On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:58 PM, Kẏra <k...@freeculture.org> wrote:
> What, then, is the substantive difference between ‘remix’ culture and > either fan fiction or hip hop? What do the remix/free movements gain from > presenting their values and practices in an ahistorical and revolutionary > fashion? What could the movement gain by locating it in a larger historical > context? > -- > http://satifice.com/octofice/2013/07/17/free-culture-fanfiction-and-publishing-elitism/ > > I don't like the setup of these questions. To give them some benefit of the doubt, I could reframe them as: What aspects of our movement are fundamental universal principles? What aspects of our movement are specifically related to our particular historical and cultural context? I'm not sure we're gaining much from my re-framing though. There is a problematic straw-man here. That blog post from Satifice.com levies a whole bunch of over-the-top claims. It's one thing to point out that the film about Remix being focused on a white male was severely distracting to this critical viewer. That certainly is helpful consciousness-raising to bring that up. It's something else entirely to jump to accusations about the biases or insensitivities of the filmmaker. I happened to find the particular choice of Girl Talk in the film to be sort of odd, but I assumed it was because the filmmaker might have happened to be friends with the artist, and so it was a matter of convenience. That the filmmaker, a white male, is friends with another white male is not purely arbitrary. But the film is a reflection of the reality of race and culture, not a claim about it. I see no reason at all *not* to give the benefit-of-the-doubt that the filmmaker fully celebrates the whole history of hip-hop. There's no evidence of a conscious decision to omit any cultural history, only evidence of the lack of conscientiousness. I think what I'm saying is: a valid argument could be that the filmmaker didn't do his due diligence in respectfully framing the cultural issues. That's different from accusing the film of having some racial agenda or anything. Anyway, the real history of all this is a complex one in which there has never in modern times really existed entirely distinct African American vs white cultures. That entire segregated division is an artificial corporate pop culture invention. See http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=12782 As for the mention of fan fiction, again, we need to step back. In my own writings and discussion of Free Culture, I rarely mention fan fiction. Is this because I am ahistorical or dismissing its significance? Here's the truth: I know almost nothing about fan fiction. I am not engaged in it, know few people who are, and I'm not even a fan of almost any of the initial inspired fiction. I have basically seen no Star Trek anything, none of the other TV shows or books or comics or anything that many fan fiction communities apparently connect to. I'm not saying this is good or bad, it's just the case. Personally, I don't even care about Remix or Fan Fiction culture per se. All I care about is *culture.* I don't appreciate any distinction between *culture* and *remix culture*. I do care about the difference between performative and participative cultures. I prefer the latter. I'd rather a world where we are all equally engaged rather than the spectacle with performer/audience dichotomy. > We can see that, especially in the rhetoric of the F/OSS community, that > there is an explicit resistance proprietary and capitalist ways of > organizing labour, and yet very little discussion about resisting implicit > or subtle sites of power. And the result is not only a gender gap, but a > race gap, ability gap, class gap, etc. > Actually, in the whole FLOSS world, there's a surprising amount of capitalist apologetics. Anyway, for better or worse, the FLOSS movements choose a focus on the software / technology issues, which is different from being a generalized *freedom movement*. I would like to see a broader emphasis on freedom and economic democracy in general and for everyone working for those things to embrace FLOSS. Yet once we narrow the scope to the issue of FLOSS itself, there is no race gap / gender gap in the software itself. The culture of FLOSS is a meta-issue, and a very serious one with serious issues, but the software doesn't discriminate by race or gender (it does in some cases by ability and class given the demands and complexity of using the software). So if the bigger question is: should the FLOSS movement become more of a general freedom / economic-democracy movement? Well, I support that. This can be a tactical decision though. If the question instead is: must the FLOSS movement work harder to address internal problems of discrimination and power and minority enfranchisement? Absolutely! But that not directly related to FLOSS, it's just something every movement ever should always grapple with because it matters. If a raw-food movement was segregated or overly dominated by particular intersection of people, it should work to address that just because every movement should work to be inclusive. More starkly, we can see how an explicit disavowel of one type of > capitalist organization of labour simply does nothing to address the > fundamental issues of the distribution of wealth. > > Depressingly, this means that the F/OSS community and the way that it > embodies and practices its values of ‘open’ and ‘free’ serves not as a > resistance to the dominate (and oppressive) forms of organization and > institutions, but as simply a different, perhaps more subtle, instantiation > of context in which it was created. > -- http://satifice.com/octofice/2013/07/02/tyranny-of-open/ > > It seems to me that all of this is actually about the divide between the uber-individualistic anarcho-capitalist side of FLO supporters and the more, well, I'm not thinking of a good label for the other side here. I don't think it makes sense to focus on FLO stuff as a tool of oppression. More simply, the issue is just that claims of FLO automatically leading to a more just society are nonsense. The issues of equity and democracy must be addressed alongside FLO, as they do not automatically come hand-in-hand. When FLO reinforces inequities, it is not because of FLO as a tool for inequity; the problem is due to the lack of attention to the other things that must be done to promote equity and inclusion. So, yes, we need to both reject the assertions from some that FLO automatically includes these idealistic virtues, and we must push to include them alongside FLO movements. FLO is a tool, a piece within a larger movement for social progress and equality. Obviously, that does not automatically stop FLO from being a good tool for many people who do not otherwise support this broader movement. We must be tactful about the extent to which we welcome and ally with those who promote FLO for other reasons (or for no bigger reasons). > The thing about symbols and other cultural elements often targetted for > appropriation, is that absolutely *no one* is ever asserting that these > symbols or elements are owned by any specific individual. Indeed, this is > encoded in the term ‘cultural appropriation’ itself. What is actually at > issue here is how we understand ‘free culture’ in an inter-cultural > context. Or, in other words, how we can understand the priciples of ‘free > culture’ as applied to what we might call ‘collective property’? > > -- http://satifice.com/octofice/2013/10/24/free-cultural-appropriation/ > A bit simplistic, but on the topic of appropriation: http://mimiandeunice.com/2011/08/12/appropriated/ Really, the article linked above is excellent. The problems, as I see it, are less actually about cultural appropriation, however, as about brands, corporations, and colonization. The problem with fighting against cultural appropriation otherwise is that it may simply be a question of picking our battles. We will never achieve a perfect world. There are fundamental issues within humanity that make us group-centric, species-centric, self-centered, etc. just as there are ways that we are compassionate, loving, and reflective. We aren't going to eliminate all the problems, so we need to stick to managing them. Cultural appropriation is primarily a problem with situations with imbalances of power. Let's work to address the power imbalances and toward economic democracy. Go ahead and point out troubling appropriation where it happens, but a war on cultural appropriation isn't going to succeed. I'm not trying to belittle the concerns nor discourage anyone from bringing them up when they are relevant. I want a world where we all constantly help one another to be sensitive to these issues. I just want a pragmatic movement too, one that has ideals but not dogma. I want us to make real progress and pick our battles. Nothing is black and white. Cultural appropriation, as mentioned in the article, can range from intentionally aggressive to very respectful and endorsed. Let's keep the topic included as something we should always be considering. Let's not make hard dichotomies or straw men or apply hard dichotomies about things. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, etc. Cheers, Aaron Snowdrift.coop -- Aaron Wolf wolftune.com
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