[Tango-L] Who v. What

[TangoDC.com]

Hi Manuel,

I'm not willing to discount someone's opinion here on the grounds that 
they're not a great or even good dancer. It's the argument that I attend 
to, not the person who puts it forward.

This is a recurring problem in the arts and in philosophy, but one that 
has been answered consistently by pointing out that discourse about a 
topic (e.g., criticism, theory, reviews) does not have to be backed up 
by real-life ability. If this were so, we'd expect our movie reviewers 
to be capable of making movies. I don't believe they need to be, in 
order to say something valuable about the movies that are made. (Not 
that all of them do that...)

But this is to defend the audience. To defend the creator, we might 
consider Schopenhauer's response to the criticism of his philosophy, 
when someone said he was being a hypocrite because he didn't live by the 
ethics he wrote of. He remarked that he didn't have to: Neither do we 
expect the painter of a beautiful picture to be, himself, beautiful. 
(The criticism, he implied, was not of his philosophy at all, but of his 
person.)

That's my stance on the postings here, anyway. I'll consider any 
argument on its merits. A beginner might dream of something that I can 
use; or I might dream of something a more advanced dancer than myself 
might use. What others say here I can test against my own experience, or 
re-test with experiment. Anyone else possessed of a questing spirit will 
probably do likewise.

Best to all,

Jake Spatz
DC


WHITE 95 R wrote:
> I would suggest to try to get to know the people personally, speak 
> with them face to face, watch them dance or dance with them. Only then 
> one can make a good decision about taking their words as good, 
> knowledgeable advise or opinion. Otherwise it's just so much more 
> noise and fury.