Innocence

We didn’t know what real departmental life was like, Cicero said. We’d never know. She’d make sure of that. Crushing intradepartmental politics. Rivalries and grudges and grievances. Alliances and fallings apart.

And all the usual administrative work. Which she largely did herself, Cicero said. From which she mostly wanted to keep us away. We were lucky, she said – although we didn’t know our luck. We didn’t know how she protected us. Protected our innocence. And our idleness.

 

Idly reading. Idly thinking. Idly writing, God knows. That’s how we do things.

It’s a gift, Cicero said. We didn’t feel the usual sense of duty. We weren’t workers. We weren’t producers of academic articles. We weren’t searchers for funding. We weren’t that type. We couldn’t be.

It was as though it had never occurred to us: bidding for funding. Soliciting for money from this research council, or that one. Writing research proposal supposed to be advancing the cause of social justice or the great reset, or whatever. It never even occurred to us! Total obliviousness.

We wouldn’t like to be like her, scrabbling around for funding, Cicero said. She had enough funding to protect us – to cover our salaries – for the moment, at least. Until the money from the students began to pour in. Cicero had done all that administrative stuff to protect us. For our benefit. So she could raise her would be philosophical school in innocence. So she could furnish our idleness.

 

We were not yet thinkers, she said. We were not yet philosophers. Perhaps that’s what she should have called our school: not yet philosophers.

 

Innocents? We were idiots. Idiot-innocents. Creatures who lived wholly in potential. Who hadn’t been born. That’s how she wanted to keep us. Singing our songs of innocence.

Cicero protected us. Watched over us. So that we wouldn’t be bothered. With the administrative crap. And the managerial crap. All the bothersome academic politics. She could play those games. And she’d do so so that we wouldn’t have to.

 

Why did she bother?, Cicero wondered. It’s not as if we’d ever know why. It’s not as if we could show real gratitude. We’d always be ungrateful. Like wild animals.

Really, we belonged outside – outside the university. Foraging for intellectual scraps, outside there. Intellectual rag picking. Conspiracy theorising, or whatever, but out there.

But we were here. And under her protection! Her charges. Her wards. Her proteges. You should hear what her colleagues said! You wouldn’t believe their view of things! What they thought of us! But never mind.

 

Idiots … innocents … fools for philosophy.

It was like raising wild philosophers. Philosophers of the wild. Outsider thinkers. They’ll never be yours. But that’s what she liked. We weren’t to be disciplined. We weren’t to be brought inside.

Everything must lie ahead of us. Everything must still be possible. She, Cicero, must ensure that. That was her mission.

 

And what would be the result of her protectiveness? What would we do with ourselves in our philosophical sanctum?

We’d be idle, that’s all. We’d be as children. Philosophical children. Children who’d forgotten philosophy – everything that we’d learnt. Who already lived as though philosophy had finished, in some way. As though philosopher was long behind them.

Forgettors: that’s who’d we’d be. That’s who we were – at our best. On certain Trillians nights. When we were drunk – utterly so. When we’d drunk ourselves into innocence.

Collective thought. Collective, drunken thought. Thought confusable with banter. With inanity. But thought nonetheless.

To hear us speak, in our cups! To hear our Trillians banter! Speech lifted, speech lightened. Speech rising into the air. She’d never heard the like.

We were innocents, in those moments. Idiots, and even holy idiots. Thought took flight. Thoughts, not yet thoughts.

Thoughts of potential. That were nothing other than potential. But one that could never be compromised. Never be used up.

Potential … that was never exhausted. Which meant we’d never grow old. And nor would Cicero, sitting amongst us. It s forbidden to grow old: who was it who said that?

 

Only after the end. Only when thought doesn’t matter. When the stakes are at their lowest. When no one expects anything. When philosophy is an empty word. When Europe is dead – utterly dead. Then – at exactly that moment. Then, what? Then … Then, then, then.