In the controversy between modernity and humanity, tango stands for the latter.

1. Paul Yang

2. Created by the early immigrants to Argentina,
tango reflects and expresses the nostalgia, longing
and hope of its creators.
A milonga is like a utopia, where brotherly love,
fellowship, intimacy and comfort triumph over
prejudice, hatred, animosity and injury, where
masculinity and femininity still attract each other
and bring out the best in each other, and where
peace and harmony are still achieved through
cooperation and accommodation, not confrontation
and power struggle.

3. It is like an oasis where people enjoy a temporary
relief from the stressful modern-day life.
Those who think of modernization only as a progress
do not understand its down side. In fact, it is a
dehumanizing process that leads mankind farther
and farther away from nature and humanity.
Modern science and technology have empowered
people and made individual persons increasingly
self-sufficient, independent, egocentric, arrogant
and aggressive.

4. It diminishes the human bond that united people,
shifts their attention away from common interests
to personal interests and individuality, and deprives
them from the connection, cooperation and
fraternity that they used to share.
The mutual attachments, interdependence and care
among people have faded away, gender roles are
transformed, family has disintegrated, the harmony
between man and nature has disappeared, the
environment has suffered irreversible damage,
natural resources are depleting, and societies are
increasingly demoralized and polarized.

5. Individualism, feminism, homosexualism, divorce,
same-sex marriage, single-parent family,
materialism, competition, stress, psychological
imbalance, violence, cruelty, corruption and crime
grow in intensity. In short, humanity has been
replaced by modernity.
The popularity of tango in the contemporary world
is a profound phenomenon. We dream of a human
society that is equal, fair, friendly, cooperative,
orderly and harmonious, like a well-organized
milonga, not one that is driven by self-interests
and imbued with competition, hostility, injury,
stress, madness and polarization.

6. We dream of a human society that is equal, fair,
friendly, cooperative, orderly and harmonious, like
a well-organized milonga, not one that is driven by
self-interests and imbued with competition,
hostility, injury, stress, madness and polarization. Is
modernity at the cost of humanity and environment
worth pursing?
A blogger wrote, “The world is like the water and
mankind is like the ink. What men do to the world is
like what the ink does to the water. With the
passage of time, the ink only makes the water
muddier, not clearer. Comparing to the postmodern
world of today, the past is simpler, purer hence
better.”

7. A woman wrote, “in modern-day life, we are
centered around our work, which demands
aggression. But if we keep being aggressive in our
marriage, constantly fighting for self-interests and
pushing our partner to make concessions until he
gives up, then such marriage can only create an
unhappy person.”
A Facebook friend wrote, “How many American
businessmen lie in a hospital bed, after their heart
attack, before they look around and ask themselves,
‘How did I end up spending my life this way…
working too many hours… the love of my life is a
stranger, if we haven’t divorced… I missed my
children growing up because I worked too much…

8. I spent my lifetime, not with my friends, but
pursuing financial security… and in the end, I
ended up here?’”
Indeed, modern life is like a fatal attraction
causing people to lose the essence of being
human. What happened to our intelligence and
sanity? Why couldn’t we create a world and life
that makes more sense?
I believe this universal reflection on modern
living and the nature of being human, this
yearning for a balanced life and a harmonious
society, is not irrelevant to the revival of tango
today.

9. One hundred years ago, immigrants far away from
home created this dace on which they placed their
dream, a dance full of human spirit and beauty, a
dance that highlights human connection,
cooperation, complement and harmony.
Today’s tangueros and tangueras are searching for
the same dream, I believe.
People who love tango has a responsibility to
preserve this sanctuary for the mankind. We not
only need to teach people how to dance tango, but
also to teach them its ideas, because without
which tango could be assimilated by the world as
well.

10. More on this at yangningyuan.blogspot.com.