 Welcome back to the Agora Cafe for more coffee and philosophy. Of course, although I can share the philosophy with you, I can't really share the coffee with you and if I could share the coffee, it wouldn't be this coffee. I said back in the first episode that I was sort of fantasizing that I was chatting with you in a cafe in Athens. Well, today I can fantasize I'm chatting with you in a cafe in Prague, which also is offers many delightful options. I've got this book of guide to Prague cafes, although this book is from. It's a very pretty book. This book is from 2005. And so it's, I imagine it's pretty updated. Many places have closed, many others have opened, but still pretty book. Anyway, so some of the background today is not Athens but another of my favorite cities Prague. That's the Charles Bridge there. That's fish rod there I believe. Anyway, so, there's a talk that I have given a few times. I gave a talk on the title is Austro-libertarian themes and three Prague authors, Chopek, Kafka and Hasek, and I gave it at the Mises Institute in 2012 back when my doing things at the Mises Institute was a thing. And more recently I gave it at the Prague Conference of Political Economy in 2019, which was the most recent meeting since the 2020 meeting was canceled because of the current apocalypse. And some trepidation at giving this talk in, in Prague, as a foreigner presenting stuff on Prague authors to a Prague audience might seem to take some chutzpah but as it turned out, the PCPE is a very international conference and most of the people my audience were not from the Czech Republic they were from all over Europe and beyond. So, they're, you know, there are a couple different versions of this talk so there's the, the person that the two talks of the two times I've given this as a presentation. I've given it with PowerPoints, the PowerPoints that I gave that I used back in 2012, I posted online sometime in the misty past. I don't think I've posted online the most recent version of the PowerPoints from the PCPE which is the, I haven't done it before now. The new ones will be linked to in the description. It'll be as a PDF rather than PowerPoints because it takes up less space, so I could upload it to my, to my Yahoo account without running a foul of the five megabyte limit. Anyway, there's also an unfinished written version of this, which has a lot more detail. And I'm not sure what the most recent version of that is I suspect it's on some flash drive somewhere. But I do have a version of it. I don't think it's the most recent version but it is a version. So I'm going to be supplementing my slides. And I talk that focuses on the slides with some bits from the, the unfinished written version so this will be a fuller more complete version of this talk than anyone has received before. So, you are privileged. So, what I'm going to do is share my screen. So, that's the title. Austro libertarian themes and three Prague authors, Chopin Kafka and Hasek. And the start with, are the figures that I'm going to be talking about. So I'll start with Carl Chopin. He was a proponent of Czechoslovak independence it was Czechoslovakia back then not yet the Czech Republic. And he denounced his era as a damn century of wars the arms race Bolsheviks and fascism, which seems fair enough. And although he wasn't really in any strict sense an anarchist. He did say I think that I'm slowly becoming an anarchist in the sense of being against collectivity. He was very hostile to the rising rising tide of fascism. So I don't talk about in here because I hadn't read it at the time that I made the, made the initial version of this talk. This is the white plague which is about. It's about the gradual rise and spread of fascism. Being treated metaphorically as a disease, not to be confused with Frank Herbert's novel, the white played. Anyway, the Nazis were really hostile to him. He was on their kill list, but he died two months before the Germans occupied Prague. So they're too late to kill him so they killed his brother. Instead, because, you know, well, you know, second best. You know, there's a picture of him on a, on an old stamp. And here's a quote from him. The violence is used against civilized humanity. You will find intellectuals by the dozens collaborating and further brandishing their ideological reasons for doing so. This is not about a crisis of, or helplessness on the part of the intellect intelligentsia, rather is about a silent or else extremely active complicity and the moral and political shambles of Europe today. Have you ever known anything too horrible, too murderous or too nonsensical for an intellectual not to want to seize on it for the purpose of regenerating the world. Because he wasn't against all intellectuals since he was, obviously, one of them. There's his grave site. With that, that also out of his wife in the Visegrad cemetery, one of the several amazing and amazingly different from one another cemeteries in in Prague. And when I was there, this is a picture that I took myself on one of the times I was attending the Prague conference and political economy. And someone, when I was there as someone had placed a little toy robot on on his grave. So it's not a permanent. That's not a permanent extra great. Anyway, someone had placed that little robot toy on his grave it's not a permanent feature of the grave it was put there because of course, chop because the one who introduced the word robot into another language. It comes from an old Slavic word meaning surf vapor, something like that or Trump didn't actually invent the word in its in its modern use it was actually again, his brother. But he's the one who popularized it in his most famous work are you are Rossum's universal robots. That's the thing he's best known for. Unfortunately, because it's not really his best work even, it's not even close to being his best work, but, but it's his best known work. You know, so not only did his 1920 play introduced the word robot to world venture. It also gives us the very first story of robots rebelling against their creators, which would go on to become a fairly standard science fiction trope here are examples of robots causing trouble I'm not going to go through and identify all the all the sources we'll see if you can see if there's any you don't recognize. There's one I think you're probably less likely to there's one that suspect even the geeks out there less likely to recognize them all the others but let me know if you recognize which ones you recognize which ones you don't that's your, your homework for those at home. So Rossum's universal robots. Is there several things going on in there. I think that it can be read at more than one level so he manages to capture both workers anxiety over being replaced by machinery and capitalist anxiety over proletarian Revolution. The robots can represent both those things for different audiences. And plus his own anxiety just about the general mechanization and dehumanization of society and culture in general, which means that as it's often the case with topic the, you