[Tango-L] la dulce vita

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

Jeff Gaynor wrote:
> Historically the emphasis in the US has been on the common folk and democracy here is a reflection of that.
For straight right-handed white people who are Christian-- sure, why not.
> A strong strain of American thinking that goes back to the Revolutionary War is against such dandies and nobility.
A good 50% of our country's populace supported England during that war, 
Jeff. You're quoting our propaganda, often passed off as "history" to 
people too young to know the difference between fact and assertion, and 
too preoccupied with other things to care.

Not even Army manuals (which I've edited) are this lame. Damn shame our 
textbooks are.
> Elitism was frowned upon until recently although now it is becoming much more fashionable.
Two words for you, baby--

Fred Astaire.

(A Midwesterner, by the way.)
> For instance, no longer do the liberals in this country make even a pretense of liking the working classes, which is a huge change from a few decades ago.
Hardly.

People's politics here have always been full of posturing and hypocrisy. 
Read Richard Wright or Wyndham Lewis for numerous examples from that era 
("a few decades ago") in particular.
> [...] equality brings with it anonymity -- if we are truly equal then there is really no distinction between us, is there?
This point has been made by those critical of democracy (i.e., 
egalitarianism) as a _cultural_ value (and likewise of statistics, 
averages, etc.) for about two centuries now. Largely by artists.

The linchpin of free democracy (i.e., majority rule), of course, is 
individual and minority rights, which many people conveniently forget 
when they're making reductive generalizations about "egalitarianism." 
There have been quite impressive intellects (Leopardi, De Toqueville, 
etc.) who have criticized democracy as an institution of mediocrity-- 
and not without reason, except insofar as they overlook this rather 
important raison d'etre.

Which raison was, naturally, the privilege of the aristocratic ethos. 
Which itself spilled over into common life, until every common ass saw 
himself a "gentleman." See Lewis for more eloquent statements of this.
> Women want to be treated as the unique people they are. Men want a women that makes the world stop for them. So, in tango I agree that the normal American egalitarian ideas tend to go against the grain.
Your "America" is too much Norman Rockwell & Garrison Keillor, and not 
enough Emerson/Whitman/Thoreau, my man. The rugged individualism and 
self-reliance of our culture, like its (conflicted) Puritan aspect, are 
easily more definitive than these courtroom cartoons, which our history 
has ground underfoot repeatedly anyway.

Furthermore, a substantial (and shallow) part of American culture, 
especially among the bourgeoisie, consists of affectation and 
anti-populist gestures, and always will. Hence the propensity of rich 
kids to take (status) French courses in high school, while poor kids 
enroll in (practical) Spanish courses. (I'm now 30: this is COMMON 
knowledge in my generation.) Thus also the prevalence of Oscar Wilde 
quotes among us, and the relative neglect of his infinitely superior 
contemporary Mark Twain (whom Europeans appear to appreciate more than 
we do, nowadays, and whom we often consider a bigger redneck than he 
was, simply by identifying him with his more famous subject matter). 
(But this is the reader's chief fallacy with any author.)

Short version: Your portrait of America could use a few more postcards. 
You're talking about the country of Dickinson, Barnum, Edison, Welles, 
Groucho, Elvis, Jimi... The America you invoke, if only to discard, 
barely exists in the first place, except as a scarecrow in bad editorials.

Jake Spatz
DC