When our backs are completely against the wall, what then? When we’ve been utterly backed into our corner: what? What will we become?
When philosophy’s on the ropes: what then? When philosophy’s desperate? What will we become? What will we do? Something new. We’ll think something new …
Maybe this is just what we need.
We’re fighting, and not just for ourselves. There are other unmanagables out there – there must be. We’re not the only unbiddables – we can’t be.
Where might we find them, our fellows? Our brothers and sisters in arms? Where are they hiding? Will they be forced into the open now by the new reality? Will they be pushed blinking into the sun?
They’ve made a place for us here. Which really means a tomb for us. Which really means a place where we can be buried. Where we can lie down in the earth.
We’re outflanked.
They’ve co-opted reason. Good sense. Every move we want to make … just seems antisocial. Churlish. They’ve made us seem sulky, like petulant adolescents.
They’ve seized upon morality. Kindness. They’ve made us into haters. We can’t be anything else. There’s nowhere left to turn.
We want what isn’t good for us. For anyone. For the world. We’re positively demonic, that’s the thing. They’ve turned us negative. Perverse.
They’re welcoming us in. They’re throwing a party for us.
On their terms! On their campus! In Organisational Management towers!
They’re making us appear churlish. Ingrates. Nothing’s good enough for us.
What’s wrong with us?, we ask. Why do we reject their kindness? Why are we such cynics?
There’s no position left to us. Except refusal. Except hatred.
They’ve left us no place. They’ve turned us into adolescents. Into teenagers. Who need bringing on. Who need looking after.
This world is not for us: is that all we can say? This campus is false. It’s part of a false world. A fake world. It’s part of the takeover of the world.
The campus know what to do with us. The campus can help, in its own way.
There’s probably a screaming zone, to let us scream. Probably a desperation zone. And a perversity zone. And an ingrate zone, for people like us. A petulance zone, for our type.
There are others like us – there must be.
Who are they? Where are they? We need them. To send out a call.
Did they think, like us, that they could sit it out? Did they believe themselves immune?
Our kind. Our type. Cut off from the channels of communication. From self-expression. From making a call to others of our kind. From summoning them from their corners and cracks. Just as we have been called out of our corner and crack.
Did we think we’d just be able to sleep our lives away in the quiet of a philosophy department?
Work in Progress 