UPDATE - Too Polite?

The translation of Too Polite? was rushed and I have had another go at the English.  It is less literal but I hope makes more sense. Translating from audio with five native speakers you have never met, having a social conversation at native speed, using colloquial language was one of my hardest translation challenges to date, surpassed only by a paisa cook speaking as fast as some Spaniards. I don't think any Colombians read 'The Outpost', but if you know of one I need some help with that!

Trying to follow the group, the easiest thing is actually not to translate, it's to figure out what they mean in their language from cues, context, probability and what you already know, otherwise you just don't have time to keep up.  I knew what they meant.  I just conveyed it poorly.

In the absence of a native speaker on hand to double check my transcription I used Google's voice to text service for the first time, which I think gave me a limited free introductory offer.  I only wish they'd tell you first that the max file size you can upload is 10MB and more particularly, that you can only transcribe  60 secs at a time.  If you have a fifteen minute conversation it is going to take a lot of editing of the sound file. The results seems accurate enough to be worth doing to double check short transcriptions, though are not as good as real native speaker.

Contradiction?

 - Pero es extraño, I commented to the Bolivian woman, que esta cortesía exista en países que también suelen tener problemas con el machismo.

- Es cierto. 

¿Existe machismo en Bolivia? 

- Sí, lo hay.

A Colombian had told me that in Paraguay, women were very much in charge. So many men were killed in a past war there that the women had taken over and it had stayed that way.

 - ¿Quién manda en Bolivia, los hombres o las mujeres? 

- La mujer, she said, unequivocally, surprising me somewhat.

- Pero es la mujer la que manda dentro de la casa y el hombre afuera? 

She laughed.

- ¡Exactamente!  

Reconocimento

Uru-Chipaya girl, Bolivia. Eneas de Troya

This cortesía is something I have noticed since I started going to Latin American events with ex-pats in the last year or so. 

People from the Americas ask how you are.  They thank you for being present, they love that you love their music, their food, their stories, their culture.  There is reconocimiento, general recognition of you and your value as a person.  It follows certain phrases or constructions.  It is also just a different way of speaking and interacting, at least, so I intuit.  You don't rush to your point. You spend time seeing the person, being with them. This means everything slows down, your connection can be quieter, more personal.  There is consideración, not acting selfishly, does the person you are with have everything they need? 

At a language exchange in the city I met a a Bolivian woman on holiday.  She was who was keen to go to the milonga for the first time. She already danced at the world famous carnival of Oruro, her home town. Oruro is the area of the Uru, the oldest of the Andean civilizations.  There have been ceremonial practices in the area dating back to the Neolithic - Chalcolithic cusp.  The Uru were in the area about 5000 years before the Incas, around Lake Titicaca where they build floating island and along the  Desaguadero River as far as lake Poopó.   In less than forty years lake Poopó has gone from an area twice the size of greater London to a salt bed.  The Uru predate the Aymara people along the modern day Peruvian - Chilean - Bolivian borders, the Quechua people through the Andes and the Tiwanaku civilisation at the south east end of th Lake Titicaca. There are three groups now:

Uru-Chipaya, Uru-Murato, and Uru-Iruito. The Uru-Iruito still inhabit the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and the Desaguadero River. Two years ago there were 200 Uru left around lake Poopó.

But I didn't know any of that when I met here or I would have asked about those cultures. This was someone who comes from the cradle of one of the oldest cultures in the world, which the effects of globalisation has almost wiped out, which still has an ancient, famous carnival that blends elements of the many culture which have lived there over the millenia and she had no anger, no resentment, wasn't offended that I plainly had never heard of her city. She was just very calm and grateful to be offered a ride to the milonga.  She shared songs from her culture with me, songs that represented her region. 

One was llamarada. both a song and a genre which is sung by llama herders.  She said a lot of songs in her area were sad and people drank a lot. 

Necesito olvidar para poder vivir

No quisiera pensar que todo lo perdí

I need to forget to be able to live

I wouldn't like to think that I lost everything

In the song he means a woman, but maybe it's a wider reflection of something more generally sad in the culture.  Given what has happened to them it isn't surprising.

The Bolivian Evo Morales was one of few presidents in Latin America of indigenous descent.  He is Aymara, while Alejandro Toledo (Peru, 2001-2016) is Quechua.  The dogged reformer and champion of liberalism, Benito Juárez, who served multiple terms (1858 - 72) in Mexico was of Zapotec indigenous descent and is now considered a national hero. Morales had to flee to Mexico and Argentina, seeking asylum after allegations of electoral fraud enveloped his attempt to run for a fourth term (two were allowed in the Constitution).  Toledo was arrested in the US for accepting $20 million in bribes from a Brazilian construction company.  He is still fighting extradition. Arguably, Juarez and Morales are the two indigenous presidents who have done most for raising the profile of indigenous groups.  There have been many other presidents however who were not from indigenous groups who have done much for minority or oppressed groups.  Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first ever president from the left, and still in office, is the most recent example. 

Another song she shared Tú, Mi Vida Eres Tú is sung and danced at carnival.  The tú refers to the he Virgin (or mamita) of Socavón, literally, 'sinkhole'.  Oruro became a mining centre after the Spanish arrived. San Simón, also mentioned in the song is a syncretic figure, a protector, particularly of miners.

  

But before I knew this, we were walking along the Newington street in Edinburgh, one evening in June, I mentioned this courteous way of relating to people that was specific to Latin America. Spanish people relate to each other very differently compared to us in the UK but it is still not the way many people  from the Americas relate to one another.  She agreed. She had lived in La Rioja, Spain for ten years and said you get pulled into a different way of behaving.  She said she noticed it, even within the family when she went home, that there was more cortesía back home.

We agreed it is slightly different from country to country in Latin American but also that it was something shared across those cultures.

Later, I wrote to her and she wrote back many lovely things, alegraste mi día y lo hiciste bellísimo. Could there be a better chosen compliment? She loved her first time dancing tango and hoped to continue.

Cortesía

"La cortesía es el más exquisito perfume de la vida"

                                                                                                - Amado Nervo

 People from the Americas are endlessly, wonderfully polite.  

A guy I had already met a couple of times, who already danced wanted to learn to dance tango.  He had already shared much about the music of his country. I figured it was my turn.  But you don't just dive to your point, as you might in the UK.  Hi, great to meet you the other day.  I'm going to the milonga. Wanna meet up?

No, so I wrote how much I had enjoyed being at the fiesta.  My sense, from how la gente americana often speak to me, is that is how you start, by laying out offerings, in words.  I hadn't, til now, thought of it such concerte terms, but it is rather like that.  You look for ways to be respectful and complimentary.  People notice and respond the same way. 

