After all, the stuff is nice stuff, right? It really is nice, if you're into diamond-woven ottomans, and Yixing clay tea sets, and Ashanti collapsible baskets. It probably helps if you're a white woman, aged 45-60, with a total household income of $75,000-$150,000, living in an urban or suburban area. But it still seems pretty nice.

And God, the descriptions are really respectful. All these world cultures! With such beautiful things! And think of the mostly female artisans, working in developing countries! The catalog certainly seems to "honor diverse communities," as co-founder and Vice President Amber Chand so succinctly puts it.

Or does it?

In the world of Eziba, it doesn't matter what culture you're from. You may be from India, or the Czech Republic, or Ghana, or the long-dead Chancay culture of Peru, but you exist for one reason only: to make attractive household tsotchkes for Americans.

But what's wrong with that?

We live in a culture where people eat nachos in the morning and, come evening, stuff themselves with Twinkies while staring at Internet pornography. Where we drive big, ugly SUVs slowly over gridlocked highways. Where we barely know how to cook a meal anymore, and it doesn't matter. Where most of us wouldn't recognize a Colombian ceremonial bowl it if were filled with poop and dropped on our heads.

But the problem with Eziba is that after you've bought the ceremonial bowl, you still don't know anything about the ceremony. You don't really know anything about the people who once made the bowl. You have enough information to glibly toss off the nature of the object, and that's it.

A culture has become a decorative flourish.

But what's wrong with that?

In its constant, hand-wringing effort to pay tribute to the beautiful, diverse, special cultures of the world, Eziba has ground them up into a colorful but pasteurized paste. World cultures are drained of their unique attributes and rendered down to a glossy global chic, spread around as fertilizer for the growing of money.

In some of these cultures, warriors used to eat their dead enemies in order to gain strength.

But you're not going to pick that up while shopping on Eziba. If a factoid doesn't inspire you with a Mr. Miyagiesque sense of respectful, adoring wonder and an urge to splurge, it isn't in the catalog.

Some of these cultures developed sophisticated astronomical techniques. Some of them traded in slaves. Some of them mutilated their women. Some of them farmed the Earth in peace. That's all wiped clean in order to sell Tibetan Portable Altars (#1008146, $20).

What the hell do we know about Tibetan altars? Can we rest Buddha on the Jaz Drive to bless our computers? How would we feel if Tibetans used Eastern Orthodox icons as tea coasters?

As soon as you put a culture into a box — no matter how pretty or tasteful that box may be — you have obscured its essence. The essence of human culture is humanity. Humanity is failure, petty squabbles, prejudice and blood-curdling savagery. It's also innovation, community pride, exploration and the celebration of God.

Reduce a culture to trinkets, and you blur the nuance into nothingness.

To be fair, Eziba is trying to sell us stuff. Their technique is known as "marketing." Selling the exotic is a human tradition that dates back to antiquity. Moreover, an undisclosed portion of their stock is given to the Eziba Foundation, dedicated to improving artisans' lives in developing countries. That's damn respectable.

Perhaps the only thing really wrong with Eziba, when you compare it to the cultural muck and garbage we swim through every day, is that it almost teaches us something important, and that's frustrating. It leans over sincerely, with the opportunity and apparent intention to teach us about the many interesting artifacts it offers.

But all it whispers is a label and a price.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)