Our University-Culture, Chapter 6: The Culture of Kitsch (Part 2)

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IV. The Potemkin Village of Kitsch

We want to live in a Potemkin village. Indeed, we all live in our own Potemkin villages. Everyone else’s schools are terrible, but our local school is awesome. Police in other towns are corrupt and abusive, but our police are awesome. Politicians in other cities or states are corrupt and pass bad legislation, but our politicians are following the will of the people. Indeed, this is how you can have such low approval ratings of Congress and yet have almost everyone reelected. But here’s the truth: it is your schools which are terrible; it is your police who are corrupt and abusive; it is your politicians who are corrupt and making out like bandits while lying to you about all the good they are doing. We need to stop acting like these problems are others’ problems; they are our problems. We have to stop being blind to that fact. We are living in a Potemkin village, full of false fronts, a world of kitsch of our own making. It has to end.

And we create these Potemkin villages in a variety of ways. When we complain about someone engaging in…