Communist and Capitalist Dictionaries

The Unbearable Lightness of Being in many ways reminds me of certain boys I remember from high school. They are pretty clever, but not as clever as they think they are. They throw around a lot of catchy ideas that, upon closer examination, lack depth and rigor. But the shallowness of their ideas is a feature, not a bug, in their popularity. Some of them are annoying, others not so much.

Many of the stuff in the novel are annoying, but some actually invite a deeper exploration (which the author did not do). One of the interesting ideas is the separate dictionaries used by Sabina and Franz, who are more caricatures than characters. Sabina represents the exiled intellectual from a former Communist country, i.e., Kundera's own uneasiness in France. Franz is a standup comedy version of intellectuals of the west --- It's funny, but also superficial and stupid. 

Sharing some similarity with Kundera's situation but having emigrated at a much younger age, I happen to have a first-hand understanding of this "separate dictionary" phenomenon, except that I have a much better dictionary for the western culture than Kundera wrote for Franz. Sabina is a more precise portrayal, but his observation of the west, as represented by Franz, is largely cringeworthy. 

I'm sure he wrote this part out of frustration with the French intellectuals who fawn over him without being able to understand him. On the other hand, he too failed to understand them. In his version, "the west" has the strength but lacks aggression. Franz is soft and unmanly. That's why he got dumped by Sabina and killed by some lowly Asian thugs. He is unable to arouse his women because he doesn't know how to issue a command "Strip" (in contrast with Tomas, an infinitely virile Czech man).

(One does not have to dig too deep for Kundera's metaphors.)

This characterization is extremely superficial and misses the reality by a long shot. But that's not surprising. Recently, I have been contemplating the impact of Communism on the 20th century history of the world. From time to time I am asked by American-born friends about the Communist regime of China, and every time I have to suppress an urge to give a longwinded answer about why the Chinese political system is only labeled "Communist", not unlike a box of fried chicken labeled as steak. 

I have finally come to the realization that Communism, from the single source of Karl Marx's brain, morphed into a vast array of totally different meanings to different people who did different things with it. People assume they are talking about the same thing when they talk about Communism, but that's just an illusion. The theory of Communism did something to countries that label themselves as Communist or Socialist, including Soviet Union and China, but these are not really Communist things as defined by Marx. The theory also did something to countries that label themselves as Capitalist, but the effects are subtle and complex and requires some exploration. 

To apply a bit of the systems theory, the fact that some countries in the world labeled themselves Communist (regardless of what they were actually doing) and happened to be economic and military rivals to some other countries in the world, caused those other countries to label any internal conflicts as Communist and foreign. For example, during the 1960s and 70s, the counterculture movement involving civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights was labeled as Communist infiltration by conservatives, thus rebranding long-term domestic conflicts as a foreign threat. When I first learned this phenomenon I almost laughed out loud. Obviously we are using different dictionaries in which the definitions of Communism has no resemblance to each other. 

The Unbearable Promiscuity of Kitsch

I have several curious observations about the novel, one of which is the extensive philosophizing around the concept of kitsch in the beginning of Part 6. 

First, the author goes through great lengths to elucidate human society's awkward attitude about and the theological problem with shit, coming to the conclusion that disgust and excitement (clearly referring to sexual arousal) are two sides of the same coin or at least dependent on each other. 

Then, we come to the original definition of kitsch: "the absolute denial of shit." It's not a stretch to include sexual activities, along with its disgust and excitement, in the idea of "shit", not the least because the promiscuous sexual habits of the hero, Tomas, stands at the center of the novel. 

In subsequent chapters, we are given an definition of Communist kitsch, which has nothing to do with either shit or sex. Rather, the definition becomes the suppression of individualism in favor of a uniform display of total agreement among people, however artificial and coerced. Although we who live in the free world can safely assume that "he is not talking about me," let's not forget that the chapter started with an example of kitsch in an American senator. Moreover, he did write in a previous chapter that "The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch." This statement is so all-encompassing so as to be meaningless, as if the entire history of human society is built upon this concept of kitsch, meaning either the universal disgust of the bodily function or the urge to pretend to agree with each other. 

(Regarding the disgust and shame of bodily function, Freud and others have done plenty of research. There is nothing new here.) 

It's all well and good to interpret the author's critique of kitsch as the grotesque display of unity in Communist propaganda, but I cannot help but wonder what all this has to do with shit. 

If we are to take the following definition of totalitarian kitsch seriously, then it is no longer limited to Communist propaganda and social pressure of conformity: 

Everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life; every display of individualism; every doubt; all irony; and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women ...

In modern western countries, among intellectuals, none of these infringements is banished, including the mother and the homosexual man. But what about a compulsive womanizer like Tomas? 

Nearly all of the chapters from Tereza's perspective describe how much she suffers excruciating jealousy and despair from Tomas' womanizing. At least half of Tomas' chapters describe how he enjoys having sex with as many women as possible with absolutely no consequences. I am fascinated by the latter (but not Tereza's chapters, which are so shallow and cliched), which is mixed with a little disgust, I guess not that different from the feeling while looking at the Bristol Stool Form Scale. 

It is particularly fascinating to examine Tomas' promiscuity in parallel with his love for Tereza. He gave up a life and career in Zurich for her (although it is never clear why she ran back to Prague, it is obviously a necessary plot device). There are many touching passages about Tomas being deeply moved by Tereza's grief and pain; his love is aroused most intensely when he hears about her horrible dreams of death:

Let the planet be convulsed with exploding bombs, the country ravished daily by new hordes, all his neighbors taken out and shot -- he could accept it all more easily than he dared admit. But the grief implicit in Tereza's dream was something he could not endure.

To this passage I wrote: Her grief is obviously not as unendurable as a life without collecting women in his sexual escapades.

I have some even more uncharitable thoughts, but I would stick to the more concrete interpretation with a relatively obvious chain of logic strung through the consecutive chapters. Sure, the argument for individualism and against collective display of feeling is all fine and dandy, but I don't think that's the whole point. The point is presented to the reader everywhere in the world: If you are disgusted by the compulsive womanizer, you too are kitsch! 

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As the chapters go on, the definition of kitsch expands out of control and becomes so general and vague that it loses all meaning. Sabina's longing for a picture-perfect home life in which she can compensate for her early loss of parents (which in itself is very banal characterization) is also lumped into the author's classification of kitsch, even though he admits that this longing is genuine and specific to Sabina. The sentiment comes from within Sabina herself and not a desire to fit in with any kind of social norm. 

In other words, even the first tear is kitsch, despite the earlier definition that only the second tear is so. By this point, any human sentiment can be called kitsch, and there is no longer any distinction between authentic emotions and affectations. He also throws a number of other concepts into kitsch, including but not limited to cliques, tribes, ideology, identity, and affiliation. This ceaseless expansion leads to the inevitable conclusion: 

For none among us is superhuman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition. 

Hmm. You have put the entire human condition into kitsch. So why should anyone scorn it?