 Welcome back to the Agora cafe for more coffee and philosophy. This is part two of what I think is probably going to be a three part version of this expanded edition of my talk on the, the on austral libertarian themes and three Prague authors, which I, I hope to get about around to writing a more detailed version of at some point and publishing it somewhere. But in the meantime, I want to share this expanded version with you. So part one was on Carl Chopek originally I thought I was going to do all three parts and one but turns out that when I'm not limited by time I will take all the time I need. And so that's that expanded into entire episodes worth. Well good I need more need more episodes since my, my backlog is running a little thin. Because I haven't had time, I haven't had time to do any more interviews since the last one. I've got several people who are sort of tenderly down for doing interviews but I just haven't had time to do them. And where's this since it doesn't require interacting with anyone else I could just do it this anytime but I fit in. But I'll be going back to interviews about you know I've got several people lined up. Anyway, so part one was on Carl Chopek. He's one of the major prog writers of the first third of the 20th century, roughly. There's plenty more to say about topic that I didn't say that I covered more in the paper but I think I hope that what I said about topic was enough to intrigue you and get you interested in in tracking down more of his work as I said a lot of his work is without a front in English but not all of it. So, in this video I'm going to talk about Kafka. Franz Kafka is the most well known, obviously authors he also wrote in German not check, which probably helped to make his work more accessible to translation. A lot more people can read can read and translate German that can read and translate check, although most of Kafka's works, I mean sorry most of topics works are in English translation not all of them. But they're harder to find whereas Kafka's works you can find that can many multiple additions and he's sort of a favorite of the literary scholars to a degree that the chopic and hashtag aren't. And I really think that all three of these writers deserve a lot more attention than they get. Anyway, I'm going to talk about Kafka now so I'm going to go back to our slides. Okay so and this is the section of the talk that of the sex this is a part of the slides that is the most revised compared to the revised for the comprehensive political economy, the most compared to the version I gave of the music institute. Seven seven years before that. Kafka also often presents his work often presents individuals who are in the grip of some kind of incomprehensible bureaucracy and it's helping me with Kafka is the most famous for and one dispute among readers of Kafka is is are we supposed to take this as a literal political meaning. You know is this a critique of insisting political institutions, or is this some kind of metaphor for the human condition which is really sort of a metaphysical description not a critique. Also there's some passages that seem to condemn this power system. There are others that seem to portrayed as justified how do you reconcile those. I have a view about that which I'm not going to be able to defend in full. In this presentation, probably not going to be able to defend it and fall in the, in the final paper version either release I will have more to say, but I will, you know I will gesture in the direction of it. Now Rebecca West interrupt the court in the castle actually interprets Kafka as a defender bureaucracy on the basis of those passages that seem to say that they seem to represent this bureaucratic power structure is justified there's some passages that seem to. But there are other passages that seem to go the other way so for example, Kafka himself who worked as you know worked as a bureaucrat. He, you know he worked for this insurance office, and he used to say how humble these people are. They get our feet, instead of taking the building by storm and stripping a bear. Now, so that doesn't suggest that he saw the bureaucrats to say, that's a great thing. You know, I like Rebecca West and I think the court in the castle is really an interesting book, but I think that her. Her interpretation of Kafka is, you know is screwy is also interpretation of Hamilton there which I think is also screwy. She's a great writer even when her interpretation is just really she's always worth reading. My mother wrote her thesis on Mary Wilson craft and Rebecca West, which is sort of interesting as interesting combo. Anyway, then there's also this this line, and the sub dispute about the authenticity of this line because it was recollected by someone who may not be completely reliable. But anyway, allegedly Kafka said, the anarchists all sought thanklessly to realize human happiness. I understood them. But I was unable to continue marching alongside them for a long. So that suggests that he was marching alongside them for a while and he had some kind of anarchist sympathies that he was sympathetic to them but that, you know, he couldn't be completely consistent with them but doesn't say exactly why you know so figuring out where Kafka stands is often a cryptic matter. There's also a line in someone of his private notes so he's just written, don't forget Kropotkin, which might be pointing to some, you know, some important concern about Kropotkin as someone whose idea should be remembered. I guess it might just mean that might just be short for don't forget to return the Kropotkin books to the library or something like that and we don't know what it means it's, you know, in terms of sort of cryptic one line notes I guess it goes. It can take its place beside Nietzsche's