I Am a Big Eric Clapton Fan. Cultural Appropriation is BS

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

How is this even remotely relevant to the topic under discussion? Ham radio operators may have interests in common, but there is absolutely no underlying cultural aspect to those shared interests.

The difference is that Ham Radio is something that came from a certain culture.

The term Cultural isn't what we are really talking about when we talk about appropriation, it is 'emanating from a culture.   There IS a difference.

 

[John Dyson]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Back on the topic of music, and do it cordially, or the thread gets nuked. 

I accept that -- but it is a bias that some how something is TAKEN.   It isn't taken, or Americans would have lost something when someone else uses and adapts one of the genres that came from here, or the British or others from their own styles.   My use of other examples was NOT to make a argument other than to state the obvious -- no one group owns a style or something generated from their culture, like music.

Now, there is a rather new, in vogue, sense that adapting good ideas from a culture is 'stealing' or a lower thing that hurts.   Perhaps the term 'appropriation' is what I disagree with.  Adapting or accepting or perhaps adopting is a better word.   Appropriation is almost like 'taking', but there is no real 'taking'.   In fact, 'appropriation' seems a bit prejudicial, but adopting is more neutral.

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

Anyway, Cultural Appropriation, as it pertains to EC and his music, is BS.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, AudioDoctor said:

EC and his music, is BS

 

I think you've previously said this as well :~)

[AudioDoctor]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I think you've previously said this as well :~)

 

ha. I did make a post earlier in this thread about following the music backwards and it just highlights how BS the idea of appropriation is.

[John Dyson]

36 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Anyway, Cultural Appropriation, as it pertains to EC and his music, is BS.

Maybe, in my clumsy attempt to show analogy, the specifc opinion that you just clearly stated got mixed up with the fuzziness of my examples.   But, I see the matter as being more general, and those who use terms like cultural appropriation, as in appropriating from a given culture is indeed BS.  I think that both are BS, but SOME of those who talk about cultural appropriation as in music seem to forget that there are other IMPORTANT aspects of culture which are adopted.    It seems that the common definition of the term forgets about a lot of other things that are ALSO adopted (not appropriated) from various cultures around the world, including the subsets of American cultures.

 

Appropriation just is BS in a more general sense also.  It should be 'adoption'.

 

ADD-ON:  I believe that the term 'appropriation' as in 'cultural appropriation' is used beyond the simple unbiased idea of acceptance. (per the common/relatively new definition of cultural appropration), and is a political tool.  I really LIKE the term 'adoption'.  Religious matters are indeed different though.

 

[NOMBEDES]

I blame Facebook!

[lucretius]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:38 PM, PeterG said:

You seem to change the discussion repeatedly to something that sidesteps your original assertion that copyright protection on music should lapse after 20 years.  Just to be clear--over the past year I have purchased dozens, maybe over 100, CDs with music over 20 years old.  I would guess that most people on the forum are also paying money, in one way or another, for music that is more than 20 years old. 

 

All of these artists deserve to get paid

 

If we want to nurture amazing creative talents then we must have much shorter copyrights to enable music to be enjoyed and reworked by others. In Shakespeare's time, when there was no protection for copyright at all, writers stole passages and ideas from each other. Today's copyright laws would have suffocated much Elizabethan creativity. Artists who claim that income from records is their pension are deluded. The vast majority of income from records comes immediately after publication. Those who clean up after 50 years are corporations with back catalogues and a tiny number of very successful artists who don't need the money.  Further, the Gowers report published in 2006, an independent review of UK intellectual property focusing on UK copyright law, referred to two independent surveys by economists. One said the correct term to maximize economic welfare was 21 years, almost the same as patents. The second said it should be only seven.

 

[Allan F]

15 hours ago, John Dyson said:

The difference is that Ham Radio is something that came from a certain culture.

The term Cultural isn't what we are really talking about when we talk about appropriation, it is 'emanating from a culture.   There IS a difference.

 

 

Sorry, but In the context of this thread, your replies to both me and @AudioDoctor make absolutely no sense whatsoever. They contribute nothing to the topic under discussion and sadly, IMO, they can be viewed as akin to trolling,

[BigBoreFan]

They say Clapton is God.

 

Maybe he is.

 

 

[garrardguy60]

I apologize if this is off topic, but I just want to say that in 56 years of participating in the world of electronics and audio (i.e., since I was a little kid with a transistor radio in the mid 1960s, through to being an EE and working in the field), I don't think I've ever seen societal contentiousness spill over into a hobbyists forum like this. (Well, ok, maybe when the Beatles publicly criticized the Vietnam war in a press conference, that was a similar Venn diagram overlap of music/politics.)