know, these, you know, these robots are, are there, you can read them both sympathetically and antagonistically because they stand for both. Things are supposed to be sympathetic for, like, you know, they're being oppressed, and they're rebelling, but also things that are supposed to be unsympathetic toward like this wave of dehumanization and mechanization that he's worried about. So it works at more than one level. Isaac Asimov who's probably the science fiction writer who's done the most with robots, really didn't like this, this play, but I'm not sure how subtly or with how much nuance. He read it, he probably just read it as another. You know, as the first of many robots rebelling and as much didn't like that idea because he thought well no one in the right minds would create robots. It would be capable of rebelling of course they would install their as most three laws into them. And Isaac Asimov himself recognized in some of his later writings that those three laws are both morally and pragmatically problematic. Well, in fact, you know, problems with the application of the three laws is sort of one of the main themes of his robot stories even from the start. But anyway, I don't think he recognized the extent to which this play is operating on sort of multiple levels. So I think that this place more subtle than Asimov gave it credit credit for even though I don't think it's close to being Chopin's best work. Then here's a passage this is not from that place from an earlier story. The system but there was a story that served as part of the partial basis for are you are, which the villain says the workers question is holding us back. The worker must become a machine so that he can simply rotate like a wheel. What he thought is in subordination, a worker's soul is not a machine therefore it must be removed. I have sterilized the worker purified him. I've destroyed in him all feelings of altruism and camaraderie, all familial poetic and transcendental feelings. He describes Chopin's vision of what he thought the of what he thought that modernist is where modern society is heading, whether it's capitalist or socialist communist fascist you know all the different flavors of economics and politics he thought all were a little bit too much alike in promoting this kind of thing he talks about Taylorism and his, his skepticism about Taylorism. Anyway, I've got this hypothesis about why he picked the initials are you are. So, the official motto of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was Kaiserlich and Königlich. So, sort of sees literally Caesar like and King like, or put another way imperial and royal, because the Austro-Hungarian Empire represented, you know, a union of of two rules into one. And often this just went by the shorthand KUK car and car. And if you just shave off the top look at look at the right hand side if you just shave off the top, by the way that that that cover I believe that's the cover that was designed by his brother. I keep saying his brother because I'm forgetting his name off hand. Joseph, maybe. Joseph Chopek that sounds right, but I wouldn't bet my life on it because that would be done way to die. He was an artist, some of his work I believe is displayed in the Cubist Museum in in Prague which is worth visiting and the building is in this is kind of cool too. If you just shave off the top of those letters. Are you are looks a lot like KUK column car. So you can see this, this corporation that's churning out these robots, as in part a metaphor for the Austro-Hungarian Empire I don't think that that's just all it was. Again, I think topics works off and operate more than one level most. Most interesting works of fiction if they're making references like that are not just mere, mere allegories where there's a neat one to one correspondence and everything the story and everything in reality. I mean stories like that can be good but generally, better stories are more nuanced than that. But anyway, if you want to mention of it, you know, one of the lines in it is, it was criminal of old Europe to teach the robots to fight. Couldn't they have left us out of their politics. It was a crime to make soldiers out of living work machines. And of course, you know he's writing this in the, in the wake of World War One. And so you can see there's a kind of an anti war dimension he was very skeptical of war he did think that he eventually did come to think you need that, that that Czechoslovakia needed to go to war to repel the Nazis. But he wrote a play called the mother on that topic but it's about the limitations of pacifism, but he was very strongly drawn toward pacifism and it was with the greatest reluctancy. Move to the, you know, favoring any kind of war. Another of his works is the factory of the absolute. That's a literal translation of the title the, the most common English translation is the absolute at large, I don't know why they give it that title the factory the absolute is is a much more little translation of the check. And the fact of the absolute is sort of a riff on or response to or inspired by two previous classical works of science fiction. In the days of the comet page to wells and the poison belt by Arthur Conan Doyle. In the days of the comet. What happens is that passing through the tale of a comet. Causes earth's population to convert to socialism. That's what happens in the days of the comma she was sort of we have, you know, you know, leaping over some of the steps you might need to achieve your socialist utopia is past the tail of the comet and just changes people psychology. Yeah, so a little frustrated impatience there and well as part. In corn Doyle's story, which again involves the earth passing through the tail of the comet. It doesn't have quite that traumatic effect, but it does cause people to become more serious and humane thereafter. And so I think, you know, I feel pretty confident that those those novels were partly an inspiration for the factor the absolute. So the fact that absolute what happens is there's no comet involved instead, atomic power as it gets developed. And remember these writing this in 1922. So the atomic power is developed. It releases as a byproduct, massive quantities of the absolute. And of course this is a kind of also kind of parody of, you know, sort of popular hegelian theories. The absolute is the divine essence of the heart of all being and machines become miraculously productive and humans become filled with religious and altruistic fervor. If, if in, if in the system that story that it was the groundwork for are you are the worries of people who come do not be altruistic enough in the factory absolute they actually become too altruistic to so too willing to sacrifice themselves for humanity or for the sake of their conception of what's good for humanity which is not necessarily anyone else's conception. And likewise willing to sacrifice other people to their conception of what's good for humanity so so sort of altruism and something like mine ran sense actually. So, in talking about how the absolute ends up