Bri­an Dray­ton looks at the effects of syn­cretism, dilu­tion, and cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion on the Quak­er movement.

At first blush, such a process might be cel­e­brat­ed as a process of enrich­ment: Quak­erism ver­sion 1 turns into Quak­erism v2, now new and bet­ter because it has bells or out­ward sacra­ments or what-have-you. But note that this kind of change is not just a mat­ter of sim­ple addi­tion, because ele­ments drawn from var­i­ous oth­er tra­di­tions are them­selves embed­ded deeply in some cul­ture, and so they are clothed round with mean­ings and nuances that are implic­it­ly adopt­ed along with the idea or prac­tice that has been explic­it­ly imported.

Love, judg­ment, and the “inner crit­ic”, pt. 2b: Syn­cretism, dilu­tion, and the draw­backs of cul­tur­al appropriation