What May Day always reminds me of (Milan Kunderas The Unbearable Lightness of Being): Sabinas initial inner revolt against Communism was aesthetic rather than ethical in character. What repelled her was not nearly so much the ugliness of the Communist world (ruined castles transformed into cow sheds) as the mask of beauty it tried to wear-in other words, Communist kitsch. The model of Communist kitsch is the ceremony called May Day. She had seen May Day parades during the time when people were still enthusiastic or still did their best to feign enthusiasm. The women all wore red, white, and blue blouses, and the public, looking on from balconies and windows, could make out various five-pointed stars, hearts, and letters when the marchers went into formation. Small brass bands accompanied the individual groups, keeping everyone in step. As a group approached the reviewing stand, even the most blase faces would beam with dazzling smiles, as if trying to prove they were properly joyful or, to be more precise, in proper agreement. Nor were they merely expressing political agreement with Communism; no, theirs was an agreement with being as such. The May Day ceremony drew its inspiration from the deep well of the categorical agreement with being. The unwritten, unsung motto of the parade was not Long live Communism! but Long live life! The power and cunning of Communist politics lay in the fact that it appropriated this slogan. For it was this idiotic tautology (Long live life!) which attracted people indifferent to the theses of Communism to the Communist parade.
Posted on: Thu, 01 May 2014 14:28:36 +0000
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