one line things scribbled on a piece of note paper. I have forgotten my umbrella in quotation marks. No one knows what he means by that although I didn't stop Jerry Dow from writing an entire book on it, which actually sort of enjoyable to read in a strange way. Anyway, so the book is called spurs. I think I believe that's the one which is just what you would call a book that's about Nietzsche forgetting his umbrella isn't it. I think the grammatology is worth reading. I think that he comes more and more self indulgent over time with the grammatology I recommend spurs is fairly self indulgent. I don't know if I'd recommend it exactly but I just sort of enjoyed seeing the insanity of it, but grammatology I think actually makes some valuable points but anyway this that's definitely a digression from anything going on here. That's a photo of a of a sculpture of Kafka and Prague, and each of those individual those individual slices move around relative to each other so it's constantly displaying different different aspects and constant motion. I've seen that in Prague it's pretty cool. Anyway, so I've got this interpretation of Kafka, which you know in the written version I would hope to defend more fully though, I don't know how fully I can do it. But a lot of Kafka stories are intended to be read on two different levels on a theological level and a political level. And the theological meaning and the political meaning are at odds with each other they go in different directions. So, on the theological level, the elusive and incomprehensible authority that that is the so much the theme of many of his writings is meant to represent the inscrutable justice of God and so it's been justified. Now some of his early writings. The authority that's danger is not an elusive or incomprehensible or distant one. It's a very visceral in your face one and seems to represent his classes with his father. But over time who moves to this more idea of this distant elusive authority you can never get your hands on. Which definitely does not describe his relationship with his father his father was present all too present in his life in mind. But so I think it sense for God and to that extent, the bureaucracy is justified, but but I think on another level, the same bureaucracy is also describing what goes on in the human world. Because that doesn't have a divine sanction. That's condemned. So I think that's why Rebecca West gets, you know, I think she miss reads Kafka, and seeing him as a defender of bureaucracy, because she sees the passages where he seems to be treating this as justified. But I think that's where he's treating it as the, as the human condition based on the elusive divine justice, which we can't legitimate the question. I think that when you get a reproduction of that same kind of elusive and incomprehensible authority at the human level. That doesn't represent divine justice that's just humans doing shady stuff. And so I don't think that Kafka has the same kind of reference for that. So that's why I think that Kafka works really having. He really is operating on two levels here which again is kind of like what I said about topic in the previous video that would that both the robots and are you are and the newts and more with the newts operated as metaphors at more than one level. They are sympathetic. They can be the stand for certain sympathetic things. They also stand for certain things to be wary of, you know, Chopin and Kafka both complicated writers. They don't know, they're not writing, you know, they're not writing simple stories. Anyway, so that's my reading of Kafka guess what's going on. So here's an example. So he has this story in the penal colony where there's this punishment device that carves written messages into the prisoner's body in order to instruct him. But in the story the device malfunctions, leaving the body butchered and the message indecipherable. I think on a theological level this is about the inscrutability of divine justice. And there's a, there's a nice article by Peter Neumeyer defending this interpretation in detail, called do not teach Kafka's in the penal colony. And the reason he takes that, the reason he gives that advice, you know, his advice to teachers and professors don't don't teach this don't assign this story. Because this story is about systematic parallel has systematic parallels with aspects of Christian theology. Today's students don't know shit about Christian theology. Therefore they're not going to understand the story. But I think it's, you know, I think it's a strange moral is first of all, you know, there are plenty of students who do understand Christian theology. A lot of philosophy majors at Auburn are, are intending to go on to divinity studies that one of our best majors is now, now placed at Yale Divinity School. So we've got plenty of, we've got plenty of students who can understand this stuff. They're not all the uncultured morons that Neumeyer seems to be envisioning. But second, you know, if they don't understand the Christian theological references in the, in the story, then, you know, if you're teaching it, you explain them. That was an interesting question why so many of Kafka's references seem to be Christian, given that his own background was Jewish and not Christian. But of course that's true of a lot of Jewish writers who seem to be in love with Christian metaphors and analogies and, and how much this actually implies a, any kind of actual commitment to Christianity is almost clear. I mean, Leonard Cohen would be an example of his, his songs and his poems are filled with Christian imagery. Does that mean he was tempted by Christianity? I mean, I mean, he's sort of tempted in various directions. He was a very temptable man, including Buddhism, of course. I don't know