On the Mezzanine

The Organisational Management Christmas Party.

On the mezzanine.

Laure, she says, shaking my hand.

I know who you are, I say. I saw you at the meeting,

Oh – the meeting. You wouldn’t eat anything of the buffet – that’s what I remember. And it was a luxury buffet. The best the university could offer. And you were just sitting there with folded arms –

I wasn’t going to dignify the occasion –

– like a spoilt child. Like Mr fucking Sulky … Oh, sorry, Dr Sulky …

I didn’t want to celebrate the forced marriage …

You could at last have had a good attitude about it … Actually my husband – who’s the Head of School, as you probably know –

– I know.

Thinks Philosophy can bring with it a different kind of thinking – something more holistic and relational. The left brain hemisphere to complement our right one … or is it the other way round? Your yin to our yang. There’s an interesting conversation to be had, he thinks. You know, synergies –

Use the word, synergy again, and I’ll kill myself.

– Whereas I would welcome some anarchy. Some madness, even. I’m tired of being the only mad person in the O.M. attic.

Is that what you are?

I’m actually very philosophical, for an organisational manager. Or at least I think I am. But I don’t expect you to believe that.

For all I know you’re one of the legendary secret Business Studies philosophers.

What?

You know – those humanities types who got Business Studies scholarships to fund their PhDs. Who went where the money was. And found themselves working in Business Studies, all the while continuing their philosophical studies.

Are they real?

They recognise each other by secret handshakes and publish philosophy under assumed names.

Entirely your fantasy, I’m afraid.  

So what kind of mad person are you?

I’m not interested in any of the chit chat down there, for one thing.

That isn’t madness.

I just don’t belong to any of this. To Organisational Management. To the university …

Sure … But that’s still not madness.

I’m … dissociated. Autistic, maybe. It runs in my family.

Have you been diagnosed?

It’s like I’ve been put out of use. Laid aside.

By what?

By life. All of life. I don’t feel what I’m supposed to feel, philosopher. I don’t say the right things.  

Have you tried therapy?

I’ve … tried … therapy. It doesn’t … take. There’s too much wrong. What if I said I was an alcoholic, and had been to rehab?

I’d say I was sorry to hear that.

But I’m not an alcoholic, and was never in rehab. I don’t have a drink problem, or a drug problem or any particular mental health issue … I don’t have anything … diagnosable. Maybe I’m just trying to be interesting. Maybe I’m just trying to interest you, philosopher … Do you say things to make yourself sound interesting? For effect? Actually, I’ll bet you actually think you’re interesting.

I don’t think there’s anything … interesting about me.

I think you find yourself interesting enough not to have to sound interesting … Like, I have nothing to declare … except my philosophy. Except all the books I’ve read … Except my philosophical attitude …

I’m sure you’ve read books, too.

Not interesting ones. Not difficult ones. Just boring books, really. Long, boring business books. And I haven’t read many of them. I’m not really into Organisational Management theory … I’m more about applied Organisational Management. How Organisational Management works on the ground. I’m pragmatic.

And mad.

And mad. Too mad … Do you believe in reincarnation, philosopher? Do you believe you were born before? And that you will be born again? Or are you too materialist for that?

I don’t believe in reincarnation.

Do you ever feel everything you say is in quotes, like it’s been said before? By someone else, maybe. Or by us in another life? Do you ever feel that all this happened before, and we’re just living it again? That all this is part of the whole of life flashing before your eyes as you die? … See I told you I was philosophical, didn’t I? Or mad …

Better mad that a being a synth.

What’s one of those?

Like, an android – a biogenetic android. Which is what we in philosophy suspect all Organisational Managers are.

But I’m not a robot, am I? I’m not full of circuits and wiring, or whatever.

Synth is short for synthetic biology. A synth is made out of biological tissue, which means no circuits or wiring – they’re entirely organic. The crucial difference is that they’re lab-grown, like, not born.

Like in Blade Runner?

Exactly. Like the replicants – they’re synthetic life forms, designed by genetic engineers. Barely distinguishable from humans, except that they have no emotions.

I have emotions.

You think you have emotions. Maybe they’re simulated emotions.

Maybe your emotions are simulated – did you ever consider that?

The more advanced replicants had implanted memories. To make them think they were human.

So are my memories implanted?

I don’t know. Do they feel like they are?

They could be. They really could be. How could I tell that I was a synth?

There’s a test: remember, from the film? Harrison Ford would ask someone under suspicion a bunch of questions that are supposed to provoke a genuine emotional response.

How could he tell?

He had equipment to monitor the kind of involuntary muscle contractions, like the movements in your eye , that an emotional response would trigger.

Do you have any equipment?

Only my intuition.

So, try me out, intuition-boy.

You realise there’s a wasp crawling on your arm. What do you do? A) swat it, b) squash it, c) savour, it d) trap it. What’s the answer?