I have always liked vous in French, the polite form of 'you'.  It implies a formality that requires our best selves. Usted in Latin American Spanish is more adaptable.  It can mean respeto, it can mean cercania, it can mean distancia, cuando se pelea.

I remembered a conversation between Colombians on the subject of tú  and usted :

....por ejemplo, yo viví con una señora mayor en España. Y la señora mayor se sentía muy rara cuando yo la trataba de 'usted' ,o sea, ella me decía: “Pero tú ¿porque me dices así?” Ella no sentía normal la conversación mía.

Una de las leyes fundamentales de la cortesía, said the Spanish writer Noel Clarasó, es la resistencia al primer impulso. Vous, usted in Spanish, implies that.

I wrote,  

Me encantó hablar con todos, ver los bailes, escuchar la música y las historias. Me encantó la historia sobre La Pola. Me encantan estas fiestas donde la gente se reúne para charlar, comer y bailar. Me parece que los dominicano/as son personas muy especiales y felices. Ver a ustedes bailar bachata cambió por completo mi visión de este baile.

I had already met him twice so wrote with the informal tú, being still unused to saying usted which is hardly used in Spain.  Since I learnt Spanish hablando, con la gente, mostly in social situations or with friends, or in Spain, I only ever needed tú.  

After writing, I remembered the guy had addressed me previously with "usted".  Because I had not thought there was a big age gap between us I had found it unusual. No, said a Bolivian woman a few days later.  In most of Latin America people say usted to una extraña - someone they don't know. 

The guy switched, replying with "tú", probably so I did not feel embarrassed.  Despite this, his words still contained the slight formality we might call old-fashioned if translated yet which is so common in that part of the world and which I find so affecting. 

Es un grato placer saludarte. Es el momento ansiado para aprender un género que me gusta,respeto y valoro mucho.  

The lines overflow with courtesy and respect.  Thus one is reminded that ansiado means something like 'highly anticipated', 'eagerly awaited'. Now grato, 'agreeable', a new word for me, will forever be associated with this sentence and un grato placer.      

This kind of courtesy, when I hear it, it is often connected with a pride in one's country and a delight in sharing its customs and culture.  It occurs to me suddenly, that perhaps people from the Americas are often proud to represent their country, in ways we  - with history catching up with us - often no longer are; and so it is no surprise when they speak with pride and courtesy and respect.  

Mi Pueblo es maravilloso porque celebra sus penas y sus alegrías, es para mi un honor saber que te gusta su esencia.

Too polite?

Colombians have many ways of saying "you"  - tú  , usted (in many different registers), vos, su merced. They are used in different parts of the country and in different contexts.  Su merced for instance is used to convey respect and politeness and in rural areas, but not exclusively. I think it would generally be thought more respectful than usted.

Some Colombians were discussing the way they use these forms which led on to the following:

A:....La cultura latina de bajar la cabeza…porque eso me acordé de su merced y de vuestra merced y toda esa cosa, y si uno va, por ejemplo, a europa siento que ellos casi no piden el favor, no piden. No están en esa actitud, de “su merced”, de esa “a tu órden”, de “a tu servicio”. Reconociamos [reconocemos] que, por ejemplo, el mexicano, el boliviano, todo está como nosotros, los colombianos, ecuatorianos, somos muy de esa “por favor”, “quiere usted”, como muy pedir, y muy como…

M: Como sumiso....

A: “A su servicio”, sumiso”, sí y esos en ese lenguaje.

M: Y eso es como “su merced” es un poco…

A: …Viene de ahí

M: …Como respeto, pero también es como su merced, del patrón.

A: No hay casi que ver. No es como groseros a los otros, pero…

*

A: ...the Latin culture of bowing the head, doffing the cap…it reminds me of "your grace" and "your honor" and all that, and if you go, for example, to Europe, I feel that they almost never use deferential terms, they don't make their requests the way we do. They don't have that habit of "your grace," of "at your service," of "at your command." The Mexican, the Bolivian, are all like us, the Colombians, Ecuadorians, we are very much in the way of saying "please," "would you," requesting deferentially, and very, like…

M: Like, submissive.

A: "At your service," submissive, yes, and things of that order.

M: And it's like "your grace" is a bit…

A: …It [the habit of great politeness] comes from there [the habit of using terms like su merced / your grace].

M: …Like respect, but it's also like the "your grace," of the master.

A: There's almost no equivalent [in Europe]. It's not like they are being rude to others, but…

Clearly, they thought it was, but were maybe too polite to say outright that we just don't realise how abrupt we are.

There are many jokes on social media reels about how almost excessively polite Colombians are. 

In many Latin American cultures, including Colombian culture, it is common to use polite, formal expressions when asking for something or offering it, and other deferential terms that convey respect and humility. There is an observation that Europeans are less likely to use formal or deferential language in their requests which can make their interactions seem more direct or even brusque to someone from a Latin American background. 

I remember a Colombian making various intimations about the French and people in the US, that they just aren't as polite, whereas I often have found individual North Americans to be very polite. I had the distinct sense that he probably lumped us in the UK with them too. 

There was a general sense with him that you (all: North Americans, Europeans, Australians) think you're so great.  But you're just rude and aggressive and wrong. At the time I found the remarks patronising and rude in themselves - they probably were - but I also now think they were probably correct. 

Hypocritically, as an individual and coming from one of the bloodiest countries on Earth, he said we, collectively, the Global North I think he meant, were aggressive and rude.  This was long before October 7th 2023, and yet on this - and other things - he was probably, when you compare our manners to Latin American courtesy, quite often right.

Hi!

Reaching out Derry / Londonderry, Kenneth Allen

Everywhere I go, milongas, social events, music events, even latin fiestas with famously sociable latinos, I usually talk to strangers first.  Like most people everywhere Latin American people will not necessarily reach out to you first either.  Nearly everyone, everywhere, waits to be reached out to.  That's one reason new people sit, not talking and feeling uncomfortable in milongas.  

I nearly never regret it and never yet with people from Latin America.  Most people are delighted to chat, but most people will not initiate conversation.  At a fiesta at the weekend I struck up conversation with an Argentinian / Colombian couple, a Scottish woman on her own with whom I shared my tres leches dessert, an Ecuadorian dancer, a Colombian guy with a Saudi girlfriend, a young Colombian guy on his own, a Uruguayan woman and her Venezuelan partner, the Dominican ladies serving food. 

I also met a few people I knew and introduced all the Colombians to each other.  They called me the networker. After a while one of  the organisers came to chat.  

¿Cómo se enteró del evento?

- Había asistido al evento anterior.

