This document discusses various societal issues that result from extremism and the pursuit of self-interest, including inequality, conflict, and environmental degradation. It argues that tango dancing can offer an alternative by promoting togetherness, interdependence, and finding harmony through compromise. The document warns that tango risks being polarized by those who wish to make it about performance, exoticism, or profit rather than continuing its purpose of teaching love and bringing people together.

1. Paul Yang

2. Our desire to realize our potentials, to conquer
the unknown, to expand the limits, and to
possess more, is a part of what drive us. This very
nature is the cause of our accomplishments on
one hand and abuses on the other.
Our society is full of such abuses or extremisms –
unlimited personal freedom, selfish individualism,
heartless capitalism, militant feminism, ultra
conservatism, ultra liberalism, extremist political
right and left, religious fundamentalism,
terrorism, radical sciences and technologies,
monopolist business practices, extravagant

3. lifestyles, violent entertainments and sports,
bank fraudulence, gun lobby, over spending,
over taxation, overuse of natural resources, man-
made climate changes, population explosion,
economic downturns…
All these result not in a coherent and harmonious
human society, but inequality, polarization,
conflict, hatred, hostility and war. We go from
one extreme to another without realizing that all
forms of extremism come from the same human
nature within us – greed, self-interests,
ignorance and intolerance.

4. We are unable and unwilling to consider interests
and perspectives beyond our own. We cannot see
the whole picture of which we are only a tiny dot.
We rely on might and power to solve problems, and
we do not understand the consequence of
unbalanced approaches.
Our relentless pursuit of self-interests could lead
to the destruction of civilization, if we let our greed
and ignorance go unchecked and unbalanced. This
is not alarmist talk. Given how rapidly and radically
the world has changed since World War II, how long
can Mather Nature support our greed and mankind
remain peaceful with each other?

5. I am not the only one who worries. Whether you
realize it or not, tango’s popularity reflects the
universal nostalgia for the missing peace and the
rebellion against the dehumanizing realities of
our times.
Tango is fascinating to many because in tango we
find a different reality – common interests,
togetherness, interdependence, connection and
complement.
In tango we regain the joy in complying,
comforting and pleasing each other instead of in
competing with each other.

6. In tango we find a refuge void of animosity and
conflict, a shoulder that we can rely on, and a way
to reach harmony through communication,
collaboration accommodation, reconciliation and
compromise.
In tango we discover the wisdoms of Jesus who
taught love, Gandhi who advocated nonviolence,
Lao Tzu who pleaded simplicity and naturalness,
and Confucius who argued for the golden mean.
In tango we find peace, love, intimacy,
collaboration, unity, and a better world we wish
ours could become.

7. That is why people are attracted to tango. That is
why I am sad to see that tango, too, is polarized
by the extremist tendency to make this dance of
love a dance of show, a dance of exoticism, a
dance of political correctness, and a dance for
profit.
By so doing they not only change the essence of
the dance, but also betray its idealism and
degrade tango from a dance that teaches the
world to love to that against its ordained purpose,
from that sublimates the humanity to that debases
it, and from that symbolizes the world we want
ours to become to that reflects the world we want
to change.

8. Many people now take responsibilities to keep the
natural environment clean and natural resources
wisely used, because the Earth is our only home.
Should we not also take responsibilities to keep
the human environment clean and societies stable
for the same reason?
People new to tango need to awaken to the fact
that how you see tango affects how you learn and
dance it.
You may learn just how to do steps, or you may
learn how to be one with each other.

9. You may dance it to show your ego, or you may
dance it to show your love.
You may reinvent tango, or you may let tango
change you and through you the world.
How you dance matters, because by which you
will leave an impact, either way.