Transcendence of the Human Far Beyond AI—Kafka’s In the Penal Colony and Schopenhauerian Eschatology

Abstract

Humanity has always aspired beyond the human. The technological development in recent decades has been extraordinary, leading to new attempts to overcome the all-too-human condition. We dream of conquering death, upgrading our bodies into perfect performance machines and enhancing our intelligence through bio-nanotechnology. We are familiar with the side effects: alienation, stress, anxiety, depression. This article contends that Franz Kafka’s enigmatic oeuvre at its core harbors a yearning to transcend the human. Through a close reading of the narrative In the Penal Colony, it is demonstrated that this yearning is far more radical and uncompromising than the modern vision of extending and optimizing human life. Instead of the modern ego-concerned affirmation of life and the body that hides behind much of AI and modern technology, Kafka seeks a radical vision of total transformation and transcending the human into ‘nothingness’. The article shows that this transformation corresponds to core concepts in Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy, primarily his doctrine of the denial of the will to live and asceticism. Instead of the species-narcissistic affirmation of life and the body that lurks behind much of AI and modern technology, Kafka strives for a definitive overcoming of the life we desire.

1. AI as an Escalation of the State of Exile and Alienation

Franz Kafka is a far more radical author than most dare to realize. He did not believe in the profane political eschatologies that—whether from the right or the left—have their gaze fixed on the future and are convinced that humanity can save itself and the world through its own power. It is incredibly difficult for us to think beyond the political, beyond the countless world-improvement ideologies and species-narcissistic self-narratives. Humans prefer, so it seems, uplifting, progressive narratives. How convenient it would be if we could also force Kafka’s peculiar and thoroughly idiosyncratic textual universe into our fashionable political discourses. However, his texts present us with a somewhat different view of humanity and the world than what we prefer. According to this view, humanity is forever driven out of the Garden of Eden. There is no way back. We are in a permanent state of alienation and exile. This does not change the fact that the longing for reconciliation and liberation—perhaps more so in Kafka than in any other modern author—is enormous. Indeed, one could describe his entire production as a long attempt to write forth salvation and rid oneself of the state of exile.

AI, bio-nanotechnology, and other forms of technological inventions that have turned the everyday life of modern humans upside down over the past decades express, I claim, a deep longing to transcend human basic conditions and overcome the state of insufficiency. Elon Musk wants to conquer space, and Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, aim to prolong life—this life!—indefinitely with their Caligo program. Any technology that can help them eradicate aging, illness, and death once and for all is a step towards a new, man-made paradise.

Homo sapiens’ insatiable desire for immortality, for perfection, power, and wealth drives us—Kafka, I believe, would say—further and further away from redemption and deeper and deeper into alienation and exile. Modern technology promises progress, growth, world improvement, and endless optimization of the human, all too human. Instead, we are currently witnessing a total pollution not only of the human mind (Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) but of the entire planet. We are all familiar with the depressing reports of biodiversity loss, global warming, and other ominous signals that we are moving in the wrong direction. Our rampant technological innovation and blind digital addiction come at the highest possible price: escalating violence, permanent mental noise, an inability to focus, stress, anxiety, depression, and destruction. (A)social media threatens our democracies, radicalizes our attitudes, undermines our privacy. The Internet—again, especially social media—perforates our brains, makes us dependent, transforms entire populations into entertainment addicts and dopamine-dependent ’like junkies.’ Our children can no longer concentrate in school; we—and this applies no less to adults—have become slaves to our electronic devices and have long sold our soul and individuality to surveillance capitalism. Google, Facebook, and Instagram own us, and our states (not only the Chinese!) can, if they wish, in a few seconds find out everything about us by invoking the enormous amount of data that we voluntarily give away day in and day out. Foucault’s and Kafka’s worst nightmares of total surveillance and transparency have long become reality.1

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1850) would not be surprised by the furious technological development. His entire immanent metaphysics of will uncovers—long before Freud, Lacan, and Žižek—the voracious, selfish desire that never gives us peace but forces us to drive development far beyond any limits of reason. Schopenhauer’s notions of asceticism, compassion, and soteriological denial of the will to live describe mental states that go hand in hand with a radical transformation of normal consciousness. The striving individual locked in his highly limited, selfish cognitive perspective believes that redemption lies within the temporally, spatially, and causally structured horizon of the world of imagination—that we can achieve salvation by conquering ever-new objects of desire. Kafka and Schopenhauer tell the story of another truth that involves a charge against the outermost limits and—if at all—outlines the contours of a silence and peace that are not of this world. If there is any hope at all, it lies on the other side of the body’s and mind’s endless needs, on the other side of the ceaseless noise of the ego and the world.

This article undertakes a counterintuitive close reading of Kafka’s short story In the Penal Colony in the context of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and doctrine of redemption. The reading indicates that hope is profoundly distant from modern technology and AI, situated on the far side of humanity’s quest for immortality, control, and endless optimization.

In 1921 Max Brod published a small essay on Kafka’s work in the magazine Neue Rundschau. Brod recounts in this text a conversation he had with Kafka at some point, discussing the state of Europe and the decline of humanity. The following—incredibly amusing—exchanges provide an excellent insight into Kafka’s sober assessment of humanity’s unfortunate position in the cosmos:

“We are”, he said, “nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that rise up in God’s head”. This reminded me of the worldview of the Gnostics: God is an evil demiurge; the world reflects his fall into sin. “Oh no,” he said, “our world is just a bad mood of God, a bad day.”—“So outside of this world manifestation, which we know, would there be a world that knows hope?”—He smiled: “Oh, hope enough, infinite hope,—just not for us. [„Wir sind“, so sagte er, „nihilistische Gedanken, Selbstmordgedanken, die in Gottes Kopf aufsteigen“. Mich erinnerte das zuerst an das Weltbild der Gnosis: Gott als böser Demiurg, die Welt sein Sündenfall. „O nein“, meinte er, „unsere Welt ist nur eine schlechte Laune Gottes, ein schlechter Tag“. —„So gäbe es außerhalb dieser Erscheinungsform Welt, die wir kennen, Hoffnung?“—Er lächelte: „Oh Hoffnung genug, unendlich viel Hoffnung, —nur nicht für uns.”

(Brod 1921, p. 1213, translation by SRF)

2. Schopenhauer’s Notions on Suffering and ‘Eternal Justice’

Kafka’s oeuvre transcends the characteristic experience of a pervasive loss of meaning commonly associated with modernity and postmodernity. Instead, it incessantly directs attention towards novel—or rather, ancient—interpretive frameworks. An examination of Kafka’s personal library, meticulously reconstructed by Jürgen Born, reveals a discernible pattern. In addition to his profound interest in writers and playwrights such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Flaubert, Hamsun, and Strindberg, Kafka possessed an extensive collection of works on religion and philosophy, exhibiting a particular predilection for biographical literature, including letters, biographies, and autobiographies. Notably, his religious collection showcased studies on Judaism, Jewish mysticism, and Zionism, while the philosophical segment unmistakably showcased a proclivity for Søren Kierkegaard and Arthur Schopenhauer. Among his possessions, Kafka owned the complete twelve-volume edition of Arthur Schopenhauer’s works, edited by Rudolf Steiner, apart from volumes 1, 7, and 12 (Born 1990, pp. 128–30).2 By drawing on foundational concepts from Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy and the gnostic doctrine of salvation, Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, written in 1914 and first published in 1919, can be analyzed as a literary example that raises possible responses and questions concerning the deepening loss of meaning on the cusp of the 20th century.

