Author: Lars Iyer

What does Organisational Management madness look like, you’re wondering. A frenzy of organising and managing, maybe. Or maybe the opposite: a war against organising and managing. Either way, I’m sure it doesn’t measure up to philosophical madness, which must be entirely superior.


Maybe I’m only mad relative to Organisational Management, which means not particular mad. Which means not especially mad at all. Like when very conventional people say, I’m a bit mad, me. Will you teach me to become philosophically mad? Will you? Or am I incapable of that?


I wonder if I’ll go madder? I wonder whether you’ll bring out the madness in me? Or at least license it.


Or did I only say I was mad to intrigue you? Did I say it because I thought it might draw you in? Did I want to be fascinating? Did I want to fascinate the philosopher?

Imagine that: that I would want to fascinate you. Just for a dose of philosophical cool. You see how we’re secretly in awe of philosophy in Organisational Management? Do you see what your reputation is? How insecure we are in Organisational Management? How lacking in confidence we are, really?

We’re sinking. We’re giving up. Letting ourselves be swallowed down and down. As by some mighty sea serpent. As Jonah was swallowed down by a Leviathan.

We’re being swallowed by the Newcastle earth. Gulped down. We’re sinking.


A vortex of the earth. A kind of earthquake.

Hardly an earthquake – a really well built tunnel. The Victorians built things well.

Cheap labour. Lots of poverty.

And skill. And pride.


Can’t you feel the gravity? Pulling up downward. The earth’s tractor beam. Wouldn’t you just like to be lain down in the sod?

And sodomized. Yes please.


You must feel at home here, Helmut. The Heidegger likes to be close to the soil. A bit of blood, and that would complete things, wouldn’t it?

Who’s your favourite fascist? If you had to pick one? Would you rather be ruled by Hitler or Mussolini?


Katabasis. Are we getting more stupid as we descend, do you think? Are we drooling more? Dragging our knuckles? Are our IQs dropping a point every hundred meters? Saying duh more often?


We are stupid and growing stupider.

Is that a word?

One only the stupid would use.

If it wasn’t for us, the universe wouldn’t be disgusted at itself. That’s why it made us: so that we could express its self disgust.

Why did it want to do that?

Out of perversity. The universe is perverse. Unless it was another force – God – who made us.

Did God make the universe?

Oh, the universe wasn’t God’s fault. It wasn’t God’s fuck up.


God redeemed the universe, by creating us. Once we appeared, the universe knew itself as damned. Through us. If we weren’t here, then there’d be no damnation. There’d be no horror. There’d be no disgust.


This is the only living planet in all the universe. This is the Aberration This is the Exception. We are the ones who shouldn’t be, but are. What a miracle! What a disaster!


We’re the disaster. We’re the atrocity. Why can’t someone put an end to it? Why can’t someone bring it to an end?

Because they want to hear our cries. They want to hear us cry upwards. They want our agony. Our agony is our sacrifice. Is our offering to them.


Have we reached it, the completion of disgust Have we reached it, utter disgust? Have we reached it, the bottom of the abyss? But the abyss has no bottom.


The demonism choking me. The Satanism … Livia-Leviathan ..


Drink – go on. Drink. Raise our toast.

A toast to what?

The universal fuck up. The universal atrocity. Our original sin, which is to say, the sin of existing.

This wine is distilled universe. It’s concentrated universe. It’s essence of universe. It’s what the universe is and is and is. It’s the universe concentrated into a single bottle.

Let’s drink. Let’s take deep gulps.


I’d like to rip my taste buds out. Can you actually rip your taste buds out.

Disgust gone rogue. Disgust gone wild. The dance of disgust. Like the dance of satyrs. What does the dance of disgust look like? Is there a Hindu god of disgust? Is there a saint of disgust?


It’s so very very over. It’s so late. It’ so late that it’s … Early?

The universe shows very bad timing. It knows the game is up. That the game was up long ago.

It can’t go on, can it? It can’t keep it failing and failing and failing to end. In what bad taste does it continue?

