Recently, Howard Caygill came for a workshop titled 'Kafka:In Theory' hosted by SL&CS, JNU on 5TH Feb, 2011. He invited responses following a discussion of his paper 'The Fate of the Pariah: Arendt and Kafka’s"Nature Theater of Oklahama"
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/college_literature/summary/v038/38.1.caygill.html.
Caygill makes the following points about the Editing/Publication of Kafka’s works:
1. The many 'philosophical & political interpretations' of Kafka's texts are based on a 'mistaken understanding of their order of composition' (Caygill,1): He claims that Kafka's texts have not been justly edited. His friend Max Brod misguided the readers by posthumously publishing the novels of his friend, Kafka in a wrong order i.e. The Trial (1925). The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927). Nevertheless, Kafka wrote them in a reverse order i.e. following from Amerika ('The Lost one'- Brod changed the original title) to The Trial and The Castle in the end. He even accuses Arendt for mistranslating to defend the western concept of jurisprudence and also he suspects that she might have known the real ordering of his texts from his diaries which she had access to yet she misemployed Kafka’s works to fit her own political interpretations.
2. Kafka intentionally misplaced ‘Oklahama’ in the ‘Nature Theater of Oklahama’ which was corrected as Oklahoma by most editors: Caygill argues that Oklahama refers to the famous photograph titled ‘Oklahama Idyll’, his ‘main photographic resource’ for his novel ‘Amerika’& photograph titled ‘the Strange Fruit’ that was circulated on postcards during the time of Lincoln’s execution. They are inseparable from his visions of a history of injustice and necessary ‘accidents’.
This has two implications for the philosophical & political readings & interpretations
i) His dystopic visions in the novels ‘The Trial’ and ‘The Castle’ were perceived as a background to the last novel ‘Amerika’ wherein he presents a utopia which came to be interpreted as a progression from dystopias to a redemptive utopia in his works.
But this being the other way round, Caygill claims that Kafka did not present any positivist progression in his understanding of history moving toward a utopia but instead he contextualized his novels within a particular history of ‘accidents of skin color’ and a ‘history of racial oppression’, citing instances from black American lives parallel to that of jewish experience. The characters of his novels are disposed & homeless people who become a part of these accidents.
ii) Secondly, he critiques the system of justice: ‘The machine of execution is not organised in terms of a juridical logic of guilt and innocence but in terms of accidents of skin color and status.’ It only quantitatively distributes gulit as systemic and not as understood as a conscious questioning of anindividual’s responsibility in case of actions that he/she chooses intentionally. Kafka’s character suffer from a ‘guiltless guilt’, they fall in trap of a systemic accident and they must confess to this guilt. These accidents are necessary default as evident in the historical background. Caygill therby, finds Kafka as creating ‘a repertoir of new possibilities’ that can be forseen as ‘prophesies’ for a world marked by such a tension that is characteristically incommesurable with the existing laws. For him communism & fascism cannot live together and the tension gives rise to a revolution that will bring the ‘messiah’.
How does Hannah Arendt interpret Kafka?
Hannah Arendt interprets Kafka in her two essays: ‘The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition’ (1945) and ‘Franz Kafka, Appreciated Anew’ (1946).
1. She argues that Kafka is an exemplary of a millitant pariah who claims his rights in an unjust world. He faces a constant struggle to choose between ‘pervenu assimilation’ in this ‘bureaucratic Castle’ and the individual pariah resistance in the ‘village’. He chooses for a world where ‘a simple man could achieve to live his own life like a normal human being’. Hannah calls him a ‘Zionist’ in his utopian vision for such a world which is contrary to a Nature theater where “ there is place for everyone” in accordance with his talents, his bent and his will’ (Caygill, 4). For Arendt, one can live ‘as a man only among men..only when a people lives and functions in consort with other people can it contribute to the establishment upon earth of a commonly conditioned and commonly controlled humanity’ ( italics added) ( qtd in Caygill, 4). Arendt points that ‘political transcendance of the individual pariah or pervenu’ will come in ‘the collective dream and struggle of a people’ (Caygill, 4). She anticipates Kafka for such a proposal but Caygill contradicts it by saying that he did not mean any communitarian collective dream but defended for a revolution.
2. She critiques ‘the law in terms of necessity’ as a just cause for rebellion in Kafka’s texts. ‘Amerika’ becomes a place of redemption from the ‘total domination’ of the functionality of law. She understands Kafka’s use of images and photographs as ‘blueprints’, an exercise in imagination that ‘enable the free exercise of imagination in reflective judgment’ (Caygill, 5) She interprets this reflective judgment in narrative and his use of photographs as various forms of imitation of ‘reality’ speaking to each other to judge ‘according to a sensus communis of shared narratives’. Caygill finds it ‘underestimating’ Kafka’s techniques as it does not emphasise the key link with a particular history captured in the photographs and narratives but he does not explain how? Arendt is infact defending the relevance of such alternative forms of experience but only within what is possible while living with others who may hold different views of the same experience. The sensus communis works only as a regulative ideal for the existence of life with others.
What is the problem with Caygill’s Argument?
Caygill’s main argument is that Kafka stood for a revolution that is ‘messiahnic’ not in its forecasts but as an outcome of the accumulation of ‘accidents of skin color’ in this context of a history of injustice both with the Black Americans and Jewish people. He is not ready to make any compromise with the existing communitarian dream and that is one of the reasons why he has strong reservations for accepting Kafka’s texts as presenting any utopias. For him any utopia or a collective dream is incommensurate with the modern times which are replete with a history of such ‘accidents’.
This argument does not provide anything different from what Hannah Arendt is arguing. Although she uses the word ‘utopia’ for Kafka’s texts yet she accepts his techniques as significant in making judgments which are possible only within an inter-subjective exchange of different views. Caygill misunderstands it as defending ‘western jurisprudence’ and continuing with ‘the judicial logic of innocent and guilty’. But in her last book ‘The Life of the Mind’, where Arendt clearly defines the processes involved in political action; she explains critical thinking as ‘anti-authoritative’ and it is through imagination that one makes a relationship with the past where a ‘wrong’ has been committed and we judge it as ‘right or wrong’ and act to protect from such mistakes in future. For her one cannot judge ‘backwards’ since it is similar to revenge which is never satisfied and is equivalent to ‘suicide’ because it is against life itself. So, even if Kafka is placed in a history of wrongs, his narratives are a conscious attempt of establishing a relation with wrongs by emphasising the wrongs not as ‘accidents’ but as ‘necessary’ and inevitable outcomes of a flawed system. Caygill defends for a ‘crisis’ in Kafka’s novels that call for the establishment of new laws. But to put Arendt’s question to him: What is the basis of this crisis? Is it the law or is the misuse of law in favor of ‘accidents of color’? Can we create separate laws for people with different colors of skin? Arendt argues that laws are only reference points which cannot be interpreted literally. They are there to preserve the ‘truth’ and not otherwise. A sensus communis is integral for any social formation and without which we can live only on ‘I-lands’ but can we call it a ‘life’ where everything is an extension of one’s own ‘self’. How can one assure that living within a people of same color will not eventually lead to some form of ‘accidents’. Caygill’s argument sounds exclusive in this sense. And if he also has the same connotation as Arendt's then it defeats the argument that Hannah has mis-employed Kafka's texts.
Although the ordering of texts does not make any difference for his claims yet he does not specify his source from where he has derived this information. Since the original diaries of Kafka are not accessible. Besides, if it was already clear in the diaries then it seems ridiculous to understand that Arendt would have mis-translated despite of knowing.