revolutionizing industry, it says, once it's thrown at the absolute just sort of seeps into the factories and just the big starts to make the machine start running on their own. Once it thrown itself into production, the absolute did not trouble itself about distribution. Well, in one place there spread the sparkling ocean of tax in another only a few kilometers farther off there was not attacked to be had. Where were you then you businessman of days gone by, who used to buy the necessities of life so cheap in one place and seldom so dear and another. Alas, you had vanished for heavenly grace had descended upon you, you'd grown ashamed of your gains, you would shut up your shops. And in the meantime, the supply of tax ran out only somewhere far away they were piled up as by an inexhaustible avalanche. So in other words, although the system becomes very productive. Because businessmen have become ashamed of the profit motive. And no longer for pursuing what economists called the arbitrage function of identifying a shortage here and a glut there in virtue of high prices for certain goods where there's a shortage, low prices for them when there's a glut. And so you know, you buy low over here and sell high over there. And that's one of the ways that the economy equilibrates itself. And so topic shows you clearly understands that and shows that if that. This is a way in which following the profit motive serves a useful social function, and that the, these businessmen should not be ashamed of their gains to the extent that their gains are obtained in that way. They're valuable to society, and by becoming ashamed of the profit motive and refusing to pursue profit anymore, they're no longer enabling this arbitrage function to go on. And this was excluded likewise taken possession of the government mince and printing establishments, and every day it flung out upon the world hundreds of millions of banknotes coins and securities, auto devaluation was the result before long a packet of 5000 mark notes meant nothing more than so much waste paper. This was a period when in both Germany and Austria they were beginning to see the very first opening wedge of the hyperinflation, but it hadn't yet reached the, you know, the super high level that it would later so this is partly partly prophetic is partly noticing what was beginning to happen but it was also prophetic about what was going to happen. You know, so that shows that he understood that, you know, just increasing the supply of paper currency did not make you know just causes inflation. Just imagine the consequences of the farmer had been seized, like the townsfolk with the mania for giving everything away so apparently the absolute didn't make it out into the rural areas as much within a fortnight famine would have stopped through the cities. Thanks to our sturdy farmer this was not to be the farmer gave nothing away. Thanks to the harmony to the amazing soundness of the core of our country folk, then without saying a word to each other, without any organization, led only by the redeeming inward voice. They raise they raise their prices everywhere and for everything by thus putting up the price of everything the farmer saved it from destruction. So again you're getting a little bit of invisible hand here. A, you know, to some extent a defense of price gouging. Understanding the importance of this kind of arbitrage function that they just given all this stuff away would easily have been consumed and no one would have been producing anymore of it by putting up the prices gives people more incentive to produce more. Well of course there's also a little bit of tongue in cheek description here led by redeeming inward voice makes it sound like it's a religious impulse that's making them seek more profit. So he's, although he's in some sense he's defending the profit motive he's also willing to sort of take a kind of, you know, ironic or sardonic pot shot at it as well. But the absolute also inspires violent conflict, because even though they're filled with altruism, and they all want to be all everyone wants to benefit the whole human race they all have different ideas of what will benefit the human race. And so each faction becomes filled with religious and ideological enthusiasm, and so sets out to massacre all the other factions in a massive war that devastates the entire planet. In the business line 198 million men took part in the fighting and all but 13 of them fell, but in a few decades we shall succeed in arranging an even greater war. For in this respect also the human race is progressing ever upward and on. Now here's a pair of quotes one from a topic and one from mine Rand that are sort of interestingly parallel topic says everyone is the best of feelings towards mankind in general, but not towards the individual man will kill men, but we want to save mankind. And Rand says, Why is it that the people who worry most about mankind have the least concern for any actual human being. And another one of his of his major science fiction if that's the word for it fantasy whatever is works is war with the newts, which is, it's connected to the factor for the absolute. I don't know whether it's exactly a sequel, and I'm not sure that in strict continuity with each other but you know, there's at least one character who shows up in both of them. The war with the newts seems to be at least partly inspired by HD Wells war of the worlds, in that the earth becomes invaded by these. Human, but intelligent creatures, although as is, as is typical for chopper, the these intelligent newts that you know they don't come from space they come from out of the sea. They are, you know, they're not pure villains or pure heroes, they are. And again, they're a symbol that operates at more than one level their symbols for several different things. And so they are, you know, treated partly as symbolic of various kinds of dangers he's worried about, but they're also treated as symbolic of, of various sort of oppressed people, just as the robots were just as just as the robots. Both certain kinds of dangers, and certain kinds of victims of oppression, the newts he does the same thing with the newts. Chopper doesn't want, you know, some simplistic moral about you know the robots are the good guys are the robots are the bad guys and the newts are the good guys and the bad guys that's, that's not his thing. Usually. So the new intelligent newts are discovered they're literally enslaved, they rebel. The story in the stories parody and communism he's parrying Nazism he's parody and colonialism. He's shafts and all directions. One of the descriptions tells about these, these work camps into which the newts are herded and the various regulations there that are imposed on them. Among the civil facilities and advantages actually granted to the newts, every salamander had to possess an official residence permit. He had to pay capitation tax docked from his food. Likewise he had to pay public dues charges for the construction of the wooden fence as the fence that was imprisoning them in these work camps school