Kafka and Totalitarianism

Disclaimer: This post is part of a series of essays I wrote at the Young India Fellowship. This particular essay was written as a transcript as part of the course titled Totalitarian Century.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

“Someone must have falsely denounced Josef K., for without having done anything wrong, he was arrested one morning.”: The Trial, Franz Kafka

The opening lines of Franz Kafka’s The Trial is one of the most chilling and memorable of all time. A well-established chief banker, Josef K. is suddenly arrested one day by unidentified agents from an unidentified organization for committing an unidentified crime. What follows is a host of absurdities: the guilt of the protagonist is assumed, he is allowed to roam free despite being ‘under arrest’, trial processes take place in shady attics and the convicted (and the reader) has absolutely no idea of the crime he has committed throughout the entire novel.

As with his other works such as The Castle and Metamorphosis, Kafka’s magnum opus has been subject to a variety of interpretations ranging from psychoanalytical to religious to political. Kafka was a German Jew and there is evidence that suggests that he was deeply influenced by the Anti-Semitic Trials that took place in Hungary, France, and Czechoslovakia in the late 19th century. This, combined with the tensions and rise of totalitarian states in Europe prompted Kafka to write his novel just before the outbreak of the First World War.

In the novel, Kafka states quite clearly that Josef K. lives in a society with a legal constitution, universal peace and enforceable law. Nevertheless, he gets arrested for a crime he doesn’t know he committed and is given little to no legal assistance or context by the state. He also goes through a thoroughly unfair trial and is brutally executed in the end screaming “Like a dog!”. Franz Kafka died in 1924 and little did he know that his absurdist novel would become reality in his country barely a decade after his death.

When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party assumed power, they promised to resurrect Germany from its defeat in the First World War and establish a Reich that would last a thousand years. The Nazis were also morbidly obsessed with eugenics and believed that their race, the Aryans, was the master human race. Other lower races, especially the Jews, had to be eliminated to ‘purify’ the human race and make them pay for the crimes they had committed against the state, which was directly responsible for the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

Displaced people in Germany during World War 2

By the late 1940s, hundreds of thousands of Josef K.’s were met by Nazi agents at their doors and were arrested despite not having done anything wrong. Their assets were seized and they were sent to concentration camps without any trial where they faced torture and almost certain death. In other words, they died ‘like a dog’. Der Prozess had become an undeniable reality.

The Nazi Holocaust, although an extreme event, is unfortunately not an exception. Millions of Josef K.’s have died since 1945 in the USSR, Rwanda, and Armenia. All these countries had a constitution and a notion of justice in place. The Trial was most definitely Kafka’s warning about totalitarian regimes. It is fitting that he chose not to disclose the surname of the protagonist. It was his way of saying that this man could be anyone: a Jew in Nazi Germany, a Rohingya Muslim in present-day Myanmar or a Viet in Cambodia in 1975.

So far, this essay has created analogies between The Trial and historical events with the assumption that the protagonist of the story hadn’t done anything which could be considered a crime. The remainder of this essay will have a slightly different take: What if the protagonist had indeed committed ‘a crime’ and simply didn’t know he did?

By now, history has an extremely rich archive of the totalitarian states that have existed (or exist) around the world. Most of these states have very similar characteristics: fervent nationalism, a powerful tyrant dictator, rampant jingoism and tendency to commit genocide of minority and disadvantaged groups.

However, there is a new kind of totalitarian state brewing. Its primary weapon is not massive armies or concentration camps but data; extensive information that it collects about its citizens from every imaginable aspect of their lives. It is unlikely that Kafka had the clairvoyance to predict data-driven totalitarian states in the 21st century but nevertheless, his book manages to serve as a chilling warning to this nouveau totalitarianism too.

Nosedive, Black Mirror

In 2016, the Netflix series Black Mirror released an episode titled Nosedive. True to its theme, it features a dystopian world where people were required to rate other people based on the quality of interactions they had with them. Based on the ratings other people gave you, you would be assigned a social credit score. This score was as important as money as it determined the kind of public places you could visit, homes you could rent and neighborhoods you could live in.