 

Anyway, my point is NOT to say that this shouldn't happen. It IS to point out that this is a very bad harbinger for where we are as a society. It means this s**t is in our faces in our daily lives 24/7 no matter who we are; where we go; what we read, view or listen to; or what we do. (And likely the last 18 months of covid and the things that have happened during this period have made things much worse.)

 

We are fracturing as a society and it seem there is no way to fix it. (Telling people to get back on point or threatening to nuke the thread may well keep this forum as an "audio-only" [safe?] space, but we can't unsee what we've just seen here. The genie is out of the bottle.) I fear that we are in a bad place, with, as Bob Dylan sang in "Like a Rolling Stone," no direction home.  . .

 

  

[NOMBEDES]

48 minutes ago, garrardguy60 said:

I apologize if this is off topic, but I just want to say that in 56 years of participating in the world of electronics and audio (i.e., since I was a little kid with a transistor radio in the mid 1960s, through to being an EE and working in the field), I don't think I've ever seen societal contentiousness spill over into a hobbyists forum like this. (Well, ok, maybe when the Beatles publicly criticized the Vietnam war in a press conference, that was a similar Venn diagram overlap of music/politics.)

 

Anyway, my point is NOT to say that this shouldn't happen. It IS to point out that this is a very bad harbinger for where we are as a society. It means this s**t is in our faces in our daily lives 24/7 no matter who we are; where we go; what we read, view or listen to; or what we do. (And likely the last 18 months of covid and the things that have happened during this period have made things much worse.)

 

We are fracturing as a society and it seem there is no way to fix it. (Telling people to get back on point or threatening to nuke the thread may well keep this forum as an "audio-only" [safe?] space, but we can't unsee what we've just seen here. The genie is out of the bottle.) I fear that we are in a bad place, with, as Bob Dylan sang in "Like a Rolling Stone," no direction home.  . .

 

  

 

Do not worry.  Most of the members on this thread (aside from the odd ham radio enthusiast) are on the same track.  We want to acknowledge the past artists who gave us so much good music.  We are united in that all artists should receive a fair payment for their art.   We believe that music is a flowing river with many many tributaries.  This river should not be polluted with politics, political correctness or hate.

 

1.  The Rolling Stones have dropped "Brown Sugar" from their current tour.

2.  Adel was criticized for wearing a Jamaica flag top and a some Jamaican hair thingy  to a local celebration (in a neighborhood where she used to live).  Apparently, many locals adapt a Jamaican  costume during this festival .

3.  God forbid that the culture stasi get ahold of ZZ Top for celebrating human trafficking al la "La Grange" (they got some nice girls there!) or an ode to a Mexican cutie, called, may I grasp my pearls,... Puta.

[Josh Mound]

On 10/6/2021 at 12:52 PM, firedog said:

I think Josh's previous point that it matters whether the appropriation is acknowledged or not. 

So Pat Boone - appropriation. Pure rip off for making bucks.

Beatles, Stones, etc.  - no. They more than acknowledged- they actively promoted the artists they admired, which resulted in more sales and greater appreciation for those they "appropriated".

 

Yes, I think the line(s) between appropriation, influence, and homage are very thin. Much of it has to do with acknowledgement, which ties into theft (and, where publishing dollars and record sales are concerned, money).

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

12 hours ago, NOMBEDES said:

I blame Facebook!

 

I think you're on to something.

[Samuel T Cogley]

On 10/6/2021 at 10:26 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Interesting take STC. Thanks for the honest comments. I agree with some and not others, but it’s hard to argue with sentences that say “there will always be a segment of the population.” In a way those are weasel words. No offense meant. 
 

Do you see anyone in this thread who you think is in that segment? Not in a confrontational way, just curious if you see others here in your identified segment that you disagree with. 

 

I think this thread has run its course.  I think it's fairly obvious that the affluent, middle-aged white men demographic is over-represented on this forum, and the overall reaction to my post demonstrates that.

 

I'll say finally that I disagree with the OP: appropriation is NOT BS.

[The Computer Audiophile]

17 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

I think it's fairly obvious that the affluent, middle-aged white men demographic is over-represented on this forum, and the overall reaction to my post demonstrates that.

Wow. You’re prejudging knows no bounds. Of course, only people in your approved demographic can have a valid thought about cultural appropriation. You’re on the slippery slope to separate but equal. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I’ll close out the thread with this video. Those on the ends of the continuum are closer to each other than they might think.