Magnificent Seven

It was like the Magnificent Seven. Like the Seven Samurai. Cicero wanted to recruit a posse. She wanted a gang. So she went out and found us.

And who were we? Doomers. Losers. Off the rails.

All of us, teaching part time. Magellan, business ethics at Bangor University. Ava, the ethics of chemical engineering at Teeside University, for God’s sake. Little Hans and Big Hans, busy with applied ethics at various London universities.

Sven, part-time in the most doomed of the doomed universities. That was closing all its humanities departments. Sven, seeing the last few students through now the full time staff had left. As the university reinvented itself around him as a new media hub …

Barbarossa, practically shaking when Cicero found her. Barbarossa, plagued by academic bullying. By concocted charges of something or other. Because she refused the advances of an older academic. Who swore he’d make sure Barbarossa never worked again in academia.

Barbarossa, now with a stammer. A stutter. But Cicero saw beyond that.

Cecil, teaching TEFL somewhere, Cecil, forgetting he ever did a PhD. Forgetting the papers he spun out so effortlessly from his PhD. Forgetting his legendary early promise. But Cecil saw the advert, by chance. Cecil applied …

And there I’d been, busy with pregnancy cover in Hatfield. Hatfield! Living in Hatfield! A nowhere place! A nothing place! The most dead-ended of dead end unis. In the London suburbs. In the nowhere suburbs.

And Cicero, coming to find us. Cicero,  doing the conferences. Cicero, asking questions: Who should she employ? Who are the best? The brightest? And avoiding the most obviously bright. The most obviously best. Cicero, showing up at obscure symposia at obscure universities, keeping her eye out. Cicero, ready with other criteria. Cicero, encouraging us to apply. Writing to us to apply.

And she employed all of us – the whole shortlist! The whole gamut, who were invited to interview. They gave jobs to the whole shortlist. How did she persuade Newcastle University of that? All of us, in a magnificent swoop. All of us, borne up. Who could have expected that?

And we came to Newcastle, still  full of a desperate intensity! A life-or-death intensity! A desperation! A craving! We came, still in some manic state. After years of living in extremity. After years of part-time teaching. Grinning strangely. Our eyes … The look in our eyes … We were all but frothing at the mouth …

After years of humiliation! Years of privation! On the part time philosophy job market! Paid per course. A pittance per course! And on benefits, otherwise. On the dole, through the summer, through the Easter break, through Christmas. Rolling up to the benefits office to sign on, through summer, through Easter, through Christmas.

On permanent tenterhooks about the teaching we’d be offered. Or whether we’d be offered any teaching at all. And we’d accept anything. Regardless of expertise. Out of sheer desperation! Advanced logic? Sure. Metaphysics, – Analytic Philosophy style. Of course. Advanced Epistemology. Bring it on! We’d wing it. We’d work twenty hours per lecture. Pull al- nighters.

And knowing nothing of rest in busy term time. Of a night’s sleep. Of deep sleep. Of unpanicked REM. Knowing nothing of peace. Of time off. Of empty, open hours. Of wandering. Of contemplation … Of simple sitting … Of just being ….

Every minute, crammed with work. Stuffed with projects. And all at once! Stacked on top of one another! Doing this thing when you were supposed to be doing that thing. And neglecting those things whilst doing that thing.

Productivity – so-called productivity! A whole life, geared to nothing else! Being productive, or feeling guilty about not being productive!

And no romance allowed. No fun allowed. No days off allowed. No staring at the sky allowed. No rest allowed. No unworking hours allowed. Only broken hours, ruined hours, where you can’t work and can’t do anything. Only ill hours, where you only feel guilty about not working.

Hardly the circumstances in which to produce your best work! Hardly the times to turn your dissertation into some magnum opus! Submitting a conference abstract here, hoping to get accepted. Submitting a paper there, a revision of another paper there. Sending our speculative job applications, knowing you hadn’t got a chance.