Schopenhauer’s philosophical framework views suffering as an essential ontological characteristic of existence. The human being, ensnared in the ‘principium individuationis’ and blinded by the ‘veil of Maya’ (Schleier der Maja), is subject to a life of suffering. The ‘subject of willing’ is inherently tied to suffering. Those who affirm their will are perpetually ensnared in a cycle of unattainable rest: the striving individual seemingly achieves desired goals only to be plagued by tormenting boredom, thus giving rise to new desires. Bound to the ‘principium individuationis’ within the realm of representation, the subject of suffering remains entangled in a senseless state of perpetual oscillation between yearning and fulfillment. Schopenhauer rightfully enjoys the reputation of linguistic mastery; his rich and vivid prose style is unparalleled in the modern history of philosophy. Furthermore, as David E. Wellbery demonstrated in his study on Schopenhauer’s significance for modern literature, it is precisely his suggestive and illustrative language that has significantly shaped the reception of his thinking in literary modernity.3

Similar to Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, who remain trapped in the meaningless game of restless waiting, constantly longing for meaning and fulfillment in life, the subject of suffering, too, finds himself mired in this existential predicament. In the opening volume of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer declares that:

as long as our consciousness is filled by our will, as long as we are given over to the pressure of desires with their constant hopes and fears, as long as we are the subject of willing, we will never have lasting happiness or peace. Whether we hunt or we flee, whether we fear harm or chase pleasure, it is fundamentally all the same: concern for the constant demands of the will, whatever form they take, continuously fills consciousness and keeps it in motion: but without peace, there can be no true well-being. So the subject of willing remains on the revolving wheel of Ixion, keeps drawing water from the sieve of the Danaids, is the eternally yearning Tantalus. But when some occasion from the outside or a disposition from within suddenly lifts us out of the endless stream of willing, tearing cognition from its slavery to the will, our attention is no longer directed to the motives of willing but instead grasps things freed from their relation to the will, and hence considers them without interests, without subjectivity, purely objectively; we are given over to the things entirely, to the extent that they are mere representations, not to the extent that they are motives: then suddenly the peace that we always sought on the first path of willing but that always eluded us comes of its own accord, and all is well with us. It is the painless state that Epicurus prized as the highest good and the state of the gods: for that moment we are freed from the terrible pressure of the will, we celebrate the Sabbath of the penal servitude of willing, the wheel of Ixion stands still.

(Schopenhauer 2010, p. 220)

The human body serves as the concrete embodiment of the affirmation of the will. Within this framework, the reproductive organs represent the objectified expression of the will for procreation, while the mouth, teeth, and throat embody the objectified expression of hunger. Every bodily action can be understood as an act of the will. In this regard, Schopenhauer suggests in his Berlin lecture manuscripts that one could alternatively refer to this concept as the “affirmation of the body” rather than the “affirmation of the will” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 95).

The concept of living according to nature applies to both humans and animals, as they engage in an unceasing striving that remains undisturbed by knowledge. This general and natural mode of existence for humans is rooted in the ’blind’ affirmation of the will. As Schopenhauer points out, ”The fundamental theme of all diverse acts of will is the satisfaction of needs, which are inseparable from the existence of the body in its health and therefore already have their expression in the body itself: they can be traced back to the preservation of the individual and the propagation of the species” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 95).4 This quotation highlights the interconnectedness of needs, the body’s well-being, and the instinctual drive for self-preservation and reproduction.

The act of procreation, which satisfies the sexual drive, represents an affirmation of the will that transcends mere bodily preservation. It leads to the emergence of new life, a new individual, and can be seen as the repetition of the manifestation of life. Consequently, through the act of procreation, the perpetuation of existence also perpetuates the existence of suffering.

According to Schopenhauer, the human intellect, or what he also refers to as ‘brain function’, serves the volitional forces. The intellect is considered a tool of the will. It is crucial to understand that the dethroning of human reason in these thoughts should not be mistaken for a life-philosophical irrationalism. Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the will and his analysis of the world of representations provide a phenomenological description and interpretation of the world. This approach does not involve a normative evaluation of human instincts; in fact, it can be argued to be the opposite. Moreover, the recognition of the world as will does not emerge from a metaphysical postulation of a freely speculative reason constructing its conceptual framework independently of the empirical world. Instead, the will is directly observable in our consciousness and within the world itself.

Of significance in the Kafka context is Schopenhauer’s concept of ‘eternal justice’, which is closely tied to the affirmation of the will to live. In contrast to temporal justice, which pertains to the state and governs societal matters of right and wrong, eternal justice presides over the world itself and speaks to the “true inner ethical significance of human action” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 145). It is not a retaliatory or punitive justice that ensures fairness in the realm of time, but rather a justice that underlies existence itself. As a fundamental ontological given, distinct from the justice imposed by human institutions, eternal justice is unwavering and infallible, lacking uncertainty. It does not differentiate between punishment (malum poenae) and wrongdoing (malum culpae). Guilt and atonement are inseparable. Unpunished guilt is inconceivable, as punishment is inherent in the committed transgression. Schopenhauer’s postulation of eternal justice is intricately linked to his metaphysics of the will. The individual who affirms the will to live, whose capacity for understanding is constrained by the limits of the ‘principium individuationis’ (time, space, and causality), is inherently subject to suffering, and the intensity of suffering corresponds to the intensity of the will. Eternal justice lies in the unalterable correlation between the affirmation of the will to live and the corresponding magnitude of suffering: “the world itself is the world tribunal, the Last Judgement” (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 378).

Guilt, punishment, right, and wrong find their origins in the metaphysical essence of the world, and temporal justice, embodied in an institutionalized legal system, can never nullify eternal justice. Human beings are perpetually positioned before the judgment seat of the ‘world tribunal’, and their guilt, which they bear throughout their lives, is inherently rooted in their very existence. Every individual is subject to this primordial guilt, and no one can evade eternal justice. The guilt and the consequent judgment, akin to the plight of characters like Joseph K. in Kafka’s The Trial, are imposed from the outset. From a worldly standpoint, the judgment may appear unjust, groundless, and perplexing. However, considering eternal justice, punishment always aligns with innate guilt. From this metaphysical perspective, principles of temporal justice become obsolete, including the inherent right to know the wording of the judgment or the right to a defense upheld in democratic states governed by the rule of law. The admirer of the former commander, the officer responsible for the ‘bizarre’ apparatus, shares with the astonished traveler accounts of the abolished judicial practices in the penal colony under the new commander. This narrative closely echoes Schopenhauer’s concepts.

The traveller had a number of different questions he wanted to ask, but under the man’s gaze he asked only: ‘Does he know what his sentence is?’ ‘No’, said the officer, and was about to carry on explaining straight away, but the traveller interrupted him: ‘He doesn’t know his own sentence?’ ‘No’, said the officer again […] ‘It would be pointless to tell him. He will feel it in his own flesh’. […] ‘But he does know that he has actually been condemned?’ ‘Not that either’, said the officer, and smiled at the traveller as if he were expecting further strange admissions from him. ‘No’, said the traveller, ‘so even now the man doesn’t know how his defence was received?’ ‘He had no opportunity to defend himself’, said the officer, looking to one side as if he were talking to himself and didn’t want to embarrass the traveller by telling him these—to him quite normal—things. ‘But he must have had an opportunity to defend himself’, said the traveller, getting up from his chair.

(Kafka 2009, p. 79)

Der Reisende hatte Verschiedenes fragen wollen, fragte aber im Anblick des Mannes nur: „Kennt er sein Urteil?“ „Nein“, sagte der Offizier und wollte gleich in seinen Erklärungen fortfahren, aber der Reisende unterbrach ihn: „Er kennt sein eigenes Urteil nicht?“ „Nein“, sagte der Offizier wieder […] „Es wäre nutzlos, es ihm zu verkünden. Er erfährt es ja auf seinem Leib.“ „Aber daß er überhaupt verurteilt wurde, das weiß er doch?“ „Auch nicht“, sagte der Offizier und lächelte den Reisenden an, als erwarte er nun von ihm noch einige sonderbare Eröffnungen. „Nein“, sagte der Reisende und strich sich über die Stirn hin, „dann weiß also der Mann auch jetzt noch nicht, wie seine Verteidigung aufgenommen wurde?“ „Er hat keine Gelegenheit gehabt, sich zu verteidigen“, sagte der Offizier und sah abseits, als rede er zu sich selbst und wolle den Reisenden durch Erzählung dieser ihm selbstverständlichen Dinge nicht beschämen. „Er muß doch Gelegenheit gehabt haben, sich zu verteidigen“, sagte der Reisende und stand vom Sessel auf.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 211)

From a contemporary standpoint (and likely from the perspective of a reader at that time), one instinctively relates to the traveler’s point of view and tends to interpret Kafka’s narrative as a reflection of a modernity deprived of meaning, where chance, injustice, and absurdity dictate human existence.5 However, it is only through a counterintuitive reading that takes into consideration the symbolic and metaphysical context of the story that it becomes apparent that beneath the peculiar denotative surface of the text, a distinct system of meaning is concealed.

