Does Kafka Predict Our Future By Describing the Czech Republic’s Authoritarian Past?

I was disturbed and entranced while in Prague, Czech Republic, to visit a museum dedicated to the life and work of Czech writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924). In describing Central and Eastern Europe’s past, I fear he may be describing the modern world’s authoritarian future.

His letters, diaries, and photographs are on display, along with 3-D installations. Reading excerpts from his writings reminded me somewhat of life in the contemporary United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and increasingly, even the United States if an authoritarian autocrat becomes president, privacy is eliminated by technology, and if social media becomes pervasive and oppressive.

Writing in the early part of the 20th century, Kafka “described with wonderful imaginative power the future concentration camps, the future instability of the law, the future absolutism of the state Apparat,” said Bertolt Brecht, quoted in Time magazine. Kafka died from tuberculous in 1924 at the age of 40.

Some succinct quotes from Kafka that describe what it’s like to live in a police state or modern oppressive bureaucracy:

“It is often safer to be in chains than to be free,” he wrote.

In this world, it’s not “innocent until proven guilty,” but as Kafka observed, “guilt is never to be doubted.”