I recently finished reading Czech novelist Milan Kundera’s incredibly over-hyped and under-written novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Like sifting through a ton of cow shit to find a diamond, there is this one nugget of inspiration:

“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 senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.

Two pages later he nails it:

    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.

He then proceeds to unwittingly describe modern America:

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 realm of totalitarian kitsch.

The true function of kitsch is to prevent the self-examination that Camus highlighted when he said that “the only true philosophical question is suicide.” Yet kitsch is inescapable, and will haunt others in our deaths.

    What remains of the dying population of Cambodia?
    One large photograph of an American actress holding an Asian child in her arms.
    What remains of Tomas?
    An inscription reading HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.
    What remains of Beethoven?
    A frown, an improbably mane, and an somber voice intoning Es muss sein! [It must be!]
    What remains of Franz?
    An inscription reading A RETURN AFTER LONG WANDERINGS.
    And so on and so forth. Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.