fees and other public imposts. So if we really have to admit quite frankly then all these respects the newts were treated like other citizens, which is equal rights of the sword. There's more interesting stuff to say about the war with the newts but want to say we're going to jump to this bit of the gardeners year which is not fiction but non fiction sorts of essays about gardening but choppy choppy is essays about gardening are going to sort of branch out into various other topics. So the holiday of labor it's sort of the check equivalent of our Labor Day or maybe Varmade day. And he says, No, I don't want to sing the praises of the holiday of Labor, but of the holiday of private property instead. You're not doing this work because work is beautiful, but so that a campanula will flower. You should not celebrate this work of yours but the campanula for which you are doing it. If you had a loom or a lathe you would not do the job because it is work, but because you would get for it bacon and peas and therefore today you should celebrate bacon and peas, and all that you buy for your work. The road vendors should not only celebrate their work with the roads which they have made. It is called the holiday of labor and not the holiday of achievement and yet mentioned to be prouder of what they have done, then because they have merely worked. So that's a very Austrian sentiment. Then he has a short story called five loaves, which is about Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes. There's a complaint from a baker about the unfair competition of of Jesus multiplying these loaves and it's good and anyone who's read bus yes petition of the candle makers it's going to remind you it's very similar sort of criticism of protectionism. And so the bakers basically say, we don't have a problem with his multiplying the fishes. That's fine but the loaves no no not the loaves. If it gets to be standard practice to feed 5000 people of five loaves and two fishes, then bakers will be put out to pasture. So they argue that Jesus is providing unfair competition. Jesus is depriving local bakers of an honest hard earned profit, and the petition of the bakers ends with crucify him crucify him. So, it's sort of interesting kind of a variation on on bustier story. And there's another piece by topic that also is going to remind you of bustier petition of the candle makers. It's also a bit like Iran's anthem. It's sort of across between the two. It's called the punishment of Prometheus. And so Prometheus steals fire from as in the traditional myth, Prometheus steals fire from the gods and gives it to the human race. And there's some pushback for this previous gets in charge with which it gets charged with criminal irresponsibility for a danger in public safety by discovering this very dangerous element. Fire will also in addition to being just dangerous in the way that fire is it also contributes to softness and moral decay because people are going to be huddled idly around the fire, wallowing in warmth and comfort instead of fighting. So we're concerned about the certainly the various totalitarian ideologies that are around that are really into warfare and gospel comfort. Moreover, Prometheus gave his weapon to everyone to give it to shepherds and slaves foreigners enemies, when you should have surrendered it into competent hands. Prometheus is convicted of conspiracy against the state. He stole fire from us by giving it to everyone. And of course, if this reminds you of I'm right at them it also reminds you might remind you sort of in an inverted way of I'm rents play think twice where words ran just taking the position that it's wrong to give an invention to everyone. Because the this invention will will be used we will use not only by the United States but also by an initial draft of the of the play by Nazi Germany and later drafts and play by Soviet Russia so you see ran to serve on both. ends up on both sides of this one. Then he also has a short story called the emperor diacletian in which diacletian is explaining why he's first to give the Christians. And he's saying why rack my brains to figure out how the Christian doctrine could be implemented politically and I see that it's impossible. It's an army in accordance with Christian beliefs. Could you collect taxes in accordance with Christian beliefs, could there be slaves in a Christian society. It wouldn't be possible to govern for a year, not even for a month and Christian principles Christianity would undermine the sovereign power of the state. Of course, real life Christian regimes managed to accommodate themselves to armies and taxes and slaves, but topics point seems to be that in doing that. The question was sort of departing from its original principles. You know, so this is a way in which even though topic wasn't strictly speaking an anarchist. This is an example of how he sort of his is as himself said slowly becoming one or moving in that direction. Then in a piece called cats and spring all of this passage is not really about cats. He makes some rocks about instinct that if you've read what I ran has to say about instinct. You'll see is very similar human beings have to learn everything for themselves, even motherhood and life itself. But if man were governed by instinct he would not be able to do or make anything new, not even to imagine or create anything which had not yet existed before. That which is creative and man is not instinctive instinct is conservative, unvarying impersonal and eternally recurring laid down from the beginning for the whole race. If in the world of man there's any real personal initiative. Any real research and discovery any real progress. It is the work of intellect. Now it's not quite the same as Rand's view because Rand's view wasn't that human beings have both intellect and instinct and we should follow intellect grand view is you don't really have instincts. The ability to learn this involved in intellect is inconsistent with having the pre programmed behavior. And so if we try to rely on instincts will actually be relying on some sort of unconscious stuff that we've absorbed without actually thinking about it. And we can't trust our instincts the way that animals mostly could trust theirs. So it's not the same doctrine but there's a similar idea that that animals can trust their instincts but we can't because we have to learn things for ourselves. Then he has this really interesting piece it's. He has these three novels that are often called his noetic trilogy or to ball meteor and an ordinary life. Which some people think is his greatest masterpiece of all I'm not sure what I think his greatest masterpiece is but certainly this would be on the short list, the running. These two novels but also, you know, maybe the factor the absolute and war with the newts maybe those five would be looking in the running for his top five works. Not are you are although I like are you are. I was actually in our you are in in college I. I played Dr call. So that gives me a certain fondness for it in fact, then years later at a Mises