Notre Dame, on this account, is inescapably a symbol of patriarchy, monarchism–indeed, feudalism–theocracy, and more than anything else, white males.
It is, or was, ugly, in other words, by the only criterion allowed left wing radical lunatics. Its burning should be celebrated.
Lost in all this, is that the only beauty is in conformity, and conformity, by any other standard, is mediocrity and ugliness. As Mark Steyn pointed out on Fox last night, we can look to the Centre Georges Pompidou as the logical expression of anti-culture and anti-beauty, aka a Gramscian ideal. It subverted the dominant paradigm that public buildings should be pleasing, and even inspirational.
The second point I wanted to make is tangential. I was reading an account of atheism a month or two ago, and they pointed out that atheism was important for radicals in France and Russia particularly, since the Church and the Monarchy were so closely connected. This was not as true in England, and obviously not America, since the absolute power of the Pope, in the case of France, and I guess the Tsar for the Russian Orthodox Church, had already been subverted.
This led to me wondering if culturally there is a connection between Catholicism and Fascism and other authoritarianisms. Has this played a role in the many strong men and dictators of Latin America, for example? Symbolically, political power can be seen as a secular analogue of spiritual/religious power. There is, in other words, nothing wrong with it, as long as we accept the model of the Pope as an absolute ruler not accountable to the flock.
Then it occurred to me to wonder if it is significant that Hitler first rose to power in Munich, in a Catholic stronghold.
Just thinking out loud, there.