Why Culture Matters
Liberals are obsessed with "cultural appropriation" nowadays. But what would a materialist account of the phenomenon look like?
Sun Records Studio, where Elvis Presley got his break into the music industry, was also home to blues artists Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Parker, Little Milton, and B.B. King, among others.Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress
New York Times op-ed columnist Bari Weiss recently decried what she calls the “increasingly strident left” for its “separate-but-equal” rhetoric around the question of cultural appropriation. According to Weiss, “charges of cultural appropriation are being hurled at every corner of American life: the art museum, the restaurant, the movie theater, the fashion show, the novel and, especially, the college campus.”
Cultural appropriation has become a flash point for debate. From sites as ordinary as dining rooms to those as lofty as the opera house, conflict has erupted over perceived power imbalances in cultural exchange. But Weiss seems unaware that the Left is hardly unified on this matter, with debates on cultural appropriation and identity politics perpetually starting feuds and ending friendships.
Weiss, however, flattens any dialogue over the subject into nonexistence:
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