Arthur Silber Has a Dream

And it's a horrorshow.

And that was the other deeply frightening aspect of my nightmare. Most other people did believe him. Even those people who said they had serious doubts about the truth of his claims proceeded to debate those claims as if they had some merit that deserved scrutiny. I tried to explain why nothing he said should be regarded with any degree of seriousness, but no one would listen to me. They engaged in endless debates over the particulars of his accusations. Since none of his claims was based in fact, all such debates were entirely futile. But my accuser -- this monster who had brutalized, tortured, raped and murdered an unending succession of innocent victims -- had achieved his primary aim: his accusations were regarded as legitimate, if only to the extent that they had to be disproved. Even if those who doubted my accuser's claims succeeded in debunking this particular set of claims, this monster without a conscience knew that he had won the most critical battle. He would simply invent another series of groundless claims. And so another debate over a another series of fictions would ensue; this pattern would be repeated endlessly. Finally, in time, I would be punished, just as my accuser demanded.

Kafka was an optimist.