[Tango-L] la dulce vita

[Jeff Gaynor]

Before I get down to a detailed response to Jake let me say that this 
strays quite far off the tango list. Skip it at this point if you like. 
I will say that this is the last I will post about this to the list. I'm 
more than happy to chat about it off-list but since this might get to be 
very active it just won't be fair to the listeras/listeros.

There are two issues to address here. One is why I wrote the initial 
post and the second is the direct response to Jakes commentary.

===== Why I wrote it
This has to do with how we Americans talk about ourselves. It has been 
my experience that Americans don't have that much exposure to foreign 
cultures and consequently assume many behaviors that are culturally 
dependent are just natural. Part of our character is to be modest and 
somewhat self-deprecating. Other countries would never do that and don't 
view it the same way at all and I've more than once seen the situation 
abroad where the American is being polite (his/her estimate) with a 
small self-putdown and everyone else hops on the bandwagon to put them 
down too. They  never put each other down but since the American started 
it.... Because of this it can be hard to get us to talk about ourselves 
(my psychologist friends can go on about this at length and make a 
comfortable living because of it). When asked about ourselves we are far 
more likely to skip explaining what we are doing and start a critique of 
it. This is quite a good thing in many ways because if we have a 
disagreement you beat me to the punch so I never have to publicly 
criticize you plus I get to tell you have fair & honest you are. Other 
cultures would never admit to making a mistake publicly. This leaves us 
sounding at best disingenuous or at worse dishonest to them. Case in 
point is the recent and troubling example of the strong criticism from 
the Islamicist: They ask us why our system is so great and we just can't 
seem to tell them. That means either we are lying and it's no good (so 
we're dishonest which feeds their paranoia), or it works great and they 
can't be part of it (so we're racists or anti-Muslim). Mix that in with 
a strongly honor-based culture  which seems oddly quaint to us but is a 
matter of life and death for them and, well, things just get to be a 
complete mess in short order. So again, my initial aim was for giving 
our view for people who have no context for it and aren't likely to get 
it from us.

Jake, you slipped into this exact mode, by the way...

=====The response.

Jake Spatz (TangoDC.com) wrote:

>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. 
>  
>

Sorry Jake, but sticking words in my mouth then telling me I'm wrong 
does not cut it. The issue is *how* American attitudes toward commoners 
have influenced our approach to democracy, in turn our behaviors to each 
other and how we look at the whole thing.

>>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, 
>  
>

WOW! You mean you actually have valid statistics from this time period? 
Do you have any idea how many historians would kill for that? In point 
of fact you made up that number. If you didn't then give me cites.

>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.
>
>  
>
No I'm not. The Colonies at the time had largely been forgotten about up 
until the earlier 1700's (since no more Aztec gold was to be found) when 
England tried to forceably re-assert control over them and pull them 
squarely into the (very evil)  mercantile system. This caused very 
widespread antagonism especially in New England. The push was initially 
for representation in Parliament which was flatly vetoed. At best a 
Virginia planter who was managing an estate 10 times the size of someone 
in the House of Lords would be referred to as a "country squire" and 
treated that way. One famous example was Benjamin Franklin who had done 
good basic research in electricity and held a couple of honorary 
doctorates. He went to England in the early 1770's and could barely even 
get an audience with anyone plus was routinely insulted to his face. He 
went home and wrote famously & causticly about British excesses.  Ever 
been to Vandalia Ohio? This was another typical if large-scale example. 
A huge tract of land was set up in that area to re-establish the feudal 
system in North America. Yes, you read that right. The English gentry 
was genuinely bewildered that the Americans didn't give up their farms 
and flock to the new manors and the whole thing was stillborn.

>Not even Army manuals (which I've edited) are this lame. Damn shame our 
>textbooks are.
>  
>
So you used to write Army manuals which are, of course, paradigms of 
balanced & dispassionate  writing. C'mon Jake...

>>Elitism was frowned upon until recently although now it is becoming much more fashionable.
>>    
>>
>Two words for you, baby--
>
>Fred Astaire.
>
>  
>
Fred Astaire was *not* an elite in the sense I'm talking about.  Most 
plots had Fred in some ill-defined but boring career. The point was that 
Fred wasn't otherwise special but man oh man could he dance,  so we 
could aspire to be like him. This is still very much in line with 
American ideas and this occurs over and over again in popular 
entertainment. How do you think the American public would have reacted 
if he were a sniffy English Lord? How about a draconian German Baron?

