[Tango-L] bad, wrong, Nuevo

Alexis Cousein al at sgi.com
Fri Feb 29 19:36:48 EST 2008


Anton Stanley wrote:
> 
> A shallow remark such as the above can only come from people who don't
 > understand Tango. Apart from it being insulting, it illustrates to me
 > the long path they have to maturity. Seems like a very red neck opinion,
> certainly not a viewpoint of liberal orientation.

 > Apart from it being insulting

You certainly don't have lessons to take from him on insulting, I see.

I happen to subscribe to his view - it's a debate between people with
a different view on whether change can be for the better or worse,
complete with straw man arguments all over the place (of course
nobody says that *bad* nuevo dancers are good; the question is
whether they are *all* bad or even whether there are more bad nuevo
dancers than bad dancers sticking to strict non-nuevo) and building of
Feindbilder ("all nuevo tango dancers look at their feet, none
care about the connection, and they're out to poison the world
for us real believers" vs. "all traditionalists are stuck in their
archaic ways, they all dance like drones to a simple beat, and
they're out to stifle and smother any dissenting voice").

Argentines have a more relaxed view on things, and most of them also
realise that the world is full of continua and that binning everything
in two bins is necessarily reductionist.

But then they don't have to posture and prance to affirm what they're
worth and reinforce their cognos in constant self-brainwashing to
shield it from cognitive dissonance.

It's a dance. When it works, it works, and everyone can see it does.

When it doesn't, it doesn't, and no amount of nuevo or viejo lipstick
on the pig is going to change it.

Sterile debate. My sympathy probably goes with the nuevos simply because
they're less prone to drone on about how the Others Have Got it Wrong
and Know Nothing about True Tango. As long as the nuevos don't bump into
anyone, a bit of tolerance does wonders.

-- 
Alexis Cousein                                  al at sgi.com
Senior Systems Engineer/Solutions Architect     SGI/Silicon Graphics
--
<If I have seen further, it is by standing on reference manuals>




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