User:SolarStorm1859 (lostpwd)/sandbox

Criticism
John McWhorter, a professor at Columbia University, has criticized the concept, arguing that cultural borrowing and cross-fertilization is a generally positive thing, and is something which is usually done out of admiration, and with no intent to harm, the cultures being imitated; he also argued that the specific term "appropriation," which can mean theft, is misleading when applied to something like culture that is not seen by all as a limited resource: unlike appropriating a physical object, others imitating an idea taken from one group's culture don't inherently deprive that originating group of its use.

In 2016, author Lionel Shriver gave a speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival, asserting the right of authors to write from any point of view, including that of characters from cultural backgrounds other than their own – as writers "should be seeking to push beyond the constraining categories into which we have been arbitrarily dropped by birth. If we embrace narrow group-based identities too fiercely, we cling to the very cages in which others would seek to trap us." She also asserted the right of authors from a cultural majority to write in the voice of someone from a cultural minority, attacking the idea that this constitutes unethical "cultural appropriation". Referring to a case in which U.S. college students were facing disciplinary action for wearing sombreros to a 'tequila party', she said "The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you're not supposed to try on other people's hats. Yet that's what we’re paid to do, isn't it? Step into other people's shoes, and try on their hats."

In 2017, Canadian clinical psychologist, author, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto Jordan Peterson stated in a Q&A session from a speech entitled Strengthen the Individual, "The idea of cultural appropriation is nonsense, and that’s that. There’s no difference between cultural appropriation and learning from each other. They’re the same thing. Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s no theft between people; there is. And it doesn’t mean that once you encounter someone else’s ideas, you have an absolute right to those ideas as if they’re your own. But the idea that manifesting some element of another culture in your own behavior is immoral is insane. It’s actually one of the bases of peace."