conference, I ran into the guy whose name I currently forget is now a professor of literature somewhere who who played the robot radius that I had my big scene with and I ran into him in the, in the, the, the Auburn hotel and conference center, along with Ralph Raco. I can't remember his name offhand, if I saw it again I remember it anyway. Anyway, it's got nothing to do with these three novels these three novels are not really science fiction or fantasy. This work was, although there's maybe a possible fantasy element in at least one of them possible but, but they're mostly much more realistic. Anyway, one of the themes of these novels is when he states here, our knowledge of people is generally restricted to allotting them a definite place in our life systems. If what we apprehend is always encompassed by our eye. How can we apprehend this plurality. What we can apprehend and understand plurality is that we ourselves are such a plurality, simile simile bus, which is Latin for like by means of like knowing the like by means of the line. We apprehend the world through that which we are ourselves, we are, we are of the same stuff as that plurality of the world. So these three novels are about, you know, they're all about different about what's involved philosophically in understanding other people, and how is that how is that even possible. Each, each novel sort of builds on the previous one, although also to some extent subverts. The previous one I mean, this truly really is an amazing work. Anyway, of course, that's going to remind me of these passages from Hayek and Mises. So Hayek says discussing what we regard as other people's conscious actions, we invariably interpret their action on the analogy of our own mind. That is that we group their actions and the objects of their actions into classes or categories which we know solely from the knowledge of our own mind. And Mises in the same way says, how can the human mind deal with the reality of the external world. Both our priority thinking and reasoning on the one hand, and human action on the other are manifestations of the human mind reason and action are con generic that is of the same genus of the same kind, and homogeneous. Which also means of the same guy just one con generic is derived from Latin and homogeneous is derived from Greek, but they're certainly the same thing, two aspects of the same phenomenon. And Mises, since we have may apply to praxeology, that is the science of human action, the addictive of emphatic lease, noses to a homo you toy homo I knowledge of like by means of like so he quotes the line in Greek is the same line the chop it quotes in Latin, we're able to understand other people because we are like other people and the structure of the human of our minds is like the structure of their minds and so we grasp them on the analogy of our own. Now as a bit concerning I think that's not quite right way in the right way to put it. It's, you know, it's important core of the truth I want to quibble about the details but anyway, they but the, but anyway the point of this talk is not. Roger long themes in in three Prague authors but austral libertarian themes and three Prague authors so even if I think this position is sort of partly correctly described and partly misdescribed. You know it's, I think it's partly misdescribed and since it has a, there's a kind of methodological solipses from here that I think is the wrong way to think about it. We don't first understand our own minds and then start making inferences the minds of others. I think that the two grow up together, we couldn't do one without the other. But anyway, nevertheless the idea that that our ability to understand other people's minds is importantly related to our having the same structure of mind that they do that that much. All right, here it's another novel. This is not one of his better novels I certainly wouldn't put it in that top five. But it's interesting at the title and in check is a crocodile, but I think the best English translation would be Krakatoite although no one has translated it that way but it's clearly a reference to Krakatoa the volcano. So the hero is an atomic scientist who gets tempted by the devil and the devil says, do you want to make the world happy by forcing upon it eternal peace, God, a new order, revolution or something of a sort. Why not simply begin. It doesn't matter what your agenda is. In the end you will do only what the reality you've created forces you to do. So I think that quotation is fairly self explanatory. I wish the whole novel were as good as that quotation it isn't this isn't one of his best novels I mean anything by him is worth reading but you know I certainly wouldn't recommend you start with that. And he also has some interesting discussions he has a bunch of essays in addition to his fiction he's got all these essays scattered across various things mostly out of print and English alas. And here he's here he is talking about political language, recognize is a magic word. Some state or other can declare that it doesn't recognize the Chinese government, at which point, there is no Chinese government China doesn't belong to anyone. And it's permissible to kill the Chinese without scruple only governments and states are allowed to use this power word. So if you look it into your head you didn't recognize the board of directors of the Givno bank. And so you could enter its nearest branch shoot the cashiers and empty the Tills you'd be condemned as a bandit. In the international field it's not really seem like that. And then another passage about political language. When we sing in our political carols, we the majority of the nation or we agricultural workers or we the working classes. If we sang truthfully, we the party secretariat, or we the inner circle of the executive committee, our Carol would lose all mysterious power. And so Chopek to list of people like Orwell and ran to in both fiction and nonfiction had really valuable insights about these political language and Chopek is writing with this stuff. Before Orwell. And partly before partly simultaneous with Rand. So before moving on to Kafka. I want to, as I promised. Go to some of the supplementary passages from my, the unfinished final paper so he talks about how he feels alienated from both the left and the right. He was felt himself sort of the time there was a lot of pressure to either declare yourself for communism or declare yourself for fascism and he wasn't really happy about that choice. He says at one point, it's really curious how similar it feels to speak to the left or the right. And he actually compares himself to Christ being crucified between two thieves one on the left and one on the right. This is a quotation from him. If we express our dissatisfaction they tell us work within the parties. No, if we need anything than this to work against the parties against the rule of the parties. Then here's a passage from the, the factory absolute that didn't make it into the slides. And when all of this these shortages and famines and so forth are happening