I was reading Kafka's "Josefine, die Sängerin oder das Volk der Mäuse" and came across this sentence: > Aber sie hat keine Feinde, und selbst wenn mancher hie und da Einwände gegen sie hat, dieser Kampf belustigt niemanden. > **Schon deshalb nicht**, weil sich hier das Volk in seiner kalten richterlichen Haltung zeigt, wie man es sonst bei uns nur sehr selten sieht. ([Wikisource]) I understand the *weil* clause well enough, but the "Schon deshalb nicht, weil..." construction as a whole has me confused about its logic. Willa and Edwin Muir translate it as "Just because of the fact that..." and similarly when I put it in DeepL or Google Translate, it's translated as "If only because..." I understand that the meaning of *schon* in this context is similar to that of *bloß* and the construction *deshalb, weil* essentially means "That's because..." or "For the reason that..." So *Schon deshalb, weil...* alone would also mean "Just because of the fact that..." and DeepL also translates that as "If only because..." But what is the function of *nicht*? How does this whole construction make sense? [Wikisource]: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:De_Kafka_Hungerk%C3%BCnstler_78.png