On the outset, this episode may seem like science fiction but a state like this is actually taking shape in the People’s Republic of China. China announced that it was experimenting with a social credit system that could determine the kind of loans you could avail and jobs you could take. Traditionally private information such as shopping history and friendships of an individual could now be made public.  The Chinese Government claimed that it was to build a system of trust but the underlying repercussions of this system are immense. This system is the first step towards total surveillance. The effects have already begun to seep through. For instance, a number of students in China were barred from admissions in schools and colleges on account of their parents’ low credit scores. The parents were apparently on a ‘national blacklist’. Josef K. had once again faced consequences without having done anything wrong and without knowing the nature of his crime.

Another interesting facet of Josef K.’s trial was his freedom of mobility. Despite being under arrest, he is allowed to roam freely and conduct his business as usual. This is because the unidentified authority that has charged him has means and tools at its disposal that allows it to identify the location of Josef K. at any given time. Many countries in the west have tools that enable them to track people’s locations and they have misused severely by authorities. For instance, authorities at a local police department in the US were found guilty of using traffic light tapes to identify cars parked outside of gay bars and blackmail the owners into revealing their sexuality to their family. China is also undertaking a project of supplying its police force with AR spectacles that would automatically identify a person. Therefore, the surveillance aspect of The Trial is not science fiction anymore; it is slowly becoming a disturbing reality.

Throughout the novel, we do not have any idea of the nature of crimes that Josef K. has committed. And neither does Josef K. himself. But can this be possible? To answer this question, this essay will devise a thought experiment that borrows elements from George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. In 1984, there is a separate class of crime called ‘Thoughtcrime’ which is the crime of having thoughts considered ‘illegal’. The Big Brother in the novel takes elaborate steps to ensure no one is committing this crime but recent development in technology might make this process much easier.

Neuroscientists and major Software Giants (including Facebook) are developing a technology that can directly convert thoughts to speech or text. Considering the fact that this technology will be embedded into wearable devices, this has the potential to give the provider unlimited access to our thoughts. The question, therefore, begs to be asked. What if totalitarian governments used this technology to read the thoughts of its citizens and incarcerate those that harbored thoughts that were considered dangerous? Then, we would finally have the answer to The Trial’s most burning question. Josef K. of the 21st century had harbored a thought that made it eligible to be considered as Thoughtcrime. Unbeknownst to him, this thought was recorded on his wearable device and transmitted to the Government. The Government then arrested Josef K. without giving him any explanations regarding the circumstances.

Dystopian novels have been revered as being important hallmarks of literature but we often ignore the salient warnings they give out. The Trial is no exception. Despite its ‘validation’ from history, readers will still find the piece to be absurd. But the warnings that it gives out must be taken seriously. It may not be very long before we too have agents outside our door waiting to arrest us, deny us a fair trial and execute us like dogs.

Bibliography

1. Mitchell, M., & Kafka, F. (2009). The Trial (Oxford World’s Classics). Oxford University Press.
2. Translating Kafka. (n.d.). Kafka Translated: How Translators Have Shaped Our Reading of Kafka. doi:10.5040/9781472543653.ch-001
3. Löwy, Michael (2009) “Franz Kafka’s Trial and the Anti-Semitic Trials of His Time,” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 7 : Iss. 2 , Article 13.
4. Taylor, A. (2015, April 24). It wasn’t just the Armenians: The other 20th century massacres we ignore. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/24/it-wasnt-just-the-armenians-the-other-20th-century-massacres-we-ignore/?utm_term=.db4f1f125afa
5. Zaretsky, R. (2014, April 28). 100 Years Later, Revisiting Franz Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ and World War I. Retrieved from https://forward.com/culture/196986/100-years-later-revisiting-franz-kafkas-the-trial/
6. Reisener, M. (2018, February 24). Does Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ Have Lessons for Today? Retrieved from https://nationalinterest.org/feature/does-kafkas-the-trial-have-lessons-today-24632
7. Song, B. (2018, November 29). The West may be wrong about China’s social credit system. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/11/29/social-credit/?utm_term=.66377863d9a4
8. Death by data: How Kafka’s The Trial prefigured the nightmare of the modern surveillance state. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/death-data-how-kafkas-trial-prefigured-nightmare-modern-surveillance-state
9. Marr, B. (2019, January 21). Chinese Social Credit Score: Utopian Big Data Bliss Or Black Mirror On Steroids? Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/01/21/chinese-social-credit-score-utopian-big-data-bliss-or-black-mirror-on-steroids/#40b32d1748b8
10. Brooker, C. (Writer). (n.d.). Nosedive [Black Mirror]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/watch/80104627
11. Kobie, N. (2019, January 24). The complicated truth about China’s social credit system. Retrieved from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained
12. Guenther FH, Brumberg JS, Wright EJ, Nieto-Castanon A, Tourville JA, et al. (2009) A Wireless Brain-Machine Interface for Real-Time Speech Synthesis. PLoS ONE 4(12): e8218. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008218
13. Church, M. (1956). Time and Reality in Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle. Twentieth Century Literature, 2(2), 62-69. doi:10.2307/440948
14. Liao, S. (2018, March 12). Chinese police are expanding facial recognition sunglasses program. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17110636/china-police-facial-recognition-sunglasses-surveillance
15. Orwell, G. (2014). 1984. New York, NY: Spark Publishing.

