Our Kafkaesque Existence

To live in America today is to feel the way a Kafka character feels –– bewildered and frustrated in a surreal environment in which the people he interacts with act obliquely, as if reality were not what it is, so what would seem reasonable and natural doesn’t happen, can’t seem to happen, though there’s no seeming explanation for it.

Trump’s criminality, his invidious behavior, his brazen trashing of national interest in pursuit of his personal authoritarian ambition would in any fairly reasonable, mostly rational, world prompt a universal outcry for his swift removal from office. Instead, we face the prospect that he will be allowed to complete his term and that there is a serious risk that he will be reelected. Like the hapless hero in a Kafka novel, we grope our way forward — we think it’s forward, but maybe it’s sideways, or even backward, in this surreal world, this strange strange world.