Milan Kundera once observed (in his inimitable way) that we live in the age of ‘Totalitarian kitsch’:
“When I say ‘totalitarian’, what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree ‘be fruitful and multiply’”.
Kundera was applying this in a general sense, he was critiquing the Soviet oppression of his Hungarian homeland and the communist ideal, but also the romanticizing of human ‘nature’ and social relationships – cultural and personal.
He provides a slice of everyday kitsch by using the example of being moved by seeing children play on the grass:
“Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass!
The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!
It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.
The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a basis of kitsch.”
From The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1984.
Great post! Milan Kundera is one of my favorite writers. I am impressed by "it is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch." Your post has everything: depth, substance, interesting idea and great approach.
ReplyDeleteOK, it may sound odd, but when I read this post I had a thought that I was living at ordinary level of consciousness and suddenly things started to happen that normally don't happen, I began to see my two blogs differently and the world differently. Carl Jung called it "synchronicity". I call it influence by your writing. I want to believe that everybody has this experience.