Aarcflick

 In "Before the Law", Franz Kafka portrays a compatriot who can only be forever "before the law", but never entering. "It is possible" to enter, says the doorman, "but not at the moment." The man grows old and is about to die, and only now does he understand that the door was meant for him! “No one else could be admitted here, as this gate was made just for you. Now I'm going to close it." Kafka takes us to the interplay of overinvestment and underinvestment in our relationship with law, which drives a spiral of activity toward a goal that perpetually recedes into the future. At the very least, Kafka suggests that the law the protagonist seeks to enter into might not be what he believes it to be. The law is a self-referential bubble without concrete determinations of any kind. Jacques Derrida was right when he pointed out Kafka's message: "To be invested with its categorical authority, the law must be without history, genesis or...