Tango and Equality

Tango was created by people living at the bottom of society, and their imprints still remain in the dance. The original tango is a lowbrow dance—raw, unpolished, sensual, soul-searching, and comforting—touching the heart of one's humanity. Dancing that tango reminds Beatriz Dujovne of a birthing mother's ecstasy, struggle, agony, sweat, pain, and joy. Whether maid or queen, she writes, the birthing experiences of all women are identical, just like tango. "Tango is all of us in life's common places. It is who we are at the core, behind our social masks (see The Tango in All of Us)."

This shared humanness is a powerful source of emotional release for those at the margins of society. Tango liberates them because, in tango, they regain the dignity of being on the same footing. All tango dancers are created equal, whether they are taxi drivers or company executives, servant girls or first daughters. You connect with the person dancing with you simply as a fellow human being, regardless of their social status. Tango is where Cinderella and Prince Charming fall in love. "It melts down differences by zeroing in on our commonality," Dujovne wrote. "It feeds our hunger for being on a level with others."

Equality has been a dream of the American people since the creation of this nation. When early immigrants faced injustice under the English crown, they cried out for equal treatment. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This document, The Declaration of Independence, laid the constitutional foundation for this nation.

After 240 years, however, the gap between rich and poor has not narrowed. In fact, it has only grown wider. Power corrupts. When we were under the oppression of a tyrant, we championed equality. But once in power, we began repeating the very injustices we once condemned. Self-interest and compassion are juxtaposed in human nature. When we keep a balance between the two, we thrive. But when we tip the scale—prioritizing only ourselves while disregarding others, when we create doctrines like individualism and personal liberty to justify selfishness, when we reinterpret the founding documents through a narrow, self-serving lens that favors the self over society, the rich over the poor, the powerful over the powerless, and the villains over the victims, when we allow ourselves to pursue self-interest at the expense of others, when we permit tycoons to use unfair competition to establish monopolies, when the rich are given the privilege to use their money to influence legislation and policy-making, when the law becomes the means to advance the interests of the privileged class, when freedom is used to promote arms sales, violence, doping, obscenity, homosexuality and alternative life styles, when personal liberty is used to undermine traditional family and family-based values—the very foundation of society, when divorce, irresponsible sex, single parent family and same sex marriage become the accepted norms and are sponsored by the state, we get ourselves further and further into the mess we are in now.

Ours is the lesson of freedom lost for the vast majority of people when we only seek personal freedom (see The Freedom in Tango). Only a few can win in the competition if equality and justice are not prerequisites for all other human rights. True freedom is freedom from being violated by others, not freedom to violate others. It is the right to act within the limits of laws necessary for the public good, not the right to harm society. It is a self-restrained human right under the principle that all men are created equal, not the right to do whatever one pleases at the cost of others. It is freedom from poverty and fear, not freedom to prey and shoot. In other words, a free society is an equal society based on compassion and cooperation, not on self-interest and competition. It is where individual rights are subordinate to the collective rights of humanity as a whole, where no one's freedom is deprived by another's freedom, and where brotherly love, coexistence, compassion, and sharing are common values of all people. It is a society consistent with the spirit of tango.

The following video captures these themes beautifully. It's skillfully directed, thought-provoking, and filled with humorous touches—from the crowd’s reactions, to the sparkle in the audience’s eyes, to the old woman being carried away. The performance itself is superb, with exquisite musicality and choreography. I especially admire the ending, where the elegant dignity of the underdog prevails over the arrogance of the elite. Watch it in full screen for the full effect.