This time though I was now about the only unpartnered non-american person present.

- ¿Lo está disfrutando?- 

- Claro. Llevo aquí ya cuatro horas! 

I was a paying customer, but nevertheless you say, Gracias, por darme la bienvenida.

- No, por supuesto.  ¿Qué le había pasado a la mujer escocesa?

- Ah, se fue. Quería tomar algo. Encontró los intervalos entre las presentaciones demasiado largos. No se había dado cuenta de que no eran tanto intervalos, sino oportunidades para charlar.  

- Exactamente, así es.

- Tampoco hablaba español.

- Ah, sí, entonces, claro, es más complicado.

She also didn't initiate conversation but then not everyone wants to.

Later, to my delight, it wasn't me doing the reaching out.  A Dominican guy struck up conversation.  ¿Cómo aprendió a hablar español? ¿Cómo se enteró del evento? ¿Puedo presentar al presidente de la asociación?

- ¡Mucho gusto!

- Encantada. Es un placer estar aquí con ustedes.

Perhaps I should have said 'honor' but I am still feeling my way.

- Gracias por su apoyo. ¿Cómo se enteró del evento?

Support?  There was a split second of a mental wobble as I reassessed things.  I had come for fun and education, but they considered it 'support', gracing my attendance with better, more selfless intentions. I felt I should be rising to an expectation and responded with appropriate compliments, how lovely it was to be there, to watch the dancing, listen to the music, hear the stories and share the cultures. 

- Y también porque me gusta cómo, en América Latina, se ve el mundo y se relacionan con los demás.

- ¿Es diferente, no? 

- Sí.

My ears were blocked, the music was loud, despite the clear Dominican accent I didn't know the people I was talking to.  Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure I was invited to the next event.  

So in the milongas if you are not dancing much and want a better time, just say Hi! Ask a question, make a complimentary comment about anything really.  It doesn't matter what you first say.  No one will remember anyway. I find if I am just interested and look out for conversational pathways these lead to other areas of chat.  If you can't find anyone to chat with, enjoy watching, listening. And if that isn't working, go home! 

 Later I spent a small fortune on food to take home for my children.  I wondered if I did this for more apoyo or more to save me cooking.  It didn't really matter; there was still a lesson there.  

Teetering

thebarrowboy

A lot of what the man said more generally rang true.  Almost as soon as we got talking he referred to the difference between performance and just making music. Singing in our culture has become so much about performance.  It has been professionalised, commercialised.  We go to hear people sing, we don't sing ourselves.  People used to whistle all the time. Men used to whistle in the street - not just at girls, they used to whistle tunes.  You would hear them, painters, delivery men, tradesmen, just whistling as they worked. You almost never hear that now. Although we only exchanged a few words on this idea of performance versus community - and he initiated it - I realised he knew all this, that it was maybe partly why they held these sessions, to reclaim music as a community activity. Or not even reclaim.  He had a live-and-let-live approach: other people can do what they want over there and that's fine, and this is what I'm doing over here.  

This is not a new idea.  We have Indian restaurants and Chinese, pop concerts and classical, alternative milongas and traditional [Segregation and Inclusion, Milonga-lite].  The issue comes when you have on the one hand people talking about "one big community" as though it were one thing, or even a real thing.

That is not to say there is no place for performance.  Some performances entrance and entertain.   

I don't know if it was coincidence or whether he had got the measure of me but having just written about that I was startled and worried he had somehow, impossibly, read those recent pieces on performance and ego which I don't advertise or refer to in daily life.

He spoke of people making music together for thousands of years, Plainly, he recognised that our culture has moved away from that, while some Latin American, African and more traditional societies societies retain it.  I had the sense of someone with an intuitive grasp of what you meant whose instinct told him whether you understood him too.  With him, words were more indicators than explanations.  i realise now it connects with his intuitive grasp of other people. While he was laid back, fun, his partner was gentle, kind, talented. What they have created in that region is unusual and the locals are lucky. It is also free. In the spirit of the thing people brought food and drink to share.

It was a wonderful feeling there and lovely listening to the musicians who were ranged about on pews in the form of a square at the sunken end of a great barn.  Candles on the walls glowed on brass plates behind.  The setting was special, the music wove spells through the air.  In contrast to a pub people went to get drinks from the bring-and-share area at the end of the room.   You could also chat outside. People came and went, in waves, as he described it.

In the barn, the idea was much the same as the pub. People took it in turns to perform their music, others usually joined in with their instruments.  Occasionally a duo would lead.  The setting was private, not public and yet if anything the barn felt more public.  The space was bigger and more open, whereas at the local, low-ceilinged pub, it was a group of people I had met most weeks, over several months around a big candlelit table. The pub felt more intimate.  There were many more people at the barn.  They played better than most people at my local pubs, 

The folk session at Whinlatter on the other hand had had more intimacy because so many people joined in, sang together.   

It's a safe space he said. Indeed he did persuade me to join in to the sha la la chorus of I think it was Brown Eyed Girl. He had lots of methods though I imagine they are all improvised.  But it didn't feel safe, at least not safe enough to me.  

You'll be fine, he said, seeing me teetering on the edge.

But I had tried singing once or twice at the local pub. Although people were friendly, encouraging, it hadn't felt fine, I had felt worse. We are all different and some of us seem to be outliers in our difference.  Gradually, I realised that kind of community performance, where everyone takes turns might not be what I was looking for. I liked the music more, the setting was lovely, but it wan't my community and it wasn't really singing together and without the formality of a choir. 

His answer might have been that you join it once you participate but I couldn't, yet.

Later he modified his stance or changed tactic, giving the example of a someone for whom it had taken a while to participate, weeks or months.   Overall, I had the sense of someone drawing me routes, of creating opportunity, maybe just for itself, maybe partly to see what I was made of  and some of us, maybe the more reserved of us, in public, balk at that.

In the barn, as in the pubs I came to realise I wanted to sing with someone else. The night camping had been too short. I had got lost in a bog, and a wood.  I was tired and feeling strung out.  I couldn't cope with any more stress.  I had chosen to do this or rather, been drawn to the event than going because I knew it would be fun - I couldn't know that.

It was coming round to my turn again. I had evaded that twice already but was starting to get that rabbit in the headlights feeling. Stress and panic were rising like toxic sap.  It was the same feeling that made me run out of salsa class a couple of years before. 

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Milonga cultures

Charamelody

First drafted 24.4.15 

Milongas are social occasions.  Lots of people go to a regular milonga to socialise, watch and listen more than to dance.  They do it because they are new, they aren't feeling like or up to dancing, or they just feel more like chatting than dancing.

