362  No Money, No Vision, No Faith

Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 13:56:45 -0500
From: Keith Elshaw <keith@TOTANGO.NET>
Subject: No Money, No Vision, No Faith

An interesting commentary from the writer ALBERTO MANGUEL has just been
published. This ex-pat Argentino has been garnering awards and attention
with his novels and non-fiction for a long time in Canada and elsewhere.


Argentine society effectively no longer exists, Manguel argues, because it
no longer believes in its own integrity.

(snip) "President Fernando de la Rua's task was hopeless. To restore balance
to a society that effectively no longer exists because it no longer believes
in its own integrity is a trick no magician can perform. It is as if the
members of the audience refused to enter an implicit contract of respect and
suspension of disbelief with the performer, as if they decided not to sit
and watch a rabbit being pulled out of a hat, and tried instead to run away
with both the hat and the rabbit, certain that if they don't, the magician
will nick them both first. Under such circumstances, no performance can take
place and the theatre might as well fold.

The famous tango Cambalache (Junk Shop) foresaw it all in 1935: "No one
cares if you were born honest," it sings. And then:
It's all the same: the one who slaves
All day and night like an ox,
The one who lives off others,
The one who kills, the one who cures,
Or the one who's broken the law." (/snip)


The entire article can be read at https://ToTANGO.net/ttindex.html