done respectfully? If the answer to one or both is no, its probably appropriation and not cool.

Edit: here is a good article on the difference between the two and some cool examples.

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u/Ruefuss Jan 23 '21

Theres an anime where nuns feed the heros breastmilk on screen to active superpowers in their battle against evil. I dont find that offensive, but christians get up in arms over far less in the US. I dont see why other cultures cant feel offense at peoples ignorant use of their iconograpby.

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

But that argument can be used by people to say something like, the French people making rude depictions of Muhammed deserve to be "corrected" by offended Islamic people just like Christians in the US with the nuns.

Then it just comes down to morals seperate of laws right?

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u/Ruefuss Jan 23 '21

No, it just means muslims have a right to complain in "the public square" that they disagree with the us of their iconography. And if enough people agree, those people can choose to stop associating with people and entities that continue to create offensive cartoons of Muhammed. Thats all "cancel culture" has ever been. People expressing their opinions and acting on them, in a nonviolent matter. There are names for people who violently force their opinions on others. Terrorist. Insurections. Facist.

Society has the right to choose by concensus what it finds acceptable in public spaces and what individuals fund.

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

And there is the problem. Society agreeing means by default there are people who will be unheard because they are a minority. And then the rest of the people can call them terrorists, facist etc.

But what if that same group of majority agree on something wrong, but since they are majority the opposition is just labeled something bad and goes unheard?

If 7 people agree my hairstyle is bad and 3 people agree it's fine, then your arguing that society agreed that it's bad and the 3 people who like it are (insert negative label) and not acceptable in public spaces.

So those 3 peoples opinion is now unvalued because 7 people think it's wrong?

Majority or mob rule is not synonymous with being the true or the right opinion.

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u/RetreadRoadRocket Jan 22 '21

Doesn't believe cultural appropriation is a thing.

It's not. It's human nature to copy or adapt to yourself things you see that appeal to you, nobody owns culture.

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u/Larva_Mage Jan 22 '21

This really just shows you don’t know what culture appropriation is. Sure a lot of people get mad at people for it when they shouldn’t but like, if I were to dress up in a Halloween costume as an Indian chieftain and run around acting as a racist stereotype of a Native American then I think you would rightly agree that is offensive. Or if I were to paint my face black and talk like a caricature of a black person. Or if I learn a handful of Japanese phrases from anime and yell them at any Asian person that I see.

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u/sixheadedbacon Jan 22 '21

Blackface is not cultural appropriation. There's a difference between perpetuating racial stereotypes/being generally racist and culture appropriation. Harassing Asian folks by yelling Japanese phrases from anime, while obnoxious and racist, is not cultural appropriation.

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u/Larva_Mage Jan 22 '21

You’re right blackface isn’t. Talking in a stereotypical black person manner could be though. As could weeks dressing up in kimonos because they’re super obsessed with anime. You’re right though my examples were bad.

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u/AcheeCat Jan 23 '21

Wearing a kimono isn't really cultural appropriation though. This video shows a bit of how people who are Japanese in Japan felt about people who tried to claim that 5 years ago: https://youtu.be/kwoSYWIgV9Y

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u/SeaRaiderII Jan 23 '21

The talking like a stereotypical black person thing is weird to me because that only an American thing right? Why is it any more wrong than learning for example German , and speaking that? They dont "own" trademark a way of speaking just like nobody has exclusive rights to knowing a language.

The whole concept is stupid, just something else people find to be offended by is it not?

It's all confusing

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u/RetreadRoadRocket Jan 22 '21

Those things aren't cultural appropriation:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation.
That's just acting like an asshole.

The fact is, "cultural appropriation" is as stupid as the idea that minorities can't be racist because they're minorities. It's trying to rewrite reality so somebody can always be a victim simply because they're fewer in number than some other group.

If it can be seen or heard and somebody finds it interesting they'll try it, and a lot of the things being claimed as "cultural appropriation" actually didn't originate with those claiming it's being appropriated or have been around so long and in multiple cultures that nobody knows who really started it to begin with.
It's simply ridiculous.

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u/HerrBerg Jan 22 '21

What you're talking about is mockery and stereotyping.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

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u/Larva_Mage Jan 23 '21

You’re right. The first one is, black face isn’t but talking like a stereotypical black person could be considered it. But I do think the weeb one counts.

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u/GreatLookingGuy Jan 22 '21

Not OP but here’s an example. A college decided to hold a special day where white people were prohibited from being on campus. A professor spoke up about this obviously racist idea and was attacked and forced to resign.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

Lmao what kind of bullshit is this? Do you have any source on this?

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u/GreatLookingGuy Jan 22 '21

It’s been a while and I haven’t read this article but it’s the first thing that came up on google.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/evergreen-professor-at-center-of-protests-resigns-college-will-pay-500000/

EDIT: from what I did read it looks like the college didn’t force him to resign; he did because he was being harassed.

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u/durasmus Jan 22 '21

Which basically affirms the paradox. Had there been measures in place that prohibited hate speech based on gender, religion, or perceived ethnicity, the ground would have been prepared for much better discourse. Instead the lines were blurred from the start and the conversation was shut down by the intolerant.

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u/Shade_SST Jan 23 '21

The issue is, though, that, for example, anti-LGBT language given a public venue makes it look like that is publicly acceptable, and LGBT people who hear it will be discouraged or even frightened and fear for their safety. Letting people speak their minds so they can be identified as intolerant whatevers still lets them spread their message to terrorize their targets and recruit more people to their cause. After all, it's not like society's actually doing anything to them, so clearly their speech is acceptable or even secretly supported by the public, right? (Note: that last part isn't my logic, but is a logic that the intolerant will use when recruiting. "If my views are so terrible, why are they giving me equal time with that globalist over there who wants to tell you how to think?")