The danger IMO is taking that fact — that it’s hazy and hard to define or exemplify — and deducing from that that it doesn’t exist at all.
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What would it mean to ‘apply it incorrectly’, I wonder?
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I don’t think anyone is talking about laws. If a bunch of people from a particular culture are upset about what you’ve done, and think that what you’ve done is cultural appropriation, and complain about it, is that applying it incorrectly? And if it is, what is the danger?
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I’m saying — again — if members of a particular culture judge that what you’re doing is inappropriately profiting from exploiting their culture, what are they meant to do? Is it that their judgment is invalid (how do we demonstrate that?), or is it that their judgment is valid but they ought not to act on it? That seems rather hard. And if others hear their complaints, agree with them and join in them, is that also an invalid judgment or a wrong behavior?
I confess I don’t know, but I don’t think the whole thing is just some made-up super-‘woke’ behavior. My objection is to the idea that there is no such thing as cultural appropriation; that it’s a made-up offense. That seems clearly wrong to me.
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Even in this case, what is the alternative? Unless we’re willing to say that people can’t object when they think their own culture is being appropriated, then sometimes people are going to object.
To me it’s a bit like claims about racism. Occasionally someone will make a claim about racism that is unjustified, but that doesn’t lead me to say either that there is no racism, or that there is a danger to unjustified complaints that rises to the level of the danger of denying that actual racism exists.