what to say about Leonard Cohen. Except you should remember him because he brought your groceries in. But anyway, so I think that apart from this weird moral that you shouldn't teach this work, as opposed to saying that you should teach it and explain the Christian references. I think non-Miami makes a very strong case that, that, that that work and, you know, in relatively a number of other Kafka's works really have a theological meaning and that these, you know, this device is not being condemned at the theological level. It's talking about the inscrutability of divine justice. But I also think that a political level, it has the opposite meaning. It's about the pointless barbarism of punishment. And if I don't have it on the slide, if you want to read an article about, about how to, about defending the political rating. There's an article by Bill Dodd called The Case for Political Rating. You can find in the Cambridge Companion to Kafka. I think it's also very valuable. So if you look at the people who are defending a theological rating and you look at the people who are defending a political rating, I think they both have a really strong case. And that's part of the reason I think this is operating at both levels. What's interesting is the way in which the levels are opposite to each other. You know, I don't think that Kafka is the only writer to do that kind of thing. I've got a number of writers who will be using some kind of metaphor that operates at two levels and the levels are, and it has opposite valences in the two levels. An example would be Seneca's version of Medea. Seneca has a play in Medea that is based on Euripides' play in Medea, which in turn is based on the traditional legend of Medea. And I think that the Seneca's play of Medea is operating at two levels. One as a one where Medea stands for the unbridled nature of passion that stoicism is supposed to curb and cure. At another level, Medea stands for stoicism itself and for the kind of breaking of ordinary human ties that you have to do if you follow stoicism so that Medea is simultaneously a stoic symbol and an anti-stoic symbol but operating at different levels. Not necessarily anti-stoic symbol but sort of a, well anyway, she's simultaneously represents the evil that stoicism is supposed to combat at one level and at another level she represents the problematic though in the end justified from Seneca's point of view, aspects of stoicism itself. Anyway, that's my reading of Seneca's Medea. I don't know anyone else has given that interpretation. I tried to convince Martha Nussbaum of it once, which she wasn't buying it. I've never written that up. I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to write it up. But anyway, you should read Seneca's Medea. It's an interesting piece. Once again, a digression. That's the reason that these videos take so long as I keep talking about other things, but you know, can't help but everything reminds me of something else. Anyway, so I think, you know, so I think that Kafka stories operate in both levels. On one hand, it's a few logically about the human condition, or another level it's political, it's political. Sometimes there's a, you know, there's a third level where it's about his relationship with his father. I wouldn't rule out there being other levels to because Kafka is a complicated guy. For the purposes of this lecture, if lecture is exactly what this is, this meandering thing. You'd think that if I have a PowerPoint, I should keep me on the straight and narrow and keep you from wandering, but you know, I cannot be restrained from going up on digressions. Anyway, so the purpose is that this lecture is about the Austro-libertarian themes in Kafka, so I'm going to focus on the political interpretation where the bureaucracy is something that's condemned or questioned or in some way problematic. And I'm not going to focus on the theological level, but you should keep in mind that I think there is this theological level, and then it's more often points in the exact opposite direction from the political one. And so there's this, there's this famous story that gets told in the trial, in the trial, in his novel The Trial, there's this story that often gets excerpted separately the story about the law and the lawkeeper, where this guy goes, By the way, this clip is from in the April 1982 issue of Epic Illustrated, which was a giant size comic book or magazine. The giant size ones didn't have to be bound by the comics code authority so they could make it a more mature content. It was black and white, but this one was actually in color, though this particular story isn't. But through those, you know, through those giant size Marvel comics, I, that was my introduction to, you know, everything from Arthur Conan Doyle to Lovecraft and Kafka. So there was an adaptation of these two stories by Kafka the before the law was one of them, and and an imperial message was the other. So anyway, this, this guy go wants to see go to the see the law there's a wants to go to see the law, and there's a door, we can go and see the law, but there's a doorkeeper who's guarding it. And he says, you know, he says I cannot let you in at present. Perhaps in the future it might be possible for you to be allowed in, but not at present. And so the guy waits outside he never tries to get past the guard. And he thinks about it, the guard says I know you're thinking about trying to get past me but you know, it can be very hard even if you do, you know the next garden side is even scarier than I am. And the one after that is scarier yet. So the guy doesn't try to get past him. And so he, he gets older and older as he sits there. He's not as bribed the guard and the bright guard says, I'm only taking these from you to keep you from feeling you're