The Doors of Law Close with Cowardly Silence

In Kafka’s The Trial, famous for its existentialist themes, there is an intriguing story called “Before the Law.” Because this story reveals how a totalitarian society comes into being, I would like to briefly introduce its plot.

A man from the countryside tries to enter the “Law,” but a gatekeeper standing at the door stops him. When the country man asks whether he may enter later, the gatekeeper replies that it is possible, but not now. While encouraging him to disobey the prohibition and try going inside, the gatekeeper also threatens him by saying that as he passes through each door, even stronger gatekeepers await. In the end, the country man gives up entering and instead tries to obtain permission. He attempts to bribe the gatekeeper, but the gatekeeper says he accepts the bribe only so that the man will not feel he has left any effort unmade. The man chatters endlessly to pester him and even asks the fleas clinging to the gatekeeper’s collar for help. After spending many long years before the door, the country man meets death, and just before dying he sees a powerful light streaming out from within. In his final moment, he asks the gatekeeper why no one other than himself has come there, and the gatekeeper answers that this door was meant only for him. With the country man’s death, the gatekeeper closes the door.

Through this story, Kafka speaks about how a totalitarian society arrives. First, the country man symbolizes an ordinary petty bourgeois citizen who has never before confronted the problem of the law. One day, this ordinary citizen comes face to face with the problem of the “Law” and seeks to enter it. But the gatekeeper blocks him, saying that entry is possible, but not now. This symbolizes administrative power that prevents citizens from enjoying their legitimate legal rights. Even though it has no grounds whatsoever to block the exercise of those rights, administrative power uses “postponement” to forbid their actual exercise. Examples include baseless non-tariff barriers, systems in which taxes are collected first and refunded later, or administrative practices that imprison first and ask questions later.

The gatekeeper forbids him, yet also encourages him to try to go in. In reality, he can only postpone it, not prohibit it. But in order to enjoy the benefits that come from that prohibition, he merely frightens and confuses the ordinary citizen seeking to enter the “Law.” Even if the citizen were to ignore him and step through the gate of the law, there are stronger gatekeepers beyond, underscoring the pointlessness of trying to enter the “Law.”

In the end, the country man gives up on entering through the gate of the law and instead strives to gain the gatekeeper’s permission. This symbolizes the psychology of those who, rather than properly securing their rightful legal rights no matter how difficult that may be, try to exercise them through methods that seem easy and simple. One example is trying to obtain some permit or license not by following the required procedure, but by simply bribing a public official to get it through.

But the gatekeeper is of no help at all, not even when bribed, nor when the man appeals even to the fleas associated with him. In the end, because of concerns about his own status, a bureaucrat may engage in rent-seeking, but it is difficult for him to make the impossible possible. This country man spends his whole life trembling anxiously before the “Law,” only to die in the end.

The powerful light from the door that the country man sees just before death is the spirit of universal law, equally open to all people. Only then does he wonder why no one but himself has ever come there. The gatekeeper replies that the door was meant only for the “country man,” and closes it with his death. How did a door that could be passed through, though “not now,” somehow become a door meant only for the country man? The answer is that the country man himself was the true gatekeeper.

When people exercise their legal rights, they do not look at legal provisions; they look at how other people behave. When we cross at a traffic light or when cars stop, we do not consult the Road Traffic Act; we understand the concrete nature of the law through other people’s actions. The gate of the law that closes at the end had, at some point, become a gate for the country man alone because he did not walk into the “Law” but kept his eyes fixed only on the gatekeeper’s backside. So to others, seeing that the country man had stood before that door his entire life without entering, the door had already become a closed door. (That is, to everyone except the country man, who still sought to enter.)

The people are standing before the law, unable to pass through its gate. That is because some people, standing before the law, have no thought of entering through its gate and only try to curry favor with the gatekeeper. They are told that if they confess to a crime they did not commit, they can get a suspended sentence, so they confess to crimes that do not exist. If they fight and lose, they may end up serving actual prison time. Even when subjected to double, triple, or quadruple taxation without any basis, they do not enter through the gate of the law but instead try somehow to impress the gatekeeper and pass through that way. If they pick a fight for no reason, they may be hit with a tax audit or a crushing tax bill, and only they will suffer for it.

The law, open to everyone and passable at any time, is becoming in practice a law that can never be passed at all because of the words, “not now.” Under such circumstances, none of us can pass through the law, and everyone dreams instead of becoming a “gatekeeper” (politician). For unless one is a gatekeeper, no one can enter the law.

The gate of the law is still closing even now. If I do not pass through it, it becomes a gate closed to all. The gatekeeper, too, does not really know the law. He is merely standing there. If I do not pass through because I am told it is dangerous or disadvantageous only to me, then the law will not protect me alone. Everyone before me has already passed through, and those after me will seek another law. It is dangerous, but we must take courage and enter the law. Only such communication between the country man and the law can prevent a totalitarian society.

What suffocates society is not the silence of the law, but the silence of citizens in the face of injustice. The gate of the law closes through silence. Indeed, it closes through cowardly silence. Is it not said that the only condition necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent? The arrival of a totalitarian society is not due to the incompetence and immorality of politicians. That is merely a cowardly excuse. The suffocation of law is the suffocation of freedom. If a truly totalitarian society is indeed arriving, it is not because of the gatekeeper, but because of one country man—because of “me,” persistently wrapped in cowardly silence.

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Original title: 법의 문은 비겁한 침묵으로 닫힌다

Author: Gyeong-mo Son

Date: 2020-02-07

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=15&idx=22362