IndieAgora

Mostly Americans seem to go around attacking and accusing people of various things, a constant campaign of shaming and silencing others, and one of the way one hapf of such accusative troupes functions is by making accusations of cultural appropriation or racism, yet in doing so they gatekeep and restrict the transmission, growth, and popularity of certain near-extinct and at risk collections of cultural information from being further popularized, while insidious things considered Western like political ideologies with a European history or historical groups considered Western or "White" and European are allowed to be the property for royalty free and stigma free use by anyone and everyone, making the transmission of those things exclusively more free to transmit and influence and continue to survive. Having to explain this repeatedly to accusing barking dogs also puts those trying to promote or spread anything else a more difficult and obstructed process that has extra steps involved or else the shame brigades, who are ultimately working in favor of the cause of evil and ignorance whether they know it or not and have good intentions or not, are doing far more damage to every minority group and keeping in place Western Ideological Domination which is ultimately only a recent thing anyway.


Another way that certain people damage and stifle cultural groups from gaining much attention or being of any use to people so that they might be more appreciated and promoted is by claiming a respectful accuracy and creating systems with insane learning curves required for transmission, extremely limiting how far any of these things eould ever be able to spread among the populace, and again it is destructive and evil, and most sides are working in the cause of such things which only strengthen the status quo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squamish_language

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/leas ... s-on-earth

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_ ... _languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_ ... _languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_shift

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_attrition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_revitalization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_assimilation

There is aldo "culture death", like how in a pretty short period of time certain cultural norms can become obsolete, like a lamguage or certain words:

"
During language loss—sometimes referred to as obsolescence in the linguistic literature—the language that is being lost generally undergoes changes as speakers make their language more similar to the language to which they are shifting. This process of change has been described by Appel (1983) in two categories, though they are not mutually exclusive. Often speakers replace elements of their own language with something from the language they are shifting toward. Also, if their heritage language has an element that the new language does not, speakers may drop it.
"

https://www.theculturecrypt.com/posts/t ... st-century

"


Subcultures are increasingly distilled into mere aesthetics, stripped of their deeper cultural and ideological significance. Reductionism has meant that these rich, vibrant communities are transformed into easily consumable Pinterest boards focused solely on appearance. The essence of subcultures historically represented profound social and political statements but now are often overshadowed by the superficial need to fit the part visually. This trend is evident in how people curate their Instagram feeds, emphasising the look over the lifestyle and values these subcultures once embodied.

This superficiality breeds constant debates about what truly constitutes membership in these communities. For example, the punk scene and emo subcultures were originally rooted in a rejection of mainstream norms and a commitment to authenticity.

However, in today's current social media-driven landscape, these movements are frequently reduced to mere fashion choices devoid of their original rebellious spirit. The commodification of subcultures diminishes their historical and cultural significance and fosters a sense of inauthenticity among participants. What was once a profound expression of identity and values is now a checklist of visual markers to be displayed online.

An "aesthetic" is what happens when capitalism gets to a subculture. Take Goth or Punk, for example, prolific subcultures with a deep, rich history of countercultural movements that are about DIY and thrifting and being anti-capitalist and anti-consumerism. It wasn’t simply dressing in punk or goth; you had to be punk or goth through and through.

This meant immersing yourself in the music, actively participating in the community, and genuinely believing in the ideology. However, with the rise of fast fashion companies like Shein, which fundamentally oppose the anti-consumerist values of these subcultures, they are now selling "punk" and "goth" clothes. This creates a disconnect where people justify their purchases by claiming that Shein is the only place to find punk clothes that are completely detached from what the subculture truly represents. They see it merely as an aesthetic.

“Young people today don’t identify with music in the same way teenagers from the 1940s to the 1990s did. Their main influence used to come from art and musical movements because those were the teenage forms of expression, but not anymore. Teenagers still listen to music—they go clubbing more than ever—but the music doesn’t play the same role in their lives as it used to in ours [the late 1980s]. That role has been filled be video games, social media, film franchises.”

