{"id":806,"date":"2007-10-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chisnell.www216-119-142-248.a2hosted.com\/chizblog\/?p=806"},"modified":"2017-08-06T05:09:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T05:09:04","slug":"kafkaesque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/kafkaesque\/","title":{"rendered":"Kafkaesque"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his book,\u00a0An Assault on Reason<\/em>, Al Gore draws a parallel between the fate of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Joseph K. in Kafka\u2019s\u00a0The Trial<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0The detainees, he writes, have not been told the crimes with which they have been charged, they are \u201cserved\u201d by secret courts, and their friends and families are caught in a morass of bureaucracy without a clear idea even if they are making progress.\u00a0The \u201ctrial\u201d for some has already gone on some years; nevertheless, they are not free.<\/p>\n

Joseph K goes through the same.\u00a0\u00a0As important, however, is his own mindset in the process.\u00a0\u00a0As a priest tells him, \u201cThe court wants nothing from you.\u00a0\u00a0It receives you when you come; it dismisses you when you go.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Kafka tells us that, in a sense larger or more philosophical than physical confinement, we choose ourselves whether we will live our lives as prisoners.\u00a0\u00a0We may sink ourselves into the tangles of bureaucracies or disengage from them.<\/p>\n

We may burn our energies out in combating the ROHS scheduling process or choose to learn where we are placed.\u00a0\u00a0We may lose hours to clicking on Causes in FaceBook or choose to walk our talk more directly.\u00a0\u00a0We may trap ourselves in webs of gossip and lies or we may choose our own principles and stand apart.<\/p>\n

Ah, I wax philosophic!\u00a0\u00a0Kafka\u2019s question is like Thoreau\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Where Joseph K dies \u201cLike a dog!\u201d because he is never able to live without his fear and guilt created by his own slavery to society, Thoreau challenges us to live like humans, to think independently from those social pressures.<\/p>\n

In many ways, people who live under totalitarian regimes are compelled to act (if not think) as the state tells them to.\u00a0\u00a0To resist may mean imprisonment or death.\u00a0\u00a0(Just think Hussein\u2019s Iraq, the Taliban\u2019s Afghanistan, or even today\u2019s Myanmar.) But at the same time, these states have at least a few individuals of conscience we\u2019ve met, people who choose to act and speak their principles.\u00a0\u00a0(Think\u00a0Chia Thye Poh\u00a0in Singapore, Gabriel Rufyiri in Burundi,\u00a0Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Don\u2019t know these folks?\u00a0\u00a0Is that because they\u2019re unimportant or that we have also been inundated\u2014trapped, sunk, imprisoned, detained, lost\u2014in a society not totalitarian (despite what Gore implies) but Kafka-esque, nonetheless?\u00a0\u00a0Thoreau and Kafka both challenge us to be human\u2014not machines, not animals, not narcissists or manipulators, not liars.<\/p>\n

What else distinguishes us from the machine or beast but our conscience?\u00a0\u00a0This does not mean to resist everything, but to choose\u00a0something<\/em>, and be honest about it.\u00a0\u00a0It means we must be prepared to own our actions and words and accept the consequences.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his book,\u00a0An Assault on Reason, Al Gore draws a parallel between the fate of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Joseph K. in Kafka\u2019s\u00a0The Trial.\u00a0\u00a0The detainees, he writes, have not been told the crimes with which they have been charged, they are \u201cserved\u201d by secret courts, and their friends and families are caught in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,300],"tags":[351,352,353,354,317],"class_list":["post-806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chizblog","category-philosophy","tag-existentialism","tag-gore","tag-identity","tag-kafka","tag-thoreau"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/08\/trial.jpg?fit=402%2C302&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1901,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/shoot-into-the-wind\/","url_meta":{"origin":806,"position":0},"title":"Shoot into the Wind","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2017 Sep 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida is a Stand Your Ground state, after all. 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