The transcendent and metaphysical perspective on the will unveils the eternal justice hidden behind the temporally and spatially confined realm of representation. The temporal world that arises from experience appears to be governed by randomness and injustice. According to Schopenhauer, if the illusion of the ‘principium individuationis’, which obscures the perception of transcendent truth, were to dissipate, individuals would recognize that while their own person is ‘innocent’, their “essence nevertheless partakes in guilt”. Since “all evil committed in the [...] world” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 152) stems from the will that constitutes our essence, and since the temporary or sustained suspension of the principle of individuation erases the separation between self and non-self, an individual who undergoes such a transformation of perception would realize that ”in all the suffering that befalls them, justice is done to them: for they themselves are the will to live from which all this originates and whose manifestation brings forth these things” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 153). Prior to the death of the old commander, before the transition to the new profane system, all inhabitants of the penal colony still possessed—as conveyed by the officer’s words—a sense of this timeless justice: “‘And now the execution would begin! Not a discordant sound disturbed the work of the machine. Many gave up watching entirely, lying instead on the sand with their eyes shut; they all knew: now Justice is being done’”. [„Und nun begann die Exekution! Kein Mißton störte die Arbeit der Maschine. Manche sahen nun gar nicht mehr zu, sondern lagen mit geschlossenen Augen im Sand; alle wußten: Jetzt geschieht Gerechtigkeit“ (Kafka 2009, p. 87; Kafka 2002a, pp. 225–26).

The affirmation of the will, deeply rooted in the essence of human beings and serving as the basis for all suffering, is metaphorically conveyed by Schopenhauer through the myth of the Christian doctrine of the Fall and the concept of original sin. The idea of eternal justice is already preconceived in the secularized perspective of Schopenhauer’s thought, reflected in the Christian dogma of original sin, which states that “man is already guilty from birth and therefore rightfully subject to toil, suffering, and death” (Schopenhauer 2017, p. 153). In the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer remarks:

Accordingly if we view people as beings whose existence is a punishment and atonement,—we already have a more accurate view. The myth of original sin […] is the only thing in the Old Testament to which I can assign a metaphysical truth, if only an allegorical one; in fact this is the only thing that reconciles me to the Old Testament.

(Schopenhauer 2022, p. 595)

Shortly before the above-quoted passage, Schopenhauer asserts:

For human existence, far from having the character of a gift, has the completely opposite character of guilty indebtedness. The collection of this debt appears in the form of the urgent requirements, tortured desires, and endless need, all introduced by human existence itself. Usually the whole span of life is spent paying off this debt: but this only pays off the interest. The capital is paid back in death.—And when was this debt contracted?—In procreation.

(Schopenhauer 2022, p. 595)

What does all of this have to do with Kafka’s story In the Penal Colony? In the second volume of Parerga and Paralipomena, specifically under the section titled “Supplements to the Doctrine of the Suffering of the World”, Schopenhauer formulates a concept closely intertwined with the fundamental ideas of his system discussed above and also exhibiting a clear connection to Kafka’s narrative world:

In order to have a sure compass always in hand for finding our bearings in life, and in order to view life always in the proper light without ever going astray, nothing is more useful than to accustom oneself to regarding this world as a place of penance, hence as a prison, a penal colony as it were.

(Schopenhauer 2015, p. 272)

In the Penal Colony—that is the English title of Kafka’s In der Strafkolonie.

3. Preliminary Remarks on the Distinctive Kafkaesque Narrative Style

Before we delve into a more detailed analysis of the evident thematic affinities between Schopenhauer’s doctrine of sin, guilt, temporal and eternal justice, and Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, it is appropriate to make a few overarching comments on the story as a whole and the distinctiveness of Kafka’s narrative style. The story was conceived in October 1914, later revised, and first published in book form in 1919. Along with works like The Judgment and The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony occupies a key position in Kafka’s authorship. It has been interpreted in virtually every conceivable way, approached from a multitude of methodological and theoretical positions (ranging from Marxism to Postcolonialism and Deconstruction). In a sense, it defies definitive interpretation of its fundamental message. The plot is ostensibly simple: A traveler visits a former penal colony. The reader understands that the traveler has been invited to observe and evaluate the penal practices that prevailed in the colony under the regime of the old Commandant and are now being dismantled under the new Commandant. Besides the traveler and an officer, the narrative introduces the condemned man and a soldier. Finally, through the officer’s perspective, we also become acquainted with the new Commandant. The interpretive challenges lie in Kafka’s distinctive narrative style, a style that characterizes not only In the Penal Colony but much of his oeuvre, including the aforementioned The Judgment and The Metamorphosis. The third-person narrator is anything but omniscient. Rather than providing the reader with clear guidance on the status of the events being narrated—for instance, by offering a definitive (moral) stance on the viewpoints of the various characters—the narrator consistently adopts the limited perspective of his ‘aspect figures’. Put differently, the narrator transitions uncritically and without judgment in and out of the perspectives of various characters, whose viewpoints are primarily conveyed through direct speech or described in a neutral and uncommitted manner. As a result, the reader is perpetually at eye level with the different ‘aspect figures’, especially the plainspoken officer, without any opportunity to hierarchize or definitively discern the narrator’s position on the events described. Consequently, everything stated above and below about the clear connections between the story’s central themes and Schopenhauer’s philosophy must be read with the significant caveat that, as readers, we are never granted access to an absolute narrative position. In this sense, we are left just as perplexed as the traveler at the end of the story. With this caveat in mind, let us nevertheless make a sincere attempt to approach an interpretation of In the Penal Colony.

4. Guilt Is Always Beyond Question

In Kafka’s peculiar narrative, readers are confronted with two contrasting ‘systems of life’: the system of the old Commandant and the system of the new Commandant, mediated through the perspective of the Officer, who assumes responsibility for enforcing justice in the penal colony following the death of the old Commandant. This responsibility includes overseeing the operation of the torture apparatus situated in a desolate valley. The narrator provides a detailed description of the function and significance of the unique punishment machinery, which is not comprehended solely in its literal form, but rather as a symbol representing potential modes of existence and society. The collapse of the apparatus and the agonizing death of the Officer towards the end of the narrative signify a transition to the future world. In this new world, the modern Commandant emerges, bringing about a shift towards secular concerns. The punitive process embodied by the apparatus is rejected by the new Commandant, and the previously brutal approach is replaced by what the text describes as a “new soft line” [„die neue milde Richtung”] (Kafka 2009, p. 86; Kafka 2002a, p. 223). While the former Commandant was preoccupied with perfecting the apparatus, the current Commandant leads a life centered around hedonism, with women and “harbour works! always harbour works!” [„Hafenbauten, immer wieder Hafenbauten“] (Kafka 2009, p. 91; Kafka 2002a, p. 233) taking precedence. Values such as commerce, sexuality, and temporal justice, in a Schopenhauerian sense, gradually supplant the old system represented by the apparatus under the leadership of the old Commandant. As expressed by the Officer:

“Tomorrow an important conference of all the higher government officials is to take place, chaired by the commandant. The commandant of course knows how to turn these sittings into a show. He has had a gallery built which is always full of spectators. I am forced to take part in these meetings, but they fill me with disgust. You will certainly be invited to the meeting in any case […]. So tomorrow you will be sitting with the ladies in the commandant’s box […]. After various unimportant, ridiculous items for negotiation, mainly intended for the spectators—it’s mostly harbour works! always harbour works!—the question of criminal procedure will also come up.”

