The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka

Author:Franz Kafka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2022-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

53

Man darf niemanden betrügen, auch nicht die Welt um ihren Sieg.

* * *

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

Recorded on December 8, 1917.

* * *

This aphorism is a toned-down version of Aphorism 52, which was written on the same day (and later crossed out). Here we are asked only to acknowledge candidly our own inferiority once it becomes clear that we are unequal to the challenges posed by the world of the senses, and we cannot successfully counter it with our own non-sensory, “spiritual” challenges.

This reflection is related to musings on his own life story, which Kafka stepped up after the onset of tuberculosis, especially in Zürau. Three weeks earlier, he had written to Max Brod: “In the city, family, profession, society, love relationships (you can put that first, if you like), the existing or prospective community at large: in all these relationships I have not stood the test, and moreover have failed to do so in such a way that—I have observed this carefully—no one else anywhere around me has.” Kafka continued his letter by claiming that he had discovered a surprising way out: “It amounts to, or would amount to, my confessing not only in private, not only as an aside, but openly, by my behavior, that I cannot acquit myself properly here. To this end, I need do nothing but follow the contours of my previous life with full determination. As a result I would hold myself together, not squander myself in meaninglessness, and maintain a clear-eyed view.”

This autobiographical context makes it unlikely that in writing Aphorisms 52 and 53 Kafka was thinking of an inevitable, preordained victory of the world that applies to every individual case. The second text on sheet 54 also speaks against a generalization of this kind.

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