But why would people think “real” milongas are intimidating? Because they’re ignored, not included? Perhaps there is an idea people might not dance with you if you’re not good enough? 

But most people aren't like that. We aren't made to ignore distress or fear, or if we do, we feel bad about it. Our natural impulse is to be friendly, helpful, agreeable. Everyone understands what it is to be new. Many people do like to help when they see someone new - they say hello, include them, welcome them. But have you noticed how places have cultures? One shop has friendly staff, the other has a bad reputation. It is the same with workplaces, institutions, milongas, any place where the same or similar groups of people are to be found regularly. Cultures, even small ones, are ineffable yet contagious. In unfriendly cultures, people can get ideas to ignore people, to look down on them, to "dance at their own level", to “be an inspiration”.

18.6.24: Since writing this piece, the one milonga that had this reputation did a survey, years ago now, that exposed this problem.  I think it made hosting efforts to change. Hosting goes a long way but it's what regulars do with new people, with visitors that also counts. Being sociable doesn't have to mean dancing a close dance like tango with someone you don't really want to.

Another practica, that catered for people, mostly older, or new people who struggled to get dances.  This became known as the 'friendly' one. However, piranha like behaviour there from older, poor-dancing men towards new young women, resulted, rightly, in complaints.  

Now, dancing was split between the two original milongas, of twenty + years standing, and the new practica.  The new practica was successible, began a monthly milonga that pulled in sometimes three or four times more people than the original milongas.  Its critical mass meant it attracted not just the dancers from its cousin practica but others too. A monthly, alternative milonga, apparently very popular opened up. Fewer people were going to original milongas by now, maybe for other reasons too.  It shortened its hours on one of the days.   I liked that milonga best but at least now there was diversity, which is healthy. Young people are the lifeblood of any community.  If they don't come in, the scene will stagnate and die. 

Thus, milongas and dancers find their own level, not necessarily level in dance, just where and who they best fit.

Milonga-lite

Segregation

 First drafted 24.4.15 

I saw an advert (on tango.uk.com) for a segregated milonga the other day and was initially surprised, especially since it is written by a musician:

Music is played track by track to encourage dancers to dance one track at a time instead of adhering to the 'finish the tanda whatever happens rule'. Its a party, not a trial by jury!

The segregation isn't mandatory and it certainly isn't advertised as segregated, but that, I think is the effect. The idea is to cater for or, the more cynical might say, invent a market demand. 

To dance a whole tanda to great music when the dance is wanted on both sides, is a wonderful thing. So why advertise no tandas? Ostensibly, it’s often to help less experienced dancers transition into a “real milonga” which can be intimidating. The idea is new dancers go to a “milonga-lite” first with the emphasis less on the music and dancing, more on the social side where people probably mostly from beginner and improver classes meet again.

These beginner milongas, of which there are a few in the UK, are supposed to be a preparation for the “real", more intimidating milonga, with the good dancers, the perhaps traditional music, the tandas, the tango etiquette. Beginner milongas are an extension of segregated classes and entrench the idea of dancing at your own level and of keeping people in a hierarchy of paying classes for as long as possible. One of the justifications I heard for these entry-level dances is that "other people run them too". 

One thing is for sure - you don't get better at dancing by dancing with other people who can't dance yet.

Judging character

Fox inspecting trap
Chuck Jones, Merrie Melodies, via Wikimedia Commons 

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

 Aristotle, 'Rhetoric', Book 1

The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

                                                                                                                                                - Machiavelli

A guy of huge character, much humour and intelligence had been trying to get me to sing at an open session of music at his home. When I arrived everyone present had an instrument. I felt out of place, but I had been invited by the hostess who reassured me there was no pressure to sing, so I relaxed.

The man had enormous confidence.  An extrovert, he was good at everything.  He was funny, he sang well, he could vocalize and whoop with abandon.  He was my polar opposite. He played the guitar and the washboard and I don't know what else.  He was fantastic on the harmonica.  All this he did with an extraordinary, larger than life persona.  He was nonchalant as though these were minor talents - he dumbed it all down a bit, as though he were just a Sunday or barbecue musician.   But if music was an element, like water, the guy was a fish. 

To get me to sing he tried persuasion, humour, cajolement.  I felt a bit like an experiment - will she work or won't she? Eventually he let me know that everyone contributed, that was the ethos and if not Well, there's the door.  He said it lightheartedly but there was an edge.  

He was one of those who can judge others well. That is part of what can be a dangerous power, because it commonly accompanies the ability to bend people to your will, often through charm, charisma and intelligence.  Not everyone who has this power uses it this way but in recent years I had experience of someone who did. It takes a long time to reconcile two apparently contradictory facts: that you can admire someone and that they can make you feel at risk, uncomfortable, uncertain.  

As soon as you recognise this, the safer you are.  Or so I told myself, thinking I could handle it.  I was just watching, listening.  His topics, his language were interesting.  His way of seeing the world was different to mine. I was too on edge to say much myself and his interest only extended as far as his own topics, so I listened. But this suspected Machiavelli eventually turned on me with extraordinary viciousness, out of the blue, as I suspect he had turned on many before me.  Possibly he realised I was wise to him. Perhaps I unwittingly provoked him.  He would brook not the slightest challenge, could invent threat from thin air. His nostrils forever smoked with contempt at something or other. The legacy of the suddenness and shock of that jugular attack had been long-lasting.  On the other hand, it meant I was alert to warning signs in others.  

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

                                                                                                                    - Epictetus. 'The Enchiridion'

So did this caustically sharp yet amiable host really mean sing or scram it or was it just another tactic? 

I was a guest, so submissive, yet if I were a fox, my fur would be rising at possible danger. It is not a comfortable position to be in and hard to stand outside the situation to assess it, when you are in the middle of it. 

Consciously or not, he probably knew my uncertainty about his intention might push me to take the leap. Then again there can often be a huge gap between what someone says and what you hear. 

No-one likes being pushed. It is a harsh tactic to scare someone or to make them overcome fear but it can make things worse. Push someone afraid of water into it and what will happen? They could break their teeth on the bottom.  They could drown.  They could survive, with a worse fear than before. Would they somehow discover how to swim? 

If he wasn't pushing, he was standing right behind me which is nearly the same thing.  Oh, the choice is yours, but if it's coerced it isn't really a choice.

I liked the guy, I admired him, but I was wary.  You can admire someone until the cows come home, but if your interactions leave you feeling vulnerable or worse, no matter whether their intentions are honourable or not, that is your relationship, that is your reality. 