leaving anything undone. But you know, I'm not going to let you in. And so over time, the, the man shrinks and shrinks or maybe the gatekeeper grows and grows, or anyway, as Kafka puts it, the difference in size between them has increased very much has increased very much to the man's disadvantage. Anyway, as he's about to die, he says, everyone strives to reach the law. How does it happen then that in all these years no one but me has ever begged for admittance. And the the drawkeeper says, no one else could ever be admitted here. This gate was intended solely for you. And now I'm going to shut it. You know, exactly how you interpret that, whether you go follow the theological interpretation or the bureaucratic interpretation, it's sort of puzzling but anyway there's this idea that this door was intended for you, but we never let you into it. But on the other hand, you know, you never really tried to get past me. So, who knows what it would have happened. And I don't have a very certain interpretation of that. Oh, that passage there are so many different ways you could interpret it, but really is fascinating. Okay, for the last one I had a stamp, a Czechoslovak stamp, a Czechoslovansk stamp with topic on it. So here's one with Kafka on it. And Kafka is interested in the problem of information flow and bureaucratic hierarchies, which is also something that everyone from in the libertarian movement broadly understood everyone from Robert Anton Wilson to Kevin Carson has written about. So in the trial, he writes, their remoteness kept the officials from being in touch with contemporary life. In this case, they were excellently equipped, such a case proceeded almost mechanically, yet confronted with quite simple cases or particularly difficult cases, they were often unrelated to loss. They did not have any right understanding of human relations, since they were confined day and night to the workings of their judicial system, which is reminiscent a bit of what topics that about, you know, we might be very efficient if we were on wheels except you'd never be able to go anywhere before you're already a path. And Kafka seems to making a similar point. They're both talking about the, I think they're both inspired by the, by bureaucratic control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which controlled Czechoslovakia for a long time. A brief period of independence before first the Nazis and then the communists took over. The period of Czechoslovak independence, where there was neither Austro-Hungarian rule nor Nazi rule nor communist rule. So that was the, that's the period that that the Chopec was a big fan of. Of course the Chopec was a friend of Thomas Mazarek, the president. So that for him that was like the best period in Czech history. For Kafka as someone of German background and Jewish background, he wasn't quite as jazzed about it. He was more of an outsider to that too. I mean he didn't like the other things either and he wouldn't have liked. He would have liked more communism if he had, if he had lived to be subjected to them. But he, he wasn't too, he was less enthusiastic about the period of Czechoslovak independence than Chopec was by the way if you look at that stamp. Right now on either side of his head, you can see these tipping, these tipping gravestones, which are with Hebrew letters on them as that's reference to the old, old Prague cemetery in the Jewish quarter in Prague, which is not the Bishop Rod cemetery I showed you before where Chopec is buried, but it's also not where Kafka is buried, either Kafka is buried in the, in a newer cemetery out on the outskirts of town. Well, not the outskirts of town that's the outskirts of town, if Prague's pretty big, the outskirts are pretty far away. It's farther away from the center of things. That's a, anyway, I mentioned, they're like, they're like multiple different cemeteries so those three the cemetery Bishop Rod, the Jewish cemetery, the old Jewish cemetery in the, in the old ghetto quarter, and then the new Jewish cemetery out, out sort of past the main train station. Those are all really fascinating cemeteries in completely different ways. But anyway, they don't have a cemetery where he's buried they have a cemetery that's sort of most emblematic of, of the Jewish community. And then of course that's, I think that's prod castle behind him on the hill behind him doesn't look quite right. A prod castle but I think that's what it's supposed to be. Anyway, so here I've got a pair of quotes from Kafka and Rothbard, which might initially not seem to have much to do with each other but there is an important connection. So Kafka says that people were were offered the choice between being kings and being loyal envoys like children they all wanted to be envoys. And there are so many envoys chasing through the world shouting for the want of kings, the most idiotic messages to one another. You might think this doesn't have much to do with the Rothbard quote, but I think it does it's another example of this idea in Kafka of authority, as being simultaneously omnipresent, get elusively absent and then definitely deferred. It's just supposed to be representatives of some authority, but the authority is never is nowhere to be seen it's all just the envoys. And I think that that connects with this Rothbard quote, a tyrant is but one person that could scarcely command the obedience of another person, much less of an entire country, if most of the subjects did not grant their obedience by their own consent. Every tyranny must necessarily be grounded upon general popular acceptance, which of course is an idea that goes back to attend to La Boetie whose book Rothbard famously wrote an intro for and also explained this to be pronounced La Boetie and not La Boetie given when and