Liberals and Political Kitsch

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I’m all in favor of equality, at least in its Abe Lincoln version — the world open to talents. It’s equality run by liberals that sticks in my craw, just as, to liberals, the talent open to the world called Sarah Palin sticks in their craw.

But what is it, exactly, that sticks in the conservative craw? I will tell you. It is the fact that liberalism is political kitsch.

Conservative philosopher Roger Scruton helped me see the light. I was reading his Beauty — specifically, the chapter where he talks about the problem of kitsch and its alter ego, desecration.

Kitsch deprives feeling of its cost, and therefore of its reality; desecration augments the cost of feeling, and so frightens us away from it. The remedy for both states of mind is suggested by the thing that they each deny, which is sacrifice.

Our liberal friends champion a politics that eliminates sacrifice. “No one should have to [insert specific sacrifice here],” they bellow.

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