Thinkers to Come

They’re closing the European philosophy departments down, one by one. The lights are going out, one by one.

And the departments that remain are being infiltrated. Are being hollowed out from within. Are becoming faux European philosophy departments. European philosophy done in the analytic style, if that were possible. In the Anglo-American style! What a joke.

At least we never tried that. At least we haven’t tried to dress it up as what it was not, European philosophy. Of course, we couldn’t do it, we’re incapable of it, analytic philosophy, of analytic philosophy logic, just as we’re incapable of European philosophy, or European philosophy non-logic.

But we’re drawn to European philosophy, as we’re not to analytic philosophy. We’re drawn to it, even as we cannot do it, and in so doing preserve it as European philosophy, as what we cannot do, but want to do, and not as anything else. As what we cannot do – for reasons of intellect, perhaps, or for reasons of education.

But for reasons of temperament, too. For isn’t our temperament a British one? Doesn’t it mean that we cannot think – not as they think, the philosophers we admire. We haven’t got it. We don’t have it – but at least we know that. At least we don’t present it as what it’s not. It has its own styles, its own tones, its own modus operandi – all those things are clear. But at least we know it. At least we’re not pretenders – in this regard. We’re not liars – about this. We preserve a relation to European philosophy in our very stupidity.

Knowing our stupidity – that’s the thing. It’s our idiocy, our perfect inability to philosophise, that is greatest testimony to European philosophising. We give testimony to the full sweep of European though by virtue of our total incompetence at any and all aspects of European philosophy.

We keep its place. We tell our students that they, too, will be unable to understand European philosophy, and unable, above all, to do European philosophy. But they’re to remember it nonetheless. They’re to feel their stupidity nonetheless. Experience their parochialism. Suffer it! Suffer their own incapacity! Endure their own foolishness! Hold it open, their lack! Of what they do not have and will never have.

You can have no philosophical ambition: that’s what we tell them, over and over. You will never be able to do anything philosophically – not European-philosophically. It’s beyond you! You can’t reach it! You can’t go there. We’re dead, deader than dead, when it comes to European philosophy. All we can do is point to it. All we can do is indicate there really is such a thing. Or was. Across the channel. On the continent.

Philosophy is real, as we are not. Philosophy is full, as we are not. Never mind us! Don’t bother with us! We’re not important! Our kind are irrelevant! Forgotten. We’re like British surrealists, or something. No one will remember us. Not one will know we exist, not really. We’ll have got no legacy. Our PhD students won’t find jobs. They won’t become lecturers. They won’t go on to other departments.

We’re dying on the vine. The hegemony of analytic philosophy is complete – in the UK. The Anglophone world has fallen, when it comes to European philosophy.

We know our role. We’re legatees. Memory-keepers. We’re inheritors. We keep the place for real thinkers who might come along one day.

We know our flaws. We’re humble, if nothing else. We’re base. We have no pretensions. We sing the song of absence. We play our blue guitars.

But isn’t there a hope against hope that we have, that we share? Isn’t there an expectation in us, despite everything. A messianic faith. Aren’t we ready, despite it all, for the British thinkers to come? For the British European philosophers? For the students of our students of our students. Who will come at an hour when we do not expect them. The European philosophy rapture, coming upon us like a thief. The other beginning of European philosophy, even as Satan’s wrath is poured out on the earth.

And those who teach European philosophy will rise, meeting each other in the air. Those who knew that teaching would fall as pearls before swine. Those who published articles and books knowing it was in vain. Those who ran journals knowing their pointlessness. Those who organised conferences in the full awareness of their futility. Those who ran publishing series as though for nothing.

Won’t they wipe away every tear from our eyes, the British European philosophers to come? Won’t they come as conquering kings and queens, to establish their rein? Won’t there be no more death or mourning or crying or pain? Won’t the old order of things have passed away?

Which is why we can approach the last days without fear. Which is why we can bear our mediocrity without rancour. Because we’re keeping a place for what is to come. Because we’re keeping a seat at our table for the thinkers to come. Because we’re waiting for a knock at the door for our messianic successors.