by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. My own notes are in brackets. The full text for the summarized section is provided at the end. May I very sincerely thank philosophyblog.com.au for making this text available online. May I also thank the sources for the images. Credits are given below the image and at the end of this entry.]
The Laws of Inexplicability
A Summary of
Franz Kafka's
"The Problem of Our Laws"
Notable ideas in this story:
We are ruled by laws. The laws are held and enforced by a noble class. But this class does not tell us explicitly what those laws are, nor is it clear to us why these noble people are the few to be in possession of the laws. However, we see that it is to our own benefit to tolerate this situation.
Ideas relative to Deleuze:
On the most fundamental level of our selfhood, we are internally split between the part of us that is sensing ourselves, and the part of us that is being sensed. It is as though we were subject to a law that governs our internal division. But this law is what is most a priori, most fundamental. It cannot even be cognized. We are ruled by an ungraspable implicit law which divides us into a) a unity of consciousness and b) a multiplicity of appearances in time. In order for us to exist in time, it is necessary that this law remain absolute and inexplicable.
Franz Kafka:
"The Problem of Our Laws"
Laws rule over us. But we do not know what exactly they are. Only the ruling class of nobles know these rules. [We need not think of lawyers and judges only. Consider also celebrities, and how their fashion choices become enforced upon the rest of us. We might be derided for not observing their codes of dress. The elites in academia use terms and concepts which the rest of us must adopt and employ in order to have a place in their discourse. Those of us who cannot afford to do the things that the wealthy do, or have their luxuries and status symbols, are somehow inferior and excluded from their privileges. But are not the changes in fashion, buzz-words, and status symbols seemingly arbitrary? It is as though on the highest levels they operate by rules which the elites could never reveal to the rest of us, because their power depends our following them rather than being immediately present to the changes like the nobles are. Now let's think mythically about the mystery of the unseen laws that govern us. Because the ruling class seems to produce or select its own inheritors, it appears as though these laws are ancient, perhaps even so ancient to blur into mythological times. We trust that the nobles enforce these rules judiciously. But without knowing them, we are deeply unsettled by the fact that we are ruled by an unseen power. Kafka writes:]
We are convinced that these ancient laws are scrupulously administered; nevertheless it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know. (boldface mine, Deleuze's quotation)
These laws are mythically ancient. For countless years their proper interpretations have been worked out and perfected, and so much so, that we cannot doubt that they really are laws. So even though there might be some freedom to interpret these laws, there is not very much room for variation in their application. Thus one problem we might have with these laws cannot be discrepancies that might come about when they are applied in different ways. [We might consider for example how new fashions can be unexpected, but still somehow feel right, and seemingly have by their own the power to compel us to adopt them, as if the new styles by themselves have some sort of artistic power to attract us and to express their value to us all by themselves. So while we do not know the laws that the elites used to bring the trends into fashion, we might still get the sense that the laws were followed like they always have, since the new trends take-on those forces they always have had.]
[We have on the one hand considered how fashions seem to follow some guiding governance, even when they are completely unpredictable. Now let's look at them from another light, in terms of their seeming arbitrarity. We might see a popular musician take enormous risks with the fashions she chooses. In one sense, the clothes adorn the celebrity, but in another sense, they seem to stand apart from her, as if they were artworks all on their own. Consider these images of Lady Gaga, for example.
On the one hand, celebrities are the victims as well as the benefactors of their risky style choices. Yet on the other hand, they seem somehow immune to the consequences, as if they stood above the laws that govern the trend-changes. In a way, we might think that these celebrities are impartial towards the fashion laws they express and indirectly enforce by setting a standard that many others adopt. So we in a way do not mistrust their intentions so much. It seems more to us like they are merely the channels through which the style trends flow. Also consider the hypocrisy of political leaders. They seem to think that the laws they set and enforce do not apply also to themselves. This might make us mistrust any one politician. But consider also how we might implicitly assume that those who make the laws by some account are somehow above those laws, as if they need to be taken out of the law system in order to obtain that privileged place where they may create and enforce those laws. We seem to tolerate then, not their hypocrisy, but rather the fact that there will always be a small number of people outside the laws, who from that external position can keep our ordered systems going. Think as well how there are voices in American political discourse who say the president can do whatever is necessary to save American lives, even if that means horrific torture, secret prisons, or wars across the globe. There is a tendency for those of us who follow the rules to also want someone who is above them, to protect us when the explicit laws by themselves are not enough to keep us safe. But we do so, because we assume that these leaders, even when breaking the explicit laws, follow some implicit lawfulness that is inexplicable, but still somehow just, for reasons we just cannot say, but know to exist. Hence] it is not really a disadvantage of the hidden laws that they are ruled by a select number of people, because they stand outside the laws, which makes them impartial to what they might be exactly, and hence they would not enforce laws that would be too hostile to us just for their own benefit. In fact, "that seems to be why the laws were entrusted exclusively into their hands. Of course, there is wisdom in that - who doubts the wisdom of the ancient laws? - but also hardship for us; probably that is unavoidable."
