[Tango-L] Social-ethical behavior and protocols

[Ruben Malan]

Tango-L/[Tango-L] Social-ethical behavior and protocols



Bad behavior and misconduct at milongas.

 "Judging from the responses on the Tango-L it is not exclusive to us but I 
can't really speak for other nationalities.  This free "interpretation" and 
disregard for the codigos of tango is just another example of why we are 
perceived as such.  Too bad the dancing doesn't rise to the same heights as 
the arrogance, but then again that shouldn't be a surprise."



I have three comments I must share with you friends to answer this accurate 
Charles' observation:

1)Yes, indeed there is a lot of arrogance here. It is on our culture. In 
part is because we are a mighty, so vast, rich, and quite egocentric 
nation.  We became the center of the world because the significant roll we 
played during the WW I and II and many others scientific, cultural, musical 
political, (to just mention some) contributions  . We may often consider 
other cultures and "poor" countries of the third world being  beneath our 
standards. It is more. We want to impose our standards on them.

We want to copy and adopt the good from other societies and traditions. 
However, most of the time, since we are immersed in a super-materialistic 
society, we get only the surface of them, the exterior part of the practice 
or art. We miss or ignore  the essence quite often.  Few examples?  Yoga, 
Tai-chi, martial arts, mystical practices or disciplines, and of course: 
ARGENTINE  TANGO. I do not like to generalize but after living here for more 
than 37 years, I'm convinced of my daring but careful observation.

2)There is another cultural aspect that we must weight here. I observed that 
a great majority of the people that I met, they were very concern when they 
have to judge a misbehavior or a wrong conduct. They usually or call the 
police, they send you to court, they ignore you, they stop calling you, but 
they never come forward to tell you in your face what is going wrong. This 
idiosyncrasy can be seen as hypocrisy, lack of sincerity, or fearful lack of 
cowardly.

Therefore, some people do not come forward to condemn a bad behavior at 
milongas as I did. Their rationale? "I prefer to say something positive 
rather negative;" I do not agree to ventilate those things in public."  It 
seems that, with this "Pontio Pilato" like rationale, the alternate option 
will be then gossiping and backbiting.  In most of the cases when there is 
something wrong going on, unless they are not suffering directly on their 
own flesh, they remain quiet and silent when observing injustice, 
misconduct, and out of the line behaviors, propitiating the continuation of 
them and even becoming accomplices. All because the fear of risking prestige 
or anything.

3)After sharing my negative experience  with a lady grossly misbehaving at 
a milonga, some people came forward privately to identify themselves with my 
legitimate concern, to give support and good advise. However, few people, 
less than the number of my right hand fingers,  had the courage to say 
something condemning that unacceptable conduct.  That "washing my hands" 
approach , ignoring my complain and the real facts, recalls a wise quote 
from a great man:

"The greatest atrocity of the bad things of the bad people, is the silence 
of the good people. THE SILENCE OF THE GOOD PEOPLE HORRIFY ME MORE THAN THE 
ACT OF THE BAD ONES." -Gandhi



I lost two or three friends or half-friend after posting my honest concern 
with courage. However,  the misbehaved lady in question is still negating 
any wrong doing, leading a local tango organization and hosting workshops 
and milongas, ready misbehave forward again.



Clean and strong hugs,



Nicetune.