GDANSK, Poland – In his novel “The Man Without Qualities,” Robert Musil gives the Habsburg world another name: Kakania. It is not a primitive country. It has ministries, laws, newspapers, officers, judges, aristocrats, experts, committees, salons, manners and a large supply of official languages. What it lacks is the ability to say what it is.

At the center of the novel is the Parallel Campaign, a patriotic project preparing a celebration in 1918 for the 70th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph’s reign. Important people gather. They draft memoranda, propose symbols, organize meetings and look for a great idea. They know there must be greatness. They cannot say what it consists of.

A state can continue to function after it has lost the ability to describe itself. Offices still work. The language remains. The purpose is missing.

The jubilee never took place. Franz Joseph died in 1916, the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918 and World War I swept away the world whose representatives had still been preparing speeches about its greatness.

The United States is now approaching the 250th anniversary of its independence while arguing over what America is. For some, it is a constitutional republic. For others, it is a lost country to be taken back, a market, a border, a grievance, a flag,........

© The Japan Times