Pushed

John Graham

On an army training course, as a seventeen year old officer cadet, I  was taken, with the rest of the platoon deep into a rocky limestone cave system, somewhere in England.  It was no Cheddar Gorge.  I remember no visitor's centre, no ticket office, just a field in the country with a hole in the ground.  Mere metres inside the hole one of the team broke their ankle. It seemed to take hours for them to be manoeuvred out of the cave and stretchered away. 

It was hours more for the rest of us to clamber to the bottom of the cave system.  At one point we had to abseil down an internal waterfall. I managed to avoid getting soaked only to be purposely stood under the cascade by the instructor while I removed my harness. It was an exercise in power, humiliation and control though it was called character-building. 

Disoriented, wet and exhausted, far underground, we eventually found ourselves at what we were told was the end. It never was the end on these things though.  We could climb back up  - once we had gone through the sump.  Everything on this course was like this.  You thought you'd reached the end and were faced with some new, seemingly impossible challenge.  

The last "beasting" or forced run of the course was indelibly called "A Bridge Too Far"and involved a log run over endless bridges, finishing with multiple circuits of the assault course in Aldershot used by the Parachute Regiment. 

One evening we stumbled down a hill after a day of hot hill navigation to see the four tonners waiting for us.  We knew we had to camp.  It all just looked a bit too idyllic.  And so it was.  Our dinner was not going to be rations that day,  It was provided - alive.   We had to kill tame rabbits by chopping them on the back of the neck with our hands.  It wasn't easy and they screamed like babies. At least we hadn't had to snare them.

On another blazingly hot day we pegged it up hill and down dale again for hours.  Finally, the fort, our base, hove into view.  One last big push! shouted the DS. If you all pick up the pace to the fort and keep together you will be going through those gate in a matter of minutes.  If not, we will go round the circuit again.  This was impossible to conceive but by no means beyond the DS to make it a reality. Mutiny was impossible.  You did as you were ordered until you dropped. That is why, from time to time, people die on these army exercises. They are pushed too far, they can't stop and no-one is keeping a close enough eye on them.  I did think the DS on our course were vigilant.  They looked out for heatstroke.  They inspected our feet.  Not that that necessarily helped much.  All of my toenails turned complete black.  

 Heading towards the gates there was a massive effort from the platoon.  We did exactly as asked.  Then, suddenly, Leeeft turn!  Everyone stopped.  There was nowhere to turn left to.  The cliffs fell away down to the sea.  Why have you all stopped? came the appalled question. We made our way gingerly towards the cliff.  There was a long, small, steep path down to a tiny beach, and the inviting blue water, far below. We arrived, in trepidation, at the foot of the cliff and looked about bewildered.  Why have you stopped?  So we all ran into the sea where we did press ups in the brine.  Then, we were to pair up and piggyback up the cliff.  I got a skinny guy with a head oversized for his body.  He was an oddball but eventually garnered respect because he could run and run even though he could carry no weight.  I was supposed to be carried by him. I still cannot remember being so mortified. 

In the cave system, the sump was a pitch black, narrow rocky passage, tall enough only to lie down in and full to the ceiling with black water.  It was 3 metres or 5 metres long, I forget exactly which and we were to swim or pull our way through. Terrified, I point blank refused. 

You never refuse, question or in any way seem to challenge the Directing Staff. Once, on parade a Staff Sergeant asked me a question. It was the kind of question to which you are not supposed to give an honest answer, but I did. I gave an explanation which he must have felt challenged his authority. Or maybe he just didn't think women should be on the course. It was the very first potential officer course run by the army with both males and females. Whatever the reason I was utterly humiliated. There is no point being angry because there is nothing you can do.  That is the point. 

One after another the rest of the group went ahead of me, disappearing into the sump. I didn't care how it looked.  I cared about nothing at all but not going into that hole.  There had already been many people injured off the course with broken bones. I was sure I would not make it through. I could get snagged, stuck, trapped, even if I didn't panic which was almost certain. And how would either of the DS at each end  of the passage even know if anything was wrong? I have always had a fear of being attacked, or trapped underwater or washed away by currents. I would never choose to scuba dive. There was a stand-off between me and the DS on my side that seemed to last and last. 

The common tactic at that time in the army - and maybe still - was collective punishment.  If one person did something wrong, the rest of the team would suffer.  Everything was done on that basis.  That was how they kept everyone in line. No-one was leaving until I went through. I thought of my drenched, exhausted, shivering colleagues but my fear was too great. 

Every day on that two to three week course was utterly exhausting. We were woken in the night and dumped somewhere on Dartmoor to get ourselves back to base using night navigation. Think map and compass, not night binoculars.In the barracks there was endless cleaning.  Any time at Tregantle  Fort that we set foot outside a door we had to move on the double.  Any time we were driven somewhere we would all fall asleep instantly on the floor of a three tonner. Once, abseiling, which was supposed to be one of the easier, fun adventure activities, was called off because of bad weather. We were all told to disappear. We hitched to Plymouth, went to a cinema and all fell instantly asleep in a long row in the dark. 

At the bottom of the cave system, I was still refusing. Eventually the DS made a concession. It wasn't five metres. It was actually just a metre, or three, I forget;  the point was, it was less far than they had said. So I went. There must have been relief but all I really remember is the cold and the blinding fear.

I am glad I did the course and I am pleased that I didn't quit because I nearly did, many times.  None of the men wanted to quit until the women went and the women wanted to prove they could do it like the men. I learnt that you are limited more by your mind than your body.  I learned the value of team support. I learned how people can control and manipulate others. 

We had weekend challenges to complete, without spending any money but with as much "style, flair and panache" as we could muster - as befitted potential British army officers. The first job was to hitchhike out of Devon.  Most people headed towards London. I remember trying to get myself on a free flight to Paris which nearly, but not quite came off. Instead I was scooped up by a magnetic, older candidate from a previous course who had been working as a DS assistant and taken to Henley.  He showed me how it was done.  He would walk in to stores and come out laden with free food but primarily free champagne - lots of it.  He was lithe, fit, and utterly confident.  He blagged his way in to private enclosures from sheer, charm, youth and self assurance. He had what it took. I never saw him again after the course. But I doubt he was ever forced, pushed into things.  He was the kind who jumped. 

