A little more than two months ago, precisely on 3rd of July, the Czech writer Franz Kafka would complete 140 years old, so this post is a tribute to him. He wrote about the injustices of authoritarian systems, the abuses of power without end, the necessity of all of us to defend human rights, justice and democracy. This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka. The second was published at https://www.ilponte.sk/printed-issue-22018/2022/7/3/the-political-side-of-kafka. The third was published at https://bigthink.com/high-culture/kafkaesque-franz-kafka-real-dystopia/. The fourth was published at https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-politics-of-kafka-2015-11-22
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer based in Prague, who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety and absurdity. His best known works include, Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe absurd situations. He was born into a middle-class German speaking Czech Jewish family in Prague. He was a lawyer employed by an insurance company, what made him relegate writing to his spare time. He died at the age of 40 from tuberculosis. Kafka was a prolific writer, spending most of his free time writing, often late in the night. Few of Kafka's works were published during his lifetime: Contemplation, A Country Doctor and The Metamorphosis were published in literary magazines but received little public attention. Kafka's writing became famous in German-speaking countries after World War II, influencing their literature, and its influence spread elsewhere in the world in the 1960s. The nature of Kafka's works allows for varied interpretations and critics have placed his writing into a variety of literary schools. The hopelessness and absurdity common to his works are seen as emblematic of existentialism. Some of Kafka's books are influenced by the expressionist movement, though the majority of his literary output was associated with the experimental modernist genre. Kafka also touches on the theme of human conflict with bureaucracy. The writer Milan Kundera suggest that Kafka's surrealist humour may have been an inversion of Dostoyevsky's characters. In Kafak's work, a character is punished although a crime has not been committed. Kundera believes that Kafka's inspiration for his characteristic situations came from growing up in a totalitarian state. The term "Kafkaesque" is used to describe concepts and situations in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu that evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation and helplessness. The term has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical. Numerous films have been described as Kafkaesque such as: The Angel (1982), Brazil (1985), Barton Fink (1991) and Dark City (1998). Kafka possessed particular capability of explaining the most ordinary emotions in an exceptionally grotesque, unordinary and human way. His writing style and the philosophical questions he tries to answer are unique. Kafka's writings are a literary dance between Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Dostoyesvsky. Kafka's writing is usually described as works of psychological realism. While promoting the idea of democracy and rule of law, Kafka also acknowledges totalitarianism. In the short-story Penal Colony there is a message on the grave found in the basement about the authoritative and tyrannical system. The message is a claim made by the Governor: "There exists a prophecy that the Governor will rise again and he will lead his followers to a reconguest." Kafak sees democracy and the tyrannical authoritarian system as a never-ending struggle. Kafka is consciously developing a distance from primitive traditional laws and judicial systems. The end of the reign of the old Governor corresponds with the beginning of the World War I. The freeing of the unjustly Condemned man, was a symbol for Kafka that the war meant an end to imperial Europe. He welcomed democracy with open arms, however, he was not naive to think that the authorotative system will not come back. In retrospect, he was right, because around 30 years later, World War II started. Hannah Arendt wrote that Kafka's stories are a product of thinking rather than of a mere experience. Depressive and alone, he died without realizing his importance. That is why it is important to remember him and his work as being before its time. In Kafka's works, especially The Trial, the reader experience a claustrophobic and absurd dystopia, weighed down by a pointless and relentless bureaucracy. An illogical and arbitrary system that is soul crushing. It is waiting months for an application to be approved, only to be rejected by some faceless bureaucrat without any guidance as to why. It is filling out forms or getting licenses that not only don't make sense to anyone. It is the drip, drip, drip of nonsense legislation that makes up a swamp and wading through it saps and destroy you. If we made a survey asking people to name one writer whose works convey a negative outlook on life, Franz Kafka's name is likely to come up at the very top. And at least at first sight, this ranking seems rather appropriate. Take for instance, the novel The Trail, It tells the story of Josef K., who is persecuted and in the end executed by an amorphous justice system without knowing what he is accused of. The novel presents dark allegory focusing on the hopeless struggle between the individual and judicio-bureaucratic apparatus. However, if we only emphasize these negative aspects in Kafka's works, we miss much of what is all about. This is what we can learn from Hannah Arendt's surprising 1946 essay "Franz Kafka, Appreciated Anew." Arendt does not show us the depressing Kafka we all know. What Arendt reconstruct is instead a visionary political writer who is inspired by the idea of a world "in which the actions of man depend on nothing but himself and his spontaneity." To be sure. it takes a good deal of creativity to find in Kafka's works the vision of a future society that is "governed by laws prescribed by man himself rather by mysterious forces." Arendt is aware of that.
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