“Nazism was an attempt to lie beautifully to the German nation and to the world. The beautiful lie is, however, also the essence of kitsch. Kitsch is a form of make-believe, a form of deception. It is an alternative to the daily reality that would otherwise be a spiritual vacuum. It represents ‘fun’ and ‘excitement,’ energy and spectacle and above all ‘beauty.’ Kitsch replaces ethics with aesthetics. Kitsch is the mask of Death. Nazism was the ultimate expression of kitsch, of its mind-numbing, death-dealing portent. Naziism, like kitsch, masqueraded as life; the reality of both was death. The Third Reich was the creation of ‘kitsch men,’ people who confused the relationship between life and art, reality and myth, and who regarded the goal of existence as mere affirmation, devoid of criticism, difficulty, insight. Their sensibility was rooted in superficiality, falsity, plagiarism, and forgery. Their art was rooted in ugliness. They took the ideals, though not the form, of the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century avant-garde, and of the German nation in the Great War, and by means of technology – the mirror – they suited these ideals to their own purpose. Germany, the home of Dichter und Denker [Poets and thinkers], of many of the greatest cultural achievements of modern man, became in the Third Reich the home of Richter und Henker [Judges and hangmen]: the incarnation of kitsch and nihilism.”

Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the American withdrawal from liberal global policeman isn’t some weird departure from their geopolitical traditions, it’s a return to business as usual pre-1945. It was the intervening 80 years that was extraordinary and if people valued it they should have been more helpful to and less unpleasant about the Pax Americana.

“Our particular corner of Christendom can now be taught the history of every civilisation except its own.”

G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly December 13, 1934, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)

In my latest National Post column I say while it's necessary to denounce antisemitism, it's not sufficient. We must understand why and how this uniquely stubborn and wicked form of hatred spreads like a fungus, causing rot in all kinds of places including elite institutions.

In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that decades of immigration and investment policy based on mistaken and incoherent multiculturalism is predictably turning Canada into a low-trust society.

In my latest Epoch Times column I ponder the battling dispositions in public debate to refuse to believe things can be as bad as they seem, or to refuse to believe anything else, and the characteristic errors each can cause.

In my latest Epoch Times column I ask, with specific reference to the Canada Health Act, why mental paralysis is considered an elevated form of patriotism in this country.

“We cannot be content with the vague modern phrase that every sentiment must be tolerated so long as it is sincere. Sincerity is a palliation of partly evil things: but it is an aggravation of entirely evil things. That a man is a sincere Mormon makes him better; but that he is a sincere Satanist makes him worse. There are theories so vile, there are beliefs so abominable that one can only endure their existence by denying their sincerity. Sincerity in these cases has no moral value. It amounts to no more than saying that a cannibal sincerely enjoys boiled missionary, or that Mrs. Brownrigg sincerely tried to hurt her apprentices. Those who talk of ‘tolerating all opinions’ are very provincial bigots who are only familiar with one opinion. There are opinions which are in the literal and legal sense intolerable. Otherwise we are saying that two blacks make a white; that one who has acted wickedly is excused if he has thought wickedly too.”

G.K. Chesterton quoted by Mark Pilon in “News With Views” (without further attribution) in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)