“Politics” (1908) is a translation of “Politik” (F 264-265: 1-4) and is, to the best of my knowledge, the first English translation of this essay. Should this be false, kindly let me know where I can find an existing translation. I would be interested in reading it.
A kind of abstract: In this piece, Kraus engages in—what one might call— performance writing. The text is, as it were, a demonstrative embodiment of Kraus’s praise for the positive, and not the negative, subject of his piece, the artist Rudolf Wilke; Kraus is doing what he praises Wilke for doing in his art. In so doing, Kraus moves from jest to chastisement and from chastisement to lamentation and remembrance. These movements show Kraus dabbling in the cryptic to show that the absence of empty talk affords the reader the possibility of grasping what is essential in life as a preparatory effort for personal creation—artistic or cultural in nature.