When did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US?

When did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US?


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Up until about the 1950s, one can see instances of social dance (especially ballroom) dominating the social scene. This includes instances such as the tennis court scene with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, several Astaire/Rogers films, and even Peggy and Steve speak of going dancing in Captain America: The First Avenger. Formal social dancing dates back to the Medieval and Renaissance periods, and have included everything from country reels to formal line dancing (as seen in film adaptations of Regency-era novels, such as those of Jane Austen) and ballroom dances such as the waltz or the more modern Charleston and Latin American pair dances.

These dances remain popular to this day in Central and South America, where parties and large social gatherings will include everyone dancing salsa, merengue, and (more recently) bachata. Yet in the United States, this style of dancing (read: "ballroom," which encompasses what were then casual or country dances) has largely fallen out of favor.

My question is this: When did such activities fall out of mode in the United States? And, furthermore, why did they largely disappear from the mainstream?

NB: I am aware of specific instances -- weddings, prom, quinceañera, cotillion, bar mitzvahs, etc. -- where such dances are still performed as part of the social norm. However, these events are rare. The average US dinner party, for example, is unlikely to include pairs dancing at any point in the evening, where at one point the living room would have been cleared of furniture and swing or jazz music played.


Swing music and swing dancing peaked in popularity around World War II. The war made it difficult to assemble a big band, and there were musicians' strikes in 1942 and 1948. A lot of jazz also started to become less danceable; this started with bebop and continued with Coltrane and West Coast Jazz.

Starting around 1955, rock and roll started to be heard on the radio and attract white listeners. On this 1956 TV clip, you can see Bill Haley performing his big hit "Rock Around the Clock," with an interracial (?) group of dancers doing what mostly looks like swing dancing. The dance craze of 1958 was the stroll, which you can see self-conscious white teenagers doing here. Here is a clip from American Bandstand, also from 1958, of young white people in suits and skirts dancing to "At the Hop." Up until this point, everything looks like a pretty recognizable evolution of European-American pair and line dances, but being done to African-American music.

It seems like the big change happened in 1960-62 with the twist, which was a dance craze started by a Chubby Checker song. It's the first thing I see in these old films that looks like a distinctively African-American dance that's broken free of the conventions of European ballroom dancing. Dwight Eisenhower evidently agreed that this was a radical change:

I have no objection to the Twist as such. But it does represent some kind of change in our standards. What has happened to our concepts of beauty and decency and morality?

People are no longer necessarily dancing in pairs, and there are no defined "steps" -- the dancers are moving their hips without necessarily taking their feet off the ground at all.


I'm not sure I agree with your premise at all. Dance has never 'gone out of style'. Sure ballroom dancing has. What were discos of the 70's and 80's if not group synchronized dancing? Now we still have raves and clubs. Even in the age of indie rock, there was still mosh pit's and club dancing. Dancing in the big band era was different than that in the 1800's and 1700's. It is still changing. But music, and dance, is still very popular with the young people, with each new generation developing their own 'brand' of dance.

Ben Crowell asked about whether I answered the question asked in a comment I made.

The title asks about the demise of "formal social dance". The first paragraph talks about "instances of social dance". The question is "when did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US." It's my contention that formal social dances never fell out of favor, they simply changed with the time. The dance occasion as shown in the movie "Sabrina" occuring in the 50's, would be replace with a disco in the 70's/80's, a line dance in the 80's/90's, and a rave today. There are formal, planned, raves. Do people dress in ball gowns? no. Is that what was asked? no.

Now answering the OP more directly

Within your own clarification, you talk about 'clearing the living room' for some swing dance. That, right there, is not an example of a Formal Social Dance. That is an informal gathering of (young) adults practicing the particular style, or fad, of dancing popular AT THAT TIME. Two kids, 10 years ago, might have done the same thing, to practice break dancing, before heading down to a group of friends where they would all gather to dance in the style of dance (fad) of the time.

Taking it a step further, that group of break dancing friends WOULD be wearing the formal outfits, as required of their peers and audience, of the time in question. If you meant to write the question as to be only about Swing dancing, then my proposition is: it ended when the fad of swing was replaced with whatever came next… perhaps the sockhop? I don't know, as I was not alive then. My first personal history is with disco. Those were VERY MUCH formal social gatherings.

Yet, only a couple decades after swing was popular, we had the fads of Disco and Country and Western line dancing. Line dancing is still popular in certain European areas. Those dance styles require precise steps, AND for all intents and purposes, both special and fairly specific outfits/clothes and a formal social gathering, in order to occur.

Take a ballroom gathering of the 1700's, perhaps the Court of France. I could imagine that there would be outrage at someone introducing what is now known as a C&W Line dance, but depending on who it was, I could also see the formalized steps required fitting right in at that time. Maybe if Mozart had a banjo?


According to William Strauss and Neil Howe's book, Generations, U.S. cultural norms are set by generations born immediately after a major war, into a "new age."

Social or ballroom dancing was a staple of the so-called "Missionary" generation, born during and after the Civil War (1860-1882). It was adopted by the two following generations, basically people born up to the mid or late 1920s.

The Baby Boom generation, born during and after World War II, popularized "rock" music (with a new style of dance), thereby putting the social or ballroom dancing on the "back burner." This phenomenon started with the Boomers' coming of age in the 1960s, and continued thereafter, as older generations that preferred the social dancing (born during or before the 1920s) died out. Nowadays, ballroom dancing is the preferred genre only among people over eighty years old in the United States.

Latin American countries adopted (and discarded) U.S. practices with a time lag of several decades, which is why ballroom (or similar) dancing is still popular there.


The real breakdown of formal social dancing happened during the cultural revolution in the late 1960s when everything that had been associated with previous generations was rejected. At the same time, dressing and behavioural standards also went down the drain. Yes, I guess, the baby boomers are to blame as they were the generation setting new trends back then. The previous generation, those born during the 1920s and earlier, were still taught how to waltz, foxtrot, etc. However, the baby boomers rejected those traditions, and as a result, they were not passed on to the next generation as you cannot teach what you have not been taught yourself.

It might interest you that ballroom dancing is still very popular in many central European cultures with Austria, and its capital Vienna, being a world leader in that area. Austrian teens spend many months attending dance classes and acquiring the skills necessary to succeed (or at least pass muster) on the dance floor. Of course, this is a country whose capital hosts more than 400 formal balls every single year. I dare say that you'd be hard pressed to find that many in the entire US!


Social Dancing did indeed go out of style. The disco and C&W fads were, after all, nearly 30 years ago. Sure you can still find places to host raves, as well as ballroom, swing, salsa, or whatever you want, but these cater to a specialized clientle. (and raves are as much about drinking as dancing) It is not like pre-1960s America, where going out dancing was as common as going to the movies, where every dinner date ended with dancing, where high schools hosted dances on a weekly basis, where people rolled back their carpets and hosted dance parties in their homes.

Anyone and everyone can come up with a theory, but I will offer this one. Social Dancing fell out of style because it just wasn't very much fun. The easing of social mores meant that women had greater freedom to choose their partners, but they also had greater freedom to reject them, and men learned that constant rejection was rather unpleasant. Music became so loud that you couldn't talk over it, and thus you couldn't get to know the other person, so dancing was no longer an icebreaker or a means of introduction. High schools became too enamored of their precious gym floors to let anyone dance on them, homes installed wall-to-wall carpeting, and the drinking age everywhere was raised to 21, so this generation never got a chance to develop their skills, or learned to view dancing as a social grace.


I am not at all sure it was that long ago that interest in social dancing waned. I am curious why singles dances weren't even mentioned here as I was very active in that scene for many years. I eventually stopped going to them because more of the women who attended were the type who felt that if you weren't Prince Charming you weren't worth a few minutes on the dance floor. Then in the mid-1980s the society became super obsessed with making money, which left less time for social life; the opposite of what many pundits expected with the Advent of modern technology. Also stricter DUI laws began keeping people at home more.


Kate's answer is very similar to my own, but I have a different take on it.

Yes, the breakdown of social dancing happened during the cultural revolution in the late 1960's when everything that had been associated with previous generations was rejected. Yes, dress and behavior standards also changed.

The baby-boomers rejected the traditions of their elders, but I think there is more to be said about the atmosphere of a dance than the music played. The music may have been different, but that was nothing new. Social dancing had been around for centuries regardless of the kind of music played.

What was different? A search on dance etiquette will readily bring up several pages which indicate anything but what we tend to practice in America today. Why? That is the heart of what the baby-boomers rejected.

Social dancing as it existed before World War II was compared by Emily Post to a cocktail party. It was the intent for people attending a social dance to dance with as many different partners as possible. One was discouraged from dancing with their escort more than one or two times (the first and last dances). I recall reading, "If a husband and wife want to dance with each other, they should go somewhere else more accommodating."

Many people are under the impression that the gentleman always asked the lady to dance and a "Sadie Hawkins" dance was the only exception. This is not so. The gender in the majority always asked, though gentlemen took precedence if the two were fairly equally represented. The host or hostess was charged with trying to make the numbers as even as possible, though it was more common for gentlemen to outnumber the women.

The etiquette of a social dance makes it clear that it was intended to be a social event. It wasn't an event intended for you to spend time with your loved one. This is what was rejected by the baby-boomers. They rejected the socialization of the social dance and started turning it into what it is today. Even when you play the music of the period, whether a Viennese Waltz or a Big Band Swing, the mentality of the "social" dance is not what it was 100 years ago.


Historic Dance Halls of Texas

My dance partner and I were traveling down a two-lane asphalt road through the middle of the Texas Hill Country. It was pitch-black outside. Off the side of the road, my headlights caught the eyes of a herd of cattle pressed up against a wire fence. We were about 65 miles west of Austin, 45 miles north of San Antonio. For all intents and purposes, it was the middle of nowhere. But we had no doubt in our minds that what lay down the road was one of the best nightlife spots in all of Texas: Kendalia Halle, one of the state’s last remaining historic dance halls.

