Look at them, these career academics. Look at them, supposed experts on the continental philosophical tradition. Alleged seers of the various European philosophy lineages.
Look at them, talking to each other. Laughing with each other. In good conscience!
Their attitude is wrong. Their good cheer. Their whole academics-at-play shtick.
Contemplate them, the mediocrities who don’t know their own mediocrity. Who never experience their own averageness.
No sense of stupidity. No sense of compromise. Comfortably left-liberal. Unshaken in their global citizenry. As manipulable as lab-rats.
Nothing extreme about them. Nothing uncompromising about them. Nothing fanatical.
They’re not deranged. They haven’t been changed by what they think. They haven’t been shifted onto other paths, dangerous paths. They haven’t gone mad. They’ve forgotten any madness that they might have had.
Mild types. Moderates. They’re on-the-one-hand-on-the-other kind. See-it-from-all-angles sorts.
God, the liberal left. Infinite duped. Identikit. All exactly the same. In their views. Their attitude. Programmed. Controlled. The controlled opposition, no different from the controlled establishment.
My God, is this what academia has produced! Is this what the university has made. Look at them – they’re even happy. With themselves.
They haven’t got visible mental illnesses. They aren’t drooling. They’re not prey to religious delusions. They’re well balanced. They aren’t in the grip of wild messianisms. They aren’t certifiable. Arrestable. They’re not drunk. They aren’t stoned. They aren’t eight miles high.
Do they really think they have anything to say? Do they really believe that their papers add up to anything?
They’re networking. Making connections. Advancing careers, maybe. Learning about job openings here and there.
And to think, we’re part of this. We’re just like them. They’re our mirror – our terrible mirror.
They show us what we need to do to ourselves. The cruelty to which we have to submit ourselves.
Terrible asceses are necessary. Self-cruelty. Self-destruction. We must hate more. And ourselves first of all. We must turn as howling wolves upon ourselves.
Too much sanity here. There’s too much sobriety. Too much reasonableness. Balancedness. Where are the black lipped? The red toothed? Where are the maniacs who have essentially jumped the track?
This is death – living death, but of the dull kind. Of the zombified kind.
Don’t they know shame? The shame of having succeeded in inverted commas. The shame of having got on – in this corrupted world? In this fallen world? Aren’t they thinking of the ones who failed? Who couldn’t adjust? Of otherworldly types. Non-careerists, who could never get it together. Who couldn’t come across well at interview. Who couldn’t speak the corporate shit.
The crash-and-burners. The never published. The fall-aparts. The maladjusted. Don’t they ever think of them?
They’re too alive. Too healthy. Too white toothed. Their eyes are too bright. Unbloodshot. God knows, they even exercise. They have gym memberships, it’s clear. They barely drink. They don’t even smoke. You used to be able to count on that: that academics smoked.
The ultimate horror: they do not hate themselves. They do not want to destroy themselves. They don’t see their own complicity – in this, in everything. They accept the world as it is. They accept themselves as they are.
They’re the sanest people who’ve ever lived. The soberest people who’ve ever lived.
No sense of geopolitical crisis. No sense of the continuous state of emergency. They aren’t panicked. Aren’t trembling with fear or rage.
So long as they’re able to go on doing what they do, such as it is. Writing their papers, such as they are. Busying themselves with their careers, such as they are. Performing their administrative roles, such as they are. Their managerial roles.
The most dreadful thing: They do no hate themselves. The most horrifying thing: They do not want to kill themselves. They think that they can go on exactly as they are. That they aren’t constantly wrestling with suicidal ideation.
Don’t they understand how deeply they’ve shamed themselves? And not just themselves. The humanities. Philosophy. Everyone. Humanity.
That they’re not exploring extreme political situations. That they’re not contemplating arming themselves. Taking to the hills. Setting up smallholdings. Beating a retreat to a freedom hub.
That they’re not panicked.
They’re polite. There are no fisticuffs. No disdain. No sang froid, not anymore. There are not even disagreements. Because they all agree. Because they all see the world in the same way.
There are no stakes to their philosophising. Because everything is agreed.
Looking around for someone to fuck. Wanting an affair-lette. A conference fuck. Why not? They’ve come here to mate. They’re on the prowl. That’s what’s on their mind.
Give your paper, then a fuck. Is there anyone willing? A postgraduate. Some early career researcher. And why not? It’s consensual. Everyone’s adults.
Doesn’t coming to a conference make you ashamed of being human? Because it’s our fault, too. Because we’re part of it, too. Because we’re part of the system – the academic system. The insulated-from-the-world system. The as-if-it-isn’t-happening system.
We come here, why – to find allies? To look for the like-minded. So stupid. Why bother? Why are we here? Isn’t that the most pressing question? The most terrible question? What are we doing here? What are we doing to ourselves by being here? By giving papers – here?
We’re no better than they are. We’re worse – much worse. Because we pose as cynical, as seen-through it-all, as undeluded, and we’re here. Because we need to see it all again, to learn the whole lesson again, and we’re here.
We’re here, looking on! Seeing it all again!
They know the division of labour in European philosophy: The French, German and Italian think, and the anglophone world comments crappily on what they think. And they’re happy with it!
Work in Progress 