In the News

[dubsartur]

There was a lot of coverage lined up in Canada in places like the CBC and Macleans even though we have our own crises.  Journalists write those in advance with blanks to fill in when the celebrity actually dies, but it was a lot of coverage.

When we build a monument to this pandemic, I think it should be to a poorly-paid worker who died because the government refused to pay enough so that they could stay home for three weeks and still feed their children and elderly parents.

[Jubal]

Someone has tried to assassinate Salman Rushdie, which is to say the least horrifying.

[Jubal]

I thought this piece of general reflections about Japan as a society was interesting:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63830490

Particularly the balances around social conservatism there: I think westerners of my generation still think of Japan as a bit of a futuristic, pop-culture iconic country. The idea of Japanese robotics and the arrival of anime culture were big things when I was little in the UK. But that has stagnated... and I'm not as convinced as the author that change involves the abandonment of tradition, because traditions that stagnate don't become more precious and preserved, they become dead. Traditions that survive should change and be exchanged, that's the natural way human culture evolves over time.

I sort of wish my news diet had more of these medium-depth dives and reflective pieces in it that help one get a sense of overall issues, not necessarily from a totally detached perspective, but from people decent at mixing on-the-ground coverage with seeing a bigger picture.

[dubsartur]

I'm not as convinced as the author that change involves the abandonment of tradition, because traditions that stagnate don't become more precious and preserved, they become dead. Traditions that survive should change and be exchanged, that's the natural way human culture evolves over time.

I noticed loud and confident people online ten years ago throwing around the term "appropriation" with a deep misunderstanding of how culture works.  Cultures borrow, and as they borrow things they adapt them.  The only thing rude is if they start to claim that their version is the true and authentic one and fail to acknowledge the inspiration (or if they borrow something they are being specifically asked not to borrow: I think the Navaho have said "do not copy old Navaho art with swatzikas on it").  That overlaps with the trope of the white person being a better Black person or indigenous person than the actual blacks and indigenes, as seen in Avatar, blackface minstrel shows, armed Americans dressing in war paint, et depressing cetera.

But social media culture is stupid, aggressively confident, and all about soundbites (and stupidity makes great soundbites).

[Jubal]

Yes, I think there are numerous very real problems being described with the cultural appropriation term, but it was/is a probably not a very intuitive term to describe what people really wanted to discuss that was cultural harm and the problems caused when one group of people, as you say, are rewarded for taking and using cultural symbols that people from the culture that created them are effectively punished for using and displaying. I think it may require more than just acknowledgement to redress that balance: sometimes it may require avoiding using a symbol that has been misused too often too recently, or may require providing material support to cultural groups that originated certain ideas, or working out collaborations, it depends very much on the specific cases and projects. But I don't think there's any future to be had in deciding that symbols, traditions and ideas are to be treated as simple property items and/or preserved in concrete or museum-glass forever.

[dubsartur]

Yes, I edited the OP and added the example of "if the Navaho say please don't make Navaho-style art with swastikas, a polite person listens."

I think you are implying the connection with the idea that states have claim to everything found on their territory (so eg. the state of France claims the right to prevent the exports of a painting by a medieval Florentine with no known connection to the kingdom of France, or the state of Turkey claims rights to things made by ancient Ionians and Dorians and Luwians thousands of years before there were any Turks on Turkish soil).

Another thing that does not do well on the Internet is the difference between "actions which can reasonably end friendly relations between two people" and "actions which the surrounding society should intervene to punish."  If someone publishes a sacred story which the person who told it did not want shared, that's not something that the state or strangers should interfere with, but its definitely something which could reasonably end the relationship between teacher and student. 

[Pentagathus]

or the state of Turkey claims rights to things made by ancient Ionians and Dorians and Luwians thousands of years before there were any Turks on Turkish soil

Well tbf, who else would?

[Jubal]

If someone publishes a sacred story which the person who told it did not want shared, that's not something that the state or strangers should interfere with, but its definitely something which could reasonably end the relationship between teacher and student. 

I think I agree it's not something the state should interfere with, but I think consent over information given is pretty vital in humanities research (assuming that's the framework we're in here). So I don't think this particular example is necessarily solely between those two people - it could validly also be a matter for an employer, in that IMV republishing anything you were told with the understanding that you wouldn't publish it is very bad data ethics. That's prima facie a harm to the person whose material was published without consent and can reflect on and be an issue for institutions and other researchers (if everyone knows my institution employs people who publish culturally sensitive material without consent, that could impede my ability to get the trust and agreements I need to do my own fieldwork). This doesn't necessarily mean firing people or anything, depending on the exact details of the case, but I think there is a valid space for ethical standards to be upheld by professional bodies formally even in some areas that wouldn't merit state intervention. But I agree with the overall point that there are different appropriate levels and responses and the internet often flattens them out.

