[Tango-L] la dulce vita

[Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com)]

Keith,

It's admittedly peripheral to tango, but I thought Jeff's post needed a 
reply just for the record, this being an international forum. Point 
being: If we're going to talk about cultures, let's at least not be so 
lame about it.

Apologies for wasting your time.

Jake


Keith wrote:
>  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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>>     
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