Tango and Equality

Tango is created by people living at the bottom of society. Their imprints still remain in the dance. The original tango is a lowbrow dance. It is raw, simple, 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 a maid or a queen, she wrote, the birthing experiences of all women are identical, just like that in 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)."

That shared humanness is a huge source of sublimation for people struggling at the bottom. Tango liberates them because in tango they have regained the dignity of being on the same footing with others. All tango dancers are created equal whether they are taxi drivers or company executives, servant girls or first daughters. You enjoy the person dancing with you for who they are 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 the early immigrants to America were unfairly treated by the English King, they argued for equality. 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 been narrowed in America. In fact, it is widened in our times. Power corrupts. When we were under the oppression of a despot, we called for equality. When we gained the control of our own destiny, we started to do the same thing to others. Self-interest and compassion are juxtaposed in human nature. When we keep a balance between the two, we do fine. But when we lose that balance, when we only think about ourselves and disregard others, when we formulate theories like individualism, personal freedom and individual rights to legitimize selfish behaviors (see Tango and Individualism), when we misinterpret the founding documents from a narrow, individualistic perspective in favor of the self rather than society, the rich rather than the poor, and the villains rather than 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 their monopolies, when the rich are given the privilege of using their money to influence legislation and policy-making, when the law becomes the means to protect and advance the interests of the privileged class, when freedom is used to promote arms sales, violence, doping, obscenity, homosexuality and alternative life styles (see Tango and Gender Issues), when personal liberty is used to undermine traditional family and family-centered values, the very foundation of society (see Tango and Family Values), when divorce, irresponsible sex, single parent family and same sex marriage become the accepted norms and are sponsored by the state, etc., 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 for personal freedom (see The Freedom in Tango). Only a few can be the winner 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 law necessary to public good, not that 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 mankind as a whole, where no one's freedom will be 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 is relevant to this subject. It is well-directed, thought-provocative, and with many humorous details like the responses of the crowd, the looks in the girls' eyes, and the old lady being carried away, etc. The dance is of the highest quality with excellent musicality and choreography. I especially appreciate the ending where the elegant dignity of the heroic nonentity won over the arrogance of the social elites. Watch in fullscreen.