(Also titled: My all too real existential angst as eruditely expressed by Milan Kundera)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
[My Italian copy got lost when I sold my house in Padova. At that time, I was still a student in Oregon and I didn’t have time or the money to go back and clean up my stuff before selling the house. The friends who rented my apartment until few months earlier were kind enough to take care of the house sale as well as to pack what was left in my home and give it away. This is how I lost, among many things, my book collection.]
The copy we own looks like a used book, and has a dedication: “March 1st, 1995. To S., A.,” which means that this is the first present I gave my husband for his birthday. Usually the first gift I give to friends and lovers is a book, and it’s not a disinterested present: it’s an attempt to communicate something essential about myself to them.
[For many years, the book I gave as first present to people I cared about was Antoine de Saint-Exupèry’s The Little Prince.
Back to the Unbearable Lightness, I realized that my obsession had to do with the description of totalitarian kitsch in chapter six, The Grand March. In typical Kunderian fashion, Kundera starts by talking about shit.
The fact that until recently the word ‘shit’ appeared in print as s— has nothing to do with moral considerations. You can’t claim that shit is immoral, after all! The objection to shit is a metaphysical one. The daily defecation session is daily proof of the unacceptability of Creation. Either/or: either shit is acceptable (in which case don’t lock yourself in the bathroom) or we are created in a unacceptable manner.
It follows, then, that the aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch.
‘Kitsch’ is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth century, and from German it entered all Western languages. Repeated use, however, has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative sense of the word; kitsch excludes anything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.
Then, Kundera goes on to describe totalitarian kitsch.
Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politician and all political parties and movements.
Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the real 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 o kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); (…).
And here is the quote I was desperately searching, which describe Sabina’s style as a painter (where is the search button in a book when you need it?):
“In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then, that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions. A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it. In fact, that was exactly how Sabina had explained the meaning of her painting to Tereza: on the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth showing through.”
A lot of science fiction has dealt with this type of unsettling feeling: that reality is not what we perceive; that an unbearable truth is hidden from us by an illusory and reassuring lie (think The Matrix; We,
This is also how I feel. I feel as I inhabit a double reality. On the one hand, I see the nice, reassuring, positively spun truth of the political/corporate propaganda, where people who can make decisions are doing a good job, thinking big, taking responsibilities, and acting fairly while we work happily for the common and greater good. At work, we are paid well, our benefits are good, people leaving the job have found “a better opportunity” elsewhere, and we all march together towards the corporate ideal of perfection.
On the other hand, I cannot get rid of the fastidious realization that things below the surface are not always the way they seem. Through the cracks, I can see unintelligible truth of mismanagement, failures and wrong decisions never addressed, personal responsibilities never accepted, favoritism, and unfair treatment. Nobody wants to hear it. Not the people who can do something to fix it and not even the people who suffer from it, because accepting this realization is painful and would force us to make difficult choices. I wish I could avoid it, but I can’t; I don’t have any choice than seeing what is in front of my eyes. I can see too clearly cracks in the orderly and neat picture revealing a messy and chaotic world underneath, and I feel trapped.
Perhaps I’m just making it too melodramatic. “This is life, my dear, and you should just be able to deal with it.” Perhaps I’m too much of an idealist. “Stop thinking about fairness and justice and just do your work. This is a contract, pal, not an utopian revolution.”
In the end, Kundera says, there is more to kitsch than totalitarian kitsch. Kitsch is a touching, human reactions to the harshness of reality, a salvation from the inconceivable realization of loneliness and death.
Though touched by the song, Sabina did not take her feeling seriously. She knew only too well that the song was a beautiful lie. As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the context of non-kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness. For none among us is superman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
Tags: kundera, unbearable lightness of being, kitsch, awareness