Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
Taking a Stab at Cultural Appropriation
On the morning of 28 October I happened to watch Crystal Greenberg reporting the news via MSNBC. I noticed on a shelf behind her what appeared to be a Roman gladius, a short military sword. The handle seemed in appropriate condition for its age but the blade may have been a wooden or plastic replacement to demonstrate the appearance of the original. I infer that Miss Greenberg has a fondness for studying history and was given or legally purchased this ancient Roman artifact. This speaks well of her varied interests.
However, given the political / cultural disagreements of the past few years the question must now be asked: is this an occasion of cultural appropriation? Can Miss Green document her Roman ancestry in order to possess this artifact legally or at least ethically? Is this gladius a looted artifact that should be returned to the descendants of the long-ago people who manufactured it?
Yes, I'm being snarky. Miss Green appears to be professional and ethical in her reporting, and I very much appreciate her obviously good care of an ancient artifact. Indeed, I am somewhat envious; I would like very much to have a gladius in any condition.
But as St. Thomas More says to the Duke of Norfolk in A Man For All Seasons, "I show you the times." Our country's museums were quite wrong in collecting the remains of First Nations peoples, and although perhaps originally well-intentioned in their displays of clothing, domestic appliances, horse trappings, blankets, and tools it is quite right that now all these things should be return to their proper custodians.
But everything that is
manufactured is the product of a culture or series of cultures, a time, and a
place. Many pocketknives have been excavated among other debris at the Little
Bighorn, evidence of Custer’s soldiers desperately using them to extract the
jammed soft-copper shells from their overheating rifles. The presence of these
knives in an American museum is just right, but what of a pre-historic bone
knife found in a dig in, say, Syria. Whose is it? Who decides? What about a rusty
British army pocketknife plowed up in a field in Belgium? What is the cutoff
date for determining rightful possession, and what are the borders and
boundaries?
Should Turks return
Constantinople (which they were pleased to rename Istanbul) to the Greeks?
Indignant accusations
of cultural appropriation has become a self-destructive fashion reflecting
jealousy and insecurity, and the illogic of the very concept eludes many
people. Eyeglasses, for instance, can be argued as having been invented in
China or one of the Italian states (Italy didn’t exist until the 19th
century) around 1300, and possibly by our busy Romans 2,000 years ago. It does
not thus follow that no one but Chinese or Italians should be permitted to wear
eyeglasses.
Cultures blend; the dialectic of thesis / antithesis / synthesis is what make civilization dynamic. Without the interplay of music, art, science, literature, engineering, medicine, and all the other practices of cultures enriching each other we would decline into a series of isolated museums of unimaginative peoples clinging to a closed loop of non-progress.
I am happy that Miss Greenberg owns an ancient Roman gladius (the length of whose blade might be illegal where she lives). It is because she is not a Roman that she is more empowered to share another culture around the metaphorical table at which we all may feast.
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