Regarding Turkey etc: I think Pentagathus sort of has a point, in that I think all governments ought to have a responsibility for antiquities in the area they administer... but the moral claims made on them are awkward in the frame of states that understand themselves in very ethnic-nationalist ways (which is to say, most states). A lot of Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Georgians, etc might dispute the idea that pre-Turk Anatolia can be lumped into "the history of Turkey" in a neat way, precisely because Turkey very much acts not just as a state that embraces all those pasts but as one that is the state of Turks to the exclusion of other peoples in the region.

[dubsartur]

The case I was thinking was one in which a thinky talky blogger was known for using race-and-IQ language and having people like Steve Sailer in his comments section and blogroll.  When this came to the attention of the Old Media, and the blogger's friends were angrily denying that he had anything to do with scientific racism and just had a liberal comments policy, a former Internet acquaintance of the blogger shared a long email where the blogger tried to convert him to neoreaction (a group of understimulated far rightists who spend a lot of time on the Internet and social media) and 'human biodiversity' (sic).  The blogger had asked that the email not be shared (but asked in the same email where he tried to convert the acquaintance).

[dubsartur]

Well tbf, who else would?

There are lots of people from outside the region who do Mediterranean archaeology and Precolumbian archaeology of complex societies.  The history of this is tied up with colonialism, but it also means that a lot more interesting archaeology is done in Greece than say Sweden, because not just local but foreign money and labour are available.  Distributing less exciting finds around the world also makes them available to more people, provides protection against local disasters or aniconistic violence, and limits the power of any one government to shape how they are studied.

[Pentagathus]

But surely being an archaeologist of a certain culture or are would not give you any rights to relevant archaeological sites or evidence. If artefacts are illegally being removed from Turkish soil then I would imagine Turkey has the rights to them, though I don't really have a clue what the legal situation would be once they've left Turkey. And obviously Turkey is the only state that has the right to decide whether Turkish sites can be excavated. 
If we're talking about artefacts already removed from the area before there were laws on this kind of thing then the legal owners are the legal owners, and legally they have the rights to them. Turkey could claim some kind of inherent or moral rights to them I guess, but it doesn't really mean anything. Still, if we're talking outside of legal rights then I don't see who else could claim to have a right to them.

[Jubal]

I think in strict legal terms that's all correct. Morally I think there is a bit more complexity, especially when it comes to states who actively want to erase parts of their historical culture - see for example Azerbaijan which has been very programmatically destroying historica Armenian sites, artefacts, and monuments on its territory, or China which has demolished quite a few medieval mosques as part of a pretty literal culture war against the Uyghurs.

I guess in the imaginary world where we had proper international courts that could overrule states and determine cases about cultural heritage I would not have a problem with a possible legal defence (under some kind of international law) of "I removed these things because there was a clear, present, well documented threat to their preservation from the state which nominally has a legal claim to them". Generally I think that defence should be pretty hard to make stick, and I think one should always be extremely cautious about advocating the removal of antiquities for their preservation or you end up with western European museums nicking the whole world's heritage again. But I don't think it's always invalid to consider that heritage may need protecting from states as much as protecting by states.

[Pentagathus]

Yes, but also in that case there's at least a state and a still existing ethnic identity which clearly seems to have some valid claim on them - Armenia and Armenians. Whilst with Turkey, I don't see who else could make a claim. AFAIK there's no modern people who can really claim cultural or hereditary continuity with these ancient peoples. I don't know very much about the history of population transfers during Turkish conquest and Ottoman rule, but I would imagine that the current native population has at least as much native ancient ancestry as modern Greeks for example.

[Jubal]

Mass protests against the new "foreign agent law" in Georgia:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64882475

I doubt they'll work, I'm terribly sad about this: it really does seem that Georgia is on a path to rapidly cut itself off from Europe.

I did a longer write-up at: https://thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com/2023/03/08/georgian-nightmare-the-foreign-agent-bill/

[Jubal]

Protests! Strikes!

Most dramatically currently in Israel which looks like it's rattling towards a general strike & constitutional crisis because it turns out that 50%+1 isn't a sustainable democratic strategy if the other 50%-1 think (correctly) that you're turning their country into an authoritarian monoculture.

Also in India, where Rahul Gandhi (yup, one of those Gandhis) of the Congress party has been arrested for being arguably rude about people called Modi because the BJP are getting increasingly authoritarian these days.

Also in Germany, where public transport strikes over the cost of living are grinding travel to a halt.

Also in France where people have been throwing fireworks at police in protests against the building of a new water reservoir.

The world feels unsettled at the moment: a lot of things feel very in the balance that could make a big difference to how the coming years turn out.