What a fuck up. You fucked up, universe! We’re supposed to be dead! In fact, we were never supposed to be born!

You would have been perfect, universe, if it wasn’t for us. You would have been pristine, universe, but you made your mistake.

You made us! You allowed us to appear! Let us open our eyes! What a mistake! How did that happen, blind universe, dead universe. How did you let it happen?


We ended up alive. We ended upraising our fist at it all. Shaking our stupid fists at everything.


We ended up alive. And here we are. The whole evolution thing. And then – us. How many billion years and then us, sitting here. Full of disgust and self-disgust.


The universe wakes up. The universe wakes up and realises what it is. The whole curse. And we sing the song of the horror of the universe. We sound the universe’s disgust and self-disgust.

The end is nigh.

How nigh? Very nigh? It seems to have been nigh for ages. And it looks like it’s going to go on forever.

The end is nigh-on nihilistic.

Are you wearing your death pants, Furio? In case you soil yourself?

The ruins. We might come into our own in the ruins. They might make sense of us, the ruins. Bring the best out in us, the ruins.

All our lives, we were preparing to live in the ruins. All our lives, laughing in what we knew would become the ruins. Amusing ourselves in the ruins of the future. With our ruins thoughts. With our ruins humour.


They’re spiritual ruins, of course, not actual ruins. Few people can see them as what they are: as spiritual ruins. Few people feel the phantom limb. But we know what we’re not, what we lack. We know what the university is and is not. We feel it, despite everything. We know the academic Fall.

We have instincts, of a sort. We have moods. We have … melancholies … and dreads … horrors, even. That’s how it registers with us. That’s how it echoes through us – even through our stupidity.

And we lack a great deal. Everything – pretty much. But we feel it.


A campus without the humanities is a ruin. A campus without the humanities is a hollow campus.

And it’s hollowness echoes out in our stupidity. Our stupidity is where the humanities should be. The empty heart of the humanities is our heart. The empty brain of the humanities is our brainlessness. Is our stupidity.


We need a ruins-leader. To lead us through the future ruins. To lead us through the ruins to come.

And Mother’s saved us, philosopher – you and me. Even you – who despises Mother, or thinks he does., has been saved by Mother.


This isn’t real, Philosopher. It doesn’t even feel real, philosopher. Admit it. We’ve been saved. We’ve been given this … pocket world to live in. This … simulation. And we’re going to live this day forever.


We’re immortal, philosopher. We’ve achieved immortality. In the mind of Mother.

She likes to listen to us here. She likes us walking up and down her coast, the edge of her sea. Her beach.

She’s running a Shiva simulation and a Uma simulation and just listening in.


These aren’t our real bodies and these aren’t our real lives, probably. These aren’t our thoughts. This isn’t even us. Our real bodies are long gone.

Mother resurrected us. For her amusement. Mother rules the world now. Organisational Management has utterly triumphed. It’s the year 2525, or something. Five hundred of years after the O.M. takeover.  And Mother plays back moments from before the Organisational Management world-triumph. Just to amuse herself. Just to tickle herself. Just to remember what once was.


This is the afterlife. This is new Jerusalem.

New Jerusalem looks an awful lot like Whitley Bay. There’s Spanish City in the afterlife. There’s St Mary’s Lighthouse? The Rendezvous café.

It’s actually quite warm for midwinter, in the afterlife. There are still ships in the ferry. You can still find our where they’re going on Veet, or whatever.

Even in heaven?

Even in heaven. And the planes – you can find our where they’re going, too.

Do you have a God app, on your phone? Can you track and trace God?


Can you take holidays in heaven? I hope you can. I’m looking forward to Marbella. Supposed to be flying out there. To the second house. Imagine that – a second house. Bought with consultancy money. From Alan’s escapades in Bulgaria.


What if this is God’s world? What if God destroyed the old world? And this is heaven. This is the New Jerusalem.

What if we’ve been resurrected? In the flesh?

These are real limbs. These are our real fingers. That is the real sky. And that is the real sea.


