And what was UK style European philosophy, anyway? No one will remember, in time. The whole academic ecosystem – the departments, the societies, the lecturers, the postgraduates will be forgotten.
And it won’t even matter that no one remembers. Because none of us has ever achieved anything. Because we can barely keep our departments open.
We can barely even hand over functioning European philosophy departments to the next generation. And there barely is a next generation. It doesn’t matter! Who cares?
It’s best forgotten. Best buried in the memory. It came, it went, without meaning. We achieved nothing worth keeping. Did anything important happen? Anything show itself? What were the lessons of failure? That there were no lessons. That it will all just blow away, and so will we.
An episode, that’s all. A failed experiment. A flare up. A fever. An outbreak. That was only ever a bad influence. That only lead to bad readings of the European greats. To general license.
Let it pass unmourned. No need to grieve for it, the European philosophy plantation. There are some things that just can’t succeed. That won’t succeed. Just … aberrations. Swervings. Blind, senseless.
A minority interest. A hobby, of sorts. A spasm. A jerk. A whim of fate. A let’s see what will happen if …
But some things just won’t take. Won’t thrive in British soil. Will not suit the British temperament. That can be abandoned without consequence. That do not need to be pursued.
An effort in vain. An unsuitable import. A foreign thing that didn’t take. Didn’t land. Didn’t spread roots.
A futile cry for things to change. Into the British heart! That met only British rancour. And eventually, when it came, a British defeat.
It withered. It didn’t grow on the vine. It produced no seed – unless we were the seed – God knows!
And what survives of it now, British European philosophy? the loyal twenty eight who turn up to the annual conference. A few old profs with European connections. With European enthusiasms. Who by some accident of birth or heritage actually spoke some other language. Who weren’t entirely provincial. Who actually went back and forth across the English channel. Who weren’t afraid of France, as we were. Scared of Germany!
Old profs … emerituses now … Cultured, in the old style. Literate, in the old way. Well read, as people used to be. Used to travelling over there. Criss crossing the continent. In the long summer, as was.
Impossible, for us, that life. Inconceivable! Beyond our reach, Europe. Beyond our ken, the continent. Worlds that are not ours. Places where we could not belong. Could not take root!
In another life, perhaps. In a future life, we’ll be born European. Born on the continent!
For a while, philosophy caught a European fever. For a while, there was a taste for European philosophical fireworks. The desire for some European colour.
Are we their fault, those professors, who started European philosophy programmes? Who set up the founding departments? Can they be blamed for us?
Did they foresee us? Were they aware of the dangers? Did they understand what they might create?
Pseudo European monsters. Would-be European mutants. Hybrids gone wrong. Fucked up splicings.
Febrile! Incautious! So lacking in British judgement. Who didn’t know to stay in their British empiricist lane. Their British liberal channel.
European philosophy, left to enthusiasts! To those who knew nothing of Europe. Who had no idea about Europe. And about the essential divide between Europe and the UK. Who didn’t know their intellectual history. Let alone their philosophical history. Let alone our actual history – and the implications of our actual history.
After all, we’d never been invaded, in the UK. We’d seen off the Hun. We’d stood alone in Europe. We weren’t swayed by European fevers. We weren’t susceptible to European madness. To -ism politics of what ever kind.
Didn’t British sobriety save the day? Our natural British scepticism. We didn’t fight a war to let this French stuff in. This German stuff!
We were betrayers, in the end. Traitors, just as sure as those Cambridge spies! Turncoats. We’d turned out backs on what we had been given. Who’d thrown away our training. Our instincts. Whose heads might as well be on fire.
We were as bad as those other humanities subjects. Those English department theorists. Ecclecticists! Theorists!
We’d gone weird. Gone dark. We were followers of Strange European gods. Worshippers of European idols. Deliberate obscurantists. Language-maulers. Thought-distorters. Stranglers of reason. Murderers of the possibility of civilized debate.
The unsummarisable-in-clear-English. The endlessly prolix. The frustratingly convoluted.
Do not engage! Don’t go near it! Keep back! Stay away from the danger!
Ah, if only we could be saved from this. If only there could have been an intervention. If only someone sensile could have reached us. Dissuaded us. Put us on the right path. Shown us a better direction.
If only they knew how mad we’d gone! If only they were aware of the depths of our fever. Our foreheads virtually throbbing. We’d disappointed them, our forebears.
Why weren’t we warned? Why didn’t we heed those warnings! What had gone so wrong that we were so susceptible? Stranger danger, right?
The shame of the British education system. The indictment of the UK education system. Of the expansion of higher education!
Blame that vast expansion of unis. When our kind were actually allowed to do MAs and PhDs. When we were brought into the academy. From the working classes. Through diversity programmes.
With dubious A-levels. With poor grades. With loose morals. Not British, not really. Not part of the New Tradition. Not all analytic-philosophised-up. Not inoculated against European fever. Enthusiasts. Idiots. Late developers, or non developers.
It was at that point that they essentially lost control. Our numbers were too great. Populists, probably. Dubious types. Without intellectual credentials. Who stood in no British lineage. Who were part of no British tradition!
Gone, when the days when the unis were filled with Ryle – approved Oxbridge types. All the keen young analytic philosophers were sent out to colonise the provinces. To secure the kingdom. To clear and hold the analytic hegemony. To drive our British idealism and other dubious things once and for all.
Once upon a time, what was and was not philosophy was agreed upon. When the proper domain of philosophical teaching and research was clear.
Once upon a time, you could have, therefore, a meaningful debate. When everyone spoke the same philosophical language in the UK. When there was agreement about the rules of philosophical engagement. When philosophical progress could be made. When you could keep up with things. When there wasn’t an endless multiplicity of journals.
Work in Progress 