where the dude was from. Also, it's a theme in Hume, and the theme in William Godwin although those three thinkers all go to different directions with it. But, you know, I think that was in this idea is that it's not the tyrant it's not the king who controls things whether there's actually King or not. That's not what controls things it's the people who are who are the representatives of the king, the people who follow the king. They're the ones who are responsible for the government's power, the king's just one guy, he's not responsible for it. It's solving you know all the royal envoys and Kafka's point of view so that's what I see as the connection between these two quotations even if initially they don't seem as if they're on the same topic I think there's a connection. And then there's another passage where Kay, who was the the hero of a hero and all heroes throughout the red word. He's the central character, the trial. And he complains behind all the actions of this court of justice. There's a great organization of work, which not only employs corrupt warders and stupid inspectors, but also has a disposal a judicial hierarchy with an indispensable and numerous retinue of servants clerks police and other assistance, perhaps even hangman. And that irresistibly reminded me of this quotation from Mises, government is in the last resort, the employment of armored men of policemen, Jean dame soldiers prison guards and hangman. You know, so Kafka saying, you know, all this stuff with the court of justice seems so seems so August and magisterial, but really just a cover for this army of people who are using force. And presumably those would be the same people as all the people wanted to be royal envoys. In the previous quotation. So Kafka is, when case is protesting that he is innocent, he's been arrested he's innocent. And there's a big dispute among interpreters of the trial as to whether Kay is really innocent or not. Of course, I think that that hooks up with this theological versus political interpretation, you know, on the theological reading, he is not innocent, we're all fallen. And so he deserves this all the stuff that's happening to him. The political reading. The things that happen to or not justified and he is innocent. That's my reading. Anyway, so someone says to him. The high authorities we serve before they would order such an arrest is this must be quite well informed about the reasons. That is the law. How could there be a mistake in that. And Kay replies, I don't know this law, and it probably exists nowhere but in your own head. So, one of the themes of Kafka's later writings is that this authority people appeal to is elusive mysterious it's not clear it's really there people, lots of people are are putting themselves forward as representatives of it. If you try to get your hands on it, it's elusive, which again that probably connects to the story about the, the guy arguing with the doorkeeper to the law. The door is just only for you but I won't let you in. If he had gotten in who knows what he would have found on the other side. Was the law really there shining this majesty. You know, there's some suggestions that there was something glowing and beautiful behind the door, you couldn't get to. I think that might be the theological reading on the political reading. Maybe there's jack shit behind the door. And K finds the spectators in the courtroom who seized them from behind the collar and stretched up their arms to block his way are all wearing badges of various sizes and colors. They were all colleagues these ostensible parties at the right and the left. Hey man jack of you as an official I see you are yourselves the corrupt agents of whom I have been speaking. So it's not just the officials of the court but the spectators who are all part of the power system, even though they're all supposed to be on different political parties. The spectators not officials, they are all part of what sustained the power system. Then in the, the, the other of his two major novels so he has, he has three novels, the trial and, and the castle usually regarded as his two major ones. One is called either America, or the man who disappeared though in German is just like the disappeared or the disappeared one because he liked the short titles, the trial the castle that disappeared, but the disappeared looks odd and English. So it's usually given either as the man who disappeared, or as America because he seems to have played around with him at that title too. But anyway, the, the, the trial and the castle have gotten a lot more attention than America. So America is, you know, well he didn't finish America I mean he doesn't wish he didn't really finish any of them, but the other two are more finished than America is. But anyway so in the in the castle it's the castle that represents this authority and of course there's partly an inspiration from Prague Castle this castle looming above the town, although Ralph himself actually lived for a while in the grounds of Broadcastle. You can go and visit his, his little apartment there in the, in the Golden Lane in Broadcastle. Now, by postcards. But in the, you know, in the castle, the main character who wants to get his name K. He managed to get to the castle the castles the authority he cannot get in touch with he keeps trying to get there. And is never even clear whether the castles even inhabited the castles veiled and missed and darkness without even a glimmer of light to show that the castle was there in the illusory emptiness above him. And that had case seen there the site slightest sign of life. The gaze of the observer could not remain concentrated there but slid away, the longer he looked the less you could make out and the deeper everything was lost in the twilight. Of course