Sure, you need special treatment. That’s why you’re up here, with me. For special one-to-one attention.
So you’re the Organisational Management honey trap?
Maybe I am.
You’re the human face of Organisational Management – I get it. The appeal-to-dark-philosophers face … And you’re the Head of Organisational Management’s wife.
Sure.
Tell me, did your husband put you up to this? Meeting me. Taking me aside. Winning me over.
I do what I please.
So this is your solo mission to bring a Philosophy person onside.
To welcome you, philosopher. To bring you in from the cold.
My husband would say we need a kick up the rear. Organisational Management always needs a kick up the rear. The only way Organisational Management can improve is by coming up against different views.
And what if someone questioned the need for Organisational Management? That Organisational Management should be at all?
That’s allowed.
What if someone said Organisational Management was evil – the greatest evil?
Everything’s open to discussion.
Everything – which means nothing. Everything’s allowed, which means nothing’s allowed.
What is Organisational Management? When did it start? How did it get that name? Why wasn’t it ever heard of before, say, five years ago? Did it just emerge from nowhere?
Business studies just sounded too … business-y. Organisational Management was a better name for what we were about. But I think we might abandon that, in turn. Just call ourselves Sustainable Futures or something …
You can really do things here. Effect, like, change. We have the ear of politicians. NGO types. We’re linked to the World Economic Forum. To the United Nations. You can have real impact. Leave the ivory tower. Just tell us what you want to do.
I don’t want to do anything.
That’s okay, too. Blue sky thinking.
You’re speaking like an android. It isn’t right. Nothing’s right. You don’t believe in this, do you? You don’t actually believe in what you’re saying … I can see it. Behind your eyes … You’re not actually some Organisational Management fembot …
They want to reduce Organisational Management groupthink, improving governance and risk management. They want cognitive diversity, not just demographic diversity.
They want to overturn simple models of unanimity. And unquestioned beliefs. That’s the only way we can address global problems. By working together.
That’s what this campus is supposed to be: a home for the world’s brightest minds. Thinkers from outside the box! A way for us to mind meld! To pool our resources!
Why did you want Philosophy? Why did you move us here? I mean, you guys already run the university, pretty much. You pretty much rule the world. And now you want to fuck with our heads, too. How can you want more power? More fucking territory to conquer?
Is it because you know that we’ll be your toughest opponents? Because we’ll put up the most resistance? Will be the most critical? The most, like, anti-totalitarian?
We already have a philosopher on staff.
Sure, an analytic philosopher. Like Seven of Nine from Star Trek …
We wanted to bring you Europeans in, too. We need more breadth. We’re supposed to be recruiting mavericks and weirdoes. People who genuinely think outside the box. The twenty per cent per cent of people who don’t go along with things. The future of Organisational Management depends on it.
You guys are going to be part of it.
Whether we like it or not, right?
Maybe we can teach you things, too.
Pffff …
So you’re the Queen of this world.
I’m the consort.
Looking down from the mezzanine.
Organisational Managers, so many of them. Organisational Managers, fucking swarming. You guys are fucking legion. And your postgraduates – so smartly dressed. Are they actually wearing uniforms?
Actually, the really big names in Organisational Management aren’t here.
So your husband isn’t one of the big names?
The really big names wouldn’t be involved in administration. Or actual management. Just spiritual management.
You know my husband really loves philosophy. That’s what he says: he loves it. He loves what you guys do.
He brought us here because he loves us.
Exactly.
That’s what Stalin said to Shostakovich. We have criticised you, but we did so because we love you …
I don’t think my husband wants to criticize you …
It’s terrible to be loved. It’s terrible to be caught up in someone else’s enthusiasm. Because they’ll inevitably be disappointed with you. When you’re not what they want.
We won’t be disappointed.
Look, philosophy isn’t a toy. It isn’t Organisational Management’s to play with.
Work in Progress 