because of the absolute politicians and bureaucrats who are more public spirited than ever before are quick to address the crisis and topics as the department's responsible worked feverishly day and night to avert a breakdown of food supplies. The only result was that each department produced daily from 15 to 53,000 bills and enactments, which by decree of the interim ministerial commission, were carted away daily on motor lorries to the vote of a river. In other words, they threw them in the river that river in the picture behind me it seems ashamed to throw all those. All a bureaucratic paperwork in the, in the river, the river doesn't need to be clogged with that kind of crap. But anyway, that's what he's talking about. Then he has an essay called save yourself if you can. There's a very nicely ambiguous title there. He says, humankind cannot be saved because there isn't really any humankind, but only people. But it is possible to help someone on this spot at this wretched moment, instead of saving the world at once forever more. Then in a passage from war with the newts that didn't make it into the slides. He describes the newts being recruited for labor they call it recruitment, which makes it sound more voluntary than it is. And he writes most of them volunteer to go. That is, they go in response to a single sharp command, only occasionally as mild force needed such as shackling. Just as humane and hygienic is the actual transportation of the newts and tank ships, the death rate during transportation scarcely reaches 10%. At the request of the society for the prevention of cruelty the animals. There is a chaplain on board every tank ship to ensure the salamanders are treated humanely. Every night he delivers them a sermon, which exhorts them in particular to show respect to humans to show obedience and love to their future employers. The new salamanders are really treated very decently and considerably. And then, you know, he has these work camps with newt work where the newt workers are penned in with fences, hundreds of kilometers in length, which are as he puts it utilized for edge defenses are utilized for educational purposes by having a temporary and generally useful slogans of a nature suitable for newts inscribed in huge letters along their entire length. And then he gives a sample. And this is a sample that I think satirizes authoritarianism in both its capitalistic and communistic forms. You know, so think of this as, as being like one of those inspirational posters only. Your work is your achievement. Don't waste a second. The day has only 86,400 seconds and individuals worth is the value of his work. You can build one meter of dam in 57 minutes. He who serves the community, he who works serves the community. He who does not work neither shall he eat. That's a familiar communist line. This also describes the consequences of the discovery of the existence of these intelligent newts in various countries, including the United States, India, and Germany. So here's what happens in the United States. Mass demonstrations took place and a number of Negroes we either hanged or burned to death. In other words, that's his idea of the United States is that when something happens you just you just go and kill black people, even though obviously they had nothing to do with the newts. That's his, his judgment of the US in India. They train newts to save human beings from drowning. And the newts can attack for being allowed to touch drowning persons of higher caste than themselves. So that's a slam against India. And in Germany. The, the question arises of whether they're going to be allowed to vivisect the newts. And he says well Germany all vivisection was strictly prohibited, though only to Jewish researchers. In other words, if you're a Jewish scientist you're not allowed to vivisect the newts. If you're a good area and scientists you can vivisect them all you want. So, these are sort of a nice, nice three way, the three, three pointed bar with the US, India and Germany. And you can see why I think this is better than are you are. I mean if you read our you are there's good statistical stuff in there but this stuff is really better. And it has a short story called the times aren't what they used to be about, you know, some, you know, some early, you know, basically cavemen, who in the, and the, the old patriarch of the clan is complaining, some new tribes moved in with crazy ideas. Our young people are even buying things from them. Instead of following the time wanted rule and dealing with foreign referendum raff. Namely when you see a foreigner strike first and bash his head in. And so the sun tries to point out to the father the benefits of trade. And the father says exchange of goods. If I kill somebody and take what he's got. Then I've got his goods don't have to give him anything in return so why trade. And so the sun says well that's going to lead to a lot of violent and destructive conflict. And the father says, well people worry about loss of lives or a bunch of cowards. So again this is a satire of the spirit of the age. It's a famous proto Nazi work, hucksters or heroes about whether about how people need to be heroic warriors and not base merchants. I forget who wrote that. The first story called Alexander the great, in which Alexander the great is explaining the logic of empire he says well as his empire expands its boundaries. It counts encounters new neighbors and of course, those new neighbors are going to be threats to the new borders. And so they have to be invaded and absorbed to thereby sending the empire still further to new neighbors who are now threats to the new borders and so they have to be, you know, so the cycle gets perpetuated. Alexander explains his ambition for world conquest is just a sober and reasonable step plan each step of which arises of necessity from the preceding step. You know you've got to conquer more territory in order to protect your borders with you've conquered that territory you've got new borders you have to protect those and so on. As for his declaring himself a God he says well it was not necessary to how else are you going to intimidate the camel drivers and mountain shepherds that you're trying to conquer unless you're portraying yourself as a God. Now of course topic is satirizing geopolitical thinking in general, but given these writing late 1930s is probably Hitler in particular and the whole idea of Leibniz from that he has in mind. You know he makes a similar point in the death of our committees. So the traditional legend about our committees is that that that when his city was conquered. He was drawing some geometrical diagram in the sand, and the soldier told him, get out of the way didn't move fast enough and say just killed him, I mean who knows if that's true or not but anyway it was a traditional story about our committees. Anyway, in the, in this short story, our committees tells the Roman sergeant, the room, because Roman sergeant is justifying what he's doing is in the two secure borders, Rome's borders, and our committee says, you