From Kafkaesque to Uber Kafkaesque

It’s hard for us to imagine how relevant Kafka’s writing was in 1924, when it was published after his death. There were no AIs; the modern usage of the word “propaganda” had not yet even been invented [Bernays, 1928]; humanity did not yet have the technical capacity to destroy all life on earth. If Joseph K was paranoid about his every move being watched, it was not because his smartphone was recording conversations and sending them to the NSA. There were no SSRI antidepressants, and George Orwell was busy being down and out.

And yet, Kafka already had the sense that the human individual had been eclipsed by a system of rules and bureaucracies that served no human master. And it was not an intellectual insight, rather an apprehension that tortured him such that he could not have an ordinary life with a job and a family.

Today we are a nation of Kafkas. We work in bullshit jobs and we are estranged from our closest families. We may go days at a time interacting only with people who have no relationship with us — and with machines. We don’t know where our food or clothing comes from, and we don’t have the skills to live apart from the global supply chain that meets our needs. For now.

Happy Birthday, Franz, 3 July 1883.