Cicero

Cicero’s undergone a phase change. She’s passed on to another level of life. She’s become … well, you’ll see.

 

Cicero’s paranoid. She believes she’s being watched. She believes everyone is being watched. And monitored. And surveilled.

 

Cicero’s gone further than we have.

 

Cicero’s beyond the uni now. Beyond philosophy, even.

 

Cicero’s virtually mute now. Since her renunciation. She hasn’t spoken for a while.

 

Cicero, opening dry lips. Looking at us from the depths of her sadness.

 

Did Cicero always know the way the uni was going? Hadn’t she predicted every move in advance? What’s her verdict? What’s the plan?

 

Cicero knows where it’s all heading.

 

Cicero, our leader in exile. Cicero, who closes her eyes when she speaks.

 

Cicero is persona non grata in the corridors of the uni. Cicero went entirely too far for the good people of the uni. They practically drove her out! Demanded her resignation!  They gave her extended leave instead. What does extended leave mean?

 

There are people who call Cicero far right. Who call her Nazi. Who call her a mad conspiracy theorist. Of course they do! Haven’t we all become far right? Haven’t we all become mad conspiracy theorists!

Cicero’s a dangerous thinker, that’s the thing. She makes thinking dangerous.

 

Cicero poisoned youth, they said. She was corrupting youth.

 

Cicero was always trying to turn the students away of the classroom. Send them into the streets. What about insurance! The university said. What about safety!

 

Cicero’s legendary pedagogy. Cicero’s educational anarchy. Cicero’s attempt to deprogramme the students. To deprocess them.

Cicero tried to produce independent thinkers. They never forgave her.

 

Cicero’s sabbatical. Her thinking time. Her research leave. She needs it! To cool off her head.

 

It’s an emergency! A uni state of emergency! Can they really take this kind of decision without consulting anyone? Do they have this kind of power? Can they really do whatever they want? Does the framework exist? Yes they can.

 

We need to resist – not legally. Not through the union. We can’t challenge the uni. No: philosophically. We need to stage a philosophical battle. And not just against our uni. Against all tyranny. We need to start a philosophical movement.

Well, Cicero – what would you advise?

 

This is an historic day! This is how our names will go down in history – well, philosophical history.

Laughter.

 

It’s what we needed all along: an enemy. Schmitt was right with his friend / enemy distinction. It’s very defining.

It’ll make us into something. We won’t be idiot lecturers, doing this and then that.

We have something to sharpen our thought-weapons against.

 

We have to understand what kind of battle this is. Its true dimensions. Its scope. Its spiritual angle. Its religious one. We won’t just dissipate our energies, not anymore.

 

We have to Prepare. Draw on all the resources of philosophy. And probably non philosophy. And anti philosophy. Summon all our forces.

 

Are we philosophers – real philosophers? Is that what we do? Maybe we’re something else? Anti philosophers, say.

Antiphilosophers? Haven’t the French already done that?

The French have done everything, those bastards.

 

A native philosophy – all of our own: that’s what we need. A British philosophy, God help us. Our version of European thought. What better?

We’ll make it our own. We won’t be playing catch-up anymore. This’ll be our thing. Our mission. We’ll follow our trajectory. This will be the making of us – as thinkers. As philosophers, or antiphilosophers, or nonphilosophers, or whatever.

 

No more inferiority complex. No more imposter’s syndrome. No sense of having arrived too late. No belatedness. No posthumousness. We’ll weaponize thought – all thought. Everything we’ve been trained in, however poorly.

 

A local struggle – a specific struggle. Yes! Yes!

All along, we needed a mission. A Cause. And now we have it: our Cause. This is what we’re going to do. This is how we’ll busy ourselves. That will magnetise our writings. Draw them together.

 

Now we have something to Do. Now we have something to busy ourselves with …

We’ll remake philosophy. Reshape it. We’ll draw on the powers of Europe.

 

Cicero’s experiments in distantiation. In dissociation. They’re quite deliberate. There are psychological states we can reach out here, at the coast. Philosophical states.