[Tango-L] la dulce vita

[Keith]

 Jake,

 How is any of this long spiel even remotely related to Tango? I know you can tell me to hit the delete button, but I'd wasted a
 few minutes before I realised what I was reading.

 Keith, HK


 On Mon Jul 23 16:52 , "Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)"  sent:

>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
>
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