"Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.”
—Kingsley Amis
Ithought about organizing this essay around Kingsley Amis’s seemingly simple remark. How much forgotten wisdom is contained in those seven short words? And what profound application do they have to a moment in which ugliness has not only triumphed in our culture but is everywhere held up as something one must embrace as attractive? How many more fashion ads featuring hideous “fat positive” females do we need?
On second thought, though, I realized that I could give an abbreviated answer to the question implicit in my title in just three words: indifference, capitulation, kitsch.
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