>(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.
>  
>
really? Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer and was about the last major 
democratic candidate to profess such a background. Now we have 
techno-dweebs like Al Gore. Can you imagine him talking to a bunch of 
truckers? There is no way he could convince them he has similar 
experiences to them. The shift that happened starting back in the Reagan 
era was that the Republicans became the party for the commoners. Up 
until that time they were seen as being chiefly the party of the super 
rich. One reason I am distressed by this personally is that many of my 
supposed liberal college professor sorts are appalled at your average 
Joe and have made strongly anti-democratic statements. It is un-nerving 
to hear someone like that talk about how we have to bring democracy 
everywhere as a panacea  in one breadth and in the next seriously talk 
about taking voting rights away from large parts of their own 
population. This is not good.

>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.
>
>  
>
Again, a fine dismissal that doesn't apply. True I am a musician, but I 
started out on a farm and am very comfortable with the working class. 
Probably more so than with many professional colleagues. Americans 
generally feel very uncomfortable being special and tend to try and 
shrug it off. This is very different from, say, my Japanese friends who 
simply assume that there are differences and have no trouble flatly 
stating them. Most Americans  find them weirdly polite and cruel at the 
same time.

>The linchpin of free democracy (i.e., majority rule), of course, is 
>individual and minority rights, 
>
*NO* Democracy can work just fine with no such rights. These are a 
peculiarly American approach to __preserving__ the individual in a mass 
society -- which presupposes there is something about individual rights 
that is worth preserving.. Keep these ideas separate since one 
fashionable way to discredit democracy (e.g. in Japan & China) is to 
point to the American emphasis on "crass individualism" as being 
intrinsic to it.

>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.
>  
>
?! See above

>Which raison 
>
Don't sound like a snooty patoot. :o> Use English.

>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.
>  
>
Which is a common theme not just in the US but in most Western European 
countries too. Look at 18th century Spaniards bemoaning that every one 
was styling himself as a gentleman ("senior"). This is more an outgrowth 
of the Enlightenment rather than an specifically American thing. The 
idea was that one should extend to rights of the aristocracy to all. 
Contrast this with a Soviet-style revolution where everyone gets to be a 
peasant. Or a Nazi-type one where almost everyone ends up a slave.

>>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, 
>
No it's not. You have no clue what my experiences are and I'll bet you a 
dollar they have very little to do with either of those gents. Again, 
you make a patently unsupported statement then take me to task on that. 
tsk-tsk

>and not 
>enough Emerson/Whitman/Thoreau, my man. 
>
You think those guys are edgy? Thoughtful? Insightful? Profound? I'm not 
seeing any of it. They are very much beloved with various literati but 
that's about it.
 

>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. 
>
Now you're starting to make some sense. Yes, part of American culture on 
the one hand is to have a strongly romanticized notion of commoners 
while marginally differentiate oneself as above it all. This has been 
around almost since the first settlements. Most recently it is seen in 
"multi-culturalism" (see R. Jacoby's brilliant analysis) where we are to 
allow lip-service of differences for barely indistinguishable social 
groups. This is still better than European-style multiculturalism which 
is just a really fancy word for segregation. [I lived in Germany for 11 
years and got shoved into a few ghettos too, so I know whereof I speak.]

>Hence the propensity of rich 
>kids to take (status) French courses in high school, while poor kids 
>enroll in (practical) Spanish courses. 
>
I don't think so. It *sounds* more practical to take Spanish courses but 
unless there are speakers at hand the effect is again to have the mere 
rudiments of a foreign language as a conversation piece. Sure there are 
places where you can learn it, but where I live (small Midwest college 
town, few Spanish speakers) there is hardly much difference in which 
language they take. Spanish just has some more bragging rights with it.

>(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.
>
>  
>
Such as your current example? I'll cheerily admit to glossing over some 
of the harder points, but the reason for the post was to try and give 
foreigners a view from our perspective and to support the independent 
observation that Americans seem to have a hard time with certain aspects 
of a foreign culture.

Cheers,

Jeff G