Yet, these laws are still unknown to us. So we merely presume that they exist.
There is a tradition that they exist and that they are a mystery confided to the nobility, but it is not and cannot be more than a mere tradition sanctioned by age, for the essence of a secret code is that it should remain a mystery. (emphasis mine, quoted by Deleuze)
[Now consider the many theories that might explain the changes in fashion or power. We might see how these theories account for the past. But there is still something nonetheless inexplicable in this process of creation involved in fashion changes or power shifts. So these theories really do not help us very much for doing more than try to give a coherent story to explain what already has happened. We might be led to think that the emergence of new trends or power structures is governed by chance or some other forces which are unpredictable, like the forces that drive artists to create new things. We might in other words wonder if there are no underlying laws in the first place.] Kafka writes:
Some of us among the people have attentively scrutinized the doings of the nobility since the earliest times and possess records made by our forefathers - records which we have conscientiously continued - and claim to recognize amid the countless number of facts certain main tendencies which permit of this or that historical formulation; but when in accordance with these scrupulously tested and logically ordered conclusions we seek to adjust ourselves somewhat for the present or the future, everything becomes uncertain, and our work seems only an intellectual game, for perhaps these laws that we are trying to unravel do not exist at all.
[Now also consider this viewpoint. We might think that celebrities choose their new fashions purely arbitrarily, and people see them as authorities, and so blindly follow them.] Kafka writes: "There is a small party who are actually of this opinion and who try to show that, if any law exists, it can only be this: The Law is whatever the nobles do." [People with this critical view reject the trends, and they think that it creates a problem for those who blindly follow them. For, the followers do not by themselves learn how to adjust to changes or create their own adaptations, but can only adopt from others:] "This party see everywhere only the arbitrary acts of the nobility, and reject the popular tradition, which according to them possesses only certain trifling and incidental advantages that do not offset its heavy drawbacks, for it gives the people a false, deceptive, and overconfident security in confronting coming events." But perhaps the laws or trends of the nobility seem arbitrary only because we do not know everything about them. If we could watch the changes unfold for many more centuries, we might have enough pieces to the puzzle to be able to know the laws explicitly. But as soon as the law becomes clear to everyone, then there would be no need for the nobility as its keepers. And because they derived their privileged position from being in sole exclusive possession of the laws, when they became known to all, the elites will lose their source of power. So the eventual revelation of the hidden laws will make the nobles irrelevant, and they will vanish.
But people who foresee the fall of the nobles do not do so because they hate them. In fact, they are more inclined to hate themselves for not having earned the right to possess the laws. [Some people cannot deal with this self-hatred, and to alleviate it, they become those people who think that the laws are purely arbitrary. Under this reasoning, no one is more worthy than another to be in possession of the laws, and hence they themselves are not less worthy or more self-contemptible. But then this also makes the noble class stand-out from the rest, as being the presumptuous ones. In a sense, it recognizes their power, and it perpetuates their position.
