We’re going to see the trogs.
The who?
Philosophical troglodytes.
They’re building down. Burrowing. This is a philosophy warren.
This is where they bury themselves. To, like, incubate.
They’re burying themselves beneath the world. Hiding themselves. Regenerating in the darkness – the near darkness. Biding their time.
Until when?
Until the world up there collapses.
It’s so damp.
They like it like that.
Smells of earth.
It would do, wouldn’t it? Stuff’s rotting down here. Stuff’s compositing. Compacting. Releasing its gases.
The walls are all psychedelic. I feel like I’ve taken something. These fungi. Really wild colours. Really luminescent. Practically glowing.
It’s festering, but in a good way … I think.
Got to acclimatise. There’s a lower level of oxygen down here.
This is like journey to the centre of the Earth.
We’re the first outsiders allowed to witness the ceremony.
How did you win their trust, Sophia? Was it your pony tail? Your taste for greasers.
Wait a minute, did you fuck you way in here? Are you going out with one of them? You are, aren’t you?. You’ve finally found your Danny Vito. Your post-postgraduate Fonz, or whoever.
This is the underground resistance network. There are places like this all over the country. In America too, apparently.
Whenever the humanities are threatened, they withdraw. It’s like monasteries during the Dark Ages. Keeping the flame of civilization alive.
They study.
What do they read?
The fundamental books. Books it takes a lifetime to understand. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Leibniz’s stuff. Spinoza’s Ethics.
They come down here to pose the really deep questions.
And do they publish anything?
Publish!? They’re not about results. Writing things up for academia. They’re not slaves.
Oral transmission – I think that’s what it’s about.
They teach? They have classrooms?
I’ve seen blackboards. Whiteboards. Flip charts, event. Covered with writing.
They’re a school of philosophers. The buried school. The entombed school.
They’re burying themselves to hide with philosophy. To stay with the books. With the ideas. They want to keep the old knowledge alive.
They’re learning all the philosophical languages. The deepest cells are for those who know Sanskrit. You have to earn your way down. And Pali. They’re not fucking around.
They have a library down here. All the books are in plastic bags.
It’s about depth. It’s about being hidden. Just being allowed to do your thing. To pursue a thought for as long as it takes. To think the most important things.
You know what philosophy’s about: the things that matter most. And that’s what they’re trying to find: the things that matter most.
All languages are studied deeply here. Right down into etymology. Into word origins. The roots of language.
It isn’t just intellectual. It’s spiritual. Philosophy is a spiritual practice: that’s what they know. It’s a way of living. A way of life.
There’s a pit at the heart of it. That goes down forever. The groundless ground.
Work in Progress 