I actually think the world might end tonight. I think the Organisational Management / Philosophy merger is going to break reality. I think it’s so crazy. It’s going to cause some tear in the space-time continuum, or whatever.
It’s an omen. Like the birth of a two-headed cow.
An omen of what?
That reality – so called reality – is crazy and out of control.
We knew that.
We didn’t know it. We thought all the craziness would just blow by like some hurricane and leave us alone. We thought we could batten down the hatches and be okay.
So it reached us. So what? What did you think would happen?
They hate us without knowing that they hate us. Without realising it. But they have to hate us. Because they’re part of a system that hates us.
The system does the hating. The system wants to destroy us. Which means they can only want to destroy us – of course. It’s their logic. It’s what they’re about.
But it’s a benign hatred. A hatred that doesn’t look like hatred. A hatred dressed as kindness. They’re kind murderers, but murderers nonetheless. The system does all the actual hating, whereas they can appear to be kindness itself – generosity itself.
All the hating’s done for them. All the logic’s working out. And they’re like the smiling figurehead …
Come on, they’re welcoming us. This is a meet and greet. To discover areas of synergy. Of mutual research interests. Areas of research overlap. Ways to prepare joint bids. Seek impact.
It’s meeting of minds. A might meld. Bringing Organisational Management and philosophy together …
What happened to the idea of philosophical honour?
You made up the idea of philosophical honour.
What about the great martyrs of philosophy? What did they die for?
This is your moment. You can add your name to the great list. Turn berserker. Run amok into the Organisational Management crowd.
We’re traitors – of course we are. We’re weak-willed. Weak-minded! We’re stupid – deeply so. Very deeply. We’re the philosophers these times deserve.
Compromisers! Forelock tuggers. Kneelers to power. Betrayers. It’s generations of class based deference. It’s our psychological conditioning.
It's dishonour! Compromise! We’ve lost face! Philosophy’s been betrayed.
We should just suicide, all of us. Without question! We should just stab ourselves and collapse! En masse! Like, the last stand of Philosophy. Its last triumph! In uselessness! In sacrifice! Setting itself utterly apart from the world of Organisational Management.
A murder-suicide: that’s what you should go for. Take a few of them out …
Come on, they’ll win you over. The Head is pretty charming. Good sense of humour. He’s pretty amiable.
But amiability’s part of the problem. No – it is the problem. Middle-class moderation is the problem. And we’re middle-class, too – which is part of our problem. There’ll be no murder-suicides tonight.
What’s the most self-destructive thing that I could do right now? Kill everyone? Run anok? No – kill myself! I’d do it, too, if I had a gun! I’d, like, turn the weapon on myself. Wouldn’t that be something?
They’d just say you were mentally ill.
Not if I wrote a really boss suicide note, indicting these fuckers. Indicting the Organisational Management move. I’d make the university news.
They’d supress it. They wouldn’t understand it.
I was going to write a book that was just a suicide note. I was going to write it and die.
So what stopped you?
I couldn’t finish it.
Finish it now! Finish it tonight!
An act of pure exhilarated despair.
Work in Progress 