Page 41 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
dogs? In the Theatre of Twilight, are the idols real or unreal? And in Plato’s den, how many real, ideal, or distorted Jobs and Ks does everyone really see from their own real, ideal, and distorted selves? Two, four, a multitude? To Holmes, “...there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two.”213 Therefore, there are multitudes in Job and K’s trials. In this multitude, which are truths, which opinions, which appearances? This labyrinthine philosophical riddle is no less perplexing as the one posited in Bentham’s panopticon. There 3⁄4 which is real, which, apparent?
Real punishment? Or an apparent one? Real presence? Or apparent omnipresence? Real suffering? Or apparent suffering?214
There 3⁄4 the appearance of punishment, of omnipresence, deters. If the innocents are deterred through apparent punishment, the guilty are deterred through the inspector’s gaze as God’s gaze 3⁄4 an apparent omnipresence.215 Yet in Kafkabel and Jobel, Job and K’s punishments, and Satan and the Prosecutor’s gaze are not apparent, but real manifestations in real sufferings. Josef K suffers, yet his riddle of reality or appearances is not resolved because the Judge remains absent. Job suffers, yet his riddle is resolved because Yahweh’s presence is real in the Whirlwind speeches. Thus, Job’s friends are guilty, and Job is restored. If lectors as spectators cannot discern with absolute clarity the true from the false in the Theatre of Twilight and Rumours, Job and Josef K can really see and hear. This is the mystery of obscurity. In the dark, they see; amidst the vile rumours, they hear. If adversaries gaze and whisper ‘guilt’ as Satan insidiously does to Yahweh and to Eliphaz, Job and Josef K apprehend how rash everyone is to stigmatize and penalize them. For Job and Josef K, the world abysmally transforms into a ‘penal colony’ 3⁄4 an apt metaphor derived from Kafka’s and Schopenhauer’s perspective of the world.216 There 3⁄4 they suffer inexplicable arrests, trials and loses, and are reduced to the infrahuman impotence of maggots, vermin or dogs.
As events journey onward and onward, there is a story-telling sympathy. Josef K begins to challenge us. We hesitate to pronounce him “guilty,” and to think him otherwise, may be seen as humanist.217 Where, at first, he trivializes and evades the Court, oscillating between endless misery and diversion,218 he then confronts it. Life as a trial consists in an ‘unexplained and inexplicable arrest’219 leading to a series of catastrophes that demand not only ‘our full attention,’ but ‘our sympathy and our critical engagement.’220
something utterly unreal, or an imaginary fiction or non-entity, sustains the panopticon prison. Bentham, Jeremy. The Panopticon Writings. Ed. By Bozovic, Miran. UK: Verso, 1995. 1-3
213 To Oliver Wendell Holmes, in each person, there are three persons. The real P known only to his Maker, P’s ideal P, Q’s ideal P. Q’s real Q, Q’s ideal Q, P’s ideal Q. P’s real Q or Q’s real P is impossible, because the real Q or P is only known to his Maker. Therefore, Holmes concludes that “until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two.” Jaffe, Adrian. The Process of Kafka’s Trial. Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1967. 124
214 Bentham, Jeremy. The Panopticon Writings. Ed. By Bozovic, Miran. UK: Verso, 1995. 8
215 Bentham, Jeremy. The Panopticon Writings. Ed. By Bozovic, Miran. UK: Verso, 1995. 8-11
216 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 20
217 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 37
218 Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. “22. On The General Knowledge of Man.” Trans. By A. J. Krailsheimer. USA: Penguin Classics, 1995. 219 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 20
220 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 21
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