Character

                                           

En Japón, cuando dicen, Ese señor tiene un carácter fuerte, uno va a mirar al japonés y uno dice, Sí, ese profesor tiene un carácter fuerte, me dice
¿Verdad?
Y iba a mirarlo, preocupado
¿Ese?
…y era un hombre así…
[Él imita a un hombre, impasible, medio dormido].
¿Ese señor tiene carácter fuerte?
Sí, tiene un carácter fuerte.
¿En serio?
Sí vaya y empújelo y verá.
Yo luego lo empujaba así
Ah, perdón!
Y el maestro hacía así….
[Él imita el mismo un hombre, impasible, medio dormido pero ahora empujado por un lado como si nada le hubiera pasado.]
No pasa nada.
¿Carácter dice?
Él nunca se pone bravo. Eso es un carácter fuerte. Domina su temperamento
En Latinoamérica, cuando dicen Él tiene un carácter fuerte, uno va a mirar y hay un señor gritando a todo el mundo.
Él no tiene un carácter fuerte Tiene un carácter débil.
Porque lo que tiene fuerte es el temperamento y no lo domina con su carácter
Desarrollar carácter es poder dominar el temperamento.

* 

In Japan, when they say, This man has a strong character, one goes to look at the Japanese guy and is told, Yes, that teacher has a strong character.
Really?
So I went to see him, worried.
What, this guy?
And the man was like this...
[He imitates an impassive man, half asleep].
This man has a strong character?
Yes, he has a strong character.
Are you serious?
Yes, go and push him and you’ll see.
So, I went and pushed him like this.
Oh, sorry!
And the Master did this…
[He imitates the same impassive man, half asleep, but now pushed over to one side as if nothing had happened to him.]
Nothing happened.
Character, you say?
He never gets angry. That's a strong character. He masters his temperament.
In Latin America, when they say He has a strong character, you go and see and there's a red-faced man shouting at the world. He doesn't have a strong character. He has a weak character. Because what is strong in him is his temperament, and he doesn't master it with his character. Developing character is being able to master your temperament.

A gift

Yes, I still like to dance.  But not often because one wants a compatible partner. In the guiding role, it is not so much now that I want to dance, it's that I want to explore and for that you need a practica with willing, likeable, compatible, non-didactic, non-forceful people that you choose to learn from, who have a similar mindset and who are available at the same time.  This happens almost never! And I also want the right conditions: the right kind of hosting, the right music, volume etc.   Apart from which, practicas are usually either overly pedagogic (more on the Continent) or milongas by another name (everywhere) - sometimes with very good dancing and sometimes not. If you know of a good one, do say.

So I chat and dance a little. And that is what I was doing, chatting about 'profiles' about my companion's difficult, relatable experiences in the milongas, trying to ease her trouble because there are many women who sit in the milongas, who sit, unhappily, hiding their trouble.  So one tries to lighten that burden with perspective or just company.

The tanda came to an end. Two women stood in front of our table, during the cortina which is rare in Scotland and annoys me so vertiginously I might normally have hidden that seething lava and politely asked them if they would mind moving a touch.  But instead I indicated to the new woman this height of bad manners.  

What's wrong? she said.

Well, we can't see, for invitation, can we?, I muttered, crossly.

Ah!  No...

At that moment, without, I think, I hope, hearing, the women realised they should move and did.  This realisation dawns much less at some some supposedly polite milongas in the south of England. 

A man close by looked our way.  Hissing Look! to my companion I glanced away so that she might be invited but she missed him.  

Where? she said.  

He was right there! I said, amused. Two metres away! 

We were in a busy corner.  But when you are fearful your subconscious often doesn't let you see.

In this flux of emotions, I was waiting for the cortina to end so that, if she was not invited, we might fall back into chat when a slight, tanned man appeared, unmistakably but not disconcertingly close to our table. He smiled, quietly in invitation. 

I found myself charmed. 

You fool! I said to myself.  I had the seen him, a visitor, dance, a little. He seemed OK, maybe good.  I had recently pointed him out to my companion. But I had not been paying the kind of close attention I would have if I was sussing someone out to dance.  Visitors usually go for the girls in dresses and heels on the edge of their seat and I was fine, I was already having a nice time. And why would a visitor in a milonga that regularly pulls in about 80-100 people choose a tall, not young, trouser-wearing woman who doesn't dance much and that he would only have seen in the guiding role? As this didn't occur to me until much later I never did ask. 

I can remember another memorable dance from ten years ago in which just the same had happened: an eventual falling into unconscious chat then being drawn from that by a focused gaze on the one hand and an unconscious glance upwards on the other. 

Rising, this time with trepidation, I realised I had been caught and did not know what was coming my way. Experience says 98% of these experiences are somewhere between poor and unbearable. 

But if you are caught and you have accepted, manners must carry the day and one can only continue with good grace until something happens: he pushes you, forces you, alarms you, treads on your toes and then everything is up for renegotiation, which is to say, you can leave although one might try first to indicate "no" with the body and with space [The use of force].  From his accent in his first few words  I wondered if he was Scandinavian. Then I realised where he was in fact from.  Yes, he said, surprised. 

Some Italians and some Argentinians have a particular genius for their sense of a woman.   It is the way they hold you, the way they move you, they way they support your back, your movement and in that, support everything else, that is not tangible. You feel profoundly safe with such men and our drive for safety in life must be one of the most essential. Many things can happen that can only happen when you feel safe. I don't know how these men learn to create this feeling of being safe, treasured, almost, for those minutes, but I find it rarely outside these two nationalities. 

The tanda was D'Agostino which is an orchestra that particularly needs gentleness, subtlety, sensitivity, finesse. His eyes crinkled in a smile against my cheek as we embraced.  Is there any nicer feeling, than to be appreciated, enjoyed, a source of pleasure?  He began, in no rush, by not doing very much at all. He moved me, very slightly, from side to side, seeing how I responded.  That is how what was left of the first track ended. 

Words in dances like this, with someone with whom you have a special kind of connection, simply fall away. Not just in the dance, but in trying to describe it.  

Because I dance so rarely guided, let alone with men who dance so well, I am out of practice.  There was also the limiting factor of being afraid of damaging my knee.  Embarrassment and worry shouldered their way between us like jealous children of the ego.  But men like this are understanding, patient, kind, unpatronising, accommodating. They calm and defuse.  

When frustration and its siblings crowd in, the only thing you can do is acknowledge them, bid them stay, if they must, whereupon they quieten down. If the person accepts you as you are, then you can only accept yourself. Conversely if you accept yourself you give space and permission for the other person to accept you.  Because it is odd how much we can self sabotage, we do not allow people, even though they are willing, to see us, to accept us.  

As I told my new and struggling friend sitting on the side, I still struggle with the invitation by look, twelve years on.  I realise now I allow people I am happy to dance with to see me, but don't let myself see or be seen by the people I really want to dance with.  If you won't risk rejection, it is ego (pride) or insecurity. Ego is really a barrier caused by fear and insecurity, is a sense you are not good enough.  And the question to ask there, is For whom? 

You can sense when people accept you.  There are guys, even good dancers, in a way, who test you, who assess you. This isn't acceptance. There are plenty of guys who lecture, harangue or criticise you though I don't come into contact with them much and if I do, the relationship ends forthwith. 

