Friedrich Nietzsche saw himself surrounded by a world of human constructions. Humanity had become a herd, clinging to these concepts like cattle grazing in their favorite meadow. Individual identity struggled to exist. The morality of the mediocre reigned supreme. Nietzsche lived in a dead world. Milan Kundera lives in the world today. His world is as dead as Nietzsche's. Denial is the focal point of society. Society assimilates difference and denies what cannot be assimilated. In his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera relies on the word kitsch to describe the force of denial. “Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit” (Kundera 248). Kitsch is an inevitable part of the human condition. Although Nietzsche was unaware of the word, much of his philosophy is a reaction to the concept of kitsch. He wanted to revitalize the passion, the raw feeling, in the hope that he and others could transcend the kitsch and relate authentically to each other: to be masters. However, while Nietzsche attacks kitsch, he also understands its necessity. He doesn't try to destroy kitsch (like Kundera); he simply wants to place kitsch in a new context, put it into perspective. Many years separate the worlds of Nietzsche and Kundera, but the fundamental questions of their existential struggle seem to be the same: is it possible to oppose kitsch and succeed, or survive? Before delving into the possibility of opposing kitsch it is necessary to derive a clear working scheme. definition of kitsch. This definition relies heavily on Kundera's view of kitsch and, therefore, any arguments presented to demonstrate genuine opposition to kitsch pertain exclusively to the following definition. Kitsch claims to speak to some absolute... middle of paper.... ..or his readers must accept the bullshit as part of his philosophical answer. Works Cited Brown, Norman O. “The Excremental Vision.” Life versus death. Wesleyan University Press, 1959. p.179-201. Rpt in Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ernest Tuveson, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Inc., 1964, p. 31-54.Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: philosopher, psychologist, antichrist. New York: Meridian Books, 1956. Kundera, Milan. The unbearable lightness of being. New York: Harper and Row Inc., 1984. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond good and evil. Walter Kaufmann trans. New York: Random House Inc., 1989.---. Thus spoke Zarathustra. Rpt. in The Portable Nietzsche. Walter Kaufmann trans. New York: Viking Press, 1956.---. The will to power. Walter Kaufmann trans. ed.New York: Random House Inc., 1967.