theologically you can interpret this as meaning, you know you never get positive evidence for the existence of God, but nevertheless Kafka's solution does not seem to be a reflection of rejection of religious faith. You know I think the moral is, is the reverse that this is kind of hollowness or emptiness to political authority. There's really nothing there. And one point he's told all those contacts of yours he thinks he's had various contacts with people from the castle. All these contacts have been illusory. There's no fixed connection with the castle. No central exchange which transmits our calls further. There is no difference between the peasant tree and the castle. Yeah, so I think this is another way of saying, maybe the authority, you know the authority is just everyone everyone acting as though there's an authority that's what creates the authority. Kind of like Gustav Landauer's line that the state is a pattern of interaction among people and you abolish the state just by interacting differently. I think that maybe what Kafka is getting at here. In his, in his essay, well essay short story it's not clear what it is. In his work, in his short work, Great Wall of China. He has the, you know, he has his people supposedly residents in China saying this although a lot of it seems really to be more about residents of Prague. Or residents of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So vast is our land that no fable could do justice to its vastness. The heavens can scarcely span it and pay King is only a dot in it, and the imperial palace less than a dot. Although we are always trying to get information about the emperor it is almost impossible to discover anything. We do not know what emperor is raining or even the name of the dynasty. Many tidings even if they did reach us would arrive far too late, would have become obsolete long before they reached us. If from such appearances anyone should draw the conclusion that we have no emperor. He would not be far from the truth. Now of course as you know we're taking this literally of course said Kafka as a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Austro-Hungarian Empire knew exactly who the emperor was and it wasn't that far from from Prague to Vienna or wherever the emperor was at the moment to get there. It was like a four or five hour train ride, which I've taken from Vienna to Prague from Prague to Vienna and back very pleasant. But anyway, but again I think the idea is that again questioning whether this authority really exists or really is a genuine authority. And then you know just as you know he's got this short little story that's sort of embedded in the trial. There's a little other story called The Imperial Message, which is also adapted in that comic book where the dying emperor is sending a message to you. And so the messenger is trying to get his way there he's trying to fight his way through the imperial court. But the multitudes are so vast the numbers have no end. If you could reach the open fields so fast you would fly doubtlessly you would soon hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. Instead how vainly does he wear out his strength and still he's only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace. Never will he get to the end of them. And if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained he must fight his way down the next stair. And if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained the courts still have to be crossed. And after the courts the second outer palace and once more stairs and courts and once more another palace, and so on for thousands of years. This might remind you of those paradoxes of motion. And so the emperor can never get to you the emperor's message if the emperor's got a message, it can never reach you. And again there's so theological worries about the silence of God but also this question about you there's any real political authority. And yet subjects are commanded. You know, back in the great wall of China again subjects to come in to leave our homes, the stream with its bridges our mothers and fathers are weeping wives are children who needed our care and depart the distant city to be trained there to build a protective wall against barbarians who no one has ever seen except in the books of the ancients with keeping mouths and great pointed teeth, in other words sort of an imaginary or imaginarily scary enemy. And of course, this was this, this story is written in 1917 at a point when checks were being sent by distant imperial capital to fight for poorly understood reasons against foreigners with whom they had no quarrel. And it seems like it's a kind of a comment on the first World War. Here's another one of these sort of elusive elusive authority stories from from I don't know whether to call this a short story or an essay or what the heck it is. A lot of couples were sort of defy literary categorization the same way that some of topics do as well. The laws are not generally known to us. They are kept secret by the small group of nobles who rule us. The laws were made to the advantage of the nobles from the very beginning, they themselves stand above the laws. The very existence of these laws is most a matter of presumption. Some say the laws whatever the nobles do and see everywhere only the arbitrary acts of the nobility. Well, others hope that one day everything will become clear. The law will belong to the people and the nobility will vanish. But nobody would dare to repudiate the nobility and thereby deprive ourselves of the soul visible and indudable law. So there's this idea that the rulers will claim to be representing some law. We can never quite get our hands on what it's supposed to be. But we have this kind of respect for the law whatever the heck it's supposed