[ SECRET POST #5854 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5854 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #838.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

there is a big difference when it's white cultures adding stuff to their own mythology, entirely another when it's a white group talking over a non-white and historically margianised group by said white people. pretending that they're the same thing is incredibly stupid.

[(Anonymous)]

But surely the question is whether there's anything threatening and harmful about adding things to mythology and fictionalizing mythology and religion in the first place. In my view there really is not. The whole thing just isn't a problem.

Now obviously, if people have set out their preferences, you should respect those preferences. But that doesn't mean you have to agree that those preferences are reasonable or legitimate in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000000

[(Anonymous)]

IMO that first requires actually understanding what the group making the request feels is being harmed. The privileged group that's doing the taking doesn't get to make the call about what is and isn't harmful.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you should respect peoples' preferences on stuff like this as much as you can. So, if they think certain things are harmful, I'll obviously respect that and follow their wishes. But I don't agree that it's disrespectful or offensive to religion to tell stories based on religious or mythological characters and themes.

[(Anonymous)]

"As much as you can" -- are you being forced to write about a traumatized peoples' cultural beliefs?

In general, sure, ideas are for sharing. But some, like the one in the image secret, are not, by specific request of the culture it comes from. So are you respecting their wishes or not?

[feotakahari]

A): this entire discourse about “white” and “non-white” gets so much dumber when you see some of the shit Japanese video game developers make up about other cultures. I think trying to salvage the division by determining when Japanese games are punching up vs. when they’re punching down is an unholy mess compared to just throwing the whole thing out.

B): It’s not cultures making things up, it’s people, and it’s not cultures responding, it’s people. I’m still not clear on what the impact is supposed to be on people. It’s like when something is supposed to be “bad for the Democratic Party”—okay, but the Democratic Party isn’t a person, so what will it actually do?

I get the feeling someone is going to say I’m “being obtuse on purpose,” and I promise you, I will NEVER be less than genuine in my obtuseness. I honestly don’t get what this is supposed to damage.

[(Anonymous)]

Native American people are actively and constantly being hurt by people trampling all over their culture--it results in their actual human rights and recognition as a separate culture. This isn't some vague-ass concept like a political system, this is a multicultural civilization still fighting against continent-wide genocide.

[(Anonymous)]

It risks the same effect as when Christians, in order to spread their religion, would reinterpret local deities and mythologies to become more Christian-aligned. Deities and heroes would be made comparable with saints, myths would be retold so that there would be convenient Satan, Jesus and God analogies, and slowly their versions became the only versions. The originals were lost as fewer people told them, with the fundamental concepts and original cultures disappearing.

You could also compare it to how characters can end up with a canon characterisation and a fandom characterisation. Someone woobifies a villain, a bunch of people like that better than the canon version, woobifies them further, a few months later and you've got fans trashing the show for totally logical character development that doesn't fit the woobie they invented. Except here they're ignoring the culture that produced the story and tearing apart what's left of people's heritage after colonisation took a great big whack at it.

Or at least, that's how I interpret it.

(I'm only ignoring point A because yes, you are completely right.)

[(Anonymous)]

It risks the same effect as when Christians, in order to spread their religion, would reinterpret local deities and mythologies to become more Christian-aligned. Deities and heroes would be made comparable with saints, myths would be retold so that there would be convenient Satan, Jesus and God analogies, and slowly their versions became the only versions. The originals were lost as fewer people told them, with the fundamental concepts and original cultures disappearing.


This. Not all cultural exchange or interpretation is bad, but if you aren't making a distinction between colonizer and colonized, you're missing a lot of the really important dimensions of the conversation.

A lot of African Diaspora Religions practice syncretism which is how they were able to survive during slavery in the Americas: identifying Yoruba and Dahomey spirits/deities with the Catholic saints they most symbolically resembled, for example. This was a survival strategy, not an attempt to take over Catholicism. They might look superficially similar to what you describe, but they're not the same and people really need to think about this in their work. What's the power dynamic?

[(Anonymous)]

Re point A: I think it's safe to say that on the world stage, there are definitely certain things that Japan can and does punch down about (a lot, actually) that we can acknowledge are shitty while also acknowledging that other cultures punching down is shitty.

[(Anonymous)]

But usually it's Americans adding to other cultures, which is not the same thing at all. White is not a homogeneous culture.