Summer Reading II: Non-Fiction

 

In the previous post, I had listed down books which predominantly fell into the fiction genre. In contrast, this post will focus primarily on non-fiction. However, before I start listing down my favorites of the genre, I’ll be doing a short section on contemporary fiction first for the sake of achieving a sense of completion.

Contemporary Fiction

To be honest, I haven’t read a lot of contemporary fiction. I haven’t all the books listed over here. I’ve included them purely on the basis of the recommendations of the online community as well as a few credible friends.

• The Fault in Our Stars- John Green
  Two terminally ill teenagers meet and fall in love. This books is an absolute favorite among my female friends. Get ready to get all teary eyed.
• The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseni
  Set in modern Afghanistan, The Kite Runner chronicles the lives of two young Afghan boys as they witness the fall of the Afghan monarchy, the Soviet intervention and the rise of the Taliban regime.
• Q&A- Vikas Swarup
  The book on which the Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire is based on, Q&A offers us a glimpse into the dark, macabre lives of children in Mumbai’s slums. After reading the book, you’ll genuinely happy and content with the quality of life you’ve got.
• The Book Thief- Markus Zusak
  Few books have left me in such a maelstrom of emotions as The Book Thief. Set in Nazi Germany and narrated by Death Himself, it is the story of 13 year old Liesel Meminger as she struggles to find happiness and meaning through books.
• Midnight’s Children- Salman Rushdie
  When a book wins the ‘Booker of Bookers’ in both the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize, you know it has to be something spectacularly good. Set in post-colonial India, with its magical realism, Midnight’s Children is just that. A must read for every literature aficionado.

Poetry

• The Prophet-Khalil Gibran
  The magnum opus of my favorite poet, The Prophet is filled with timeless advice on everything imaginable: love, work, family, children, relationships, hate. And the lines are so beautiful that they are bound to strike a chord with your heart.
• Gitanjali- Rabindranath Tagore
  This work by Tagore made him the first non-European in history to win a Nobel Prize. And it wasn’t without good reason. Even though I read the translated version, I found his verses to be overwhelmingly euphonious.
• 20 Love Songs and a Song of Despair– Pablo Neruda
  The champion of passion and unrequited love, Pablo Neruda has given words to the ardor of countless lovers across the globe. This is a collection of some of his very best (See Twin Geniuses: Tagore and Neruda).
• Essential Rumi- Coleman Barks
  The translated works of 13th century Sufi mystic poet Rumi, Essential Rumi is a treasure trove of wisdom imparted by the mystic almost over a millennium ago. Like Gibran, Rumi’s lines will definitely manage to reach the deepest centers of your heart.

I realize that the poetry I’ve listed are all translated works. If you want to read ‘pure’ English poetry, look for the works of William Blake (Songs of Innocence and Experience), Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass), Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, T.S.Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Edgar Allen Poe.

Biography

• Steve Jobs- Walter Isaacson
  What sets Walter Isaacson’s biography apart is its unapologetic honesty of the man who founded the most valuable company on the planet. Halfway through the book, I hated and loved Jobs at the same time. Very few books will give you such honesty.
• The Man Who Knew Infinity- Robert Kanigel
  My favorite biography, Kanigel’s account of Indian genius Ramanujan is probably the most comprehensive account you will get of the great mathematician’s life.
• The Accidental Billionaires- Ben Mezrich
  Although not a biography per se, Mezrich’s tale of the rise of Facebook and a bitter legal battle that ensued shortly after its launch makes it an exhilarating read.
• Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!- Richard Feynmann
  The autobiography of one of the most eccentric physicists of the twentieth century, this book is an account of the craziest adventures and discussions undertaken by Feynmann.