(Kafka 2009, p. 91)

[„Morgen findet in der Kommandatur unter dem Vorsitz des Kommandanten eine große Sitzung aller höheren Verwaltungsbeamten statt. Der Kommandant hat es natürlich verstanden, aus solchen Sitzungen eine Schaustellung zu machen. Es wurde eine Galerie gebaut, die mit Zuschauern immer besetzt ist. Ich bin gezwungen an den Beratungen teilzunehmen, aber der Widerwille schüttelt mich. Nun werden Sie gewiß auf jeden Fall zu der Sitzung eingeladen werden […]. Nun sitzen Sie also morgen mit den Damen in der Loge des Kommandanten. […] Nach verschiedenen gleichgültigen, lächerlichen, nur für die Zuhörer berechneten Verhandlungsgegenständen—meistens sind es Hafenbauten, immer wieder Hafenbauten!—kommt auch das Gerichtsverfahren zur Sprache.“]

(Kafka 2002a, pp. 232–33)

From a contemporary perspective, it is evident that the old penal system of the colony should be rejected as inhumane. The secularized and enlightened reader may struggle to deviate from their own expectations, but this very challenge is essential for a proper interpretation of Kafka’s works. Moreover, the judicial execution depicted by the apparatus represents more than a literal legal procedure; it symbolizes a central theme in Kafka’s work: the pervasive ontology of guilt and atonement.

The narrator and the enquiring traveler in the story do not explicitly endorse or oppose either the old or new system. The enquiring traveler, sent to the penal colony by the new commander, experiences a mixture of horror and fascination towards the apparatus. In the context of Schopenhauerian eschatology and Gnosis, the description of the apparatus from the officer’s perspective is of particular interest. The officer is the sole remaining supporter of the old commander’s legal procedure and way of life in the penal colony, openly and fanatically. His statement embodies Schopenhauer’s notion of an eternal justice inherent in the universe and reveals the foundation of the repugnant penal procedure in the colony. He declares, ”‘Guilt is always beyond question’” [„’Die Schuld ist immer zweifellos’”] (Kafka 2009, p. 80; Kafka 2002a, p. 212). According to this court, the condemned has ”’no opportunity to defend himself’” [„’keine Gelegenheit […] sich zu verteidigen’”] (Kafka 2009, p. 79; Kafka 2002a, p. 211). In contrast to Joseph K. in The Trial, who at least appears before the court but, like the descriptions in In the Penal Colony, never learns the nature of the accusation, guilt is also ’beyond question’ for him. He is declared guilty and sentenced to death a priori. It has been evident, at least since Karl Erich Grözinger’s book Kafka und die Kabbala, that even the adjudicating judicial authority in The Trial is not of this world (see Grözinger 2003).

Among Kafka’s posthumous writings and fragments, specifically in the so-called Oktavheft G 2, numerous aphoristic records can be found, displaying a clear affinity with the assertions of the Officer. One of these entries states: ”Sinful is the condition in which we find ourselves, independent of guilt”. [„Sündig ist der Stand in dem wir uns befinden, unabhängig von Schuld“.] (Kafka 2002b, p. 72, translation by SRF). Reflecting on Schopenhauer’s dictum in the Berlin lecture manuscripts, which claims that although our own person is ’innocent’ according to the standards of temporal justice, our ’essence is nevertheless partaking in guilt’, Schopenhauer’s concept of ’guilt’ at this point aligns closely with Kafka’s notion of ’sinful’. This universal sin or guilt, inherent in our very condition, corresponds closely to Schopenhauer’s ideas of eternal justice and his doctrine of affirmation of the will. It cannot be expiated through a secular court or temporal punishment but requires a radical approach that aligns with Schopenhauer’s denial of the will to live. The foundational concept of Schopenhauer’s ethics of guilt, which sheds light on the interpretation of In The Penal Colony, is already present in the introduction of the 48th chapter, ”On the Doctrine of the Negation of the Will to Live,” in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation. An engagement with ancient philosophy serves as the transition to the backdrop of the denial eschatology:

The ancients, for example the Stoics, but also the Peripatetics and the Academics, tried in vain to prove that virtue was sufficient to make life happy: experience cried out loudly against this. These philosophers’ efforts were, if unconsciously, guided by the assumption that there was justice in the matter: someone innocent should also be free of suffering, and therefore happy.

(Schopenhauer 2022, p. 618)

However, Schopenhauer’s continuation of thought challenges this notion of innocence by asserting that it disregards the ontological and metaphysical truths concerning human nature. He goes on to state:

The only serious and profound solution to the problem lies in the Christian doctrine that works do not justify; and so even someone who has exhibited every justice and loving kindness, and thus the good, virtue, is not for that matter, as Cicero claims, ‘free of all guilt’ (Tusculan Disputations V, 1): rather, el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido (man’s greatest guilt is that he was born), as Calderón, a poet enlightened by Christianity, expresses it, on the basis of a much more profound cognition than the aforementioned sages.

(Schopenhauer 2022, p. 618)

According to Schopenhauer, this profound understanding rooted in Christianity also gives rise to a longing for redemption in Brahmanism and Buddhism, which seeks the ultimate goal of final emancipation. Schopenhauer further states that sinful deeds and their consequences must be erased and destroyed either through external forgiveness or through the individual’s own improved understanding; otherwise, the world cannot hope for salvation.

The paradoxical idea underlying the inhumane executions in Kafka’s narrative, which may appear alien to contemporary readers, highlights the lifestyle of the new Commandant characterized by commerce, women, and hedonism as an affirmation of life that obstructs a transcendental eschatology. This eschatology is premised on the recognition of an inherent primordial guilt rooted in the essence of life itself. The painful introspective confrontation with one’s own ontological and metaphysical sinful inadequacy is replaced by the new Commandant’s worldly-oriented, life-affirming existence. This mode of existence avoids reflecting upon one’s original culpability and metaphysically grounded sinfulness.

The symbolic significance of the torture apparatus lies in its external representation of an internalized sense of guilt. The tortures are based on the belief in a transcendent truth regarding the inherent guilt within being, which necessitates the coexistence of life and suffering. The suffering of the willing subject can only be silenced through a radical overcoming of the sensual world, and the externally induced intensification of suffering resulting from innate sin can lead to the redemptive transformation of consciousness (Gnosis).

5. The Body as the Key to Insight and Deciphering the ‘Hieroglyphs of Nature’

Let us closely examine, with the aid of the descriptions provided by the Officer, a loyal follower of the old Commandant, the apparatus that inscribes the “‘commandment that the condemned man has broken […] upon his body with the Harrow’” [„das Gebot, das er übertreten hat, mit [einer] Egge auf den Leib“] (Kafka 2009, p. 79; Kafka 2002a, p. 210). A crucial aspect of the narrative is that the condemned individual, initially unaware of his sentence, undergoes the experience “in his own flesh” [„auf seinem Leib“] (Kafka 2009, p. 79; Kafka 2002a, p. 211). Mere abstract knowledge of human suffering, conveyed through conceptualization, is insufficient to eradicate the will of the individual. The execution lasts for a duration of 12 h, during which time the sentence is progressively engraved deeper into the body. Through this agonizing process, there is a gradual intensification of consciousness and a progressive transcendence of bodily needs. Like the ideas found in Brahmanism and Buddhism, the torture’s “ultimate goal” appears to be a “final emancipation” (Schopenhauer 2022, p. 619). In the Officer’s own words:

“For the first six hours the condemned man is alive almost as before, except that he suffers pain […]. Into this electrically heated bowl here at the head of the Bed, there is placed warm rice porridge, and if he wants, the man may take what he can manage to lick up with his tongue. Not one misses the opportunity. I don’t know anyone who has, and my experience is great. Only at the sixth hour will he lose his pleasure in eating. […] The man rarely swallows his last mouthful; he just turns it round in his mouth and spits it into the ditch. […] But how still the man becomes at the sixth hour! Understanding dawns upon even the most stupid. It begins with the eyes. From there it spreads further. A sight that might tempt you to join him lying beneath the Harrow. Indeed, nothing further happens; the man simply begins to decipher the script; he purses his lips as if he were listening. You have seen it is not easy to decipher the script with one’s eyes; but our man deciphers them with his wounds.”