— Jon Lilley

The reason aesthetics exist is simply to sell you things, stripping subcultures down to their shallowest, most basic elements and repackaging them, making it easier to sell trendy items.

Aesthetics have expanded beyond fashion into how we decorate our homes, live our lives, and even the foods and drinks we consume. This is how fast fashion brands sell a lifestyle. Shein models adorned in Coquette outfits in Coquette-themed rooms, selling the idea that buying a Coquette skirt will transform you into the idealised version of yourself. However, upon purchase, you find that you haven't transformed; you're still the same person with just another skirt in your closet. This is the essence of marketing: convincing you that an aesthetic will change your life, even though it's just another way to sell you more products.

When TikTok first began significantly influencing fashion in 2020, publications were quick to label the app's niche aesthetic trends as subcultures. This might be because early TikTok aesthetics like “Cottagecore” and “Earthy” which seemed to offer a more encompassing lifestyle and community beyond just fashion. Trends such as these spoke more to the historical definition of subculture, rooted in elements deeper than aesthetics—such as shared values, social and political ideas, community, and artistic practices like music.
"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog ... atekeepers

https://themedium.ca/cultural-gatekeepi ... opriation/

It certainly is more dangerous and destructive, favoring whatever gets the international pass and isn't shamed the way people would be cslled names if they tried to adopt or promote something from China or Japan, then the people start insulting and trying to condemn the people while anyone can talk about Plato or Marx without getting slapped around as much for it. This is keeping lots of information from reaching lots of people who are shy to promote it even further if they ever even hear about it or see a translation, and the difficulties in translating things is another way in which people from one very large culture can't get the news of another, because of the learning curve involved and things not fjnding translators or attention and all the "specialization", making materials very expendive for certain topics and limiting thrir range and very prevalent and easy to access and afford for other topics. It is a war in many ways to keep a tiny group of people proven to be pretty vile and wicked on top of all kinds of ancient cultures and keeping away knowledge and any sense of pride too, so that "white people" in general can associate themselves with made up vikings, but no one can be Indian or Chinese. Islam is the biggest cultural threat when it, like Christianity, is opened to all to imagine themselves as one, so that image then is sullied with oropaganda, dullness, and every effort to say "you don't want to be like that or those people, look how silly they look or ugly they are compared to these cool fantasy things that are much more specifically Western European".

This has totally afflicted the people even if they don't realize or think themselves sympathetic to "others", and it has reached one of the most extreme points in modern history, though there were other times where people were condemned for certain associations and badically threatened into only speaking approvingly of whatever the dominant authorities wanted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-25127293

One last test

[quote]atreestump wrote:
One last test[/quote]

I got an email.

Congratulations! Is there a way to make the automatic setting for me not to receive emails since I post so much? I don't want my Artis inbox totally filled up with an email for each of my numerous posts.