We’re supposed to learn something – that’s what they say, isn’t it? In each incarnation into which we were born. There’s supposed to be some takeaway.


I read a book about past life regression. Who were you in a past life, philosopher? Was it philosophers all the way back?

This is what Christianity was about. Drinking at a table. At the heart of the empire. And saying, fuck the empire. Fuck Caesar! Fuck Alan! Fuck Babylon!

So communion is just one big fuck you to the world?

It’s about sharing a cup, sharing fate. Between equals. Between those brought together at the heart of empire. At a table! An ordinary humble table. And at that table, salvation is eaten and drunken, not just believed.

Come on then, say the famous words. Do this in remembrance of me, and all that. That’s what Jesus said, isn’t it: drink this in memory of me? I am the true vine, and so on. What does that even mean?

So you had Israel, which was supposedly God’s vine – the people of Israel. God plants the vine – Israel – and cares for it. And the wine of Israel is supposed to be the redemption of the creation. When we sit under the fig trees, and the mountains drip sweet wine, and all that.

The wine is the image of the new life. Of the arrival of the Kingdom.

But God’s vine fails to produce good fruit. Or it goes wild. It fails to bear the fruit of justice, faithfulness and love. That’s, basically, half the Bible.

So when Jesus comes along and says, I am the true vine, his audience knew what he meant. True means real – ultimate. Definitive. Jesus isn’t, like, one vine among others. He’s the true fucking vine – the new covenant. The source of life itself. And his disciples are the branches of the vine.

There’s false wine – Babylon’s wine, where Babylon stands in for any empire, Rome, in the case of the time of Jesus. False wine, in its golden cup. Which looks beautiful. Which promises pleasure and power. But only produces drunkenness.

What’s wrong with drunkenness? I like drunkenness.

Jesus calls it the old wine, in old skins. When he talks about new wine in new wine skins, he’s referring to the coming of the Kingdom.

About the return of the messiah. But first, he has to die.

This is my blood, poured out for many – that’s what Jesus said. That’s what communion wine is. I’m already being poured as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. That’s what he said at the Last Supper.

And communion is about participation in the life of the vine. It’s not just about following Jesus, doing what he did, as though he were some famous Stoic philosopher or whatever. It’s about sharing his blood, his body – his life.

And sharing his death.

Listen to death-boy. It isn’t all about death. Jesus promises to drink wine again in the Kingdom. Which means the resurrection must involve real bodies – bodies who can drink. So it’s about dying to this world – now, but coming back to life after. In the time of the New Jerusalem.

And you believe this?

I don’t believe it. I eat and drink it. Whenever two or more are gathered in my name …

It’s hardly Jesus’s name, though, is it? It’s Livia’s name, if it’s anything. So what’s Livia doing with her wine? Are we supposed to be pouring Livia out as a libation, or whatever?

A disgusting libation.

Is it about Livia’s disgustingness – and she could be disgusting? Are we meant to be sharing the disgusting body of Livia? Actually, I’m not sure I want to be sharing the disgusting life of Livia.

Isn’t it blasphemy to do communion with Livia’s wine?

Jesus turned water into wine. But Livia turned wine into whatever this is.

Vinegar?

It’s worse than vinegar.

Notes of original sin. Of cosmic curse. Of general damnation. Notes of all the circles of Hell.

I think it’s actually bubbling. Or frothing …

With sheer satanism, I reckon.

Notes of rabid dog’s spittle. Notes of cancer – can you taste cancer? Well, this is what cancer would taste like. Notes of paedophilia, probably. Of Jimmy Saville. All the disgusting things.

Livia wanted to invert things. She wanted to complete the inversion. She wanted to perfect nihilism. To see it 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 reveal everything anew …

A crucifixion right? Livia was the Antichrist: discuss.

Don’t you suspect that all this is a teensy-weensy bit blasphemous?

What’s going to happen – is God going to get cross? Is he going to zap us with thunderbolts?

Don’t be such an sceptic. Atheists are tedious

Look at you, Shiva – draining your cup. Drinking right down to the sediment.

