Jacques Chitayat
In his famous novel published in 1925, The Trial, Kafka tells of Joseph K., a perfectly average bank employee. One morning, he receives an unexpected visit from two inspectors who inform him of his arrest. No one knows why, since their superiors had only given the order to inform K. of this. But even if arrested, K. retains his freedom of movement. He is not even obliged to attend his questioning sessions or his trial, and his daily life is not affected by this news.
K., however, becomes obsessed with his trial. He wants to prove his innocence at all costs, even if he still does not know why this turn of events occurred. Thus begins his adventure into a chaotic and absurd, yet seemingly inevitable, universe of justice.
In the novel, K. meets civil servants, lawyers, and people close to the judges. Continually looking for ways to exonerate himself, he discovers an incomprehensible and excessively complicated justice system. Its procedures, a complete labyrinth, seem entirely random and contain an infinite number of exceptions and complications. He can’t even discuss his case directly with those at the top of the hierarchy, who increasingly appear as distant, cold, and faceless masters.
As he learns more about the legal system, K. does not feel that he is getting closer to his freedom, but on the contrary, so long, demanding, and hostile is the process, that he feels he is moving farther away from it. One lawyer informs him that it is rare for a person to be declared innocent: Most defendants, he explains, choose instead to prolong their trial indefinitely to avoid being proclaimed guilty, but without ever regaining their freedom. While he has the choice to ignore his trial altogether, K. worries about the implications of doing so all the time, and ends up convincing himself that he is guilty, even though he doesn’t know why the authorities arrested him.
At the novel’s conclusion, he is informed that the authorities have summoned him to his execution. Convinced of his guilt, he complies, goes there of his own free will, and welcomes his death with absolute acceptance.
The Trial was published in 1925 and has since become a classic; it is a timeless account of human nature and the absurdity that results from helpless confrontations with a seemingly omnipotent State. Its relevance extends to analyzing dictatorships, bureaucracy, propaganda, and many other emergent modern phenomena. However, while reading this book during my many empty hours of lockdown, I also noticed similarities between Joseph K.’s trial and behavior and our own reactions to our strange present condition.
Just like the incoherent legal system in Kafka’s world, the health directives issued from the Authorities that bombard us daily are often random, unnecessarily complicated, and, frankly, absurd. There are many examples: In a restaurant, the customer must not wear a mask for the duration of his meal, but it is crucial to have it on during the seconds between entering at the front door and sitting at one’s table because, it would seem, in the same space one is much more at risk while standing, no matter that the virus, ultimately, spreads across the entire space through the air.
In Los Angeles, the state government forced a local restaurant to close its outdoor terrace, while a large movie theater across the street could keep its own open because it was classified as a movie theater, and not as a restaurant. Following the lead of other countries, Quebec has chosen to implement a curfew starting at 8 p.m., although the government has admitted it has no proof of its effectiveness. While this measure will have little or no effect, and the health status will remain unchanged, our liberties will be increasingly reduced.
As in The Trial, our leaders are omnipresent, and their decisions are strange, bureaucratic, and contradictory: The difference between supposedly “essential”, versus “expendable”, behaviors change practically every week. And with this arbitrary flow, millions of people are dragged into a hellish dance in which no one can keep up with the pace. No one comes out unscathed: we are forced to accept restrictions which diminish what remains of our livelihoods, material stability, and mental health. The government tells us that all new restrictions are justified in the name of the holy of holies, Science and of that top-down-defined “Common Good”, often decided without the agreement of medical experts who are, like us, ignorant of our governors’ motives1,.
As experience has shown us, it is evident that virus transmission comes mainly from schools and never from restaurants or gyms2; yet it is the schools that remain open, while the restaurants and gyms are deemed public dangers. Everything is backward—notice the Kafkaesque aspect in all this.
The parallels continue. Some analysts argue that The Trial is a purely psychological novel. While K.’s trial is not tangibly harmful to him, his paranoia and obsession amplify its eerily looming proportions. Through a sort of fantasy, he convinces himself of his guilt because it is the easiest solution, the only one that allows him to stop fighting, to no longer have to swim against the current. Since the system is both omnisicient and unbeatable, he resolves unebearable tension by reversing his logic and admitting he is guilty—of what? of existing.
I wonder, is there not something of Joseph K. in each of us when we respond only with resignation in the face of new Covid restrictions? Like Kafka’s cursed hero, we abandon the prospect of a better life achievable only through resistance in exchange for a dehumanizing condition of stability in which we will not have to fight, thus opening the way to our submission. Instead of asking whether each of these rules is necessary or well-founded, we use the opposite logic, accepting that this situation is only our fault and that we in fact deserve worse. Indeed, with each new edict, each new lockdown, we feel a shameful and pitiful relief, knowing that we will not have to face life, politics, and all their perturbations and obstacles. No, even if staying in an isolated cocoon is unpleasant, passively facing and accepting the seemingly inevitable is at least easier, isn’t it?
The issue here is how to avoid giving in to panic and resignation while demanding reasonable and justified measures instead of excessive ones, targeted rather than sweeping measures, which would make it possible to protect citizens’ lives without making them so restricted and inconvenient as to be unliveable. It has been almost a year since our confinement on this wild roller-coaster, and yet it feels like we are still at square one, like Joseph K. lost in the countless confusing and depressing corridors of the courthouse. Surely, the cure cannot be worse than the disease?
Jacques Chitayat studies law at the Universite de Montreal and is an intern in the CIJR‘s Baruch Cohen Israel Internship Program