Even though I thought I had turned off any kind of targeted advertising and videos coming up based on prior views or searches, YouTube seems to be sending me things they must think I want to see anyway, and I was very disturbed and irritated by the various modern people applying modern approaches based on Catholicism really and Wicca or whatever to Greek stuff and talking about understanding various deities, educating people on that, in many cases being made to look pretty extreme by what I'd imagine were pretty conservative Greek standards, like I don't think that these people really understand what those people were probably like, and have instead created a fantasy version of them and their religion and the deities that are all like these modern people and modern sentiments. It seemed disrespectful and wrong. It is also weird that all that came up eithout my looking for anything like that at all, but I had been thinking about it, and most specifically how the people don't understand now or care, and how they make anything I may be particular to, like Hera, out to be a depressed drunk and a villain, and would not understand or want to accept the association between Hera and abiding by reciprocal rules of respect, fairness, obligation, duty, all these things that they really seem to scoff at in modern times with the promotion of extreme, even callous and brutal selfishness and irresponsibility, often called narcissism in popular speech. I perceive what they say to be blasphemous, like if they were to try to take Islam and defy everything about Islam as described from the Qur'an but insist that some insulting version of God is what it is all about and that their extreme appearances and modern ideas and sentiments are actually the correct ones, based on nothing, and they are going to educate people and lecture on the matter. The religions I like and take seriously, I consider personal and treat as real in my own ways, but what I sense is especially lacking as a foundation with such people as I'm describing is any sort of respect, like these people seem to not even like their own immediate family and recent ancestors or the way things were even just a few years ago, and domehow they think that going way back the people were even more disrespectful about such things? It was totally opposite. There is so much emphasis, perhaps missed by modern readers, about respect, the whole culture, and just about sll old cultures, were about respect. The modern "State" seems to benefit from separating people from the familial hierarchies and instead like to make people feel that the only thing to be respected are often insane seeming modern rules of constantly changing laws enforced by strangers and non-kin through their inflicting various forms of suffering on people. The "State" virus had tried to creep into various societies in the past and like how some viruses replicate and replace or re-encode DNA and RNA or whatever it does, it tries to replace the Natural Laws of who comes first, respect, all those things built into us from early on, pretty much automatically.

Another thing I wanted to discuss briefly is all the conflicts going on currently in the world with one and another "versus":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_o ... _conflicts

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker

Generally none of the "sides" are ever really "good guys" truly for the people, since they are all just struggling to be in control and to impose things on ordinary and naturally free people, the general public being the "good guys" as compared to various power hungry organizations which are typically in the minority made up of a small elite group of people who want to exclusively bother people who could really care less overall and just want to live good, peaceful, safe lives with smooth transactions and easy survival.

Though, I tend to be against any of the "Great Powers" or people with close or supportive ties to mass m*rdering and genek*ller groups, which makes it easy for me to see which groups I'd lean towards over others, though ideally I'd abolish them all along with their control freak leaders and their weaponry used against innocent unarmed civilians in maybe most cases now. I'm not against weaponry and training for people yo defend themselves when others are using the same for harm, but I am definitely against groups having advanced means and training to inflict harm on people who scarcely stand a chance, even if they too are armed, snd modern weaponry is more terrifying than ever before and leaves people horrifically mutilated or dead and is instantaneous and so brutal, so I really hate weapons but I think psychopaths being the only ones wielding thrm against a detoothed public and shooting ducks in a barrel and stealing candy from babies is all far eorse and that is exactly how things are and are moving further in that direction.

They have recently passed things in places where they are monitoring what people say on the streets, and uding face recognition technologies, and no doubt they are listening fot anyone saying certain words related to the current mass murderers who are the freaks getting all these dystopian control measures passed through as quickly and often quietly as possible, so as not to be obstructed, so that just like saying Voldemort would trigger a response in Harry Potter, saying one of the trigger words in earshot of one of the devices on the streets will send an alert flag, as they are using A.I. also to parse the different voices and to pick up on words. It is vile and I would hope the public does everything that thry can to render such things incapable of invading their privacy, freedom, and rights.

Why I am mentioning all this here, is that each one of these things that I've mentioned above has to do with identity and profiles and profiling, the things that make up some version of who at least another may think we are specifically and based on differences. That is contrasted by how I was jumbling up populations of most people from the past and most ordinary people, as I think that similarities are likely more common than differences, but people who are knowingly or unknowingly working to propagate the "State" virus may actually work to heighten differences and separation to isolate themselves but more importantly others from any sort of solidarity, kinship, and association, so that the isolated individuals are more likely to need to rely on other organizations, especially a Super-Organization like "The State". It isn't so simple always as people may think, since it comes in at least two directions, of trying to swallow everything up, and to break things apart into such particulate that it is unable to achieve anything against it in an atomized condition of total individuality and in actuality alienation.