Kendalia Halle, one of the last historic dance halls of Texas, sustains a living history in its out-of-the-way corner of the Hill Country. Photo by Jeff Wilson.


Classical Criminology

The new era, ushered in by the Enlightenment thinkers, led to the development of the Classical School. Cesare Beccaria became known as the Father of Classical Criminology. At a very young age he authored his most famous work titled, On Crimes and Punishments (1764). He was a member of an intellectual group known as the Academy of Fists and the group would gather in secret to discuss the need for social reform. Beccaria is most frequently referred to as a punishment reformer and he staunchly advocated the principle of "no crime without law" and he specified the criteria for the enactment and administration of criminal codes. He felt strongly about the separation of powers in criminal law due to the potential for abuse and misuse. Interestingly he was one of the first people to suggest that the essence of crime was the harm that it did to society.

At the heart of Beccaria's Classical School of thought was the notion that "it is better to prevent crimes than to punish them" (Beccaria, 1764/1963:93). Out of this idea arises our common understanding of Deterrence and the idea that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to punish an innocent man. this is a very contrary position to the "old" Pre-Classical ways whereby the innocent were often tortured and even killed in the pursuit of justice in an effort to extract a confession.

Beccaria did not question the need for punishment, but he believed that laws should be designed to preserve public safety and order, not to avenge crime.

To ensure a rational and fair penal structure, punishments for specific crimes must be decreed by written criminal codes, and the discretionary powers of judges severely curtailed.

Deterrence employs the threat of punishment to influence behavior. It assumes that:

  • People are rational
  • people's behavior is a product of free will
  • People are hedonistic (their goal is to increase pleasure and/or to avoid pain)

Three principles of punishment that became the hallmark of Beccaria's Classical deterrence doctrine:

  • Swift - punishment must be swift to be effective. You can't have the punishment linger or the punishment and the crime loose their association
  • Certain - people must know they will be punished for their illegal behavior - can't have people evade the law for any reason
  • Severe - must be severe enough to outweigh the rewards of the illegal action - severity and proportionality are sometimes at odds especially since each person is different in terms of what constitutes a "severe" punishment.

Punishment must also be proportionate to the harm caused. If we lose proportionality there is little to prevent/discourage the criminal from committing more severe crimes and engaging is worse behavior.

Punishment used to keep order not avenge crime.

Some people over the years have suggested that public punishment is effective as well. Think back and recall the early days when people would be locked into stockades in the town square for all to ridicule and see. There was a punitive effect and part of it was based on shame and humiliation. Over the years many philosophers have discussed the merits of public punishment as both a general and a specific deterrent to crime. Here's peculiar story of mine about public punishment and hanging .

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1833) Was a Classical School reformer who believed that people were governed by a pleasure/pain principle and that punishment was only useful to bring about a greater good to the society as a whole. He called this pleasure/pain principle the hedonistic calculus. He too believed that the punishment for crimes committed should not be guided by retribution for the act or harm, but rather by the aim of preventing crime which was viewed as an offense detrimental to the entire community. As noted, at the heart Bentham's punishment philosophy was: Utilitarianism, "the greatest happiness principle." All action must serve a purpose (the greatest happiness principle) (all action should be judged by its effect on the happiness of the community)(greatest happiness for the greatest number)

Bentham's Hedonistic calculus/Felicity involved weighing of pleasure v. pain. He was very much a contemporary and admirer of Beccaria's work and believed that freewill allowed people to make calculated and deliberate decisions related to the pursuit of their own happiness

One of his most famous writings was "Principle of morals and legislation…(1789)" which is a philosophical piece on the social control of individuals based on the principle of "utility" (the creation of happiness in the party concerned). In judging human action and its effects on society it is important to consider: 1) the act itself, 2) the circumstances of the act, 3) the intentionality of the act, 4) the consciousness of the act, 5) the motive, 6) and the general outcome of the act.

Together Beccaria and Bentham, along with their contemporaries, are credited with ushering in a new era, creating a social movement that deeply impacted and changed how laws were thought of and applied. Their work permeates many of our current criminal justice system practices.

The classical school of criminology became very popular and was the prevailing paradigm for approximately 100 years until the end of the 1800's when a new school of thought emerged - Positivism. (I want to spend just a moment introducing the idea of positivism and then will get back to the Rational Choice stuff). Positivists emerged out the European scientific revolution which saw great advances in astronomy, geography, mathematics, biology, etc. Positivism was rooted in empiricism and scientific discovery and looked to things like IQ, poor education, improper up-bringing, etc. and felt that the causes of crime were beyond people's control and therefore punishment seemed foolish and cruel. We will go over this more in depth in the next chapter but it is important to know that this was the antithesis of the concept of freewill decision making.

Ok, back to rational choice theory which emerged out of the Classical School. Let's jump in during the 1970's, the Classical approach, after having falling out of favor for about 100 years due to the popularity of the Positivist perspective, again gained some popularity. The national crime rate was rising, recidivism rates were rising, rehabilitation did not seem to be working, and prison riots were popping up all around the country (ATTICA - VIDEO). The public became nervous about the social turmoil that was underway and ongoing and demanded a change and law enforcement officials as well as policy advocates once again began talking about social control and punishment as a means of controlling crime. Rehabilitation at this time was thought to be useless. Some of the supporting evidence of this, empirical research studies examining rehabilitation and recidivism, have since been proven inaccurate or error ridden. We will address some of this in the next chapter but keep an eye out for the name Robert Martinson.

In the late 1970's, criminological literature began to once again tap into the ideas of freewill and particularly rationality to explain how criminals plan their crimes because they fear punishment. In 1975 James Q. Wilson wrote Thinking About Crime in which he debunked Positivist explanations for crime and advocated deterrence and incapacitation. he was one of the most popular writers of the time and had very specific ideas about how to deal with criminals who seem to feel that "crime pays".

Types of Deterrence:

General: Applies to all of society.

Specific: Applies only to the individual.

From these roots of the Classical School and Wilson's work in the 1970's, a new theory developed based on the criminal as an intelligent, thinking individual, making the decision to commit illegal acts. Today this is referred to as the Rational Choice Approach to crime causation.

Rational choice is based on the idea that criminals weigh the rewards against the risks of being caught and punished. Criminals usually have enough sense to know not to commit crime in areas that are well patrolled by police. In fact, when criminals are fearful of being caught, they will look for easier targets. Occasionally you see a phenomenon called crime displacement. Crime Displacement occurs when patrols or crackdowns of some kind in one area lead to or "cause" an increase in crime in another area. Prostitution is a good example of crime displacement. When an area is "raided" by law enforcement many of the prostitutes that do not get arrested don't simply go home, they walk a few block and continue their activities.


When did formal social dance fall out of favor in the US? - History

Ballroom Dance

The Three Worlds of Ballroom Dance



Social




Competitive




Exhibition

Which one is better?

Yes, that question is intentionally provocative, and is easily answered. All three forms are valid, each enjoyed by their adherents for good reasons. But it's helpful to know how and why they differ from each other. As you'll see in the third section below, it's sometimes essential to know the differences.


First, what is Ballroom Dance?

"Ballroom dance" refers to traditional partnered dance forms that are done by a couple, often in the embrace of closed dance position ("ballroom dance position"). These include waltz, swing, tango, salsa and blues.

"Ballroom dance" is the overall umbrella term, covering all three forms discussed on this page.

Social dance forms are important. The earliest historical dance forms ever described in writing were partnered social dances. Many of today's performative dance forms, including ballet and jazz dance, evolved from social dance forms that came first. And today, noncompetitive social dance continues to be the most widely done form of dance in the world.

The three worlds of ballroom dance share the same historical roots, similar step vocabulary and music, so the three forms are considered siblings, related by birth. Yes, siblings are known to fight, but they can also be mutually supportive.

What is the essential difference between the three?


The main distinction is that they have different audiences . Who are you dancing for, beyond your own enjoyment?


Social Ballroom


Then looking closer at the differences.

What are your audience's expectations?


• Your partners want to interact with you spontaneously, for fun, doing steps that are also enjoyable for them.



• Judges want to see that the steps and styles are done precisely and correctly, with great flair.



• Audiences want to be entertained, often with a preference for beautiful and impressive moves.

What is your focus?

• It's how a dance feels to you and your partner, not how it looks. The experience.


• It's how your dancing looks, for the judges. The appearance.


• It's also how your dancing looks, for the audience. The appearance.

What is your attitude?

• Sociable, which means friendly and kind.
• Flexibly adaptive. You value and accommodate to styles that are different from your own.


• Rigorously correct, expansive.
• The many styles outside of the official syllabus are usually considered to be incorrect.


• Performance attitude varies widely, depending on the dance form.

What is the attitude concerning mistakes?

• Mistakes are accepted as inevitable. Social dancers laugh them off and move on.
• When a Follow does something different from what the Lead intended, he knows it's a valid alternative interpretation of his lead.
• Social dancers are happy if things work out 80% of the time. And the other 20% is when most learning happens.


• Judges deduct points for every mistake, so competitive dance culture is aligned against making mistakes from day one.
• When a Follow does something different from what the Lead intended, he considers it a mistake, which is to be eliminated.
• Competitive dancers work hard to achieve 100%.


• For professional performances, audiences expect perfection, so dance companies rehearse extensively to avoid any mistakes onstage.

• For amateur performances, audiences mostly want to see that the dancers are enjoying themselves, so mistakes are generally accepted.

What is your reward?