[Now Kafka seems to suggest that people would not want to be without the nobility. Perhaps the majority of us implicitly understand that the inexplicability of the noble's laws, and of their reason for being the ones who possess them, are somehow essential for all of us on a very fundamental level. According to Deleuze's point about split internal selfhood, perhaps people want there to be an absolute inexplicable source of law, because the law that governs our internal split is also absolute and inexplicable. Then perhaps further, we see that if such a law is purely internal to us, then we could uncover it for ourselves. So we need it to lie outside us and to remain inexplicable. This requires that we have a limited class of people who we regard as having the right to those laws and also the right to keep them hidden from us. By these means, we come to think that the source of the law in general is something that will always be kept from our explicit knowledge, even though it is intimately and directly forced upon us. The law that governs our internal split would also then be founded on such an absolute law whose perpetual inexplicability has been guaranteed. This then guarantees that we will always be internally split. Because this internal split is what makes us who we are and is what allows us to exist in time, we demand that it remain inexplicable, and hence it must be grounded in an always external source that never explains itself and cannot itself be explained. As Kafka puts it:]
Actually one can express the problem only in a sort of paradox: Any party that would repudiate not only all belief in the law, but the nobility as well, would have the whole people behind it; yet no such party can come into existence, for nobody would dare to repudiate the nobility. We live on this razor's edge. A writer once summed the matter up in this way: The sole visible and indubitable law that is imposed upon us is the nobility, and must we ourselves deprive ourselves of that one law?
The problem of our laws
Our laws are not generally known; they are kept secret by the small group of nobles who rule us. We are convinced that these ancient laws are scrupulously administered; nevertheless it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know. I am not thinking of possible discrepancies that may arise in the interpretation of the laws, or of the disadvantages involved when only a few and not the whole people are allowed to have a say in their interpretation. These disadvantages are perhaps of no great importance. For the laws are very ancient; their interpretation has been the work of centuries, and has itself doubtless acquired the status of law; and though there is still a possible freedom of interpretation left, it has now become very restricted. Moreover the nobles have obviously no cause to be influenced in their interpretation by personal interests inimical to us, for the laws were made to the advantage of the nobles from the very beginning, they themselves stand above the laws, and that seems to be why the laws were entrusted exclusively into their hands. Of course, there is wisdom in that -- who doubts the wisdom of the ancient laws? -- but also hardship for us; probably that is unavoidable.
The very existence of these laws, however, is at most a matter of presumption. There is a tradition that they exist and that they are a mystery confided to the nobility, but it is not and cannot be more than a mere tradition sanctioned by age, for the essence of a secret code is that it should remain a mystery. Some of us among the people have attentively scrutinized the doings of the nobility since the earliest times and possess records made by our forefathers -- records which we have conscientiously continued -- and claim to recognize amid the countless number of facts certain main tendencies which permit of this or that historical formulation; but when in accordance with these scrupulously tested and logically ordered conclusions we seek to adjust ourselves somewhat for the present or the future, everything becomes uncertain, and our work seems only an intellectual game, for perhaps these laws that we are trying to unravel do not exist at all. There is a small party who are actually of this opinion and who try to show that, if any law exists, it can only be this: The Law is whatever the nobles do. This party see everywhere only the arbitrary acts of the nobility, and reject the popular tradition, which according to them possesses only certain trifling and incidental advantages that do not offset its heavy drawbacks, for it gives the people a false, deceptive, and overconfident security in confronting coming events. This cannot be gainsaid, but the overwhelming majority of our people account for it by the fact that the tradition is far from complete and must be more fully inquired into, that the material available, prodigious as it looks, is still too meager, and that several centuries will have to pass before it becomes really adequate. This view, so comfortless as far as the present is concerned, is lightened only by the belief that a time will eventually come when the tradition and our research into it will jointly reach their conclusion, and as it were gain a breathing space, when everything will have become clear, the law will belong to the people, and the nobility will vanish. This is not maintained in any spirit of hatred against the nobility; not at all, and by no one. We are more inclined to hate ourselves, because we have not yet shown ourselves worthy of being entrusted with the laws. And that is the real reason why the party who believe that there is no law have remained so few -- although their doctrine is in certain ways so attractive, for it unequivocally recognizes the nobility and its right to go on existing.
Actually one can express the problem only in a sort of paradox: Any party that would repudiate not only all belief in the law, but the nobility as well, would have the whole people behind it; yet no such party can come into existence, for nobody would dare to repudiate the nobility. We live on this razor's edge. A writer once summed the matter up in this way: The sole visible and indubitable law that is imposed upon us is the nobility, and must we ourselves deprive ourselves of that one law?
***
Translation by Willa and Edwin Muir from The complete short stories of Franz Kafka, edited by Nathum N Glazer (1971).
The problem of our laws was written between 1917 and 1924. It was first published (postumously) in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (1931; pp 29-32), a collection edited by Max Brod and Hans Joachim Schoeps.
Kafka Text from:
Image Credits:
Lady Gaga Mug Shot
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