Public lecture.
Retired worthies, looking for some intellectual stimulation. Looking to keep well informed. Looking to sate their curiosity. Looking to broaden their horizons. Looking to keep their minds active. Looking to learn, to find our new things. From the various branches of knowledge. From the sciences! From the humanities! From the arts!
White haired retirees. In couples. They’ve actually stayed married. They actually kept together. Pair-bonded for life. Probably got married when they were twenty-two, or something. Bought a house. Brought up children on a single income. Ran a car or two. Took foreign holidays. Paid off their mortgage by middle age.
They’re probably comfortably off. They’re probably supporting their adult children. Buying them flats after their divorces. Paying for home improvement. Private school fees for their grandchildren. Injections of cash! Keeping the economy going!
All the while improving themselves. All the while attending University of the Third Age events. All the while learning new languages. Taking up new hobbies. Rambling. Canoeing. God knows! Taking city breaks. Far-flung holidays. Staving off dementia.
They weren’t squeezed, like we are. They were never up against it. What did they have to fear?
Nuclear war.
True.
But at least the prospect of nuclear war was out in the open. At least it was discussed, feared. At least there was CND. At least there was a mass movements against nuclear weapons.
It wasn’t all movement in darkness, as it is now. It wasn’t all secret plants for NGOs to take over the world. It wasn’t all hidden machinations of stakeholder capitalism. It wasn’t all cloak and dagger stuff. Conspiracy stuff, hidden by paid-for media, by corrupt politicians, by complicit institutions.
Should we tell them what’s really going on? Could they take it? Would they believe it? It might explode their heads.
You need to be of a certain temperament to withstand the truth. You have to be attuned in a certain way. You can’t be too settled in the world. Can’t be too content. Can’t have too much to lose.
The psychic adjustment it takes … The shift in view … You have to be ruined, partly. You have to be broken. Rebuilt. And you have to stand to be rebuilt.
Only people who know despair. Who are saturated in despair. Pickled in it and perhaps curdled in it. Only those whose veins run with despair. Who are nothing other than despair. Who are certain that they will die in prison. Only people like us can face what’s going on.
All these intellectually curious people. All these open-minded generalists. Interested in everything. Curious about things to be found out. Look at them!
They’re intelligent, sure. They went to the good universities, at a time when they were actually good. They’re well trained.
They think of themselves as reasonable. As receptive. As intelligent. As willing to consider all sides of an argument. To consider the evident.
But they trust the system, fundamentally. They’re obedient, fundamentally. They think the path to knowledge is about being informed and having a good attitude and listening to the right authorities.
When we know that there are no right authorities. When we know that there’s only corruption. Only the machinations of power. Only politics, at every level.
How could they find out? How could they bear it?
It would need a great awakening. A change of heart. A turn. A conversion. Their souls would have to be changed in its entirety.
Is that what happened to us? No, because we were already there. We were already disgusted. We’d been turned – at birth. Before birth. We were born converted. Born destroyed. We didn’t expect anything else.
No faith in the great institutions. No faith in the university. No faith in the media. No faith in politics – God knows! In any politics. In left or right.
We had no hopes to be dashed. We remained undisappointed because we didn’t expected anything else. We sensed the Programme, before we knew it. We’d intuited the Plan in advance. We’d felt it – the coming human cull. The work of the Global New Order.
And everything we’ve learnt, everything we’ve studied, has only confirmed it. Has only anticipated what’s happening around us now. The great fakery. The great silencing. The Lies, larger than anything. We saw through it all.
They have faith in the world, as we don’t.
They’re sampling culture. They’re all for intelligent debate. Radio 4 listeners. They go to watch string quartets. Lunchtime concerts. Talks on all kinds of subject. They’re retired. Intellectually curious. University of the Third Age types. Not conspiracists. Not desperate.
They’re for the right causes. Against the wrong ones.
They’ve never been despised, as we’ve been. Never hated. Never reviled. Never condemned. They’re not unwholesome, like us. Dubious, like us. Twisted, like we are. But thank God for our twists, for our turns! Thank goodness for what allows us to think! The power of suspicion. Of distrust. The certainty of disaster.
They haven’t had to live against the world. Their worldview’s confirmed in their newspapers (they still read newspapers.) By the radio (they still listen to Radio 4.) By their favourite politicians (left or right, it doesn’t matter.) They still vote, for God’s sake.
They’re reasonable – and view the world as reasonable. They still think the world’s going in the Right Direction. That things are going as they Should Do, more or less. That there’s a Solution to everything. That If we just manage to Work Together. In Good Faith!
They think it’s Going to be Alright. That Humpty, in the end, can be put back together again. They don’t even question it, their sense that it’s going to be Alright. They don’t even pose it to themselves, their sense that It’s Going to be Alright.
And what if they understood that it’s not going to be alright? What if they broached it to themselves that it’s definitely not going to be alright? That we’ve invisible passed some boundary, some limit. That we’ve crossed some borderline. That this isn’t the old world, with its old faith, its old certainties.
Don't hey see that we've left history behind? That these are Biblical times? That only the language of the Book of Revelations is appropriate now. Apocalyptic language. The language of the eschaton, of the End? What if they came to see that our only hope can be Messianic hope? Can only be apocalyptic hope.
A hope in what arrives through the catastrophe and by means of the catastrophe. A hope in the darkness, that is only darkness. A hope that the world as we know it is brought to an end. A hope for the end of this world.
The intellectual types of Newcastle. Professional types. Doctors and the like. Lawyers and the like. Here they are. The intellectually able. The intellectually curious.
People of faith. Not in God. But in Expertise. In Knowledge. In Science. In Reason.
The good conscience of the world: that’s how they see themselves. Good global citizens. Doing the right thing. Fair minded. With a sense of fair play. Right thinkers. Left leaning. Comers of age in the ‘60s. Progressives, broadly. The Old Left, some of them. Who did well out of life. Who’ve lived worthwhile lives. Who have children! Grandchildren!
They know nothing of Disgust. They’re not on first name terms with Horror. With Derangement. They can’t see it. They can’t feel it. They don’t tremble with dread.
Why has it fallen to us to understand evil? Why is it only our kind who can understand evil? Why is it only people like us who can sense evil? who can see evil? What’s wrong with us? What’s right with us? Who chose us? And what are we to do, now that we’re chosen? What’s our role?
Work in Progress 