• The spontaneous enjoyment of improvising with a partner.
• The satisfaction of becoming proficient in a dance form.
• Self confidence.



• Competing. Impressing others. Winning.
• The satisfaction of becoming proficient in a dance form.
• Self confidence.



• Entertaining or impressing others. Enthusiastic applause.
• The satisfaction of becoming proficient in a dance form.
• Self confidence.

Are there standardized steps and technique?

No, standardization doesn't function because each partner is different. You must modify your steps to adapt to each partner.



Yes, rigorously standardized, because competitors need to know exactly what technical details the judges expect to see.



Sometimes, but in today's sampling culture ("been there, seen that") audiences prefer something they've never seen before.

Is there a standardized style?

Absolutely not. You develop your own personal style, different from others. Some social forms like swing, salsa and blues especially discourage copying other's styles.



Yes, you are trained to copy the style of champions before you, working hard to imitate the shape of that standardized style. Individuality can be admired, but only within strict parameters.



Styles may be unique to the choreographer, thus not standardized. But the performing group usually works on copying and mastering that one style, in unison.

Is there a fixed choreography?

No. You make it up as you go, often based on what the Follow is doing at the moment, and what spontaneously occurs to the Lead.

Both Lead and Follow engage in a highly active attention to possibilities.



Yes. Competitors usually perform choreographed routines that they have rehearsed.

An exception is Jack and Jill competitions, especially in WCS and Lindy hop, with a partner that one has not danced with before.



Yes. Exhibitions are usually choreographed and rehearsed. Furthermore group routines often have everyone dancing in unison.

But improvised exhibitions occasionally exist in swing, tango and blues.

Do you make your own decisions?

Yes, both Lead and Follow roles are continually engaged in split-second decision-making.



Usually not. Most decisions have been made by others, first in the syllabus of acceptable steps, then in the choreographed routine. You work mostly on style.



Not often. Most decisions have usually been made by the choreographers, and you work mostly on style.

To state the obvious, competitive ballroom technique is designed for competitions. If dance technique is easy, judges won't be able to separate the good dancers from the very best. Therefore competitive ballroom technique is intentionally difficult , so that only the very best dancers can master it. It requires many years, and extreme focus, to master this technique. U.S. Ballroom Dance Champion Stephen Hannah said, "You must want to go to the very top and be the very best dancer. You must be able to use your time seven days a week without allowing any other influences to interfere." This is not a problem. Competition ballroom dance is also known as dancesport, and competitors in every sport train hard to win. It's work , and competitions are usually stressful.

Conversely, social ballroom technique is intentionally easy. Dance partnering is challenging enough as it is, to coordinate one's movements with another person. And most people want to dance with their friends as soon as possible. Therefore social dance technique is intentionally expedient , so that dancers can focus on the connection to their partners instead of intricate footwork technique and a highly specified style. It's play , and well known to be effective stress relief.

The repertoire of International Style ballroom dance (the dominant competition form) was last revised around 1960. The ten International Style ballroom dances are:

Slow Waltz Viennese Waltz Slow Foxtrot Quickstep Jive
Paso Doble Tango Samba Cha-Cha Rumba

Sixty years later, almost half of those have disappeared from social dancing.

Noncompetitive social dances are constantly updated. These include:

Lindy Hop West Coast Swing East Coast Swing Hustle Nightclub Two-Step
Cross-Step Waltz Rotary Waltz Country Waltz Viennese Waltz Polka
Salsa   Cha Cha Bachata Merengue Kizomba
Social Tango Tango Argentino Blues Fusion and many more.

The number of social dances increases each decade.

Not all social dances are social ballroom. Other social dance forms include hip-hop, breaking, line dances, international folk dance, contradancing, square dancing, grinding (yes, we need to include that), and informal permutations that defy categorization. This page focuses on the three worlds of ballroom dance, but acknowledges the many facets of social dance.

II. A brief history of the three forms

For the first century of closed-couple dancing, only the first category of ballroom dance existed: noncompetitive social ballroom dance. This was the 19th century, the age of the waltz and polka, when "ballroom dance" meant precisely that &ndash dancing in a ballroom.

An important part of the 19th century ballroom mindset, in both Europe and America, was selfless generosity , with an emphasis on enhancing the pleasure of your dance partners and the assembled company.

"In general manners, both ladies and gentlemen should act as though the other person's happiness was of as much importance as their own." &mdash Prof. Maas, American dance master, 1871

"True, genuine politeness has its foundation deeper than in the mere conformation to certain rules, for it is the spontaneous and natural effect of an intelligent mind and kindly heart which overlooks annoyances in consideration for the happiness of others." &mdash Edward Ferrero, American dance master, 1859


Another important part of the original ballroom attitude was a flexible mindset and adapting to your partner . The American dance master William DeGarmo wrote in 1875,

Fred Astaire wrote, "Cultivate flexibility. Be able to adapt your style to that of your partner. In doing so, you are not surrendering your individuality, but blending it with that of your partner."

For noncompetitive social dancers, this original attitude of generosity, kindness and flexibility has never ceased, and has continued for two centuries.


Exhibition ballroom dance came next. Performative social dance forms were occasionally staged in cabarets and Vaudeville at the end of the 19th century, but the performance of social dances for an audience mostly took off in the 20th century. Vernon and Irene Castle (pictured right) were foremost among professional dancers who started to perform social dances onstage, from 1912 to 1915. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers surpassed the Castle's fame and influence two decades later, through the medium of film. The tradition of performed ballroom dance continues today in many films, such as "La La Land" and Broadway shows like "Burn the Floor."


Competitive ballroom dance came last, growing out of the Sequence Dancing movement in the working-class suburbs of London, where hundreds of dancers would memorize choreographed waltzes like Arthur Morris' Veleta (1900). These expanded to include sequenced one-steps, two-steps, tangos and foxtrots.

Different populations of dancers in London had different preferences, and by 1914 there was a class division between those who preferred freestyle vs. choreographed dance. The upper classes in London preferred freestyle dancing, while the working class in the outskirts preferred sequence dancing, and would hold weekly balls where dancers would gather to learn, memorize and perform a rapidly growing number of sequence dances.

The next step was standardization . The creation and standardization of these sequence dances was controlled by several organizations which appeared at this time, most notably the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Today's "International Style" (i.e. British style) ballroom dancing is overseen by the Imperial Society, which was founded in London in July 1904 for "The fraternal co-operation of properly qualified teachers of dancing in the British Empire for the safeguarding of our mutual interests" (quoted from their Charter). The original focus of these organizations was the standardization of steps, technique and style into only one "correct" version. Competitions didn't arise for another two decades.

A primary motivation of the middle class is upward mobility. You can raise your position in life through the mastery of skills. The working class embraced the mastery of sequence dances, which led the Frolics Club in London to create the first judged competitions of ballroom dance in 1922, as a way to elevate one's social position through perseverance and hard work. This work ethic is still visible in competitive ballroom dance today.


Competition ballroom dance style

In the early years of competitive ballroom dance, the preferred English style was natural and understated. To quote the 1923 London dance manual, The Modern Ballroom Dance Instructor, "All movement is easy, unaffected, which can be so easily ruined by exaggeration. The best dancers are the quietest they do not flourish their prowess." In other words, early competitions were simply exhibitions of the dance sequences, evaluated by judges, based on the values of polite social dancing.


Then competitions introduced the format of the elimination round , where the competition began with a fairly crowded floor, filled with all of the competitors dancing at once. The judges thinned the crowd down to a few finalists &ndash those to be individually evaluated. This change in competition format resulted in a dramatic change in the look of competitive ballroom dance. The dancers had to perform far more expansive movements, to stand out from the crowd. Extreme, exaggerated movements and costuming were a matter of survival, either outshining the others or being quickly eliminated.

To this day, these extremely expansive movements remains a distinctive stylistic difference between social and competitive ballroom dance.


Of the three forms, which one is best? It depends on you. Dancers usually have a preference for the one that especially suits their personality.

It's important to know the differences , for the following three reasons:


To recognize which form(s) best match your personality.

Dean Paton points out the differences in this page. (Click on the first article, "Before You Sign Up.") Dean believes there's an essential difference between social and competitive ballroom dance, and that different personalities are naturally drawn to one or the other. It essentially comes down to knowing yourself, and finding the right match for you. Quoting Dean, "We call your attention to these two kinds of dancing because, unless you understand something of their differences, you could land on the wrong dance planet and end up miserable."


To avoid the unfortunate mistake of applying the rules and attitudes of one form to another. This isn't just an abstract differentiation &mdash the repercussions can be serious.

For instance, occasionally a ballroom dancer will pedantically insist that his partner conform to competitive stylistic details at an informal social dance, "You're doing it wrong. You have to do it my way," resulting in the contradiction of antisocial behavior at a social event. (See more on the " Sketchy Guys " page.) Conversely, socially adapting to your partner's mis-step at a competition may eliminate you from that round. Both forms are equally valid, within their own arena, but they have almost opposite attitudes.

Some dancers do both social and competitive dancing, or all three forms, and some of them are wonderfully adept at knowing which attitudes are appropriate for each. At a social dance, they're friendly, spontaneously adaptive, and warmly supportive of their partner's differing style. Then they are rigorously correct and expansive when competing. They understand and respect the differences.


To sharpen your ability to spot deceptive marketing practices.

As the competition ballroom dancer Juliet McMains points out in her eloquent book Glamour Addiction, some (not all) ballroom studios attempt to change the minds of students who arrive wishing to learn social ballroom dance. She wrote:

Primarily because teaching competitive ballroom dance has proved to be so much more profitable than teaching social dance, the industry rhetoric implies that social ballroom dancing is merely poorly executed DanceSport. Students usually embark on a social dance program with the expectation that they will take a few lessons, learn how to dance, then leave the studio in a month or two. From a business perspective, studios and teachers are deeply invested in altering this plan. If a teacher can sell a student on competition dancing, their student will have to spend years taking dance lessons to master the difficult competition technique.