know that Rome can never secure its borders since whether I draw a small circle or a large circle it's still only a circle, and so you will never be without frontiers. Moreover force limits itself since the greater your force the more of your strength you use up. There's also a story called the last judgment, which a criminal dies in a shootout and finds himself on trial in the afterlife. He's surprised to learn that God appears only as a witness not as the judge. And God explains, because I know everything I can't possibly judge. If judges knew everything, absolutely everything. They couldn't judge either. They would understand everything and their hearts would break. And that's a, you know, a recurring theme and a lot of his work. He writes a number of works that you could call crime stories or detective stories or police stories or something like that. They're not like anything else ever written in in that genre. They're just, they're really amazing. Yeah, so when I mentioned like his top five things I was talking about the top five novels but his short stories. A lot of them are just incredible. And anyway that's a recurring theme about the extreme skepticism about the whole idea of judgment and punishment. Here's some more stuff about instinct and I think these are some. This is also from that passage about instinct but I think this is stuff that didn't make into the slides. If man were governed by instinct he would not be able to do or make anything new. Not even to imagine or create anything which had not yet existed before. It's sophisticatedly perfect, as long as it works within the conditions it's been fashioned for change a single one and instinct will become the most sophisticated idiocy. Instinct is perfectly adjusted to the conditions reason however adjusts and sets up the conditions itself, which again sounds very much like Rand. It's also sort of an inversion of, I think it's at least terminologically it's inversion I don't think it's an inversion sentiment, but it's inversion terminologically of, I think it's George Bernard Shaw, who said that the unreasonable, the reasonable man adapts himself to circumstances the unreasonable man, adapt circumstances to himself, therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man, which I see Randy and quote as, you know, as horror because they think that by unreasonable. He's irrational, but he doesn't. He's, you know, he's, that's not what he means by it. So I think that Shaw really the same the same thing that the random chopper saying here. Even though he's using terminology that sounds like an inversion of it. I think that it's that there's a related passage from his SCN wheels he has an SCN wheels, let's just a whole bunch of different things he says about wheels, his essays are amazing. He mentioned his novels and mentioned his short stories also has a bunch of plays are you are is not his only play has a lot of plays although his plays are not my favorite of his works, but, but they're really interesting. But anyway, his whole SCN wheels and one of the lines from it is man might be more perfect technically, if he had wheels instead of feet, but he would lose one thing, the ability to go where there is no path. And here's another line from topic. This one is about Czechoslovakia. True, we are a small country, but somehow we are not enchanted by the fact that we are a small country. We fail to see it as a poetic advantage worthy of special praise and love. And I think we must stretch out our arms and establish all at one go 17 foot multimillion crown central or representative offices, institutes and other public edifices, because we don't like our country tenderly enough. We don't speak about a poor dear little country, but about prestige representation on the international scene and other 17 footers. He also rejoices that God was not touched by this magnitude mania when he created Europe, but rather made her small and further divided her into small parts, so that our heart could delight not in magnitude but in diversity. You know, so this, this resonates with, with good talking about how, you know, Germany was, was better off divided the many little principalities they united into one centralized state. It resonates with chesterton on. For example, in the Napoleon of Notting Hill, which he titled the lion of Notting Hill, which is a much better title. Because Napoleon stands for all sorts of things that test was not in favor of talks about the, the, the local decentralized. And also this passage resonates with Abraham Bishop on the idea that the any country that makes greatness it's Polestar can never be free of that. Wonderful quotation from Abraham Bishop the American founder who is sort of a more Jeffersonian than Jefferson. Dude, here's some passages from topic about war. Someday people will come to realize that no victory is worthwhile. If they're really need of heroes, they might take one like the small doctor from roundabout hammerfest, when the polar darkness run runs his boat around the islands where a woman is in childbirth and an infant cries. All the time there is scope for brave and complete men, even when one day the war drums ceased to roll. And he also has a passage. Another story. I am a soldier, and I've always obeyed orders, but not because of their truth. For the truth was that if there'd been no command, none of these soldiers would have gone on to kill other people as tired and unhappy as themselves. And then he has a, you know, he has a play from the life of the insects, where the, which again is not it's not one of my favorites. I don't generally like his plays as much as some of his other works, but this is a nice passage of the ants are are praising the glory of their community. We are antopolis, the mightiest ant heap in the world, the biggest democracy, world power, all ants must obey commands almost work all for him all for the state, the government, the nation. We are encircled by enemies, the common cause means endless sacrifice, sacrifice immense it wars nourish it, and topless ants are peace loving ants, a nation of peace lovers, a nation of workers. We only want to conquer the world and the interests of world peace. There's a nice description of a number of different parties to world conflict in that era. And then here he has in one of his essays he talks about a bombing in Spain that killed 52 children. And might be useful message for people who anyone who might be ordering drone attacks on on civilians nowadays be their name, Trump or Obama or Clinton or Bush or whoever. We never know the name of the successful bombardier. Perhaps it was a patriotic expanded from Franco's army, perhaps young German, perhaps an Italian. What we can assume with near certainty is that it was not a professional murderer of children, but a soldier simply fulfilling his orders to bomb a town. So why not blame the aircrew for this crime the responsibility lies higher up with those who command with those who lead with those who finance the massacres of these same four years. Actually, I think there's room for blame, you know, both