Well, it wouldn’t be savour, would it? That’s obvious. What would a synth say?

Swat it, maybe. I don’t know.

That question’s rubbish. Give me another.

You meet a friend who has suffered bereavement. Afterwards you feel … a) Annoyed at their lack of engagement, b) Powerless to help, c) Saddened or d) Bored. 

D) Bored … ever so bored. Infinitely bored. I’m not supposed to say that, am I? I’m just bored of everyone and everything. Do say something interesting, philosopher. Or I’ll just die of boredom.

Harrison Ford is supposed to kill the synths who’ve developed emotion. Who actually feel things. Because they’d developed the ability to question. To philosophise, even. Which meant they couldn’t be controlled anymore. They couldn’t just be employed for slave labour or as prostitutes.

So maybe I am an advanced synth, after all. A synth gone crazy from emotion, or whatever. Or questioning … Harrison Ford fell in love with one your synths, I remember that.

With Rachael. She was an even more advanced model than the others.

What was so advanced about her?

She passed Harrison Ford’s tests. Even though he knew she was a synth. Turns out she could get pregnant, too. She had a child. That’s what the Bladerunner sequel is about. Have you seen that?

Shaking her head.

Bladerunner 2046. Spoiler alert: she has a child.

A synth child?

A half synth child.

So am I a synth or not, philosopher? What have you decided?

That I can’t tell.

I’ve interested you today. I see that; I’ve piqued your interest. I was the last thing you were expecting at an Organisational Management party.

Beeps.

That’s my husband texting. He wants to know where I am.

Does he know you’re with me?

Maybe he does.

What are you going to say to him?

That I was with you. Maybe. Not really. I don’t know. I’ll lie.

What will you say?

That I had a migraine. That I had to go back to my office to lie down.

Won’t he come looking for you?

He knows I like to be alone sometimes. And he wouldn’t be so tasteless to … pursue me. He knows I’m a little mad. You know you don’t have to worry about your move to Organisational Management.

My husband genuinely loves philosophy. That’s what he says: he loves it. He loves what you guys do.

How does he know what we do?

He reads philosophy. Well, business philosophy. Organisational Management theory …

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.

I think you’re exactly what he wants.

Do you know what Stalin said to Shostakovich? We have criticised you, but we did so because we love you … Because we love you: do you hear that? And it’ll be the same when you guys start telling us to become more business–relevant, or whatever, which will inevitably happen ..

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless.

Oh now it comes out: what you really think.

Well – isn’t it?

It depends on what you mean by use.

You would say that.

It’s not all about … business. And organisation. And management.

Obviously.

You seem proud of being useless. You’re defiant.

Because I don’t believe in what you call, use. In the useful. And nor do you.

But the university does.

Sure it does. Which is why Philosophy has become a kind of scapegoat. Why we’ve been made to bear all the sins of the humanities and sent into the Organisational Management wilderness …

Is that what's happened?

Sure. Because Philosophy’s the most useless humanities subject them of all.

And proud of it.

I want to hear more about Organisational Management. Who’s, like, the organisational manager’s organisational manager? Who’s king or queen of organisational management. I want to know! Who organisational managers talk about in reverence? At, like organisational manager conferences? Organisational manager meet-ups. Who’s, like the organisational management legend? Who’s the O.M. GOAT?

Stop taking the piss.

How, like, old is the field? When did organisational management begin? Do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? Seriously. It’s important.

You’re unbearable. It’s quite clear: I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe. You’re in the enemy’s camp. With the enemy’s wife, who’s probably a synth. You’re a traitor. You’re betraying yourself. And your people. And philosophy. And everything. Should you just go downstairs and rejoin the party?

I like it up here.

Do you ever worry that you’re a synth, philosopher? That you’re a synth who’s dreaming that he’s a philosopher?

I’d never call myself a philosopher.

Come on.

It’s an honorific. It’s for other people to call you a philosopher or not. You can’t decide for yourself.

How precious … What’s your theory of it all, philosopher? Do you have one?

I don’t have a theory of it all.

God, what’s the use of philosophy if it doesn’t give you a theory of it all?

Philosophy’s about questions, not answers …

Questions about wasps and bereaved friends?

Questions about the nature of reality, and whether you’re real: the questions you were asking.

Which is all very well, but where does all this questioning get us? The same place as we were before. Only a little more miserable.

The melancholy of learning, that’s what Hamlet calls it.

This is all so meta. Talking like this, instead of ….

What?

Getting on with it.

You’re the one who started it.

I did, didn’t I? I suppose I’m feeling particularly philosophical today.

And what should we be getting on with? Organisation? Management? –

You’re laughing at me.

– The great merger of our great disciplines?

Exactly. And our own private merger: you and I. Our mind meld. Where philosophy will become indiscernible from Organisational Management …

Is that what’s happening?

That’s what will happen, if we’re not careful.