Very few students enter the studio as aspiring competitors. It is only through calculated encouragement by their personal dance teacher that new students are persuaded to enter categories of competition, initiating them into the DanceSport lifestyle.

Dance studios know that most of their customers arrive seeking easygoing social dancing for pleasure, not the daily hard work to master competitive styling, so some (not all) studios attempt to give the misimpression that competitive ballroom dance and social dance are the same thing. Quoting McMains again, "Such attempts to emphasize continuity between these two groups, and downplay the chasm between social and competitive ballroom dance, represents a crucial apparatus of the Glamour Machine."

Competitive ballroom dance is a perfect fit for those drawn to competing , so neither we nor Juliet McMains (who is a professional competitor) are criticizing competition ballroom dance, nor the honest studios that give their students what they're looking for.

The point is that it's smart to be aware of the many differences between the three worlds of ballroom dancing:

Choreography vs. improvisation

Have you noticed that this page hasn't stated the obvious yet? From the beginning of social ballroom dance, one of the primary motivations was the romantic pleasure of dancing. Today, seeking a mate tends to be de-emphasized, and partner roles aren't necessarily gender normative, but social dancing played a key role in courtship for the past six centuries. To quote Jane Austen, "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love." (Pride & Prejudice). Most films that feature social dancing have been romances, from the Astaire/Rogers films to Dirty Dancing and La La Land.

There are many other reasons to enjoy partnered dancing, but this page would have been incomplete without a brief mention of romance.


Contents

The word "topless" usually refers to a woman who is naked above her waist or hips or, at least, whose breasts are exposed to public view, specifically including her areola and nipples. It can describe a woman who appears, poses, or performs with at least her breasts exposed, such as a "topless model" or "topless dancer", or to an activity undertaken while not wearing a top, such as "topless sunbathing". It may indicate a designated location where one might expect to find women not wearing tops, such as a "topless beach" or "topless bar". It can also be used to describe a garment that is specifically designed to reveal the breasts, such as the "topless swimsuit" (also known as the monokini) designed by Rudi Gernreich in the 1960s. [1]

The word "topless" may carry sexual or exhibitionist connotations. Because of this, advocates of women's legal right to uncover their breasts wherever men may go bare-chested have adopted the alternative term "topfree", which is not perceived to have these connotations. [2] [3]

Barechestedness Edit

Barechestedness is the state of a man or boy wearing no clothes above the waist, exposing the upper torso. Bare male chests are generally considered acceptable in or around the house at beaches, swimming pools and sunbathing areas when exercising outside in hot weather and in certain outdoor construction work settings. However, some stores and restaurants have a "no shirt, no service" rule to prevent barechested men from coming inside. While going barechested at outdoor activities may be acceptable, it is taboo at office workplaces, churches and other formal settings. [ citation needed ]

In most societies, male barechestedness is much more common than female toplessness, even among children. Exposure of the male pectoral muscles is often considered to be far less taboo than of the female breasts, despite some considering them equally erogenous. Male barechestedness is often due to practical reasons such as heat, or the ability to move the body without being restricted by an upper body garment. In several sports it is encouraged or even obligatory to be barechested. Barechestedness may also be used as a display of power, or to draw attention to oneself, especially if the upper body muscles are well-developed. [ citation needed ]

Attitudes towards toplessness have varied considerably across cultures and over time. The lack of clothing above the waist for both females and males was the norm in traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands until the arrival of Christian missionaries, and it continues to be the norm in many indigenous cultures today. The practice was also the norm in various Asian cultures before Muslim expansion in the 13th and 14th centuries. [4]

India Edit

In some parts of northern India at various times before the Muslim conquest of India, some women did not wear an upper garment. Women and men typically wore an antriya on the lower body and were nude from the waist up, aside from pieces of jewelry. This was the standard form of dress unless women opted to wear a sari, in which case they covered their upper bodies with a robe. [5] [6] The Malayali people of Kerala required Hindu women other than Brahmins, Nairs, Kshatriya and Syrian Christians to strip to the waist in public until 1858 when the Kingdom of Travancore granted all women the right to cover their breasts in public. [7]

Toplessness was the norm for women among several indigenous peoples of South India until the 19th or early 20th century, including the Tamils along the Coromandel Coast, Tiyan and other peoples on the Malabar Coast, Kadar of Cochin Island, Toda, Cheruman (Pulayar), Kuruba, Koraga, Nicobarese, and the Uriya. [8]

Thailand Edit

In Thailand, the government of Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram issued a series of cultural standards between 1939 and 1942. Mandate 10 issued on 8 September 1941 instructed Thai people to not appear in public places "without being appropriately dressed". Inappropriate dress included "wearing no shirt or wearing a wraparound cloth". [9] [10] Before the introduction of Western dress codes, Thai women were depicted both fully clothed and topless in public. Until the early 20th century, women from northern Thailand wore a long tube-skirt (Pha-Sin), tied high above their waist and below their breasts, which were uncovered. In the late 19th century the influence of missionaries and modernization under King Chulalongkorn encouraged local women to cover their breasts with blouses. [11]

Laos Edit

In Laos, Henri Mouhot took a picture in 1858 of Laotian women that depicted virgins with clothed breasts and married women with their entire breasts exposed in public, because the baring of breasts for breastfeeding was considered to be nonsexual. [12]

Indonesia Edit

In the Indonesian region, toplessness was the norm among the Dayak, Javanese, and the Balinese people of Indonesia before the introduction of Islam and contact with Western cultures. In Javanese and Balinese societies, women had gone topless to work or rest comfortably. Among the Dayak, only big breasted women or married women with sagging breasts covered their breasts because their breasts interfered with their work. [8] [ clarification needed ]

Middle East Edit

In most Middle Eastern countries, toplessness has not been socially accepted since at least the beginning of Islam (7th century), because of Islamic standards for female modesty. However, toplessness was the norm in some pre-Islamic cultures in Arabia, Egypt, Assyria and Mesopotamia. Tunisia and Egypt are an exception among Arabic states, allowing foreign tourists to swim topless on private beaches. [13]

Africa Edit

Among Himba women of northern Namibia and Hamar of southern Ethiopia, besides other traditional groups in Africa, the social norm is for women to be bare-breasted. Female toplessness can also constitute an important aspect of indigenous cultural celebrations. For example, in the annual Reed Dance festival mature girls between the ages of 16 and 20 dance topless before the Zulu king. [14]

Australia Edit

Traditional topless practices can lead to cross-cultural and legal conflict. In 2004, Australian police banned members of the Papunya community from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance that included topless women. [15]

Korea Edit

In the 16th century, women's jeogori (an upper garment) was long, wide, and covered the waist. [16] The length of women's jeogori gradually shortened: it was approximately 65 cm in the 16th century, 55 cm in the 17th century, 45 cm in the 18th century, and 28 cm in the 19th century, with some as short as 14.5 cm. [16] A heoritti (허리띠) or jorinmal (졸잇말) was worn to cover the breasts. [16] The trend of wearing a short jeogori with a heoritti was started by the gisaeng and soon spread to women of the upper class. [16] Among women of the common and lowborn classes, a practice emerged in which they revealed their breasts after childbirth to proudly indicate that they had given birth to a son, i.e., a male heir. [17]

Travelers like the American Harry A. Franck remarked that they "displayed to the public gaze exactly that portion of the torso which the women of most nations take pains to conceal." [18]

South Pacific Edit

In the South Pacific, toplessness was common prior to contact with Western missionaries, but is less common today. On the French territory of Moorea, toplessness is common. [19] In the Marshall Islands, women were traditionally topless before contact with Western missionaries and still do not sexually objectify female breasts as is common in much of Western society. [20] Marshall Island women typically swim in their muumuus which today are made of a fine polyester that dries quickly. [21] Wearing of bikinis and one-piece, breast-covering swimsuits in the Marshall Islands is mainly seen at Western, restricted-access beaches and swimming pools like those at private resorts or on United States government facilities on the Kwajalein Atoll within the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. [22] [23]

In much of contemporary Western society, it is not culturally acceptable for women to expose their nipples and areola in public. In most Western societies, once girls enter adolescence, it is the social norm for them to behave modestly and cover their breasts in public. Until recent times, women who went topless were cited for indecent exposure or lewdness. Women and the law in most western countries generally do not regard breasts as indecent. [ citation needed ] However, wearing a top in public is a social norm and most women are reluctant to go against it. The strictness of the etiquette varies depending on the social context. For example, at specific cultural events the norm may be relaxed, such as at Fantasy Fest, at Mardi Gras in New Orleans and at the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. The same may also apply at designated topless beaches. [ citation needed ]

Public breast-baring fashions Edit

In many European societies between the Renaissance and the 19th century, exposed breasts were acceptable while a woman's bared legs, ankles or shoulders were considered risqué. [24] During the Renaissance, many artists were strongly influenced by classical Greek styles and culture, [25] and images of nude and semi-nude subjects in many forms proliferated in art, sculpture and architecture of the period. [25] In aristocratic and upper-class circles the display of breasts also invoked associations with classical Greek nude sculptures and art and a classic breast shape was at times regarded as a status symbol, as a sign of beauty, wealth or social position. To maintain youthful-looking bosoms women could employ wet nurses to breastfeed their children. [26]

Breast-baring female fashions have been traced to 15th-century courtesan Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII of France, whose gowns in the French court sometimes exposed one or both of her breasts. (Jean Fouquet's portrayal of the Virgin Mary with her left breast uncovered is believed to have taken Sorel as a model.) Aristocratic women sought to immortalise their breasts in paint, as in the case of Simonetta Vespucci, whose portrait with exposed breasts was painted by Piero di Cosimo in c.1480. During the 16th century, women's fashions displaying their breasts were common in society, from Queens to common prostitutes, and emulated by all classes. [27]

Similar fashions became popular in England during the 17th century when they were worn by Queen Mary II and by Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England, for whom architect Inigo Jones designed a masque costume that fully revealed both of her breasts. [25]

In a survey of 190 different societies, researches found that very few associated exposed breasts with sexuality, but that there was an insistence that women conceal their breasts. [28] Different standards apply to art, with one example being the dome of the United States Capitol featuring an 1865 fresco depicting goddesses with their breasts exposed. [ citation needed ]

Social attitudes Edit

Although some social attitudes to increased body exposure began to soften during the late 1960s, contemporary Western societies still generally view toplessness unfavorably. During a short period in 1964, "topless" dress designs appeared at fashion shows, but those who wore the dresses in public found themselves arrested on indecency charges. [29] However, toplessness has come to be a feature in contemporary haute couture fashion shows.

