Questions

The Organisational Management Christmas Party.

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 Organisational Management could offer. With prawns and everything. And you were just sitting there with folded arms –

I wasn’t going to dignify the occasion –

– like a spoilt child. Like Dr fucking Sulky. Too good for the meet and greet … You and the rest of your Philosophy Department, sitting their with your arms crossed. Actually, I was impressed, kind of. Like it was our job to win you over – all seven of you, in your failing department, rather than the other way round.

Assimilate or die, right?

Actually, Alan – the Head of School, who’s also my husband as you probably know –

– I know.

Is all for the move. It wasn’t our idea, but he wasn’t against it. Organisational Management needs a kick up the rear. The only way Organisational Management can improve is by coming up against different views.

He thinks you guys can bring with you 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 are interesting conversations to be had. Synergies to develop …

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 Organisational Management attic.

Everyone’s mad now. All the students are, anyway.

Your students, maybe. Humanities students. Our students are desperately sane. And my colleagues, too …

They’re just pretending.  

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to an actual philosopher before.

We don’t call ourselves philosophers. Philosophy lecturers, sure. But philosopher … it’s an honorific. Something you have to achieve.  

How seriously you take yourselves!

Some things are serious.

I’ll call you philosopher, philosopher … You have a philosophical air. As I, no doubt, have an Organisational Management air.

I don’t think you have a particularly Organisational Management air.

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

Looking down at our colleagues. Alan, talking to Driss. Helmut, mute and glowering. Furio, scowling. Fiver sitting beside Io, looking frail. Sophia talking to a giant organisational manager. Postgraduates, in a huddle.

Alan 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 … That was after criticising him in pubic … destroying his career. Because we love you … And it’ll be the same when you guys start telling us to become more business-relevant, or when you strong-arm us to teach Organisational Management ethics, which will inevitably happen …

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

Now it comes out: what you really think.

Well – isn’t it?

It depends on what you mean by use.

You would say that.

Because I don’t believe in what you call, use.

The university does – which is why it moved you.

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 supposedly useless humanities subject them of all.

And proud of it.

Pouring me a drink.

Tell me your origin story. How did you become a – philosopher?

I asked a question so big I fell into it. And never climbed out.

And you must have been so intelligent to ask such a thing.

It’s not about intelligence. It’s about the way I felt.

You must have been a genius of feeling. Someone with a special sensitivity. What was the question, anyway?

It was the question of everything. Why things were at all. Why there wasn’t nothing.

A useless and unanswerable question, in other words.

How did become a supposedly mad organisational manager?

It’s not half as interesting, I’m sure. I was just a young, innocent Business Studies student … I hadn’t even heard of Organisational Management. Which was soon to become the latest thing …

You actually studied business studies? You actually signed up for business studies?

I actually wanted to make my way in the world. Not just be another unemployed humanities grad …

I owe everything to unemployment.

So pompous! So contrary! You think you’re very interesting: I can tell. You think you’re perfectly fascinating.

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

See, there you go: nothing interesting. I have nothing to declare … except the great questions I ask. Except the very difficult and interesting books I’ve read … Except the prestige of my ancient subject area … Is philosophy really the oldest subject there is? The oldest subject ever?

All the subject areas were part of philosophy, and then broke off. Maths, physics, law …

Leaving only … philosophy. And what’s philosophy when it’s just what’s leftover?

Questioning.

Questioning things no one can answer? Questions that leave you in exactly the same place as you were before you asked them, only a little more miserable?

I want to know about your madness. Has Organisational Management driven you mad? Has it made you ask questions?

Not questions as deep as yours. God, this is all so meta. Talking about questions, instead of …

What?

Answering them. Or trying to. You’re probably used to this kind of conversation, philosophy. You probably talk like this all the time. Well, I don’t. Not usually. Not even when my husband and I go on long car trips. When we drive down south to see our friends.

What do you talk about? I ask.

All the usual stuff. Friends. Family. Work. All that kind of stuff. My dream business, that I want to set up one day …

Do you have an amazing business idea?

I have several.

I don’t believe you.

Actually, I’m just someone who could go into a business and reorganise it. Make It more efficient. More … productive.

More useful.

More … useful. Exactly.

But what about your madness?

My … madness … I’m not telling you about that …

Is it about what can’t be organised? Or managed? 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 – it’s just good taste.

Shall I tell you a secret? You’ll have to lean in, philosopher.

Ok.

I’ll whisper it: I feel … dead.

Dead?

Not dead – but … like I’m dying. What if I said that I’m terminally ill?

Are you terminally ill?

Do I appear terminally ill to you? I could be terminally ill. But I’m not. I’m not terminally ill … I’d like to be terminally ill, maybe. It might give some meaning to my life. The idea of the end being close … That things wouldn’t just go on forever … Because they're in serious danger of going on forever … 

Do you ever feel that you’re falling, philosopher? I do. I think I’m falling. Everything in me is falling. There’s this great sadness. There’s a great sadness that just drifts like a cloud. And is drifting through me. And I’m sad – terribly sad. But it’s not even my sadness …

I feel like I’m falling, philosopher. When I close my eyes, I get vertigo. I’m falling into the night. Faster and faster. I’m dying inside. I’m numb inside. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel … life. And I’m tired of pretending to feel alive.

And I’m going to sink lower, philosopher. There’s further to fall. It’s like I have to let myself fall. Give myself over to falling. It’s like I shouldn’t resist anymore. But let despair claim me. Drown me. I should just close my eyes in despair. But I’m too frightened to do that.

There’s a depth I haven’t reached, not yet. There’s something that has yet to be fulfilled. I have to go to the limit. But I don’t want to go to the limit. I have to let myself fall – fall through my life. To reach – what? I don’t know. I don’t know, philosopher.

If only there was something to break it, my fall, philosopher. If only there was an end to it. Something to be broken against. And just … destroyed. If only it was possible to finish dying. To die and to be free – both at once. At the same stroke. Now, I’d say to myself. Here, I’d say to myself. But I wouldn’t say anything, because I’d have finished dying.

There, I’ve said. I’ve made my … confession. Are you impressed? Am I a philosopher, too? Am I the most useless person alive?

I think you’re falling into a question, too.

Come on, let’s go. Let’s escape.

Where to?

I’ll show you the building. It’s quite a building.