But when someone accepts you, you feel understood, you feel gratitude and peace and compassion.  Things can grow between you in that soil and even radiate outwards. We don't have a word in English that encompasses these feelings.  Maybe in other languages they are ubuntu, agape, metta, old English frith. 

From this, grows confidence in oneself, in the other, in the shared movement.  And though not all will go perfectly, those moments are opportunities to repeat the cycle of feelings, different each time, with their own nuance. Gradually, as you discover one another, you realise what works best, what might be possible, what is possible and so you explore and discover and it is a kind of magic.

The track ended and I looked at him with absolute wonder. He looked back calmly, I think happy.  He mentioned music, how that is all there is, all you need. Later, he said how music is like the movement of water in the sea.  

Like a wave, I said. 

Yes. 

With wonderful serendipity, el dominicano would later say, that same evening, how music, or maybe he said dance, is like the movement of wind in the trees.  

It is very hard to express the feelings one has after such a dance, or what has happened, but it is like a gift, from the partner or from you, or between you, or perhaps from the world.  It is something beautiful. Maybe it is all of this. Maybe it is an exchange of something precious, not transactional, but free. You are left with a sense of awe. 

There is so much ego in the milongas you get used to not having expectations, or forgetting about them altogether.  It is such an effort, why would you want to be part of that? I don't want a struggle to dance, would rather pasar un momento musical o social.  There are much better experiences that way. 

This is what I was trying to pass on to the lady who wanted to dance but wasn't.  It wasn't put in these terms that night but if you engage in that struggle to dance you will pass many unhappy hours. If you do other things then you may or may not dance but you will have had other good experiences. 

I remember the ache and the longing to dance and the frustration of not being able to do so, of not being chosen to dance. It is a bittersweet feeling: the sweetness and the anhelo of the desire to dance and the amargura of it not coming to pass. Maybe that bittersweetness in itself is a bit addictive. But you let go of that when you realise there are other good things in the milonga.  That is an attitude of moderation and it is easier when you accept it.  If you tie yourself up in tight knots with the anxiety, the anguish of not dancing it cannot do your health any good. That is how a year or more can and regularly does pass, quietly, without rancour and with good times, between one great dance and the the next.  

And that is why when something so wonderful comes so unexpectedly your way, the lasting impression is of gratitude and great good fortune.

Play ball!

A guy came to the milonga who couldn't dance, had never tried. You could see he was interested. I invited him to try and he was hooked.  After that, he came to the weekly milonga and I danced with him, at first with him in the woman's role, but he wasn't a big fan.  He had a lot of pride and tradition and wanted to dance in the 'proper' role for men.  This is ordinarily a warning sign. But I enjoyed his company and understood his attitude was common among some men, especially one's from cultures traditionally or recently patriarchal.  He listened to the music.  The embrace was good.  He believed in the no-teach method.   I thought we would see how far we could go. Not that far, as it turned out.  He needed more practice in the woman's role, he wasn't going to dance better without that and he just wasn't keen.  He felt uncomfortable, as many men do. Well, OK. I think I realised, subconsciously that I was done. I liked the guy and would try to help out, nothing ostensibly changed and I still looked for new ways to help him from my 'place' in the woman's role and also within the stern constraints of a milonga environment where any 'help' has to be silent and unobservable. But I had the sense, even if I didn't acknowledge it fully at the time, that it was the end of that road. Besides, we needed a practica whereas we met in a milonga. I had learned the man's role in the milonga, and without help but I had danced in the woman's role for at least two years and I knew the music.

Around this time he told me he was going to start classes.  For two or three months I didn't see him.  When I next saw him - Yes, the classes were going very well. 

- Right, well, good.

 Shall we dance? he said.  He pushed and shoved and forced me into his uncomfortable, contrived and badly executed class moves.  Silently, I resisted, corporeally refused.  

Why aren't you doing it? he said, angrily, after he tried to twist me into an awkward ocho. When you can do it well, I will, I replied, mildly. 

This is why ochos are a terrible move for beginner guys because they are hard to execute well. It is considered a key, basic move.  But I don't think I learned to do ochos in the guiding role for years and I wasn't short of good, complimentary dance partners.  It takes a lot of unusual skill or years of experience for the guide to lead the partner in an ocho that is small, subtle, elegant, supported and does not make her feel like a cart horse. Most women will just do as they are told and think the problem is them. 

He became angry.  I might have laughed. Certainly, I was amused, but was still willing to try and find some common ground.  Then, at the end, he hissed,  in his language, so this is a translation: You aren't playing along! Or, perhaps, more accurately, You aren't keeping your end up.  You aren't playing ball. As if, when they throw ridiculous, impossible shots, the partner is still meant to go for them  - and enjoy it!  And then he said, with, finally, some insight: There's no connection! No kidding. The trouble was, he plainly thought it was my fault for not following his 'lead'. He knew I knew what he wanted me to do.  I just wasn't doing it. And that was true.  

It is an odd thing that someone can say something true, agree with it and yet know it to be insulting.  So that was definitively the end, for rme.  Out of profoundly misplaced politeness, I greeted him next time, although with no intention of dancing.  The message: No hard feelings!   But actually, it is the person who has done the offending who is supposed to say that and even then, it's trite. Still, I knew he felt that he was the injured party, he who been so forceful. Of course I should have done what he wanted. That's what a leader is. They lead. You follow.  Recall, in the tangos, the men always do think they are the ones hard done by, all that martyrdom, the inherent evilness, the treachery, of women. 

In any case, he snubbed me. That's what you get for being too subservient, too polite. There is no need to feel bad.  You have been polite, he has not and only revealed more of the darker side of his character.   But if a man, anyone for that matter, has been rude, the best strategy, the only strategy really, is distance.  Forget about his wounded ego. You do not need to appease or cajole him.  Ignore him.  Fine!  I thought. That is what I should have done  And that's what I did, thereafter.     

Over the months to come I would meet women who found him rude, demanding, forceful.  Not that I looked his way, in the milongas, but the stress pulsed off him, in silent waves.  One woman told me, He wouldn't have meant it.  He just has a bad temper when under pressure.  So do men who hit their wives, I thought.  I can mend things between you, she said.  I didn't see her again though and I wasn't sure I wanted them mended.  I doubted he was the apologising type.  Too much pride. I might have been happy to chat, but not to dance, not without a major change in the dynamic, which wasn't likely.

'Higher' pleasures

After innocence, one may discover other pleasures in the milonga, other ways of dancing.  Some find their way straight to this land.

