Is Yoga an Example of Cultural Appropriation?

 

For those readers concerned with the deteriorating global order, a toxic presidential race, or the sputtering world economy, the fact that yoga has now been added to the ever-lengthening list of cultural appropriations may not seem worthy of even a second glance. But news it was, the story broken by the Ottawa Sun last Fall that students at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Students with Disabilities nixed the practice due to concerns over its potential for cultural appropriation. (The classes later resumed.)

Now, for those unfamiliar with the latest strains of campus madness, cultural appropriation is roughly defined as the abduction of various forms of art, food, or general traditions from a minority culture that has experienced oppression or colonization or cultural “genocide” at the hands of our “dominant” Western Society and – lest we forget—without the expressed permission from the aforementioned minority culture. How exactly that permission is to be procured remains somewhat of a mystery, however. (How, for instance, would one secure permission from the Egyptian culture of, say, 5,000 BC? Is there an 800 number?)

Well, if you were previously unfamiliar with all of this, you are hardly alone. But, fortunately for us all, the reconnoiters of multiculturalism are tirelessly manning the conning towers of social justice these days, out scanning the horizon for even the slightest disturbance that might be interpreted as a cultural appropriation. In this they have not been disappointed. Everything from various forms of dress, dance, religion, language, Halloween costumes, legends, food, music, medicines, even canoes have made the ever-expanding list of unacceptable plundering. And who gets to decide exactly what is and is not cultural appropriation? Why, it’s the intellectual wunderkinds at places like the University of Ottawa along with, of course, their academic mentors. Is this nonsense? You bet it is!