The other day Daniel de Kay, a teacher who runs the Marathon Directory in Germany, posted a link on Facebook to an ‘inclusivity and safety in social dancing’ study.
It asked dancers whether they were dissatisfied their social dancing experience, or whether they left it altogether, because they had been sexually harassed or discriminated against.
That got me thinking about how much of today’s talk about tango and tango teaching revolves around ideas like emotional safety, therapy from digital life, deep connection and other subjective things of that sort.
And how almost all of it is based on ‘lived experience’ of whoever happens to be talking.
Now, here is one way to look at this sort of thing.
When tango milonguero emerged in Buenos Aires and the surrounding areas, it was defined by the codes of the milonga.
Then people began to complain that the codes were too restrictive, reactionary and regressive.
And anyone who wanted to enforce them was branded the ‘tango police’.
The argument was for evolution and more freedom, and the milongueros who upheld the codes were accused of policing how people danced.
Fast forward to the progressive discourse in Europe today, and what do you find?
Not freedom, not evolution, not a free-for-all.
You find a new set of codes, or a reinterpretation of the old ones.
You find a new elite, self-appointed of course, which is now busy enforcing those codes.
In other words, a new tango police.
And the policing begins with speech, because everything progressive begins with speech policing.
Progressives love speech codes.
They invented the category of hate speech, which are the things you are simply not allowed to say because they disapprove of them.
For instance, you are not supposed to criticise teaching per se.
Of course, progressive ideals are incoherent.
So, according to the new tango police, tango is about therapy, meaning, meaningful embraces and deep connection.
Yet somehow that still takes six to twelve months of intense training to learn.
Apparently the meaningful embrace and the deep connection require a lengthy period of training from a ‘good teacher’.
Step back and look at the wider society, the modern progressive nanny state, and you will see where this comes from.
What sets it apart from every society before is the culture of schooling.
The nanny state loves education, and above all it loves the idea of ‘lifelong learning’.
You do not learn something and then get on with your life.
You must be learning constantly, the more education the better, because education is treated as a good in itself.
You should always be taking lessons in something.
It is the culture of the perpetual workshop.
And what you learn in the perpetual workshop is really a set of rules for doing things correctly.
It is training in rigorous discipline, where correctness is everything.
You do not improvise, you do not go out on a limb, you do not take risks or learn by trial and error.
All of that is verboten.
I remember a time, back in the primordial 1990s, when education was still about critical thinking, intellectual independence, taking risks and thinking for yourself.
All of that has gone out the window.
Today you had better know what the current thing is, so that you do not make a mistake like assuming that the man leads and the woman follows.
You have to keep up with the latest stage of politically correct discourse, and negotiate everything carefully, so that you do not commit verbal violence or a micro-aggression.
So that is where we are.
The culture of lifelong learning and the perpetual workshop has produced a new tango police.
The old guard was the milongueros, enforcing the codes of the milonga.
The new guard enforces the new rules of the new progressive establishment.
Tango is about inclusivity, emotional safety, consent, deep connection, and therapy, and you need to update on the rules through lifelong learning and the perpetual workshop.
Happy dancing,
Tom
PS. The second expanded edition of Tango Unplugged is coming out next week! If you have already purchased a copy you’ll be able to download the new edition at no extra charge. If you want to be notified when the new edition comes out make sure to subscribe below.
PPS. I’ve just published a guide, How to Hear a Milonga which you can pick up completely free of charge, with a link to a questionnaire to evaluate your milonga experience.
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