Kitsch – the Enemy of Work and Play

Kitsch removes the elements of both play and work from interaction with object, symbol and beauty. Play is destroyed as there is a serious coercive motive expressed by the kitsch-object. A very particular and restrained response is expected and coded for. This is particularly clear in totalitarian Kitsch – as opposed to the images of a leader that you might find in a free-press environment, the images of totalitarian Kitsch ensure a particular reading. One may agree or disagree with the reading, but the reading is there. Even in the case of an ironical reading of Stalin With Flowers, a reading of it in its greater historical context which can be carried out with some freedom, openness, and playful ambiguity, one must first encounter the object and its intentionally stilted reading if one is to relate it to context successfully.

You must go where Kitsch wants for you to go – you must feel it as it has expressed itself, you must buy it for what it claims to be. This is not a playful, open environment, it is emotional bullying.

Similarly, the concept of work is destroyed. As anyone who has invested time into art appreciation could well appreciate, understanding takes work. Talking, reading, making, listening – these things have to be done actively and purposefully, building an edifice of connections and links of understanding and tying this edifice back into the non-contemplative world in productive activity. Kitsch, invoking not only interpretive work that has already been done before and is a part of our shared understanding, but also in it’s tendency to push us towards the easiest and most instantly rewarding of sentiments, attempts to keep us from working with symbols; from taking in the knowledge of death which comes from serious pursuit.

Additionally, while play can easily be said to be that which is characterized by openness and freedom, given the state of humanity and it’s always immanent demise, play is marked by an awareness of death. One might say that a person who, aware of danger and death who still remains free and open, has a greater sense of play than even a child who plays unaware. The power of YHWH is manifest in that he makes a feast in the presence of his enemies.

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