(Kafka 2009, pp. 83–84)6

[„Die ersten sechs Stunden lebt der Verurteilte fast wie früher, er leidet nur Schmerzen […]. Hier in diesen elektrisch geheizten Napf am Kopfende wird warmer Reisbrei gelegt, aus dem der Mann, wenn er Lust hat, nehmen kann, was er mit der Zunge erhascht. Keiner versäumt die Gelegenheit. Ich weiß keinen, und meine Erfahrung ist groß. Erst um die sechste Stunde verliert er das Vergnügen am Essen. […] Der Mann schluckt den letzten Bissen selten, er dreht ihn nur im Mund und speit ihn in die Grube. […] Wie still wird dann aber der Mann um die sechste Stunde! Verstand geht dem Blödesten auf. Um die Augen beginnt es. Von hier aus verbreitet es sich. Ein Anblick, der einen verführen könnte, sich mit unter die Egge zu legen. Es geschieht ja nichts weiter, der Mann fängt bloß an, die Schrift zu entziffern, er spitzt den Mund, als horche er. Sie haben gesehen, es ist nicht leicht, die Schrift mit den Augen zu entziffern; unser Mann entziffert sie aber mit den Wunden.“]

(Kafka 2002a, p. 219–20)

Instead of a deciphering of meaning through the eyes, here we have a bodily mediated (felt) exploration of the world and life, which includes an enhancement of hearing. The redeeming realization occurs independently of the cognitive abilities—the intelligence—of the delinquent: understanding can dawn upon anyone—even “’the most stupid’” can have insight [„‘Verstand geht dem Blödesten auf‘“] (Ibid.). Schopenhauer’s philosophy is a philosophy of the body. In his lecture manuscript on the metaphysics of nature, the question of the meaning and significance of nature becomes the impetus for metaphysical interpretation of the world. Within the limits of the principle of sufficient reason, the essence of things cannot be accessed. Etiology and morphology leave things “standing as appearances” (Schopenhauer 2019, p. 17). While the natural sciences always seek causes and effects of the empirical world guided by the principle of sufficient reason, they never arrive at a definitive decipherment of nature—the chains of why questions go on infinitely. Even the most detailed classifications in the natural sciences leave the world’s ciphers as “uncomprehended hieroglyphs”, as “hieroglyphs of nature” in their phenomenal being. In this metaphorical formulation of the lecture, the “entire nature [...] is a great hieroglyph that requires interpretation” (Schopenhauer 2019, p. 17). The human who strives for information about the essential nature of the world stands before the world like before the riddles of the Sphinx. The hermeneutic deciphering of the meaning of the world, the decoding of the ‘hieroglyphs of nature’, is not achieved through deciphering writing, but through the concrete experience of the subject as a body. “[F]rom the outside”, i.e., through the transcendental nature of the world of representations, “we can never reach the essence of things” (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 123); if one still attempts to gain closer information about the inner nature of the world through an external perspective, “we find nothing but images and names”; “we are like someone who”, like the land surveyor K. in Kafka’s The Castle, “walks around a castle, looking in vain for an entrance and occasionally sketching the façade.” (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 123)

However, since the human being (Schopenhauer speaks here of the “enquirer”) is not only a “pure subject of cognition (a winged cherub’s head without a body)” (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 124), but also rooted in the world through their bodily existence, the “world as representation” is mediated by our “body, whose affections [...] are the starting point for the understanding as it intuits this world” (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 124). In Schopenhauer’s thinking, the bodily existence of humans provides the key to deciphering the world:

The body is given in two entirely different ways to the subject of cognition, who emerges as an individual only through his identity with it: in the first place it is given as a representation in intuition by the understanding, as an object among objects and liable to the same laws; but at the same time the body is also given in an entirely different way, namely as something immediately familiar to everyone, something designated by the word will.

(Schopenhauer 2010, p. 124)

The delinquent attains self-awareness of his innermost essence, which is concurrently the origin of his affliction, through the agonizing encounter with his wounds (“You have seen it is not easy to decipher the script with one’s eyes; but our man deciphers them with his wounds”). Moreover, the suffering endured within the physical body serves as the wellspring of salvific enlightenment. Gnostic knowledge (gnosis) can manifest when the bodily afflictions of existence attain an intensity that defies containment, a threshold that potentially engenders illuminating renunciation. In resonance with Luther and Paul, Schopenhauer invokes the concept of grace’s effect, wherein a new self is born, and the old self is nullified—marking a fundamental shift in mind and heart—because “only a rebirth in Jesus Christ […], which allows a new person to arise and the old to be abolished (i.e., a fundamental change of heart) —could remove us from the state of sinfulness and place us into one of freedom and redemption.” (Schopenhauer 2022, p. 620) The transformative process experienced by the individual bound to the apparatus, typically unfolding after approximately six hours, exhibits a striking parallel to Schopenhauer’s notion of a “fundamental change of heart” [„fundamentale Sinnesänderung”].7 The passage elucidates that the profound alteration of consciousness within the condemned person is accompanied by a perceptual shift that commences around the eyes and then permeates throughout. “It begins with the eyes. From there it spreads further”.8

It would be a fallacy to oversimplify the purpose and significance of the apparatus to its mere physical existence. Although the officer’s viewpoint serves as an intradiegetic voice within the text, its substantial narrative prominence bestows upon it a level of importance.9 There are compelling grounds to argue that the symbolic meaning of the existing penal procedure extends far beyond the overt inhumane nature of the process. Regarding the role of the explorer and the significance of the torture apparatus, the officer asserts:

“Although his power would be great enough to take action against me, he is not risking it yet, but there is no doubt he wants to expose me to the judgement of a respected foreigner. He has worked it out carefully; this is your second day on the island; you didn’t know the old commandant, nor the way he thought. Your mind is trapped in European attitudes;10 perhaps out of principle you oppose the death-penalty in general and this kind of execution by machine in particular.11 […]—so wouldn’t it be possible, all things taken together (this is how the commandant thinks), that you might consider my procedure to be wrong? And if you don’t think it right (I am still giving the commandant’s point of view), you will not keep silent about it, for you will certainly have the confidence of your tried and tested convictions. On the other hand, though, you have seen many strange customs in many lands, and have learned to respect them, so it is likely you won’t speak out against the procedure as vigorously as perhaps you would in your own country. But the commandant doesn’t need that. One word in passing, no more than one casual word, is enough for him. It doesn’t have to express your convictions at all as long as it just seems to meet his wishes. He will question you craftily, I’m quite sure. And his ladies will sit round him in a circle, pricking up their ears; you will say something like: ‘where I come from, we have a different criminal procedure’, or ‘where I come from, the defendant is examined in advance of the verdict’, or ‘where I come from, the condemned man is informed of his sentence’, or ‘where I come from, there are other penalties besides death’, or ‘where I come from, torture existed only in the Middle Ages’.

(Kafka 2009, pp. 88–89)

„Trotzdem seine Macht groß genug wäre, um gegen mich einzuschreiten, wagt er es noch nicht, wohl aber will er mich Ihrem, dem Urteil eines angesehenen Fremden aussetzen. Seine Berechnung ist sorgfältig; Sie sind den zweiten Tag auf der Insel, Sie kannten den alten Kommandanten und seinen Gedankenkreis nicht, Sie sind in europäischen Anschauungen befangen, vielleicht sind Sie ein grundsätzlicher Gegner der Todesstrafe im allgemeinen und einer derartigen maschinellen Hinrichtungsart im besonderen […]—wäre es nun, alles dieses zusammengenommen (so denkt der Kommandant), nicht sehr leicht möglich, daß Sie mein Verfahren nicht für richtig halten? Und wenn Sie es nicht für richtig halten, werden Sie dies (ich rede noch immer im Sinne des Kommandanten) nicht verschweigen, denn Sie vertrauen doch gewiß Ihren vielerprobten Überzeugungen. Sie haben allerdings viele Eigentümlichkeiten vieler Völker gesehen und achten gelernt, Sie werden daher wahrscheinlich sich nicht mit ganzer Kraft, wie Sie es vielleicht in Ihrer Heimat tun würden, gegen das Verfahren aussprechen. Aber dessen bedarf der Kommandant gar nicht. Ein flüchtiges, ein bloß unvorsichtiges Wort genügt. Es muß gar nicht Ihrer Überzeugung entsprechen, wenn es nur scheinbar seinem Wunsche entgegenkommt. Daß er Sie mit aller Schlauheit ausfragen wird, dessen bin ich gewiß. Und seine Damen werden im Kreis herumsitzen und die Ohren spitzen; Sie werden etwas sagen: ‚Bei uns ist das Gerichtsverfahren ein anderes’, oder ‚Bei uns wird der Angeklagte vor dem Urteil verhört’, oder ‚Bei uns gibt es auch andere Strafen als Todesstrafen’, oder ‚Bei uns gab es Folterungen nur im Mittelalter’.“

