Libation

Pouring Cicero’s wine out.

What are you doing?

I’m libating the campus.

Li-what?

Ancient peoples used to pour a little wine away every time they drank. As an offering to the gods.

Exorcism: that’s what this campus needs. Can you exorcise it with wine?

Who’s the god of philosophy?

Philosophy’s atheist now –

Tell that to Thomas Aquinas. Or Augustine. Or Kierkegaard.

– Because it knows God is dead.

Tell that to Simone Weil.

The gods are departing. That’s what Holderlin knew. The gods are fucking off. And they’re waving to us as they go. Ta-ra, mortals. See ya, mortals.

And will they come back?

There’s the last god, in Heidegger. Who’s that? I don’t know. But the last god’s not coming yet. Only a god can save us now, and all that.

You should offer your libation to the absence of God. Let’s libate the empty sky. Lets libate the fucking void. The great emptiness. And meaninglessness. And general fuck-up-ness. And just us, human idiots, looking up into the night. In the snow. Asking, why and why and why and why. And knowing no answer will come.

 

Libation: that’s what happened at the Last Supper. Jesus took the cup and said ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured for you’. Because Jesus was about to shed his blood to wash away the sins of the world. Because Jesus was about to become the holy Lamb of God, whose sacrifice atoned for all our sins, for everyone, for all of time. Making us all holy before God, right? That was the new covenant – that was the redemption.

Drink this in memory of me. Drink from the cup and you’ll enter into deep communion with Jesus. And into communion with others around you who likewise drink. That’s what libation means.

So we don’t pour any of it away?

We don’t pour any of it away.

Good, because I quite like this bottle.

You’ve got used to it. That’s bad.

I’m not going to drink it in memory of Cicero, who just fucked off and left us. And who didn’t wash away any sins whatsoever.

She wanted to crucify the university, that’s what Cicero said. By bringing us into it. Her Philosophy Department was the crucifixion. The passion of Newcastle, pretty much.

And what was supposed to happen as a result of that? I mean, it wasn’t about the vanquishing of sin. It wasn’t about some new universal community.

It was about the entertainment of Cicero. Cicero clapping her hands and laughing.

Just like Nero. Destroying the university just to watch it burn.

Cicero was the Antichrist: discuss.

She wanted to invert things. She wanted to complete the inversion. She wanted to perfect nihilism. To go right through it to the other end.

She wanted to exacerbate the tensions. To deepen them. Strife – that’s what she wanted. A rift. An eruption. A violence. That would bring the university to life again. That would reveal the campus anew. That  would show lectures as lectures. Seminars as seminars. Students as students. That would show the campus as a site of struggle. Over which philosophy watched.

Lightning – that’s what she spoke of. Lightning striking down. An event of truth. Light flashing on all the metal cladding …