Page 85 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+
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Galiet & Galiet
Stranger, suffering Platzangst in the infinitely divisible Alamedas of Latin America, or may one day, find himself in a stifling attic corridor in a Kafkabel crisscrossed with a rooted Jobel, or in yet another Eden-tree B, as if in Heidegger’s clearing of being, the un-concealment of Plato’s Den, or on yet another day, in the distancing of being: at times, present; at times, absent; at times, departing forever just as every objectifying persona of The Trial appears at the stage as spectator and actor, only to gaze, to objectify a la Sartre and then to drift, to vanish, as if a mirage: a mirage crisscrossing Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad’s objectifying gazes proliferating through the deserts of being in the same theatre of angst and impotence.
Josef K, in the spirit of the messenger of Kafka’s The Great Wall of China, will wear out his strength, never getting to the end of the chambers of neither Palace, Castle or The Trial, and if he succeeded, nothing he would gain. The court still has to be crossed, and after them, the other courts, and once more another court in another palace, and so on,forthousandsofyears.476 IntheinfinitepointstraversedbetweenafiniteA3⁄43⁄4Binterval,thereshallexistonly faint approximations, a nauseating sensation of getting infinitely closer to zero, but never actually reaching it. There shall be “the sensation of anxiety and shame whose centre cannot be located and therefore cannot be placated; a senseofaninfinitedifficultywithinthings,impedingeverystep.”477Thusmanspins.478 Undertheillusionofmotion, Achilles 3⁄4 a Job, or a K, or a Milton 3⁄4 will learn of Zeno’s futility.
Aporias
Every time they traverse, they are infinitely closer to their goals 3⁄4 their Zeros, whether zero is the vindication by the missing Yahweh or the absent Judge, or the missing Lady Justice or Wisdom in Job (28:12-14). Yet no one will reach a genuine vindication, only an apparent one.
Job will reach zero in Yahweh through Satan’s suspicion only to be endlessly suspected by Satan
Milton will reach zero in God through Satan in Paradise Lost Josef K will never reach zero, only the incommensurable
Imagine now Job, K and Milton inside Titorelli’s heath landscapes journeying from the Garden of Eden’s fabled Tree of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life.
What might then occur?
476 Kafka. The Complete Stories. “The Great Wall of China.” Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken, 1995. 244ff
477 Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. Foreword by John Updike. New York: Schocken, 1995. IX
478 This alludes to Kafka’s parable of a spinning top, another argument against motion. A philosopher is confident he can understand all things as long as he
understands their single essence. Hence, he tries to catch a top as it spins, hoping it continues to gyrate in his hand. However, his attempt always fails for the top always stops as he tries to grab it. Like all multi-faceted parables, The Top also alludes to philosophy’s endless spinning on its own axis. Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. “Der Kreisel or The Top.” Ed. By Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken, 1995. 444
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