A wide-ranging review of 190 different societies during 1951 found that few insisted that women conceal their breasts. In Europe, topless swimming and sunbathing on public beaches has become socially acceptable. In 1994-95, Australian researchers asked 118 college-age students to rate the behavior of women who go topless on an 8-point scale, ranging from "Women should have the same right to topless as men" to "Topless women are exhibitionists". They found that 88% of Australian university students of either gender considered it acceptable for women to go topless on public beaches, although they felt that women exposing their breasts in other contexts, such as public parks, was inappropriate. [28] [31] They did not find a correlation between exposed breasts and sexuality in social situations.

A more recent study of 116 college-age women in Australia found that those who had gone topless were more accepting of toplessness generally, more sexual, and had higher self-esteem and higher body image. [28] In contemporary society, the extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on social and cultural context. Women's swimsuits and bikinis commonly reveal the tops and sides of the breasts. Displaying cleavage is considered permissible in many settings, and is even a sign of elegance and sophistication on many formal social occasions, but it may be prohibited by dress codes in settings such as workplaces and schools, where sexualized displays of the female breast may be considered inappropriate. In a number of cultures, including Europe and other Westernized countries outside the United States, there are fewer social restrictions against sunbathing or swimming topless. [32]

In Canada, a poll in 1992 found that 38% favored general female public toplessness. Following that survey, several legal rulings in Canadian courts from 1996 to 2000 made public toplessness legal, but very few women go topless in public. [33]

Some cultures have even begun to expand social prohibitions on female toplessness to prepubescent and even infant girls. This trend toward covering the female nipple from infancy onward is particularly noticeable in the United States, Eastern Asia and the Middle East, but is much less common in Europe. [34]

Legality Edit

Around the world, it is common for women to breastfeed in public. [35] In the United States during the 1990s and later, there were a number of legal incidents where women were harassed or cited for exposing their breasts while breastfeeding in public. A public backlash spurred legislators in some jurisdictions to specifically legalize public breastfeeding. The federal government passed a law in 1999 that specifically provides that "a woman may breastfeed her child at any location in a Federal building or on Federal property, if the woman and her child are otherwise authorized to be present at the location." [36] Some women have engaged in acts of "lactivism", or acts of politically motivated public breastfeeding, to assert these rights. [37]

In many indigenous, non-Western cultures it is generally acceptable for both men and women to go without clothing that covers the torso. Female toplessness can also be a traditional aspect in indigenous cultural celebrations. However, this can lead to cross-cultural and legal conflict. During 2004, Australian police banned female members of the Papunya community from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance while topless. [15]

Many societies consider women who expose their nipples and areola as immodest and contrary to social norms. Most jurisdictions do not have laws prohibiting toplessness directly, but in many jurisdictions a topless woman may be socially or officially harassed or cited for public lewdness, indecent exposure, public indecency or disorderly conduct. [38] Enforcement of such standards is subject to community standards, which are subject to change over time. Most prosecutions commence with a complaint being made to the police by a member of the public, and a judge would be required to adjudicate as to the indecency etc. of the exposure. [ citation needed ]

In the United States, GoTopless.org claims that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men. They further claim constitutional equality between men and women on being topless in public. They have successfully joined in legal challenges that have resulted in laws permitting women to expose their breasts just as men do in New York State and in Ontario, Canada. In 2009, they used 26 August (Women's Equality Day), as a day of national protest. [39] The topfreedom movement has claimed success in a few instances in persuading federal courts in the United States to overturn some state laws on the basis of sex discrimination, arguing that a woman should be free to expose her chest in any context in which a man can expose his. A federal lawsuit filed in the 10th Circuit (Colorado), was decided at the appellate level. In September 2019, after spending over $300,000, the city of Fort Collins decided to stop defending their ordinance and repeal it. This effectively gave females of all ages the right to go topless wherever males legally can in the jurisdiction of the 10th Circuit, which includes Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma. [40]

In March 2008, after a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, Copenhagen's Culture and Leisure Committee concluded that there were no regulations against topless bathing by women in public swimbaths, thus no reason to specifically allow it. Also in 2008, the city council in Vancouver, British Columbia, location of the World Naked Bike Ride, gave women the right to go topless in public, not solely at swimming pools and beaches. [ citation needed ]

In 2009, members of the Swedish feminist organization Bara Bröst ("Just Breasts" or "Bare Breasts") went topless at the city pools in Malmö, Sweden. This triggered a vote by the city's sports and recreation committee, which backed away from requiring women to wear a top, only stipulating that everyone must wear a swimsuit. Their ruling allows women in Sweden to swim topless in Malmö's public swimming pools. [41] [42] "We don't decide what men should do with their torso, why then do women have to listen to the men. Moreover, many men have larger breasts than women", the committee chair said. [43]

As a form of liberation Edit

While an exposed breast in public can have many associated connotations, some women in America today argue the exposed breast is a symbol of liberation. They speak against the proposed notion that their rightful place was below their male counterparts. Throughout the late 20th Century, more and more women began to link the struggle for female equality and the repossession of the female body. This can be especially seen in the work of Second Wave Feminists beginning in the early 1960s. [ citation needed ]

The reaction to exposed breast as a symbol of liberation was two-sided. Women who took part in the movement expressed their desire to turn attention away from the excessive eroticization of the female body in American popular culture to more essential societal needs. [44] Opposition to the braless movement ironically viewed it as an attack to American morals and public decency. The bralessness movement evolved into a bare-breasted movement, which became another way for women to "thumb one's nose at society". [44] While some women exposed their breasts individually, there was also an upsurge in topless demonstrations used to gather public attention for women's issues such as pornography and sexism. [44] The sexualization of the breast is found only in a few Western nations, and this, many women argue, causes women to turn to plastic surgery and view their breasts as determinants of beauty rather than potentially nourishing life forces. [45] Because of this, women are able to liberate their breasts as a way to gain attention, make political statements, and combat breast exposure laws' reinforcement of the supposed uncontrollable seductive nature of women's breasts. [ citation needed ]

As a form of protest Edit

In Western countries, toplessness in public often generates media coverage, leading some female political demonstrators to deliberately expose their breasts in public to draw media and public attention to their cause. For example, in January 2012, three members of the Ukrainian protest group FEMEN attracted worldwide media attention after they staged a topless protest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. [46]

Toplessness in a public place is most commonly practised or encountered near water, either as part of a swimming activity or sunbathing. The introduction of the bikini in 1946 and increasingly common glamour shots of popular actresses and models on either side of the Atlantic wearing the minimal swimsuit design played a large part in bringing the bikini and sunbathing into the mainstream. [47] [48]

In 1964, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich went further and designed and produced a topless swimsuit, which he called the "monokini" in the United States. [49] Gernreich's monokini consisted primarily of a brief, close-fitting bottom that "extended from the midriff to the upper thigh" [50] and was "held up by shoestring laces that make a halter around the neck". [51] It first appeared in print in Look magazine, introducing the concept of a topless swimsuit into commercial fashion. [52] [53] [54] He later said he did not really mean for the swimsuit to be popular as it was, but rather as a fantastical concept and prediction of the future. [55] "[Women] drop their bikini tops already," he said, "so it seemed like the natural next step." [55] A photograph of Peggy Moffitt, the famous model for the suit, appeared in Women's Wear Daily, Life and numerous other publications. [56]

Despite the negative reaction of fashion critics and church officials, shoppers purchased about 3000 of his swimsuit design at $24 each that summer, though the only woman reported as having worn it to a beach in the United States was arrested. [57] The novelty of the design caught significant attention. Life writer Shana Alexander noted in an article about the introduction of the monokini in July 1964, "One funny thing about toplessness is that it really doesn't have much to do with breasts. Breasts of course are not absurd topless swimsuits are. Lately people keep getting the two things mixed up." [58]

The topless swimsuit failed to catch on in the United States. [59] The Soviet government called it "barbarism" and a sign of social "decay". The New York City Police Department was strictly instructed to arrest any woman wearing a swimsuit by the commissioner of parks. [60] In Chicago, a 19-year-old female beachgoer was fined US$100 for wearing a topless swimsuit on a public beach. [60] Copious coverage of the event helped to send the image of exposed breasts across the world. Women's clubs and the church were particularly active in their condemnation. [60] In Italy and Spain, the Catholic Church warned against the topless fashion. [61] In France in 1964, Roger Frey led the prosecution of the use of the monokini, describing it as "a public offense against the sense of decency, punishable according to article 330 of the penal code. Consequently, the police chiefs must employ the services of the police so that the women who wear this bathing suit in public places are prosecuted." [62] [63] At St. Tropez on the French Riviera, where toplessness later became the norm, the mayor ordered police to ban toplessness and to watch over the beach via helicopter. [60] Jean-Luc Godard, a founding mover of French New Wave cinema, incorporated a shot of a woman in a topless swimsuit on the Riviera into his film A Married Woman, but it was edited out by the censors. [64]

