Social acceptance of vices begins by finding them attractive and secret

Evidence

The Faubourg Saint-Germain, however, as Proust depicts it, was in the early stages of this development. It admitted inverts because it felt attracted by what it judged to be a vice. Proust describes how Monsieur de Charlus, who had formerly been tolerated, “notwithstanding his vice,” for his personal charm and old name, now rose to social heights. He no longer needed to lead a double life and hide his dubious acquaintances, but was encouraged to bring them into the fashionable houses. Topics of conversation which he formerly would have avoided—love, beauty, jealousy—lest somebody suspect his anomaly, were now welcomed avidly “in view of the experience, strange, secret, refined and monstrous upon which he founded” his views. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 259

Categorization

• XREF: Documents the concrete historical/social dynamic via Proust — the ‘attraction’ stage of vice-tolerance before it hardens into inherent-qualities logic. Useful concrete case study.