Art, Culture and History

• Natasha’s Dance- Orlando Figes
  Russia has given some of the greatest authors in history. Russian novels and stories can pierce your heart like no other. This book is an account of the cultural history of Russia that gives us an insight into the kinds of developments that took place that led to the rise of the Russian arts.
• The Story of Art- E.M.Gombrich
  This introduction to art gives us an account of its history from cave paintings to experimental art of the 1960s.
• On Writing- Stephen King
  This semi-autobiography of King is an ode to the art of writing and the struggles and delights of being a writer.
• The Diary of a Young Girl- Anne Frank
  The unintentional autobiography of Holocaust’s most famous victim, The Diary of a Young Girl gives us a surreal glimpse into the lives of the Jews hiding in Nazi Germany.
• Unbroken- Laura Hillenbrand
  This collection of stories from World War 2 gives us accounts of survival, resilience and redemption showcased by civilians and armies alike.

Technology, Math and Startups

• Zero to One- Peter Thiel
  A collection of the notes of the class taught by founder of Paypal and Palantir, Peter Thiel, Zero to One is widely regarded as the bible of starting up.
• The $100 Startup– Chris Guillebeau
  This book is about micro-businesses and roaming entrepreneurs and how it is actually feasible making a living out of doing something that you love (See Microbusiness and Travel)
• The Code Book- Simon Singh
  One of my favorite non-fiction books of all time, The Code Book narrates the little told story of the art of security and secret writing.
• Fermat’s Last Theorem- Simon Singh
  This book is an account of a three centuries long struggle to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem; a proof which Fermat claimed not to have put on paper because it required too much space.
• God Created The Integers- Stephen Hawking
  With commentary from Hawking, God Created the Integers highlights the biggest mathematical breakthroughs in the history of mankind which went to shape human civilization as we know it.

Science

• A Brief History of Time- Stephen Hawking
  Arguably the most famous science book of all time, A Brief History of Time gives the layman a glimpse into the wonderfully complicated universe that we live in and our struggle to understand it.
• A Short History of Nearly Everything- Bill Bryson
  This book on Big History gives us an account of the history of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day (See Big History)
• Chariot of the Gods- Erich von Daniken
  A bold hypothesis of how human civilization was shaped by extra terrestrial beings who visited Earth a long time ago, Chariot of the Gods is the quintessential account (and possibly proof) of panspermia and intelligent extra-terrestrial life.
• What If- Randall Munroe
  In this book, former NASA scientist and founder of xkcd comics Randall Munroe answers absurd questions regarding the world and the universe (See Of Science and Comic Books)

Philosophy and Religion

• The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
  The bible of atheism, The God Delusion argues how the probability of a supernatural being existing is almost zero if the theory of evolution is to be believed.
• The Dhammapada- Anonymous
  The Dhammapada is a collection of the Buddha’s teachings and gives us a glimpse into the teachings and principles of Buddhism.
• History of Western Philosophy- Bertrand Russell
  History of Western Philosophy is an account of every major philosophical thought from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present

Economics and Psychology

• Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics- Steven Leviit and Stephen Dubner
  The craziest economics books you can find, Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics tell us about the hidden side of everything. Why do drug dealers live with their moms? Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance? How did legalization of abortion lead to a drop in crime rate in the US? Read the books to find out.
• Thinking Fast and Slow- Daniel Kahneman
  The bible of Behavioral Economics, Thinking Fast and Slow is one of the best books you’ll read on the subject (See Revisiting Psychology)
• Predictably Irrational- Dan Ariely
  Like the previous book, this too gives us an insight into the anomalies and idiosyncrasies of human behavior. A must read for anyone who plans on starting a business or is in marketing or public relations (See Human Behavior and Irrationality)
• Economics in One Lesson- Henry Hazlitt
  A champion of the Austrian School of Economic Thought, Hazlitt tries to explain the problems with traditional economic principles through a series of well known historical cases.
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat- Oliver Sacks
  A brilliant account of the strangest cases encountered by Sacks in his medical career, this book is a must read for anyone with the slightest interest in Clinical Psychology.
• Interpretation of Dreams- Sigmund Freud
  One of the pioneers of the field of Psychology, Freud sets out to explain how our dreams can tell us much about our deepest desire, passion, pain and ambition.