A number of Caribbean locations, especially those that were formerly French and Dutch colonies, permit nude and topless sunbathing, like the French West Indies islands of St. Barths, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Maarten. [65]

Topless sunbathing slowly spread to other Western countries throughout Europe and Australia, many of which now allow topless sunbathing on some or all of their beaches, either through legal statute or by generally accepted practice, and beaches were designated for nude or topless bathers. A topless, or top-optional, beach differs from a nude beach in that beach goers of both sexes are required to keep their genital area covered, although females have the option to remove their tops without fearing legal prosecution or official harassment. [ citation needed ]

However, media reports in recent years note that the number of women sunbathing topless on French beaches has markedly declined, and that younger French women have become more disapproving of exposing breasts in public. [66] While parts of Europe, such as Germany, Spain or Britain are generally considered to have a liberal attitude towards toplessness, surveys show there is considerable resistance to its acceptance in neighbouring countries. Sweden is for example a country where tolerance is very low for toplessness after a brief period of popularity in the 1970s and into the 80s. [67] Many of the Swedes surveyed by Skyscanner in 2010 found public toplessness "indecent" and "offensive". [68]


Sociology of Deviance Final Exam

- In 1986, before the enactment of federal mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine offenses, the average federal drug sentence for AA was 11% higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for AA was 49% higher.

- These theories examine societal responses to homelessness, often from the perspective of those with less societal power (people of color/ women) or those with nontraditional philosophies (peacemaking)

- They offer a way of looking at the world that broadens our understanding and discussion of deviance

- CRT scholars argue that the law has historically been used to covertly (literacy test), or overtly (no hiding it, slavery 3/5 compromise 'open') subjugate people of color.

- Focuses on equal opportunities in education and workplace as a remedy

- Disproportionately affects minorities and the poor and has long- lasting impact on the life chances and opportunities available to individuals, families, and whole communities.

2. Rates compared to comparable societies like Europe

2) Individual or specific deterrence- threat of going to prison keeps you from committing the crime

3) General deterrence- keeping other people from committing the crime because you don't want to end up like him

4) Reform or rehabilitation- do it to turn that criminal into law- abiding member of society

5) Moral affirmation or symbolism- even crime in functional, it reinforces for others what our morals are

6) Retribution- you want to get back at the person and then go to prison/ an eye for an eye/ punitive (Death penalty)

7) Restitution or compensation- opportunity for the offender to monetarily compensate the victim


Types of dance

The division of dance into types can be made on many different grounds. Function (e.g., theatrical, religious, recreational) is an obvious ground, but distinctions can also be made between tribal and folk dance, between amateur and professional, and above all between different genres and styles.

Genre and style are relatively ambiguous terms. They depend on analyses of movement style, structure, and performance context (i.e., where the dance is performed, who is watching, and who is dancing) as well as on a cluster of general cultural attitudes concerning the role and value of dance in society. Genre usually refers to a self-contained formal tradition such as ballet, within which there may be further subgenres, such as classical and modern ballet. (Some critics consider modern dance as an independent genre with a subgenre of postmodern dance, but others subsume both categories under ballet, along with other theatre dance forms such as jazz.) Within subgenres, different styles can be distinguished, such as those of Ashton, MacMillan, and Balanchine in modern ballet and Graham and Cunningham in modern dance. Style as used here embraces many elements, including a preference for certain kinds of movement (fast, slow, simple, or intricate) or for particular kinds of energy and attack (sharp, edgy, and hard, as opposed to soft and fluid). It also embraces different ways of phrasing movement or of arranging dancers into groups, as well as an interest in certain kinds of music or design.

Perhaps the most obvious division between types is that between theatre and non-theatre dance. The separation of dancer and spectator in theatre dance has tremendous influence on the style of the dance itself and on its reception as an art form. In theatre dance the professionalism of dancer and choreographer, the presentation of dramatic and formal movement, the use of visual effects, and even the philosophical question of the role of the spectator reach their most sophisticated level. In non-theatre dance the unity of dancer and spectator, of observation and participation, means that the dance styles and even the function within the social group are quite different from those of theatre dance.


1 Answer 1

Figure skating is older than Jazz Dance as a discipline. Although the African origins of Jazz Dance are ancient it did not become a recognised dance form with named moves and choreography until the early 20th century when white society took it up and added white styles to it. On the other hand Brittanica says that the first book on figure skating was published in 1772. Obviously this would not have been anything like modern figure skating but the Brittanica entry also mentions the revolutionary contribution of Jackson Haines based on ballet and formal social dance to figure skating in the 1860s.

Given this history it can be seen that figure skating was well established when Axel Paulsen was born in 1855 and he was both a speed skater and a figure skater. Also Haines had greater success with his freer style in continental Europe than his native US so would have influenced Paulsen.

Again according to the Brittanica entry Paulsen first demonstrated the turn named after him in 1882 at the first international competition

The development of both modern figure skating and modern jazz dance took place in the early 20th century but by then the skating world was already aware of the Axel Turn and, of course, its inventor (who died in the 1930s). Jazz Dance must have adapted the Axel Turn from figure skating, not the other way around. Remember that the jazz dance version is different from the figure skating version because skaters can build up much more momentum before they jump. This isn't a criticism of dancers, it's just physics.


Bibliography

Arthur, Linda B. "Clothing Is a Window to the Soul: The Social Control of Women in a Holdeman Mennonite Community." Journal of Mennonite Studies 15 (1997): 11–29.

—, ed. Religion, Dress and the Body. Dress and the Body Series. Oxford: Berg, 1999.

—, ed. Undressing Religion: Commitment and Conversion from a Cross-cultural Perspective. Dress and Body Series. Oxford: Berg, 2000.

Damhorst, Mary Lynn, Kimberly Miller, and Susan Michelman. Meanings of Dress. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1999.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday, 1959.

Hostetler, John. Amish Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1989.

Poll, Soloman. The Hasidic Community in Williamsburg. New York: Glencoe Free Press, 1962.

Scott, Stephen. Why Do They Dress That Way? Intercourse, Pa.: Good Books, 1986.


Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Oral History 1998 D

Klein: Dr. Fauci, I will be recording this interview. Are you comfortable with this?

Klein: I had a chance to read over your interview with Dr. Harden for the AIDS history project and in it you describe the circumstances which brought you to the NIH. Here is a copy of it. Could you please discuss this in further detail?

Fauci: I was at Cornell University Medical College and at the time, it was the beginnings of the acceleration of the Vietnam War. The doctor draft was still on at this time even though I do not believe the regular conscription was still going on. As I remember, a recruiter came to Cornell and told us something we all ready knew. There were only two or three females in my class, and the recruiter addressed all the males and said in a very non- confrontative way, ‘After you finish Medical School, every one of you except the two women will either be in the Air Force, the Army, the Navy or the Public Health Service. So what we would like you to do is to put your priority.’ I knew that the NIH was at that time, and still is, a very desirable place to be from the standpoint of people wanting to go into academic medicine. If you look historically over the years the vast majority of leaders in biomedical research had some training, either a few years or many years, at the NIH. That was appealing to a lot of us so I put down as my first choice the United States Public Health Service, NIH. My second choice was the Navy. When the applications came out I would have probably gone into the Navy had I not been accepted to the NIH. I filled out my application for the Public Health Service and I came down to the NIH for an interview. I remember in the springtime of my fourth year of medical school, I received a call from Dr. Sheldon Wolff, who became my mentor and my very good friend, offering me a position in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. I accepted the offer over the phone in the lobby of the New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center. He asked me if I wanted the job, my beeper was going off, and I accepted the job over the phone. He asked me if I needed any time to think about it. I told him ‘no’ and that was it. I finished my medical school training. I did my internship and my residency and then I headed to the NIH. There is usually a two year advanced application.

Klein: If they were to have offered you a spot somewhere else would you have taken it?

Fauci: I probably would have taken it. Well, I cannot say for sure. The NIH really was my top choice. I probably would have taken the CDC. I think some of the other forms of alternative service, the Indian Health Service and so on, I would have probably opted to go into the Navy rather than do that.

Klein: I would think that now, with your focus with AIDS, that you would have considered the CDC more seriously and not just as a second choice to the NIH.

Fauci: I wanted to get basic bench experience. I wanted to use this opportunity for bench experience since I was fundamentally a clinician. That is where I wanted to go. In fact, I really did not want to make biomedical research my career. I wanted to be an academic physician. I wanted to go and get training at the NIH. I wanted to see if I had the aptitude or the liking for bench research so that I could ultimately come back to New York City, which is where I really wanted to go, and be at the Cornell Hospital Medical Center as full time staff physician doing part time research, part time clinical work. So I really was not thinking in terms of epidemiology or research. I either wanted to get a chance to see if I liked research so that I could ultimately come back and be a part time researcher. It never entered my mind for a moment that I would come down here and feel so strongly and be so successful in research that I would actually wind up staying. Actually, I did not stay all the way through. I went here for three years in Dr. Wolff’s program in a fellowship in Infectious Disease and Immunology. It was a joint program so that I got my boards both in Infectious Diseases and in Allergy and Immunology. The critical time came in the third year in my fellowship. The New York Hospital asked me to come back and to be Chief Resident in Medicine. After the Chief Residency, they wanted to offer me a faculty position. They wanted me to be a full time faculty member at the Cornell Medical Center. So I told Dr. Wolff what they offered me. He said that he would like to bring me back to the NIH as a full time Senior Investigator. I remember a conversation I had with him. I said, ‘I really want to round off my clinical training.

