Page 48 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
The Whipping scene and Huld’s and Titorelli’s revelations damn the omnipotence of the Court.272 Huld’s view of the Court is one of inaccessibility, injustice and arbitrary power. The accused cannot access his records, proceedings are not public, and the writ of indictment is neither available to him, or to his defence lawyer. Since lower officials do not know what documents are involved, they cannot follow the case’s progress. What’s more, the Court has contempt for lawyers. Defence counsel, impeded to attend the client’s interrogations, is treated unjustly in a vengeful bureaucracy. They are unable to protect defendants or follow the court’s arbitrary proceedings. Even Court officials, whose ranks are infinite, are at a loss in complex cases. In many instances, initial petitions are infinite or worthless crap; they are not read or are lost or misplaced. In such a volatile and chaotic Court, a mirror of Titorelli’s Lady Justice, everything revolves around chance, uncertainty and stagnation, given that blind and temperamental officials do not follow guidelines (T114-22).
Titorelli’s blind and volatile Lady Justice, the Court’s emblem of arbitrary might, is as corrupt as Milton’s Lady Injustice. A justice that is no longer retributive, exacting proportion and measure for measure.273 The vision of the blind and volatile Lady Justice artwork disturbs Josef K just as much, as the art piece of the divinized Judge disturbs him. They mirror the Court’s injustice and might. Blind, Lady Justice can strike anyone be he innocent or guilty. Her lack of actual acquittals suffocates, and her networking with Court officials to favour and to change a case’s course, is nauseating. Her top-notch warders aspire to the coveted post of Whipper.274 And her Court is evasive. The Doorkeeper lies. The Law legislates for its own sake and does not accept the countryman when he comes.275 To psychologize that the immoral Court mirrors K’s own moral flaws does not suffice to negate the Court’s critique.276 The mirror is two-ways, K’s moral flaws may easily arise from the immoral Court.277
Just as corrupt and partial Courts violate Kant and Milton’s imperatives, so the subjection and use of others278 are as categorically impermissible to Josef K. To a great extent, Josef K fulfills Kant’s Formula of Humanity. He acts “in such a way that he treats [you treat] humanity whether in his [your] person or in the person of another, always at the sametime,asanend,andneverasameans.”279 JosefKtreatsfewerpeopleasmeansthanasends.True,thereare instances of lust (T23-5, 61), revenge (T61, 139), and neglect of family (T90-1), but there are also many instances of people treated as ends. Josef K does not expect anyone to sacrifice himself for relative valuable ends, just as he declines to sacrifice his dignity for an apparent liberty (T182-3, 186, 230). Thus, K pays his fees and dismisses Huld (T186-89). Thus, he pays for Titorelli’s time indirectly by purchasing all his heath landscapes (T146-50). Thus, he does not use Leni or any of the females to further his acquittal although he seeks their help at times and listens to them (T29). All in all, K rejects everyone’s ill advice: Leni’s, his uncle’s, Block’s, and foremost, he refuses Titorelli’s efforts to make an oath of innocence on his behalf, not necessarily out of pride, but out of contempt because he blindly submits to the Court’s portraiture wishes, to its apparent or protracted acquittals, and to the arbitrary use of judicial contacts to achieve liberties (T91, 148-50). Lucid K also turns down fleeing away and using to his uncle’s country home (T95) and refuses to use Titorelli’s influential judiciary network (T135). He loathes whippings and
272 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 38
273 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. The Tenure ofKings and Magistrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 778
274 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 38
275 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 38
276 Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 39
277 See also Kraft, Herbert. Mondheimat – Kafka. Pfullingen, 1983. 16-33, 141-53. Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and
German Publications, 1991. 40
278 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. The Tenure ofKings and Magistrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957.
755
279 Kant. GroundworkfortheMetaphysicsofMorals.Trans.ByMaryGregor. UK:CambridgeUniversityPress,1998.429
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