The deferral of ideals

Abstract

The history of politics is a succession of postponements. Ideals are first and foremost relegated. There is hardly a single one that is not postponed until the appropriate moment, invariably situated in the future. When the time seems near to make them a reality, the situation, the reasons of state, the imperatives, the implacable economic logic, or any other refuge of power to avoid the unpostponable makes it advisable to put them off until later, and so on indefinitely. Political ideals are like Kafka's heroes. Both are victims of endless procrastination. Josef K., the central character in Der Prozess, becomes entangled in a lawsuit without being able to find out what crime he is accused of or to confront the court that is to try him; K., the protagonist of Das Schloss, fails to enter the castle to which he has been summoned and dies without being recognised by the warden who rules it; the same happens to Karl Rossman, the main figure in his first novel, and to the heroes of his short stories. The Jewish writer puts his characters in intolerable situations that condemn them to fail to reach their destiny. Politics does the same with ideals. He turns them into dashed hopes or promises that are never fulfilled.