Raised Too High

Ah, who appals themselves the most? Shall we have a competition?

This is all internalised self hatred, right? Because we work at a good university and we think we don’t deserve it?

Yes. Case fucking closed.

Where should we be working?

Somewhere very far down the league tables. Bangor University, I always thought. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on the point of closure. Which is really shit. Where you’re just teaching reading and writing, basically. And all the lecturers are permanently drunk.

Do places like that exist?

Not for much longer.

It would suit us. Of course. It’s our level, i.e., very low. Sinking down. We’ve raised too high, in getting a job here – that’s our problem. Elevated too far by Cicero. It’s not good for anyone, let alone us, to be above your station. It leads to psychological problems, which we manifestly have.  Cicero might have been well meaning …

Cicero did it on purpose! For some obscure thrill. It was part of her Sabbatianism! Her Frankism! Giving us these jobs …

 

We’ve been raised grotesquely high. It’s some parody. Doing PhDs was bad enough. Winning scholarships. And then actually getting PhDs. Wasn’t that miracle enough. And then getting a job somewhere decent. At a high league-table uni …

Dogs shouldn’t walk on their hind legs. It isn’t natural. It upsets the natural order of things. It’s like when you press a beach ball into the water. Hold it down. It wants to come up, doesn’t it? To burst out of the water. Well, we’re the opposite.

We want to sink. We want to tumble down to the bottom. To our natural level!

 

*Cicero employed us out of pure Sabbatian perversity. She paraded us at Philosophy socials out of pure Frankism.

Do you remember those Philosophy Christmas parties? All those great professors. European, some of them. Real scholars. Who’d translated Thomas Mann into Dutch, and that kind of thing.

They were even modest. Asking us kindly questions. That would be easy to answer. That might let us put ourselves in a good light. What are you working on? What do you write about? What interests you, philosophically? That kind of thing.

They were generous to us. Tender. They didn’t want for us to be embarrassed, though no doubt at some level they knew we should be embarrassed. They didn’t sigh or roll their eyes – their manners were too good for that. They had too much good will. But they knew our deficiencies. They couldn’t help but see them.  

Classy scholars. Europeans, a lot of them. With, like, standards! Who had had, like, a proper education. Who knew stuff. Who had, like, scholarly skills. And all the languages. And who were we?

Naturally, we had to be drunk to endure these events. Obviously, the only option was for us to go pie-eyed. To drink more than we should. To pre-load, even. To start drinking before. So we’d roll up stoshered. Charmingly drunk, or so we thought. Full of stupid drunken confidence.

And couldn’t they see we were drunk? Sure they could. But they were forgiving. They were perceptive enough to see our awkwardness. And tactful enough to ignore them. They wanted to help us. To bring us on.

They asked used such gentle, gentle questions. That even we could answer. We were pitiful. Drunkenly so. What kind of philosophy do you specialise in? What modules do you teach? These questions brought tears to our eyes. We could have wept. Embraced them. Apologised. Cried out, we’re sorry! So sorry!

We knew we were out over sixty thousand fathoms or however Kierkegaard put it. Out of our depths! And we knew that they knew. Which meant we could only get drunker still, much to Cicero’s amusement.

We were from the wrong class. Who went to the wrong schools. They even admired us for it. Our efforts to lose our regional accents. Our regional grammar.

They must have thought we were diversity hires, or something. Or stupidity hires. God knows. And they were well-meaning enough to approve of diversity hires. Or stupidity hires.

And we were lumbering. Gauche. Manner-less. Awkward. Not knowing the social codes. How to answer innocent questions. How to do academic small talk.

We knew we didn’t belong there: that was the thing. We knew our grotesquerie – which was torture. We knew how stupid we were. Isn’t that the curse: to actually know it. And did those professors know that we knew? Of course they did. Which made them feel even more sorry for us.

The drunker we got! The more slurred we became! And Cicero, doing the rounds, amused. Cicero, talking to them each in turn, the European professors. Cicero, introducing them to us …

And we were just thinking dreadful thoughts of self harm. Wanting to cut ourselves. Stab ourselves. To throw ourselves out of windows. Or just cutting our own throats, then and there. Or slicing open our arms.

We just felt so guilty – for existing. So wrong – for being there. And worse: for their kindness to us, the European professors.

Some act of clarifying violence! To make up for the fact that we never should have been! Never should have existed. Never should have been born at all. Never should even have been at all. And there was Cicero, parading us. There was Cicero, perversely proud of us.

Did she know what she was doing? Of course she did. She only wanted to increase the tension. Between them and us! And between us and them!  

Cicero, always the master strategian. The brilliant player. Cicero, watching out interactions, amusedly. Cicero, enjoying our gaucheries. Our faux pas – like, plural. What’s the plural of faux pass?

Faux passes. I don know.

Cicero knowing her circle of professors would be asking themselves, deep in their heart, who employed these tossers? Who’s responsible for this? The whole only added to Cicero’s mystique. Cicero’s unpredictability. The sense that she had plans greater than everyone else’s. Agendas.

And it gave us mystique, too. What did Cicero see in us? Were we brilliant after all, once you stripped away our rough exterior? Once you’d sobered us up? Were great things actually to be expected of us? Did Cicero know something they didn’t?