And I shall stop here. I think I have covered a majority of the major fields of interest. Yet, I understand that one person’s experience with books leads to the creation of a relatively skewed list. Again as before, this list is in no ways exhaustive of any kind. There are plenty of amazing books I haven’t listed or have missed out on. Please feel free to list them in the comments.

The Kindle Effect

 

It was in an Edit Meet of the magazine I’m a part of that one my seniors stated: Everyone ought to have a Kindle. It’s the best device on the planet.

Although not that much of a reader myself, I decided to go ahead and order one. I used to be a voracious reader back in my middle school days. My weekends were usually occupied by books, mostly of the fantasy genre: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Hunger Games, Goosebumps etc. I loved reading Enid Blyton. Famous Five still remains one of my all time favorite series of books.

But as I entered high school, my tendency to read ceased. I just wasn’t attracted to books any more. The only ‘books’ I read outside the ones prescribed by my school and coaching classes were Tinkle, Horrible Science and Asterix. In other words, I ceased picking up any literature that presented itself in more than a hundred pages. I had quite pathetically restricted my reading habits to comic books.

But all this changed when my Kindle came packaged from home. I developed an instant liking to the device. It was small. It was sleek. It was light. I don’t why but when I had it in my hand for the first time, I had this sudden urge to read something in it. Maybe it was a sort of escapism from the ongoing Mid Semester Examinations.

Still not completely over my developed aversion towards long books, I decided to settle for the novellas; books I could complete in a couple of sittings. I discovered Goodreads and started going through its lists of the highest rated novellas. I decided to settle for Animal Farm.

And it was then that it completely took over me. Cozily wrapped in my blanket, the lights off, the world silent, I lay on my bed reading. It was so peaceful, so serene. It was magic.

I completed the book in one sitting. And then, I immediately wanted to start off something new. It was like I had developed an addiction. I was reverting back to my pre-high school days of avid reading.

I browsed for more novellas. And each one had me wanting for more. I don’t know if it was the Kindle effect or because by incredible good luck, I was picking up all the amazing books: Animal Farm, The Metamorphosis, The Body in the Library, And Then There Were None, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5 books), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Manuscripts found in Accra, The Alchemist, The Chronicles of Narnia etc. I started reading at a rate of more than one book a day.

At the beginning of the year, I had pledged to read a hundred books as part of the Goodreads challenge. When I got my Kindle, according to the website, I was about 15 books behind schedule. As of today, I stand 19 books ahead despite the fact that to keep up with the challenge, I have to read up at the rate of two books a week.

From the novellas, I transitioned to the longer, traditional novels. Some of them like The Book Thief blew my mind. When I was with my Kindle, I got transported into a different world, a new dimension where everything was so vivid, so fantastic. Earlier, I always had the urge to go outside everyday and hang out with people. It was no longer the case. I had found bliss in solitude.

I have over 300 books uploaded in my Kindle. And that’s where one of its greatest potency lies. I had books on every subject fathomable. As a result, I saw myself shifting from novellas to novels to poetry. The transitions were seamless and elegant. I wanted to read up everything I could get my hands on.

From the world of fiction, I have now turned to the opposite genre. Over the last few days, I have read books ranging from Web Development to Designing Principles to Economics to Clinical Psychology. Presently, I’m reading a book on Behavioral Economics, a subject which combines the fields of psychology, economics and mathematics. And I’m pretty sure that once I’m done writing this post, I’ll be in my bed reading again.

True, Kindle doesn’t have some qualities that we so enjoy in books: the smell, the feeling of pages etc. But it is a device that had taught me to read again. And for that, I’ll forever be indebted to it. It had reintroduced me to the magnificent world of books. It has harnessed the power of literature to its fullest. So, if there is a few thousand bucks you can spare, think no more and order yourself a Kindle. Trust me, it will change your life.