We can watch dance or dance ourselves and not become reckless sensualists. Most of us, I suspect, think we could witness some pretty provocative dancing and not be led astray by it, not become addicted to sitting at a table in some noisy club with our eyes fixed on the dancers. We have a lot of faith in our mastery of our emotions and our moods. We don t expect to be carried away, and we have a kind of modern myth that we wouldn t be carried away by anything unless it were really right for us. This, I think, is as overly optimistic as our grandparents fear was overly pessimistic.
People still can go wrong by following their bliss.
Ask any alcoholic or drug addict, or compulsive gambler, or someone who s on his or her third go-round trying to quit smoking cigarettes. But I think it s worth remembering that fear of dancing was an exaggeration, not a kind of insanity. Dance can make people forget themselves in unpleasant ways as well as pleasant, and it s possible for persons to dance in ways which are a shame, just as it s possible to drink in ways which shame persons. I use the example of dance because it was in our texts, and I draw this moral from it because dance represents something we ve forgotten can have a demoralizing side. That s a very little thing to ask, that our society not feel compelled to swing either to the extreme of pretending that something like dance can t be safe or good for people, or to the extreme that something like dance can t be risky or bad for people.