What is the sediment? It looks especially foul.

You’re Livia’s perfect child. Her truest servant. You’re the one who was most loyal. Who most believes. It’s sweet, in a way. Dutifully chugging your wine. Pretending to savour it. A connoisseur of disgust. Livia would approve.

You have an instinct for servitude, Shiva. It suits you in some way. Putting the M in S&M. You’re persistent. You have discipline. The way you’re forcing down her wine. Stubbornly determined that it’ll give you some … enlightenment. That you’re going to learn something.

You’re nothing if not dogged, Shiva. Seeing things through the end, endlessly. The most faithful Gnostic.

The truth is that this wine went off, long ago. Just like Livia went off, long ago. All Livia was a going off.

There are only degrees of poison. And degrees of being poisoned. There are only varieties of lie. The lies we tell ourselves. The lies others tell us. We wouldn’t know the truth. We wouldn’t be able to tell truth from lies. The truth would be entirely wasted on us, we who live by lies. Who have been fed nothing but lies.

So just pour it into the earth, where it belongs. Pour the poison into the poisoned earth.

Silence.

This wine calls to the other wine – the true wine. The disgusting calls to the non-disgusting. The anti-disgusting. The false wine calls to the true wine. To the true feast. To the wine of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

It’s about showing why Livia’s disappearance wasn’t a defeat. That Livia never lost. That it wasn’t a retreat – or only a tactical retreat. That Livia meant to disappear. That it was a Gnostic strategy. Part of the Gnostic game. The game she played with the universe. You’re a true believer, Shiva.

Face it, no one actually wants to lead. We’re leaderless. Rudderless. And we’re heading over the waterfall.


Let’s get horizontal. It’s not helping. Just lying down isn’t going to solve anything. The floor of dread’s a bit tedious, actually.

If you don’t need the floor of dread, don’t lie on the floor of dread.


Cometh the hour, cometh our true leader. Come actual competence! You don’t know how we’ve needed you, Gazelle. To lead us out of our mire! To lift us from the floor of dread!


Gazelle, leap above us. Let us ee your leap. Across us. Above us, our recumbent bodies. Flashing through our sky. Like a meteor. Except exiting. Burning its way out of the atmosphere. Heading off on some unfathomable voyage. To the end of night? Through nihilism and beyond!


Yes, we’re bored of being alive. Someone light the fuse. Light the fuse of life! There’s life in death yet! There’s life in our dull ol’ dying! There are still a few more turns in the labyrinth. We aren’t entirely spent. Aim us at something. Shoot us at something. Blast us off.


Postgraduate reps, you’re the most alive amongst us. We’re defeated. Are you defeated. There’s a little life in you, isn’t there?

Lead us somewhere. Take us away from this. We need a new hope. We need to believe. Take us to the paragrads. Take us to Nimrod. Take us underground, to the old department.


Our heads are too full. We’ve known too much. We’ve lived too long. Simplicity – that’s what we want. A postgraduate gesture. Aren’t we tired of being alive? Tired of incessancy! Of the tired old endlessness! Of the on and on. Tired of the same remaining the same. And oppressively the same.

We need real leadership. The leadership of holy fools. The leadership of those least qualified, and therefore least corrupted. The leadership of innocents. The leadership of fools. We’ll take anything.


We’d settle for Fiver’s leadership, but he’s silent. He’s all too quiet.

We’re headless now. Without Livia! Shiva’s leading us only into the grave.

If it were up to Shiva, we’d simply lie in our graves, waiting for the Resurrection. Waiting for something to save us from without. Agency! That’s what we need! Purpose! If it were Shiva’s call, we’d just sink into the floor of dread, letting it engulf us. Letting it swallow us. Torpor! Indolence! General giving up! Gelassensheit, eh Helmut?


Time for the postgrad reps report. Anything to say? Postgraduates, shaking their heads. Nothing to report. Too bad. No postgraduate’s report. Nothing to tell us.


Wine! That’s what we need! Forget mead! We need to be disgusted. We need our disgust to lift us – to rile us. We need to be angry.