And a swirling in the head. And a swarm in the head. And a panic in the head.

Opening an email. We’re sorry, but your work isn’t suitable … We regret to say your article doesn’t fit … Best of luck with your publication plans …

Opening an email. We’re not looking for work on this topic at this time. I’m afraid we’re overwhelmed with articles at present … I hope you will be able to find a suitable place to publish your work elsewhere …

That is, if they even bothered sending emails. If there wasn’t just an eerie silence …

And hating the system, and the unfairness of the system. Despising our dependency upon it, the system. Despising what supposed successes we had in the system. And loathing ourselves and what the system made us. Loathing who we’d become in the system. Work horses. Houseboys. Maids of all work.

And hating the system that forced us to try to succeed on its terms, and only on its terms. Loathing their measures of success and the conditions of success. And loathing the so-called fruits of success.

Loathing the utter mediocrity of full time staff. The utter averageness of them all, the full-time staff. Hating their blitheness, the properly employed academics. For talking about holiday plans. About different kinds of wine. Hating them for their houses and families and being to make their way …

And out for drinks with the full time staff. And being unable to afford a round at drinks with full time staff. And offering to buy a round at drinks with full time staff. Having to save for a week for drinks with full time staff. All the while to become better known by full time staff. To get our faces known by full time staff. To become well-liked by full time staff. To become part of the gang of full time staff. So that they might be able to make a case for our continued appointment, the full time staff.

Which is why we learnt to laugh with full time staff! At their jokes! At their academic anecdotes! Which is why we learnt to feign sympathy with them, the full time staff, when they tell us their minor woes. Of internecine warfare. Of perceived slights, perceived grievances. Of departmental politics. Of subject group politics.

And all the while despising them, the full time staff. All the while, fuelled with despair because they’d be rewarded, and you hadn’t! Drowning in resentment that they had proper jobs and we hadn’t! Sick with resentment that they could think of anything but desperation, which we couldn’t!

And meanwhile, our secret ardency! Our negativism. Our revolutionary dreams. Our craving for a Year Zero that could burn up the world! Our desire for revenge! Our glee for apocalypse! For the destruction of the world and the academic world!

Magnificent hatreds! Loathings! Leaps of horror! Screams in the head! Aabyssal thoughts! Thoughts of caged beasts born of caged beasts! Of rats in the maze, begotten by rats in the maze. Ferocious thoughts! Flarings-up! Fireworks! Blastings and explosions from hatred! Inner skies lit up!

Transcendental hatred. Hating the conditions that produced us. That made us. That allowed our kind. That gave us a so-called chance … Hating the so-called meritocracy. Hating the rigging of the system. The ranking of unis that placed your alma mater at the bottom. That placed all the true continental philosophy departments at the bottom. The ranking of journals that means that nowhere you published would get you a job.

That sense of humiliation. Of being dependent on tossers. Of having to appease wankers with power. Of begging for work. Losing all dignity, all independence. Having to go to moron heads of department, begging bowl in hand …

But Cicero swept us up in her angel’s wings. We were saved, lifted, when we didn’t expect to be. We’d escaped, when we never expected to escape …

Condemned, we thought, to a life on the margins. To scraping by. To a job in the crappiest of former polys at best. In some nowhere town … In some no-place place … To scraping by in Further Education, or something. Wherever. Whatever. At best!

And at worst? … Years passing. Bobbing along the bottom. Scraping by for life … Paid teaching falling away. Dreams of publication, falling away. University affiliation, falling away. Wandering by day, lost in the day. On lonelier and lonelier orbits. Friends, falling away. Peers tired of us, ashamed of us.

On the dole. On benefits. A charity case! A ward of the state! Cut off from all social ties. Turning in on ourselves. Turning in our small circles. Making ourselves ill.

Barely able to assemble our thoughts. Barely able to speak in full sentences. Unable to hold ourselves together. Half catatonic, from disgust. Almost wholly withdrawn, out of horror.

