As I have said for the past few weeks, I have a major piece on the way- It is almost done but here is an out-take from it that will give you a hint about what it is about.
It is no coincidence that the ascendance of emotion over logic is a particular characteristic of fascist Islam. But it also runs through the entirety of the left from “the center” out to the farthest radical left wing. The emotional objection creeps up on logic and warns it off many subjects and points of views. There is always a point at which “how can such a thing be allowed to happen in our country” slides into “It makes me uncomfortable when you say that,” and that turns in to, “You just can’t say that kind of thing” and then metamorphoses into the overriding taboo of multiculturalism- “You can’t apply western standards to other cultures…” No matter how much evidence they are presented with, they are unable to understand facts and ideas because of their commitment to their emotions about the situation.
Under the equivocal spell of multiculturalism, the rage, humiliation and vengeance of the Caliphate Muslims becomes so enthralling as to be irresistible to a mass media that thrives only on mass appeal. It’s maudlin emotions and simplistic logic suffice as a vehicle for the bloody spectacle.
Milan Kundera would call this constriction and strangulation of debate by the incremental advance of emotional reactions “Kitsch”.
It is the ultimate indictment of the Main Stream Media and he wrote it in 1985!
Here is Kundera on Kitsch:
“The word "kitsch" describes the attitude of those who want to please the greatest number, at any cost. To please, one must confirm what everyone wants to hear, put oneself at the service of received ideas. Kitsch is the translation of the stupidity of received ideas into the language of beauty and feeling. It moves us to tears of compassion for ourselves, for the banality of what we think and feel…Given the imperative necessity to please and thereby gain the attention of the greatest number, the aesthetic of the mass media is inevitably that of kitsch; and as mass media come to embrace and infiltrate more and more of our life, kitsch becomes our everyday aesthetic and moral code.” The Art of the Novel, Jerusalem Address: The Novel and Europe, Milan Kundera, 1986, Harper & Row
1 comment:
Bravo, Moshe! I so look forward to the rest.
John Berger, in an essay on Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner Pollock in About Looking, refers in passing to the Abstract Expressionists' (all artists', of course) struggle against kitsch. Berger may even say which art critic coined the term (either Harold Rosenberg or Clement Greenberg, I think). That was the fist I'd read about this artwold Yiddishism!
Post a Comment