FRANZ KAFKA & ‘Kafkaesque” Liberal Studies

FRANZ KAFKA ( ) Jewish, in pre-3 rd Reich Austria-Hungary Three sisters, would die in Nazi death camps he died earlier of T.B. Father a successful businessman: pressed the “literary” Franz into trade. worked in Insurance then in a Factory (asbestos) 2

Kafka’s Literary Quality Reluctantly published only a few short story collections (incl.“The Penal Colony” in his lifetime. asked that his major writings be destroyed at his death, but instead friends had his novels posthumously published Kafka had a special gift: the rare ability to create new myth—mythopoeia Kafka’s myth seems to arise from three sources 1. His relationship with a domineering unsympathetic father 2. His work experience in large institutions: white & blue collar 3. His conception of the God of the Jewish scriptures 3

Kafka & Bureaucracy In Kafka’s myth, a powerless individual comes in contact with a bureaucracy. Often, the contact is initiated by the bureaucracy: the individual is almost a mere random choice by which the bureaucracy can arbitrarily exercise its power. From then on, the individual has no hope: the bureaucracy has its own rules which are arbitrary, absurd, abusive, and absolute. Indeed, commonly the individual is not allowed to know what the rules are, or even be certain that a specific set of written rules exist. 4

Kafka & Bureaucracy (con’t) Thus, in Kafka’s myth a helpless and solitary individual is totally alienated from an all-powerful bureaucracy that has developed from the rational & mechanical principles of technology (The application of technical and rational principles to organisations and governments is termed ‘technocracy’) Yet in a paradox, bureaucracy behaves with total irrationality— even open arbitrariness—in destroying the innocent individual. 5

6 “TECHNOCRACY”: RULE BY TECHOLGISTS Techocracy: idea popular from the 1930s a.] Scientists and Technical experts in administrative or decision making management and political positions. b.] government technical-scientific decision-making. c.] rational ordering of human behavior and social conduct—e.g. B.F. Skinner & Behaviorism German National Socialists and the Soviet Union worked from technocratic principles: i.e. central planning of society and industry

7 Technocracy, con’t Lost social credibility via its advocacy of eugenics. Carbon Currency a revanchist technocracy idea. Technocracy: sign on Boundary Road & Kingsway Website. TechnocracyVan.ca Website

Nazism was a Technocracy Central Gov’t Planning of Industry e.g. the Gov’t demanded a “People’s Car” be produced Holocaust a technocratic enterprise: meticulous record keeping ‘concentration’ camps, arranged on a railway network gas chambers, using an industrial chemical (Zyklon-B) ovens were tendered and constructed as factory 8

Prophetic Character of Kafka So, Kafka wrote before the Third Reich, or the present-day Western world. But his representation of society entirely dominated by machine—in modes of work and in bureaucracy itself—prophesied both of these eventual states of affairs. 9