Sitting on the beach.
Mother, a bottle of wine please, Priya says. And two glasses. Watch this, philosopher: the miracle of 3D printing.
Wine and glasses, materialising on a tray.
Can you actually drink this? I ask.
Are you going to refuse, out of principle? Priya asks.
Sipping.
Zero wine, I say. Wine with the wine taken out.
Priya, shrugging. It tastes okay.
Wine from a virtual grape, I’ll bet, I say. From a virtual vine. Planted in a virtual terroir. Which is to say, no terroir at all. And it tastes like it.
Perhaps it’s a little bland, Priya says.
You guys think you’ve solved wine like you’ve solved everything else, I say. That this is your wine solution. Just like this campus is your campus solution, and Organisational Management is the what-you-should-study-at-university solution.
The whole Organisational Management project, I say. The Organisational Management takeover – except that you don’t think of it as a takeover. The Organisational Management implementation. And what are you implementing? Organisational Management, of course. More Organisational Management! Organisational Management for every problem! Organisational Management solutions for all things! And they’re fake solutions. Just like this countryside …
I mean, of course all this is fake, Priya says. Obviously. But does a lie want to lie, philosopher? Does evil want to do evil? Doesn’t everything want to do good? To be real? Even Organisational Management …
We’re not the evil empire, Priya says. It’s meant well, all of this. Alan means well. Even O.M. means well, or most of us do. We’re not bastards.
Management takes care of everything, Priya says. All the background stuff. Just keep things going – food and water, security, rubbish disposal and all that. All the stuff that makes people baseline happy. The stuff no one wants to think about. So you can do stuff. Thrive. Live your life. Don’t overthink it.
So maybe we go too far sometimes, Priya says. But this isn’t Alphaville. Like I say, it’s meant well.
And even fake nature is good for us, Priya says. Nature’s relaxation. Green space. Green leaves. The greensward! We need these things. And it’s as good as real.
Work in Progress 