up and down the chain of command. But anyway, it's another question. Here's something that I think sort of captures. An important feature of topic and also way in which topic differs I think from Kafka, I think it's also a way the Hasek differs from Kafka. He distinguishes between two kinds of pessimism there's this severe kind of pessimism that says the world is in a bad state because people are essentially and metaphysically bad. There's a gentler pessimism that says the world is in a bad state because people are oafs. Then, in some of his I've mentioned his, his, his crime or detective or police stories or whatever you want to call them. There's some really interesting remarks there. Here's one. This is from footprints. There's this there's this strange. This is a policeman talking. There's this strange notion that the police, especially detectives are interested in mysteries. We don't give a damn about mysteries. What interests us is disorderly conduct. Sir, crime doesn't interest us because it's mysterious, but because it's against the law. As he walks out of intellectual curiosity, we chase them so we can arrest them in the name of the law law and order isn't mysterious justice isn't mysterious. The police aren't mysterious either. But every person walking along the street is a mystery, because we can't get at him sir. As soon as he steals something he stops being a mystery, because then we can lock him up and that's that. And in another short story, the mountain, the police examiner says, from a practical standpoint, all the detectives and novels do their jobs wrong. They're too personal to inventive their methods are those of a criminal, not a detective. The right way something different shared routine organization. Look, a technique exists to bring people under control, a real technique because it treats people as tools. But it was once a personal art has now become a technique. Anything we hold becomes a tool. And me, I am nothing more than an arm of the law. I solve nothing I only sees and hold. And the more forcefully I apply pressure, the more I see in myself power that is passing through me. Only an arm true. But at least I now feel a formidable unfailing power pulsing through me the power of the law. And to say in the story this approach is shown to lead only to bungling and tragedy is this this policeman's philosophy of life is not endorsed by the events of the story. Here's another interesting set of passages from topic. This is about the fact that many in Czechoslovakia would like to preserve, at least here and there, some specimens of our typical native costumes and dwellings. And hence the suggestion has been made that folklore should receive a government grant, as if it were a sort of national park. This topic says that although he would regret every wooden cottage which disappears and every embroidered sleep which disappears. Nevertheless, on the basis of having seen the sort of folklore preserve in the Netherlands. The inhabitants where wide breeks and God he botuses and in return for this receive a government grant and sell clogs to tourists to take photographs of the old women and children in the old costumes after golden per person and slink into the cottages entrance free sale a fixture postcards. It includes that such preservation efforts would be below the dignity both the folklore and the people. And noting a similar phenomenon in Sweden job that comments that folklore picturesqueness is in a bad way in the world, surviving only in the form of a servile relationship towards people far less pictorial and obviously better off. He also says he's not the least sorry to see the demise of the Austro Hungarian Empire, whose administrators were generally cranks and fools bureaucrats and despots, mediocrities or widely time servers. Yet he says the empire's mission was a great one to turn medieval Europe into some kind of whole. At the very least it succeeded in promoting artistic and cultural cross fertilization. The empire's mistake lay not in the goal to shape nations and states into a higher organization and world order, but it's methods and specifically in his choice of dynasties and holy Roman crowns, rather than economic realities. Looking for an economic rather than a political union among nations chop it comes close to a libertarian insight, only he veers away from it at the end. They point to the League of Nations as an instance of the kind of union that is needed from libertarian standpoint that's not, you know, he hasn't got it. You know, he recognizes, you know, he's on the path to recognizing something doesn't quite get there. But so I'm willing to forgive chop it a lot because so much of this stuff is really good. So if you stick about the League of Nations than then he should have been. Here's another quotation. There are people who love the whole world so long as as it is willing to have asphalt high roads, or to believe in one God, or to close the bodegas and taverns. There are people who could love the world if only it would assume just their own single civilized aspect. This far more delightful to be fond of the world because it has thousands of aspects and it's different everywhere. So again, this is a repeated theme and topic it doesn't like that you have imposing a uniform vision on everyone, you know, that 1000 flowers bloom. Only he meant it unlike now. One another one of his travel essays about England, he says, around these houses, that is in England, there aren't any railings or walls, as in our country, which might bar access to strangers, but only a tablet and which has written a potent and magical word, a word that has such a magical power that it replaces railings and ramparts, namely the word private. Here's another. There's no economic insight this is from work called in praise of clumsy people. I wish I could tell you all that clumsy people have done for the development and progress of the world. It was your despised duffers who brought division of labor into the world. If all people were equally adaptable there could be no division of labor. If everyone could make boots there would be no cobblers. So again, so you can see sort of a kind of an Austrian insight there. Okay, well I was going to do the, the whole, the whole lecture in one gulp, but this is but doing it in this leisurely way as opposed to the constrained way that I had to do it my previous things is taking a long time so I'm going to cut the, I'm going to cut this one short here and in the. I'm finished with Chopek now. And in the next installment I'll go on to Kafka. I don't know yet whether I'll do Kafka and Hasek both in the same gulp, or whether I'll break those into two as well depends on how long it takes. So this is, you know, this is also libertarian themes in, in three Prague authors, part one, as it turns out, focusing on Chopek, and part two will get to Kafka at least and possibly Hasek if not then Hasek will make it into part three. So, until next time, you know, like share subscribe all that good stuff. Consider supporting on on Patreon or PayPal, and see you next time.