to be such that even if we have doubts about whether they really represented we don't dare overthrow them because there are the closest we can get access to the law. Okay, well before going on to Hasek I want to, which I'll probably do in the next video. As I mentioned before, I want to supplement these slides with the material that I have drawn from the unfinished written version of this talk. And so here's a little bit more from the Great Wall of China. Perhaps the, you know, we're wondering about whether the emperor really exists or not and if so what he's doing is he reclining a luxury there is he on his deathbed. How should we know anything about that thousands of miles away in the south. The government has not yet succeeded in developing the institution of the empire to such precision that its workings extend directly and unceasingly to the farthest frontiers of the land. You know, hence the only emperor that the people know anything about is the emperor as such, who was mighty throughout all the hierarchies of the world, in other words the ideal or imaginary emperor, but as for the existing emperor. In other words the actual human being as opposed to the occupies that role. We would think about him if we knew who he was and knew anything definite about him. Yet they never are able to find out anything about him they never find out anything what really goes on in the imperial capital, like tardy arrivals like strangers in the city. They stand at the end of some densely throng side street peacefully munching. In front at the heart of the city the emperor perhaps totters and falls from his throne. So, again, there's this ill of this elusive alienation of authority. You know, the authority that support the distant ideal authority that supposedly represented by the local authorities. It's not clear whether there's any connection. A few years later a Kafka wrote kind of follow up to the great wall of China called the refusal, in which he returns to something like the same vision of an it's not clear where there's the same empire is in the people of China or does something similar. The students said in the village he describes as being so far from the frontier across wild fertile plains and desolate highlands that no one from our town has ever been there. And to imagine even part of the road makes one tired, yet even further than the frontier is the capital. For while we do get news of the frontier wars now and again of the capital we learn next to nothing. In this distant capital great rulers have superseded each other and dynasties have been deposed are annihilated, and even the capital itself was destroyed and a new one founded far away from it. It was destroyed in its turn in the old one rebuilt, yet none of this had any influence on our little town. And soldiers in the empire do so nice past through the village. And from the conference description of them, the soldiers of the empire supposed seem to be the same people as the scary northern barbarians, against which the empire was supposedly protecting people on the Great Wall of China. The narrator at the refusal says he is constantly being surprised by the way we in our town, humbly submit to all orders issued in the capital. But as he portrays that the town is actually run by an aging colonel, who holds the office of chief tax collector, and Kafka says he has never produced a document entitling him to this position, and likely does not possess such a thing. But if he really is chief tax collector, no one is quite sure why this has taken him entitled, taken to entitle him to rule over all other departments in the administration as well. One is almost under the impression that people here say, now that you've taken all we possess, please take us as well. Not he who sees the power, nor is he a tyrant, rather it has simply come about over the years of the chief tax collectors automatically a top official, and the colonel accepts the tradition just as we do. From time to time the townspeople petition this official for a year's tax exemption, or a subsidy because the poorest quarter of the town had been burned to the ground. What happened now and again that minor petitions are granted, nevertheless in all important matters the citizens can always count on a refusal. And even when a petition is granted and very blue looks as though the colonel had done it as a powerful private person on his own responsibility, and had to be kept all but a secret from the government. And those eyes as far as we know are also the eyes of the government, though there was a difference which is which is impossible to comprehend completely. You know, so there's some kind of there's something puzzling going on there. And this the un-clarity of the connection between the local authorities are actually have to deal with, and this ideal authority that they supposedly represent. In the trial we also get this claim that it's that it's pointless for an attorney's clients to just reforms and legal systems since any benefit arising from that would profit clients in the future only. While one's own interests would be immeasurably injured by attracting the attention of vengeful officials is kind of a, you know, a public choice problem there. And as the protagonist of the trial, although he's the victim of bureaucracy, he's a kind of bureaucrat himself and he treats his own clients in much the same way that higher officials treat him. So as an anxious client is pleading his case before Kay, we're told that Kay soon ceased to listen and really nodded now and then, and confined himself to staring at the other's bald head bent over the papers, and asking himself when the fellow would begin to realize that all his business was being wasted. It's difficult said Kay person his lips, but he doesn't seem to recognize it