Livia was an anti-mentor. She encouraged wildness. Overgrowth. Overambition. Great, windy statements on this and that. On the history of being! On sacred history! On the Same and the Other.
Livia, encouraging our natural inclination to fanaticism. To apocalyptic bias. To the identification of malign entities directing all things.
Carelessness and impatience. Unfounded intuitions. Apocalyptic leaps in the dark.
As though we had no natural thought predators. No analytic philosophers to curb us. To cut us down when we needed it. No one asking for clarity. No one asking to tone down the hyperbole. No one to bring us to heel.
Livia wanted to build up a cell, she said. She wanted a cult. She wanted maniacs. And that’s what she got!
We were her version of the Spice Girls. There was stupid philosopher and pathos philosophy and conspiratorial philosopher and mad Christian philosophy and whatever the rest of us were. Each with something to bring to the team. Each with our special powers. Our special needs. Our deep, deep issues.
Always drunken escalation. Always rushing to judgement. Always mania.
Making vast, emotional claims. Bonding over the abyss. Over world-doom. Exaggerations! Diminished critical thinking!
Where everyone has to match the groups drunken, passionate tone.
Work in Progress 