Aliens on this earth. Just turning and turning in despair. Just turning on the axis of despair. Just rotating in despair.

With no one to talk to. No one to communicate with. No one understanding us. No one getting us. No one with our outlook. With our sense of humour.

And if we met someone with whom we had something in common, we’d overwhelmed them with intensity. If we found someone with whom we might share a few things, we’d overburdening them with our despair. Scare them. Say things that scared ourselves. Howl out of the depths of your world-alienation. From the depths of absolute suicidal despair.

Until what? We went mad? We’d hear voices? We’d be infested, or whatever? Until the voices came? Until we were diagnosed. Sectioned. Medicated. Until we became dayroom zombies?

Until we move back to our home towns? Back to our parents’ houses? To our childhood bedrooms?  

We’d got away! And now we were back. We’d grown wings! Flown off! Left it all behind! And now, back again. Now walking by your childhood school! Back to where you played as a child …

So educated! So well read! Who’d read so many clever things! Who was so ‘booky’! All that potential! Intelligence! Who did so well as a children! What went wrong? People talking about us … People worried about us as a problem … Back to the parental home … back to be looked after …

Our childhood friends, baffled at what happened. At what went wrong. The parents of our childhood friends, seeing you passing by on the streets, whispering, What happened to X? What went wrong? To think, Y’s back at home with their parents.

How many years did we put into academia! Into the academic dream? What malinvestment! Bad investment! What did we think we’d be? Did we really think we’d find your way in? Didn’t we understand that academia was not for you?  Didn’t we see where it would lead?

Should have trained in IT instead. Should have worked in biotech, or something. And what do you have to show for all our years of study? What’s the result of our years of graft? A bound copy of our PhD dissertation. On the shelf! There it is! The non-magnum-opus!

Letters on the front: Awarded for completion of the degree of doctorate of philosophy. From the university of crapness. Our dissertation! Bound! That was it! That’s what we produced! Three hundred pages of … what? And why?

Some melange of trendy contemporary philosophical issues. Sovereignty. Biopolitics, etc. The usual! The usual usual! More of it! More continental philosophy landfill! More readings of readings of readings! More marginalia in the great works!

Closely printed type. Read only by our supervisors and our examiners. And by no one else! With our dedication page. To my parents, with gratitude. For their support then and now! As they put you up!

And now we can put the word, doctor, before our names: what a joke! I studied for years and all I got was a lousy dissertation and doctor on my debit card. And a clutch of book reviews in the electronic aether. Is that it?

Years of study in a subject that interests no one. That you can barely explain. That no one wants you to explain. That has no part in UK intellectual culture. That qualifies us for nothing – except teaching European philosophy, and where could we do that?

But Cicero saved us. From certain mental illness! Certain suicide! Certain soul death! Certain life murder! Certain fuck up! Certain doom!  

But Cicero swept us up. Cicero scooped up the philosophical undesirables. The philosophical no ones. The seven … what? Seven idiots. Seven mediocres. Seven fuck ups. Seven failures …

What did she see in us, the philosophical world asked itself, and scratched its head. What’s going on at Newcastle? It had a shock and awe element. It had a baffle-the-enemy dimension. It confused everyone.

What’s going on up there? What’s happening? What was Cicero building? What was her game?

Hadn’t Cicero won some respect from the hard to please philosophical community? Hadn’t she shown her philosophical chops, her philosophy acumen, her speculative abilities?

For all that, she was an unknown, an outsider. Who knew that she wanted to build, apparently from scratch, a philosophy department all of her own. Where had Cicero come from? She appeared, seemingly full formed. Fully armed.

There she was, at Newcastle. There she was, willing to put in the committee work, to fill out the forms, to found a new department. What a marvel. A philosophy department, growing from nothing. Growing from nowhere.

Creatio ex nihilo! How was that possible!? Turning the tide in favour of the humanities!? A Newcastle miracle! In the face of everything!?

Cicero came to save us, and save us she did.