doesn't show any sign of recognizing the similarity between the way he's treating his clients and the way he's been treated by the bureaucrats above him. That's why I don't think it's the protagonist quite the right term for him or hero certainly is not. And Kay is warned by one source that it sometimes happened that the first plea was not read by the court at all, but simply filed or even mislaid or lost altogether. But another source tells them no document is ever lost the court never forgets anything. So an acquittal may be reversed at any time if some official happens to take up the documents and recognize and in this case the charges still valid. You know we've got sort of two visions of government of government bureaucracy area near there. There's the incompetent government bureaucracy is incompetent when they just lose that stuff. And there's government bureaucracy has this all pervading surveillance. And, you know, and Kafka sort of dramatizing both of those things. And of course those, those are sort of different, different ways of conceiving of criticism of bureaucracy. Now here's the passage from Rebecca West I mentioned, as an inhabitant of the Hopsburg Empire, Kafka had great reason to feel gratitude to its bureaucracy, which did in fact protect the interests of most of the population and met nearly all eventualities. Because I said I'm not convinced that that was Kafka's view. And West also thinks that Shakespeare was pro monarchy and I'm not convinced of that either although that's, that's a very common view of Shakespeare that monarchy represents the reestablishment of order. The proper monarch back as a reestablishment of order I'm not convinced that that's the right interpretation of Shakespeare but at least that there's more support for that then I think this interpretation of Kafka. So we're going to go a bit here about the shift from Kafka's early writings for authority is a terrifying presence influenced by his father and it's an art in short stories like the judgment and metamorphosis to authorities and absence or an indefinite deferral which I think is what's going on in the trial and the castle and the Great Wall of China, which I think connects to sort of the anarchist criticism of this idea of a final arbiter that the Randians believe in, or the anarchists argue that there's no a final arbiter that can never be a final arbiter that's not how society works. Or Wittgenstein's idea that people are looking for self applying rule and you can't have one, which is something I published on in the in the Prog Journal of political economy. I'll have one to that in the description. Also Daniel Dennett, who I rarely cite favorably but I think on this point he's correct that when people think about the way the brain works they think of there being some place in the brain where it all comes together. There's a little person inside the brain. And he says no that's not how it works that you get this interaction parts of the brain but there's no central authority. In the brain. You know, there's also this. This nice line from his surau aphorisms. The animal twists the whip out of its master's grip and whips itself to become its own master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by new not in the master's whiplash. That sounds like something out of Foucault would you take us as liberation is just a new form of domination. And then in his in the novel was called either America or the man who disappeared. There's this case where this is a boy who's supposed to be monitoring the elevators. This acquaintance of his shows up drunken and vomiting. And so he has to hustle my way out there but sort of a dilemma because if he doesn't hustle him away. He'll be blamed for letting his drunken vomiting friends stay there. When he does us away he'll be you know he'll be getting trouble for abandoning his post. So he decides to hustle him away and sure enough he gets accused of abandoning his post. We tries to explain. Everything he everything is denied. People refuse to listen to him on the grounds that how can you possibly take seriously the judgment of some elevator boy compared to his superiors, the superiors are more to be trusted than some elevator boy so there's a connection of class here to in fact the the movie version of of this book is called class relations. And in fact I have another piece on that which is not completely complete but it's it's much more written up. It's a piece on the idea of the problem of other minds as a political problem in Shakespeare's a fellow and William Godman's novel Caleb Williams and in Kafka's novel America. And I will have a link to that in the description anyway here's a here's a quotation from that from from Kafka's final novel America. Although he had worked here for two months as well as he could. And certainly better than many of the other boys. He had to recognize that such considerations were taken into account at the decisive moment in no part of the world, neither in Europe nor in America. The verdict was determined by the first words that happened to fall from the judge's lips and an impulse of fury. So here's sort of complete skepticism about the objectivity of both of the legal system politically, and of the employer employee system and also is the fact that no one will take seriously the what the, what the employee says is an example of this, this principle that information doesn't travel well in hierarchies. Which is something as I said before that both Robert Anton Wilson and Kevin Carson have made a big deal of. I think I'm going to snip this here as well, and make the the final poor part on Yaroslav Hasek, a separate part three. So, until next time, like, share, subscribe, consider supporting on Patreon and PayPal if you're so inclined, and I'll see you next time.