Ep. 17:  Austro-Libertarian Themes in Three Prague Authors, Part 2:  FRANZ KAFKA (Roderick Long)
Channel: Agoric Cafe
Date: 2020-11-01

In Part 2 of this exclusive! expanded! three-part version of his 2019 Prague lecture, Roderick Long explores Austro-libertarian themes in the writings of Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Topics include: theological versus political readings of Kafka’s vision of elusive, perpetually deferred authority; bureaucracy as hopelessly incompetent and out-of-touch, versus bureaucracy as all-pervasive surveillance; the dependence of rulership on those who rule; Stoic versus anti-Stoic readings of Seneca’s MEDEA; discovering Kafka through Marvel Comics (or not); and remembering Kropotkin but forgetting Nietzsche’s umbrella. 


Background photo credit: 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prague_skyline_view.jpg  

PowerPoint slides (as PDF): 
http://praxeology.net/RTL-Prague-authors-REVISED-fbak.pdf


On second thought I don’t think the April 1982 issue of EPIC ILLUSTRATED can have been my introduction to Kafka after all, as Dartmouth was running an Orson Welles film festival which I attended while I was living in Hanover NH, 1977-1981, which certainly included THE TRIAL.

I also meant to include this passage from Kafka on his own bureaucratic career (oh well):  “What a fine thing it is to be a clerk at a town hall!  Little work, adequate salary, plenty of leisure, excessive respect everywhere in the town .... and if I only could, I should like to give this entire dignity to the office cat to eat ....”  (Still, at least his office had a cat; that seems like some solace.)

The list of links (to Franz Kafka’s works and other items mentioned in the discussion) is too long to fit in the description. So Czech them out here:

http://praxeology.net/agoric-cafe-ep17-links.htm#otherlinks