(Kafka 2002a, pp. 228–29)

Then comes the decisive statement from the officer: “‘These are all remarks that seem to you as right as they are natural, innocent remarks that do not impugn my procedure.’” [„‘Das alles sind Bemerkungen, die ebenso richtig sind, als sie Ihnen selbstverständlich erscheinen, unschuldige Bemerkungen, die mein Verfahren nicht antasten.’“] (Kafka 2009, p. 89; Kafka 2002a, p. 229) Only those who are willing to transcend the unquestionable and broaden their interpretive and readerly horizons within this narrative can truly grasp the underlying message. The meaning and purpose of the old execution procedure cannot be fully apprehended through a literal reading that reduces it to a mere act of torture and violation of human rights. From the perspective of ordinary consciousness, statements that challenge the penal procedure would not be deemed ‘innocent’. Indeed, it is only a metaphysical consciousness, capable of perceiving the tortures as symbolic representations or allegories of an entirely different ’world order’, that can naturally dismiss the ‘innocent’ remarks envisioned by the officer. These remarks do not ‘undermine’ his procedure because it exists beyond the realm of temporal justice and injustice in this world.

6. The Gnosticism of Schopenhauer, Kafka, and Walther Köhler

According to Schopenhauer’s ethical framework, there exist two paths that lead to the negation of the will. The first path involves an intuitive transformation of ordinary consciousness, which provides insight into the nature of the world and leads to the subduing of the will. The second path involves suffering, where an escalation of psychic and physical pain can initiate a reversal of the will, resulting in a ‘spiritual’ transcendence of animalistic corporeality. This ‘final emancipation’, which liberates humans definitively from the grasp of inherently sinful and agonizing existence, presupposes a fundamental transformation of consciousness. The ontology of atonement and penance, as the knowledge of one’s original guilt, constitutes the necessary condition for enlightened redemption. Schopenhauer’s thinking, similar to the ‘gnostic systems’, can be characterized as ‘dualistic’. The metaphysical dualism of Gnosticism as described by Walther Köhler exhibits a structural resemblance to Schopenhauer’s thinking. Kafka owned a copy of Köhler’s concise introduction to the Gnostic thought system entitled Die Gnosis from which the following quotes are taken:

The tension between God and the world has reached the highest conceivable degree: they have become alien to each other in their essence, they are different principles; all gnostic systems are dualistic.

[„Die Spannung zwischen Gott und Welt hat den höchsten nur denkbaren Grad gewonnen: sie sind einander wesensfremd geworden, sind verschiedene Prinzipien; sämtliche gnostischen Systeme sind dualistisch.”]

(Köhler 1911, p. 22)12

In addition to this dualism, there exists the concept of an almost insurmountable discrepancy between worldly impurity and divine purity: ”The world is matter and impure, but God is spirit and the pure” [„Die Welt ist Materie und unrein, Gott aber ist Geist und der Reine”] (Köhler 1911, p. 22). As Köhler succinctly states, Gnosis represents ”salvific knowledge” [„Die Gnosis ist Heilserkenntnis”] (Köhler 1911, p. 20). Such salvific knowledge implies the revelation of the true deity, who has withdrawn from the world as the Deus absconditus after being displaced by the evil and false world creator, the Demiurge.

The structural parallelism between Schopenhauer’s fundamental concepts and Gnosticism lies in their shared soteriology, which necessitates the radical negation of the sinful affirmation of the will to live. According to Schopenhauer, this negation involves a spiritual transcendence of the corporeal realm that affirms the will. Similarly, Köhler asserts that “Salvation is the liberation from matter and its demons through turning toward the spirit”. [„Die Erlösung besteht in der Befreiung von der Materie und ihren Dämonen durch Hinwendung zum Geiste.”] (Köhler 1911, p. 28) In Schopenhauer’s philosophy, the negation of the will through asceticism is accompanied by an intensification of knowledge. Therefore, salvation requires a spiritual transcendence of the body, freeing the soul from its material limitations. When discussing the practical attainment of salvation and the ethics of the Gnostics, Köhler provides the following response: “According to the fundamental principles, the answer is very simple: positively, one must become pneumatic (spiritual), and negatively, one must shed the physical, earthly, material”. [„positiv muss man pneumatisch werden und negativ muss man das Körperliche, Irdische, Materielle ablegen.”] (Köhler 1911, p. 28) Both aspects are combined in asceticism. The voluntary deprivation of sustenance (asceticism), arising from the intensification of suffering, initiates the delinquent’s transcendent negation of the world, which clearly aligns entirely with Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the denial of the will to live and Köhler’s gnostic, body-denying position. Let us once again highlight the central passage in the narrative:

“‘Into this electrically heated bowl here at the head of the Bed, there is placed warm rice porridge, and if he wants, the man may take what he can manage to lick up with his tongue. Not one misses the opportunity. I don’t know anyone who has, and my experience is great. Only at the sixth hour will he lose his pleasure in eating. […] The man rarely swallows his last mouthful; he just turns it round in his mouth and spits it into the ditch.’”

(Kafka 2009, p. 83)

[„‘Die ersten sechs Stunden lebt der Verurteilte fast wie früher, er leidet nur Schmerzen […]. Hier in diesen elektrisch geheizten Napf am Kopfende wird warmer Reisbrei gelegt, aus dem der Mann, wenn er Lust hat, nehmen kann, was er mit der Zunge erhascht. Keiner versäumt die Gelegenheit. Ich weiß keinen, und meine Erfahrung ist groß. Erst um die sechste Stunde verliert er das Vergnügen am Essen. […] Der Mann schluckt den letzten Bissen selten, er dreht ihn nur im Mund und speit ihn in die Grube.‘“]

(Kafka 2002a, p. 219)

In contrast, there is the primitive behavior (gluttony, foolishness) of the soldier, from whom the narrator clearly distances himself:

The soldier had finished his cleaning, and was still pouring rice porridge into the bowl from a can. The condemned man, who seemed to have recovered completely, scarcely laid his eyes on it before he began to lick at the porridge with his tongue. The soldier kept pushing him away, as it was surely meant for later, but in any case it was also offensive that the soldier should be digging into it with his filthy hands and eating some of it for himself in front of the ravenous condemned man.

(Kafka 2009, p. 88)

Der Soldat hatte die Reinigungsarbeit beendet und jetzt noch aus einer Büchse Reisbrei in den Napf geschüttet. Kaum merkte dies der Verurteilte, der sich schon vollständig erholt zu haben schien, als er mit der Zunge nach dem Brei zu schnappen begann. Der Soldat stieß ihn immer wieder weg, denn der Brei war wohl für eine spätere Zeit bestimmt, aber ungehörig war es jedenfalls auch, daß der Soldat mit seinen schmutzigen Händen hineingriff und vor dem gierigen Verurteilten davon aß.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 226–227)

Since the liberating negation of the will entails the annihilation of the world as a whole and “indicate[s] a blind spot for cognition, namely the point at which all cognition necessarily comes to an end” (Schopenhauer 2022, p. 625) it can only be expressed ex negativo, such as through nothingness/nirvana or the annihilation of the world of appearances, and through “silence” (Schopenhauer 2022, p. 626). The speechlessness experienced by the delinquent after six hours of torture represents the appropriate external ‘expression’ of the eschatological transformation of consciousness: “’But how still the man becomes at the sixth hour!’” [„‘Wie still wird dann aber der Mann um die sechste Stunde!’”] (Kafka 2009, p. 84; Kafka 2002a, p. 219).

However, individuals who deny the intrinsic sinful nature deeply rooted in human essence or, like the new commander, establish a system that prioritizes the gratification of physical desires through an exclusive dedication to earthly pleasures—constantly surrounded by “’ladies’” [„‘Damen’”] (Kafka 2009, p. 89; Kafka 2002a, p. 229) and preoccupied with harbor constructions (as a representation of worldly commerce)—are inherently excluded from the transformative awakening of consciousness and the suspension of bodily needs.

