JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: “CULTURAL APPROPRIATION” AND OTHER MEANINGLESS SLOGANS – A DECAY IN LANGUAGE OR A DECAY IN THINKING?

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

It’s Halloween – time to bring out the ‘cultural appropriation’ scare stories

Please, “cultural appropriation” is a term which would be banned, had we any kind of authority looking after our powerful and beautiful language.

But we don’t have any authority, so a stream of idiocies keeps creeping in, day by day. I’m not against new expressions, but they should mean something.

I suppose the problem is not really grounded in disintegrating language, but in disintegrating thinking of a large number of people from the millennials.

“Cultural appropriation,” like “conspiracy theory,” is one of those expression which work as a form of advertising, words stuck together which seem to have substance at a glance but really carry no more meaning than “gets clothes whiter than white.”

They are suggestive phrases, insinuated into minds by endless repetition, not solid thoughts or ideas at all.