Although I like bench research, and I have obviously been very successful as a fellow, I want to crown off my clinical training. So if I do come back here, I would at least know that I was fully trained as a clinician.’ So he said, ‘Fine. Why don’t you go up there, do your Chief Residency for a year and there will be a laboratory, a technician, space and resources waiting for you when you get back.’ So that is exactly what I did. I was here from 68-71, I went to New York from 71-72, then in the summer of 72, I came down to the NIH as a Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation in NIAID, and I have been here ever since. So of the past thirty years, twenty-nine years I have spent here.

Klein: Are you still a Commissioned Officer?

Fauci: I just recently retired. It will be two years this summer. I loved the Service and liked being in it. However, I had been in it for 27 years and that is limit of accruing retirement benefits. So, once you hit 27 years you have maxed out on your retirement benefits. So I was advised by the personnel people that it would be to my advantage since I was planning to stay at the NIH for indefinite amount of time that I start a new retirement annuity.

Namely, you can retire from the Public Health Service and you will always get that retirement pay when you retire but you can build up a second retirement by going into SES. So in the summer of 1996, I retired from the Public Health Service having completed my 27 years and entered the Senior Executive Service.

Klein: In terms of the NIH, you applied to the NIAID. Fauci: Right.

Klein: If they would have offered you a slot in the Heart Institute or any other Institute would you have taken it just to be at the NIH?

Fauci: The other possibility that I would have taken would have been in the Arthritis Institute. I was interested in learning immunology. That was one of the reasons I wanted to come down. I wanted to learn immunology either in the context of connective tissue diseases or in the context of infectious diseases. When I came down here, I was immediately struck and enamored of not only the institute at the clinical material, but particularly Dr. Sheldon Wolff. As I mentioned, he became my closest friend and he was the best man at my wedding. We took to each other immediately. If I had not been accepted at NIAID, and was accepted to the Arthritis Institute I probably would have done that to get the immunology training. That would have been a disappointment for me because once I interviewed down here, it was very clear that I wanted to work in the NIAID.

Klein: Now, why not Vietnam?

Fauci: I had no problem with going to Vietnam. I know it is easy to say once you have not been there but that is actually one of the reasons why I have a little bit of resentment for the term “yellow beret”. I wanted to learn as much as could about research. If it turned out that I could not get into the NIH or into the CDC, I would have had no problem with going to Vietnam at all.

Klein: You mentioned that there were only two or three women in you medical school class. What about female Clinical Associates? My research indicates that there were very few. Is this because there was an unspoken rule that these slots were to be saved for the men because women could not be drafted?

Fauci: That is not the case at all. Absolutely not, I know that because a couple of years after I came I was very much involved in the choosing of the Clinical Associates. There was never any ‘saving it for the men’ at all. The problem was at the time there were so few women in medical schools and even more importantly, there were so few women who were in medical schools who wanted to go into research. Most of the women who went into medical school felt that they were finally able to break the barrier of getting in and they wanted to go out and practice medicine. We had almost no women applicants. In fact, in the first couple years that I was here we had zero female applicants. So it was not a question of saving it for anybody, there were just no women who applied.

Klein: Dr. Frederickson mentioned that in the Heart Institute they had meetings for the CAs called Forums where all the CAs would come to his house and share their work and it was a social outlet for the Associates. Was there anything comparable to this during your time here as a CA?

Fauci: We did not have a formal social outlet but we had a very clear series of seminars where we would discuss every week a different clinical associate’s work. Since there were 7 per year, we used to rotate and sometimes bring in outside speakers. We always had the opportunity to know what the others were doing. There was a pretty good social interaction among the Clinical Associates that just fell in naturally. We were a very collegial group and we got along very well together. There was a lot of opportunity to share the science. Each institute did it differently. We used to have these seminars.

Klein: The term ‘yellow beret’, you said you harbor a bit of resentment for the term. Could you expand on that?

Fauci: I do not think that anybody was “afraid” of going to Vietnam. Maybe some people were, but I don’t think that physicians were afraid of going to Vietnam any more than anybody else. Nobody likes war and nobody likes to put themselves in the danger of getting killed. It was somewhat of a derogatory term. Yes, it was part joke, but very much derogatory. I always felt that if indeed it came to that that I would go. I was not philosophically in favor from the political standpoint of the real rationale of why were there. As long as American soldiers were going there and getting killed and getting maimed, as a physician I felt if I had to go I would gladly do my part to try to help them. I did not have a problem going to Vietnam even though I had a problem with the war itself.

Klein: Dr. Kimball had mentioned that as part of his Clinical Associate time he had to do rounds over at the Naval Hospital. We discussed whether or not the other military personnel and the naval doctors resented the NIH physician who fulfilled their military service obligation through the Associates Program. What do you think?

Fauci: Yes and No. The Infectious Disease Associates were favorably looked upon. Harry might have forgotten that. Back in the early 70s, when things were really getting bad in Vietnam, I was a Senior Clinical Associate. At the time, Shelly Wolff, Harry Kimball, John Sheagren, Dick Root and I formed the first Infectious Diseases Consultation Service because the National Naval Medical Center did not have an Infectious Disease Department at the time. They were getting a lot of troops who were evacuated from Vietnam and sent to the Navy Hospital with things like legs that had osteomyelitis and bacterial endocarditis and things that were serious problems. However, they had a difficult time handling it because they did not have an Infectious Disease service. So Shelly Wolff volunteered the five of us so that we would rotate through and be the Infectious Disease Attendings for the residents there. So, although there was in fact a general feeling of some slight resentment about physicians who did not go into the service but who were here at the “cushy” job at the NIH, the fact that we volunteered our time to help with the workload of troops who were flown in with serious infectious complications of wounds sort of put us in a soft spot in their heart. The infectious disease crew was well thought of by the Navy as opposed to some of the others.

Klein: Did you have a uniform?

Fauci: We went over there in our regular clothes. I had a uniform but I never wore it.

Klein: Do you believe that the participants in the Associates Program served their country in a way that was equally as important as those who fought in Southeast Asia?

Fauci: Well it depends, that is a philosophical question. Serving your country goes well beyond fighting for your country. The Public Health Service historically, has a major role in research advances, which have benefited the country, hence serving the country. If you look at the global concept of serving your country, I think the Public Health Service serves the country as well as any organization including the Department of Defense.

Obviously, when you are at war, the most immediate, tangible, benefit to the country is seen in the form of people who actually risk and sacrifice their lives. So I would not couch it in the word doing more or not. The uniformed service, as in the Department of Defense, was a much more dramatic and potentially catastrophic situation that they put themselves in because core men and others actually got killed over there. However, if you look historically over any number of years of peace and war, the Public Health Service makes clearly as much contributions. Take the AIDS epidemic, the virus was discovered, the blood supply was protected, that emanated out of the Public Health Service.

Klein: You mentioned that you would have gone to Vietnam but that you did not agree with the war. Would you expand on your own feelings about the war and the feeling on the NIH campus in regards to Johnson’s Vietnam policy?

Fauci: The NIH campus was mixed. I was not sure whether or not this was the right thing to do from a humanitarian and political stand point, namely to be at war in a country where it was unclear whether we were on the right side or not. The one thing I was fiercely adamant about was supporting our troops. The thing that used to drive me crazy with anger was to see when troops would come back and see that they would be treated poorly by the demonstrating hippies. I really did not like that because although I could politically question the United States’ motives, I was 100% behind the Armed Services. These were young men were risking their lives and I thought it was horrible that the anger of the country was directed against young people who were risking their lives because they felt it was their duty or because they got drafted. It was not their fault. They were there because they were trying to serve their country the way we were trying to serve our country in the Public Health Service. There was mixed feeling.

In general, the spirit on campus was much more a liberal leaning than a conservative leaning because that is generally the case with scientists. Most people were against the war. Some were against the war and the troops. I was ambivalent about the war and very much in favor of the troops.

Klein: I heard that Dr. Spock and Jane Fonda spoke on campus. Could you comment on that briefly?

Fauci: It was an interesting and colorful period in Washington, DC at that time.

Protesters were marching on Washington and the White House. These types of things you just don’t see anymore. Nixon was parking buses on Pennsylvania Avenue, to surround the White House so that people could not get through. There were a lot of demonstrations and disruptions. Dr. Spock and Jane Fonda came to the NIH. I remember hearing them speak. There were a lot of crowds on campus, I think just sort of out of curiosity. I did not have a real problem with Dr. Spock. However, I have a real problem with Jane Fonda. She was in many respects a demoralizing factor for the troops, particularly by going to North Vietnam and having her picture taken with the Viet Cong who were actually American youngsters. I could not take that. She may be a great actress but she really pissed me off.

Klein: In 1967, Science magazine reported “The NIH is different… it really isn’t like a government research establishment”. However, in 1969 Science said that “for better or worse, federal policy making on health matters and therefore on biomedical research is being politicized. And this, as well as the Vietnam War budget squeeze, has abruptly brought to an end the decade of remarkable growth in biomedical research which is already being remembered with nostalgia as the good old days at NIH.” What do you think caused this shift in opinion? Do you believe that this view was the general consensus among NIH researchers at the time?

Fauci: No. There is a little confusion as to what you mean by politicizing. The NIH was not politicized by the environment of the Vietnam war in the sense that we were given more money if we were in favor of something and less money if we were not. That is absolutely not the case. There were vicissitudes in the amounts of available discretionary funding. If you have money going for a war action, there is less money for other things. I never felt any politicization and I have been here a long time. Never once did I feel that we were politically pressured into doing anything. There was a lot of ‘disease of the month club,’ where Congress would like the NIH to spend more money on this disease as opposed to that disease. They would pressure you by lobbying the Congress to give you money for this disease versus that disease. But that is not politics in the sense of pure politics.