It is worth noting that the self-execution of the officer hinders any potential redemptive transformation or expansion of his understanding. This is primarily due to the disintegration of the apparatus, which serves as a symbol of the collapse of the old-world order. The individual is unable to achieve self-salvation deliberately, nor can we speed up the process of acquiring salvific knowledge through suicide:

The Harrow was not writing, it only stabbed; and the Bed was not turning the body, but as it vibrated, only lifted it into the needles. The traveller wanted to intervene, possibly stop the whole thing; this wasn’t the torture the officer was aiming for, but outright murder.

(Kafka 2009, p. 97)

Die Egge schrieb nicht, sie stach nur, und das Bett wälzte den Körper nicht, sondern hob ihn nur zitternd in die Nadeln hinein. Der Reisende wollte eingreifen, möglicherweise das Ganze zum Stehen bringen, das war ja keine Folter, wie sie der Offizier erreichen wollte, das war unmittelbarer Mord.

(Kafka 2002a, pp. 244–45)

In the final stages of the narrative, the traveler, who progressively aligns himself with the officer, makes a futile attempt to elicit compassion from the condemned and the soldier:

‘Come and help, won’t you!’ the traveller shouted over to the soldier and the condemned man, and took hold of the officer’s feet himself. He wanted to push down on the feet from his end, while on the other side the two of them were supposed to take hold of the officer’s head; in this way he was to be slowly removed from the needles. But the two couldn’t make up their minds to come; indeed, the condemned man actually turned his back; the traveller was obliged to go over to them and urge them forcibly towards the officer’s head. As he was doing so, almost against his will, he saw the face of the corpse. It was as it had been in life; not a sign of the promised deliverance was to be discovered; what all the others had found in the machine, the officer had not found; his lips were pressed tight; his eyes were open, and had the appearance of life.

(Kafka 2009, p. 98)

„Helft doch!“ schrie der Reisende zum Soldaten und zum Verurteilten hinüber und faßte selbst die Füße des Offiziers. […] Aber nun konnten sich die zwei nicht entschließen zu kommen; der Verurteilte drehte sich geradezu um; der Reisende mußte zu ihnen hinübergehen und sie mit Gewalt zu dem Kopf des Offiziers drängen. Hiebei sah er fast gegen Willen das Gesicht der Leiche. Es war, wie es im Leben gewesen war; kein Zeichen der versprochenen Erlösung war zu entdecken; was alle anderen in der Maschine gefunden hatten, der Offizier fand es nicht; die Lippen waren fest zusam- mengedrückt, die Augen waren offen, hatten den Ausdruck des Lebens.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 245)

If we turn to Schopenhauer’s philosophy once again for a comparative analysis, a plausible interpretation emerges for the officer’s lack of redemption. According to Schopenhauer’s thought, the only valid moral objection to suicide is that deliberately ending one’s own life contradicts the true soteriology of renouncing the will to live. The hastened execution resulting from the collapse of the apparatus undermines the transformative awakening of consciousness that can only be achieved through the silencing of the will. As Schopenhauer writes, “Through an act of will, the individual will abolishes the body, which is simply its own manifestation, before suffering can break it”. (Schopenhauer 2010, p. 426) The act of suicide, often perceived as a hasty means to evade the hardships of existence, inadequately captures the officer’s true intention. Nonetheless, driven by a profound sense of despair and disillusionment regarding the collapse of the established societal and penal norms, he ultimately resorts to taking his own life. Placing himself upon the torture apparatus, his aim is to seek refuge from the unbearable realities of the emerging social and punitive paradigms:

A person who commits suicide stops living precisely because he cannot stop willing, and the will affirms itself here through the very abolition of its appearance, because it can no longer affirm itself in any other way. But the very suffering that he avoids so emphatically could, in the form of a mortification of the will, have led to self-negation and redemption; which is why, in this respect, someone who commits suicide is like a sick person who, having started undergoing a painful operation that could cure him completely, does not allow it to be completed and would rather stay sick. Suffering approaches and, as such, introduces the possibility of negation of the will; but he repudiates it by destroying the body, the appearance of the will, so that the will might remain unbroken.

(Schopenhauer 2010, pp. 426–27)

The officer’s inability to attain redemption can be attributed to the abruptness of his execution, which occurred due to the collapse of the apparatus. In the customary functioning of the torture device, the sixth hour represents the pinnacle of escalating agony, culminating in the deprivation of sustenance and the commencement of the renunciation of the will to live. However, in the expedited act of self-execution, this significant sixth hour is omitted. Consequently, only the officer’s physical body is obliterated, while his will remains unyielding, as evidenced by the enduring “appearance of life” in his open eyes (Kafka 2009, p. 98).13

7. The Traveler’s Divided Position

The officer’s use of euphemistic descriptions regarding the deteriorating torture apparatus should not be regarded as the definitive interpretation of the narrative. If there were any message within the narrative that held ultimate authority, it would, if present at all, be derived from the limited observations made by the narrator and the actions of the traveler. Both the narrator and the enquiring traveler exhibit signs of internal conflict. Of particular significance is the traveler’s explicit opposition to the outdated and ‘inhumane’ judicial procedure towards the end of the narrative. When confronted with the officer’s probing questions, seeking validation for his conduct, the traveler offers the following response:

For the traveller, the answer he had to give was in no doubt from the start; he had experienced too much in his life for him to waver here; he was fundamentally honourable, and he had no fear; all the same, he hesitated now for the space of drawing breath under the eyes of the soldier and the condemned man. Finally, however, he said, as he was bound to say: ‘No.’ The officer blinked several times, but kept staring at him. ‘Do you want me to explain?’ asked the traveller. The officer nodded silently. ‘I am an opponent of this procedure’, resumed the traveller, ‘and even before you took me into your confidence—which of course I will under no circumstances abuse—I was already considering whether I would be justified in taking some action against it, and whether any action from me could have even a small prospect of success. It was clear to me which person I should turn to first: of course, the commandant. You have made it even clearer, but without having made my decision any stronger; on the contrary, I am touched by the integrity of your conviction, even though it cannot shake me.’

(Kafka 2009, p. 92)

Die Antwort, die er zu geben hatte, war für den Reisenden von allem Anfang an zweifellos; er hatte in seinem Leben zu viel erfahren, als daß er hier hätte schwanken können; er war im Grunde ehrlich und hatte keine Furcht. Trotzdem zögerte er jetzt im Anblick des Soldaten und des Verurteilten einen Atemzug lang. Schließlich aber sagte er, wie er mußte: „Nein.“ Der Offizier blinzelte mehrmals mit den Augen, ließ aber keinen Blick von ihm. „Wollen Sie eine Erklärung?“ fragte der Reisende. Der Offizier nickte stumm. „Ich bin ein Gegner dieses Verfahrens“, sagte nun der Reisende, „noch ehe Sie mich ins Vertrauen zogen—dieses Vertrauen werde ich natürlich unter keinen Umständen mißbrauchen—habe ich schon überlegt, ob ich berechtigt wäre, gegen dieses Verfahren einzuschreiten und ob mein Einschreiten auch nur eine kleine Aussicht auf Erfolg haben könnte. An wen ich mich dabei zuerst wenden müßte, war mir klar: an den Kommandanten natürlich. Sie haben es mir noch klarer gemacht, ohne aber etwa meinen Entschluß erst befestigt zu haben, im Gegenteil, Ihre ehrliche Überzeugung geht mir nahe, wenn sie mich auch nicht beirren kann“.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 235)

Despite expressing clear disapproval of the punitive measures implemented by the former commander, the traveler ultimately flees at the narrative’s conclusion, following the destruction of the torture apparatus and the officer’s failed quest for redemption, which culminates in his impalement by the apparatus. Various motifs throughout the text associate the soldier and the condemned man with the profane, thoughtless, and guilt-denying system established by the new commander. Within the narrative, the liberated modern individual, emancipated from religious and metaphysical constraints, emerges as narcissists confined to their subjective realm. Alternatively, as illustrated in the subsequent examples, they appear as individuals lacking seriousness, indulging foolishly in self-centered or other-centered preoccupations, devoid of a compassionate gaze towards their fellow human beings who are experiencing suffering.