There was a discussion, I think in one of Anthony Grayling's introductory philosophy classes at Birkbeck, back in around 2005 about ethics.  It was specifically about pleasure and where the greatest pleasure lay, in the pure hedonism of the sensual pleasures, or in more cultural and intellectual pursuits. Grayling was an elegant orator.  He never patronised us as the novitiates we in fact were, by telling.  He would bestow on us the grace that of course we already knew to what he was referring, because naturally we were well informed and engaged individuals.  Have people believe that you believe in their best selves and they become those very selves. He would introduce a new topic with Recall ....

Recall, then, that Jeremy Bentham's hedonistic utilitarianism posits that the best action is the one that maximizes overall happiness or pleasure and minimizes overall pain.  He conveniently, if bizarrely, introduced a 'hedonistic calculus', a complicated kind of pro/con list. If you believe this is not an overly simple (or complex) approach to assessing subjective experience, or that difference types of pleasure and pain are in fact commensurable, you could try this out. Take any two alternatives and list them according to the categories (in bold, below) provided by Bentham.  These are the things you are meant to consider.  You could apply to them a score though Bentham did not specifically say to do this.

Action A: Going to a Concert

• Intensity: High pleasure (8/10)
• Duration: 3 hours
• Certainty: Very likely (9/10)
• Propinquity (how soon): Immediate (concert is tonight)
• Fecundity (likelihood that a particular pleasure, or pain, will generate further, similar experiences): Moderate (chance of more pleasurable social interactions, 6/10)
• Purity: High (unlikely to cause pain, 8/10)
• Extent: Affects you and your friend (2 people)

Action B: Staying Home to Study

• Intensity: Moderate pleasure (5/10) but low pain (2/10)
• Duration: 4 hours
• Certainty: Very likely (9/10)
• Propinquity: Immediate
• Fecundity: High (leads to future academic success, 9/10)
• Purity: High (studying has few negative consequences, 8/10)
• Extent: Primarily affects you (1 person)

Calculation (Simplified)

• Concert: (Intensity x Duration x Certainty x Fecundity x Purity x Extent) = (8 x 3 x 9 x 6 x 8 x 2) = 20736
• Studying: (Intensity x Duration x Certainty x Fecundity x Purity x Extent) = (5 x 4 x 9 x 9 x 8 x 1) = 12960

John Stuart Mill on the other hand says we will choose the pleasure that most appeals to us, even if we know that there may be more discontent associated with it than with the other:

Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing the quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account. 

                                                                                                        - from 'Utilitarianism'

But by this, I could choose eating ice -cream over studying philosophy.

Ah, no, says Mill, because the 'higher faculties' are where the most pleasure lies. What do the facilities involve?

...there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.

He goes so far as to say you hardly have a choice, or you would inevitably do nothing but choose the higher faculties, once conscious of their pleasure:.  

The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification.

In short,

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

Further, those who have experienced both types of pleasure, those of the higher faculties and those of the lower, will choose the higher:

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. 

 Experiencing the higher pleasures are a kind of one-way street:

Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he, for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. 

And yet people do in fact choose things that are bad for them. It is an age-old question: 

"No one goes willingly toward the bad." (Plato, Protagoras, 358d).  

Socrates thinks if we choose ill it is through ignorance. 

Mill, similarly admits that people who do know of the higher pleasures choose wrongly:  

It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower.

He explains why:

Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable; and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is between bodily and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good. It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in 19 years sink into indolence and selfishness. 

There is then something of a contradiction: 

But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. 

And yet people do choose sensual pleasures over more "noble" pleasures.  But he explains this thus:

Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both. 

In conclusion, there are many threats to enjoyment of the nobler feelings,  They need time and the right conditions to flourish.  Given the frequent allegorical references to shoots and growth in The Outpost, it is fascinating, if not surprising, that Mill chooses the metaphor of a plant to represent the incipient noble feelings. 

Permit me an analogy: Say we have two pleasures, two types of tango movement; on the one hand, fancy tricks, no embrace, lots of excitement and the kind of thing that has many neophyte women gushing with pleasure. On the other, we have simple movements, very musical, creative, original, within a profound embrace, and an emphasis on experience of shared feeling and connection.   Per Mill, those who have experienced both types of movement will choose the one they most prefer. I met a woman at a salsa event on Sunday who I never see in the milongas because she likes 'dancing tango' at alternative music events. You mean dancing movements associated with dancing tango music, to non-tango music, I said, pedantically while our mutual, non-tango-dancing friend looked on, laughing. She just doesn't like traditional tango music. 

It is tempting to say that most of those who have experience of both types of dance will choose the traditional type of dancing - except of course for my most recent example!  In Europe, traditional dancing is found in encuentros - and in some milongas.  It is not that I speak from vast experience of encuentros, disliking the registration process. And encuentros tend to be viewed as where many of the best and most experienced, the elite, if you like (another reason I rarely go), congregate. Also, those with the time and money to be able to afford it.

And yet, it might be true that just as many good and experienced dancers disappear to the alternative tango world, it's just that those who prefer traditional dancing, don't see them. But I think not, partly because it is well known that many inexperienced dancers prefer the alternative scene, find it easier, more accessible etc. And it is not well known that all the best European dancers go to alternative milongas.  On the contrary, it is well known that they don't. There are of course, exceptions. 

Are traditional milongas part of Mill's higher or more 'noble' pleasures? Perhaps.  I do see the neophyte or alternative style of dancing as "mere sensation", if that means "mere movement", whereas traditional dancing involves more of Mill's 'feelings'. But here I recognise that we are on dangerous ground.  Don't 'alternative' dancers have feelings?  Well of course they do.  Are there feelings less valid then?  Well, no, that would sound absurd, not to mention discriminatory and callous.   What can we say other beyond that the experiences are very different?  And yet there is much unsaid.  That is the thing with feelings, they often seem to slip through discussion. I think there is though a pleasure and fun derived from the tricks of dance movement that is...well, here I fail again, just very different from the ?quieter, more ?subtle,  more ?inward,  experience of traditional tango dance.

Perhaps Mill's distinctions between higher and lower pleasures are based on a difference of sensibility, though this is not a term he uses.  He does talk about "sensitiveness and thoughtfulness of the character" which I think he associates with higher pleasures.  

Today though, we might say that the subject of pleasure is more nuanced and described differently.  My highly educated Peruvian friend doesn't enjoy classical music or opera, preferring the salsa and the happy rhythms of the fiestas of his homeland. He spoke of a, uptight, malnourished, thin, well-educated, high-earning, high-achieving person, obsessed with money who enjoyed the classical refinements, disparaged the common sweatiness of salsa yet lacked things in their life, primarily happiness, enjoyment and fun.