Kitsch in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

Thank you for bringing out such a new word. To learn is to surf on -- 

Tomáš Kulka, in Kitsch and Art, starts from two basic facts: that kitsch "has an undeniable mass appeal" and "considered bad" by the art-educated elite", and then proposes three essential conditions:

1. Kitsch depicts a beautiful or highly emotionally charged subject.
2. The depicted subject is instantly and effortlessly identifiable.
3. Kitsch does not substantially enrich our associations related to the depicted subject.^[11][1

Kitsch in Milan Kundera's [The Unbearable Lightness of Being]: 

The concept of kitsch is a central motif in Milan Kundera's 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Towards the end of the novel, the book's narrator posits that the act of defecation (and specifically, the shame that surrounds it) poses a metaphysical challenge to the theory of divine creation: "Either/or: either shit is acceptable (in which case don't lock yourself in the bathroom!) or we are created in an unacceptable manner".^[13] Thus, in order for us to continue to believe in the essential propriety and rightness of the universe (what the narrator calls "the categorical agreement with being"), we live in a world "in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist". For Kundera's narrator, this is the definition of kitsch: an "aesthetic ideal" which "excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".

The novel goes on to relate this definition of kitsch to politics, and specifically—given the novel's setting in Prague around the time of the 1968 invasion by the Soviet Union—to communism and totalitarianism. He gives the example of the Communist May Day ceremony, and of the sight of children running on the grass and the feeling this is supposed to provoke. This emphasis on feeling is fundamental to how kitsch operates:

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.^[14]

According to the narrator, kitsch is "the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements"; however, where a society is dominated by a single political movement, the result is "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).^[14]

Kundera's concept of "totalitarian kitsch" has since been invoked in the study of the art and culture of regimes such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.^[15] Kundera's narrator ends up condemning kitsch for its "true function" as an ideological tool under such regimes, calling it "a folding screen set up to curtain off death".^[16]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch#:~:text=Kitsch%20(%2Fk%C9%AAt%CA%83%2F,common%20example%20of%20modern%20kitsch.? 

 

所有跟帖： 

• Kundera kitsch as an ideological tool under such regimes ! -TJKCB- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/21/2023 postreply 13:15:05

• It’s easy to sink into the trap of kitsch. -铃兰听风- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/21/2023 postreply 18:42:31

• 他真是会玩转文字，明明是”unbearable lightness”，却让人喘不过气来。 -碼農學寫字- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/21/2023 postreply 14:10:03

• Insightful: lightness, 却让人喘不过气来 -TJKCB- ♀ (1632 bytes) () 11/21/2023 postreply 18:36:17

• 就是, 他自己也蛮 “媚” 的. 要是我, 会老老实实地写《生命不能承受之轻之重》. -铃兰听风- ♀ (331 bytes) () 11/21/2023 postreply 18:44:13