Politics means that you might say or do something that is not the way you feel, purely for political reasons. Science was always the driving force at NIH. I have no idea what that article is referring to. I have been here for thirty years and I have never been in a situation where I had to do something I did not want to do or I was not aloud to do something I wanted to do.

Klein: Dr. Rall mentioned that he felt that the NIH was more like a university than a government institution. Do you agree?

Fauci: Yes. Science is by its nature discovery and with discovery there is a lot of freedom of thought and flexibility. Certain elements of government by their very nature have to be somewhat rigid and regimented in the way they do things for a variety of bureaucratic and other reasons. Since pure discovery science for the sake of science, as opposed to science to develop and atom bomb or science to develop a missile, has to it a certain amount of flexibility and free floating direction. There are many who feel that is antithetical to government since government is full of rules and regulations. So the NIH is a bit of an anomaly among government institutions. People did what they wanted to do, so it gave the impression that this is more like a university campus with freedom of expression of thought, than it is of a typical government agency.

Klein: Dr. Kimball stated that in the 1960’s if you really wanted to get ahead in academic medicine, having the Clinical Associates program on your CV was extremely helpful. You also mentioned in an interview that, “everyone who had a role in Academic medicine spent some time at NIH.” Why was this that case? What made this program so unique?

Fauci: It was the only place in the country where you could do clinical research and have essentially no other responsibilities but to conduct research. It was a most unique situation to be in. If you go to a university medical center, you have numerous other responsibilities. By the time you look at the amount of time that you actually have to do research, it was very little. Whereas at the NIH, you had a three-year completely protected time to nothing but either basic or clinical research. That was the only thing you had to do. It was the most golden years of anybody’s career. We used to tell the new associates, ‘You will never again have a situation like this, ever.’ So not only was the time protected completely, but also the resources were completely available. Whatever you needed to do the job you got to the job. It was a highly desirable situation to be in. That is why the competition was so extraordinary. It was not easy to get an Associate- ship appointment at the NIH. It was highly competitive at the time.

Whereas now, it is much, much less competitive.

Klein: That leads me to my next question. It seems that the number of applications for the Associates program has dropped dramatically and I wondered why that is the case since former Associates hold prominent positions at the NIH as well throughout the country.

Fauci: That is a reflection of how academic medicine has changed so dramatically over the past 20 years. The medical centers, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, etc., used to be the bastions of intellectual freedom and thought. People had the opportunity within the setting of a medical center to be a true academician. To be the Chairmen of the Department of Medicine was one of the most desired professions in medicine. The Kings and Queens of Medicine were thought to hold these positions. The route to get there was to get some academic training and determine your research. Actually, we used to call them the triple threads: teaching, clinical medicine and research. Those were the three things that people used to like to do. Now the medical centers are overwhelmed with the managed care. It becomes a business hardly anybody really wants to be a Chairman of Medicine in a major department. It turns out that you are essentially a slave to the managed care process. People who are interested in what was once a clear career path, now that career path is not around anymore. Now people either go into very fundamental basic research, which is more of the Ph.D. approach, or the go out into family practice or clinical medicine. There has been a real weakening of the academic clinician. There is no market for them anymore. The training ground then becomes less competitive for it. Before, people would come here, be a clinical associate stay on for four or five years, build up their CV, make themselves a name in medicine and then go off and to become a Chairman. That is what the NIH trained people to do. Now, however, the jobs that you would ultimately go to are not particularly desirable jobs anymore. It is a trickledown effect.

Klein: How did participating in the Associates program help your career?

Fauci: It did not help it, it made it. It was the first step towards what I did. I followed a pathway that was a combination of hard work, some talent and being in the right place at the right time. I started off as Clinical Associate, became a Senior Investigator, then a Section head, then a Lab Chief and then I became the Director of the Institute. None of that would have happened had I not come down here as a Clinical Associate. I would not have been plugged into the NIH system. For example, had I not come down here, had I not made it and gone to Vietnam for a few years in the Navy, I would have probably returned to New York Hospital. I would probably be practicing medicine right now on 69 th Street and First Avenue. The Clinical Associate program put me on a career track that I am still on.

Klein: How did the training in the program help you with discoveries that you made here?

Fauci: That is a very good question. I fundamentally do basic science but I am also fundamentally a clinician. I still see patients twice a week, every week, all year round. What the Clinical Associate Program does is it gives you a very interesting perspective on the relationship between disease and the basic science that you have to study to be able to approach disease. I was able to see how clinical research was done, not only done but also correctly done at a very early stage in my career. Also the link, as we used to say, between ‘the bed and the bench,’ you see something at the bedside, you bring it back and ask the question at the bench or you make a discovery at the bench and you go back and apply it to the bedside, that bedside to bench phenomena was really what the Clinical Associates program was all about. That was the program it was not only about treating patients. When I was Chief Resident, patients used to come into the ER like hot-dogs. They would come in, and the only thing you wanted to do was save the patient's life and get him out of the hospital. There was very little time to think about why patients developed certain diseases or infections. It was always treat them, get them ready and get them out.

Whereas at the NIH, you see the patient and then you say, ‘You know, I think I want to do a project to ask that question.’ In fact, the very first research that I did was trying to figure out how you could interrupt [word missed] inflammatory response for, which was a disease that Dr. Wolff and I studied in 1968, and as it turned out we ultimately developed a cure for it. That was by being at the bench and at the bedside at the same time.

Klein: It is sad to me that program is not as popular as it once was especially now that technology may allow us to make even more phenomenal medical advancements.

Fauci: It is sad. But as you were saying that I kept thinking about George Harrison’s song that he wrote after the Beatles broke up, “All Things Must Pass.” The way things were back then were absolutely suited to what the state of academic medicine was. Now, medicine out there is different so the program it has to adapt. I think there is going to be a resurgence of the need for a program like this. It is still alive and well. I would not want you to get the impression that it is on a slippery slope and disappearing. There is now, since there are very few opportunities to do clinical research on the outside, a lot of attention about building this up as the bastion of clinical research in the country with the new clinical center. There is a new era of excitement about the intramural research program but with a different flavor than it was years ago. Before, there was an excitement about training and then going out and seeding the universities. Now, it is about training and the different routes that you take after you train. It is not going downhill, it is just changing.

Klein: In my interview with Dr. Rosen, I asked him why the applications for the program were falling and he mentioned among other things that it was due in part to disrespect on the part of basic scientists for clinical research. Do you agree?

Fauci: Again, I have to disagree. You will always find someone who will say that. There was, and it is correcting now because the NIH is aware that there was a lot of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Harold Varmus is helping combat it, which is interesting, because he is a basic scientist.

He has been very helpful in trying to bring in a new understanding of what clinical research is. It is not disrespect. You cannot judge clinical research, its results and the skills it takes to conduct clinical research, by the same standards and criteria as basic research. In many respects, it is much more difficult to clinical research. It may not seem as sophisticated. You cannot take 150 transgenic mice and specifically and definitively answer the question is this gene important for this aspect of the neurological system in this mouse. The results are definitive however they are definitive for a mouse not for patients. Research that actually involves patients is much more difficult and in some respects has to be less sophisticated in the sense that all the molecular probes that you could do in an animal. There has been a misunderstanding as to what type of research is better. Is it better to answer the precise question? Yes, that is very important. But, there is still a very important role for research with the patient. I disagree that there was a lack of respect on the part of basic researchers for clinical research. Rather, I believe that there was a lack of true understanding.

Right now, under Dr. Varmus’s leadership, we are seeing that clinical researchers are starting to appreciate the contributions of basic researchers. Basic researchers are also starting to realize that sooner or later they are going to have to get their discoveries into a clinical research setting otherwise they will have a lot of publications but they will not mean anything. Hopefully what we start to see is more of a marriage between basic and clinical research.

Klein: I was wondering if you could cite a few examples of medical advances of physicians and scientists who came to the NIH through the Associates Program.

Fauci: If I give you examples, I am going to offend a lot of people because there are so many. Gene Braunwald, Shelly Wolff, Bob Gallo, Sam Broder, your father [Harvey G. Klein] and Harvey Alter. I could go on and on. If you look at every major person around here, they have contributed something. Bob Chanock, Brian Murphy, Bob Purcell, the number of brilliant minds fills volumes.

Klein: Could you evaluate the Clinical Associates Program, then and now.

Fauci: Back when I came, it was truly a roster of superstars. That is not to say that I do not support the program now and I do not want to demean it. But back then the participants came from the very best universities in the country and they were the best students in their class. We had the best of the best there was no question about it. The electricity among the Clinical Associates used to dominate the atmosphere of the place. Virtually everybody who was a Lab Chief or a Director, all came through the program. Now the NIH is more top heavy. We have a lot of stars who went through the program and are still here. Even though the Clinical Associates Program is good, you would not consider them superstars.

With all due respect to who is here, if you look the program back then you could without being embarrassed say these are the superstars of American medicine. If you look at them now, they are good, but they are not superstars.

Klein: That is interesting because yesterday I read an article in the post by Daniel Greenberg, which commented how the NIH is too old and not as cutting edge.

Fauci: I have known Dan for years, he is a good man and I like him but we disagree on a lot of things. Again, you cannot say that we are aging. We are as cutting edge as we have ever been. Just look at what the NIH is doing. The difference is the level of young people who are coming in through the training program. He has got it wrong. If you look at the Lab Chiefs and the Section Heads, they are as cutting edge as they have ever been. If you look at the trainees that is where the difference is. There is no longer a competition of 700 people trying to get 5 slots. Now it is 8 people trying to get 5 slots. That is the difference. Do not confuse that with the NIH not being on the cutting edge. The NIH intramural program is very much on the cutting edge.


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