The narrator highlights this behavior when, after the release of the condemned man and while the officer prepares for his own execution, it is stated: ”The soldier and the condemned man were each concerned only with the other” [„Der Soldat und der Verurteilte waren nur miteinander beschäftigt“] (Kafka 2009, p. 94; Kafka 2002a, p. 239). The conduct of the soldier and the freed condemned man appears inappropriate given the gravity and solemnity of the officer’s situation: “Perhaps the condemned man felt obliged to keep the soldier amused, for he turned round and round, showing the slashes in his clothes in front of the soldier, who squatted on the ground, striking his knee and laughing.” [„Vielleicht glaubte der Verurteilte verpflichtet zu sein, den Soldaten zu unterhalten, er drehte sich in der zerschnittenen Kleidung im Kreise vor dem Soldaten, der auf dem Boden hockte und lachend auf seine Knie schlug” (Kafka 2009, p. 94; Kafka 2002a, p. 239).14

As the narrative progresses, the foreign visitor’s distancing from the old commander’s system in the colony becomes increasingly apparent, accompanied by a growing aversion towards both the soldier and the condemned man. This intensification of aversion reaches its culmination towards the end of the narrative:

He [the traveller (SRF)] looked across at the soldier and the condemned man. Of the two, the condemned man was the livelier; everything about the machine interested him; one moment he would bend down, the next he would stretch up; he was constantly stretching out his finger to point something out to the soldier. The traveller found it upsetting.

(Kafka 2009, p. 96)

Der Reisende sah zu dem Soldaten und dem Verurteilten hinüber. Der Verurteilte war der lebhaftere, alles an der Maschine interessierte ihn, bald beugte er sich nieder, bald streckte er sich, immerfort hatte er den Zeigefinger ausgestreckt, um dem Soldaten etwas zu zeigen. Dem Reisenden war es peinlich. Er war entschlossen, hier bis zum Ende zu bleiben, aber den Anblick der zwei hätte er nicht lange ertragen.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 243)

The enquiring traveler, in conjunction with the narrator, exhibits a clear sense of sympathy towards the officer, whose demise is deemed disgraceful. The officer’s ultimate resignation, brought about by the traveler, marks the definitive collapse of the old metaphysical system, and signifies the forfeiture of soteriological possibilities. The advocacy for individual responsibility in determining ethical standards within modern society, as espoused by the traveler, and encapsulated in the motto “Be just!” [„Sei gerecht]” (Kafka 2009, p. 94; Kafka 2002a, p. 238), renders the prospect of redemption elusive. Unquestionably, the traveler seeks to distance himself from the modern way of life characterized by sensuality and the superficial, primitive behavior displayed by the soldier and the condemned man. The concluding passages of the narrative accentuate the protagonist’s contempt for the two characters, namely the soldier and the condemned man:

While he [the traveller (SRF)] was negotiating with the boatman to ferry him across to the steamer, the two rushed down the steps—in silence, for they dared not shout out. But by the time they reached the bottom, the traveller was already in the boat and the ferryman just casting off from the bank. They might still have been able to leap into the boat, but the traveller raised a heavily knotted rope from the floor and, threatening them with it, prevented them from making the leap.

(Kafka 2009, p. 99)

Während der Reisende unten mit einem Schiffer wegen der Überfahrt zum Dampfer unterhandelte, rasten die zwei die Treppe hinab, schweigend, denn zu schreien wagten sie nicht. Aber als sie unten ankamen, war der Reisende schon im Boot, und der Schiffer löste es gerade vom Ufer. Sie hätten ins Boot springen können, aber der Reisende hob ein schweres geknotetes Tau vom Boden, drohte ihnen damit und hielt sie dadurch von dem Sprunge ab.

(Kafka 2002a, p. 248)

Alienated from all fixated metaphysical explanations, modernity propels itself deeper into a realm characterized by distorted and corruptive absurdity, notably through sensuality that deviates from the trajectory of the ‘good.’ The process of regaining a sense of connection and returning to a previous state is impeded, while the former metaphysical framework embodied by the torture apparatus has undergone irreversible disintegration. The enquiring traveler seeks solace in the vast expanse of the open sea. Here, amid uncertainty and torn between the antiquated metaphysical order and the profanity of post-metaphysical modernity, the narrative culminates, swaying amidst the infinite waves of the ocean.

The yearning for messianic redemption, as epitomized in the epilogue of the In the Penal Colony narrative through the portrayal of the old commander’s anticipated return (“prophecy” [„‘Prophezeiung‘“]; Kafka 2009, p. 99; Kafka 2002a, p. 247) from a realm characterized by anguish and culpability, emerges as a pivotal theme within Kafka’s work. This motif embodies an enduring quest for significance and an ongoing struggle against the erosion of meaning, encapsulating the very essence of modern literature while simultaneously reflecting an age-old dilemma deeply ingrained within the annals of European intellectual discourse: the inherent conflict between nature and spirit, the persistent longing for liberation from a world tainted by suffering, and the yearning to transcend a life shackled by hedonistic sensuality and bestial corporeal limitations.

8. Concluding Remarks

We can only speculate about Kafka’s perspective on figures like Elon Musk, AI, and the Google founders’ Caligo program. However, I am convinced that, if possible, he would envision even bleaker prospects for humanity than during his in-depth conversation with his friend Max Brod around 1920.

Humanity has always appeared to be entangled in the pursuit of ‘overcoming’ itself. Our capacity for abstract thinking, calculation, and envisioning the future has led to the invention of numerous machines aimed at facilitating our human existence. This endeavor has achieved considerable success. The manual labor once performed by hands has long been delegated to machines, for better or worse. The benefits are apparent, yet the drawbacks might be hidden and subtle, including the sense of alienation as we distance ourselves more and more from production, lose touch with nature and natural processes, and forget the skills of using our hands.

The 1844 revolt of the Silesian weavers was, among other things, a response to industrialization threatening to snatch work from their hands. The post-war German author W.G. Sebald, an avid reader of Kafka, reflects in his significant work Austerlitz from 2002 with sensitivity and melancholy on the consequences of progress. Any form of advancement is intertwined with derived forms of regression. In this context, one might say that the World Trade Center already harbored its own ruin. The technology in any computer mirrors the technology humans employ to produce weapons of mass destruction. Though we may prefer to ignore it, delving into the subject reveals soldiers worldwide controlling drone attacks from containers with precise accuracy thousands of miles away. Post-duty, they shop in supermarkets, return to their families, and watch basketball games on television. Even war has become abstract, while its consequences remain starkly concrete, marking a regression for humanity—a Kafkaesque absurdity in itself.

Over the past 30 years, technological development has surged at a breathtaking pace. Recently, we’ve all gained access to ChatBots capable of engaging in dialogue about almost anything and working on our behalf. Many rightfully fear that, in a few years, AI could take over professions traditionally reserved for living, thinking human bodies. It is no longer just our bodies entrusted to machines but also our minds. The consequences are dire; although the specific outcomes are uncertain, recent technological innovations come at the expense of mental health, and as a species, we are slowly, surely degrading. Perhaps this degradation is the desire of our states: populations rendered brain-dead, trapped in an eternal, thoughtless loop from one senseless video to the next. Our brains are bombarded with external images to such an extent that they eventually lose the ability to produce images themselves. Everything is produced for us; nothing is created by us anymore. We find ourselves in a state where everything is within reach, the whole world at our feet, yet it appears that we are distancing ourselves from everything, losing the last vestiges of meaningful life.

Let us imagine Kafka alive today, witnessing the recent developments. He might view the decay of his own time with mild eyes, possibly horrified at the sight of our unbounded consumerism, callous exploitation of nature, and mindless embrace of the latest technology. There’s a glimmer of hope that he might craft a new, enigmatic tale of human misery—a narrative symbolizing how the lost individual, striving to overcome the all-too-human, sinks deeper and deeper into perdition. ChatGPT, despite its capabilities, could never replicate Kafka’s iconic stories and novels. Only the human Kafka, with his tormented mind and unique imagination, could achieve that. This singular self—totally distinct from what Ray Kurzweil means by the singular!—would have to invent an entirely new, even more horrifying apparatus to convey that these advancements are not just precarious but should be deemed regressions. They are, like everything else, nothing (nihil, nichts) because the truth lies beyond the world’s infernal noise and tumult.