Author: Lars Iyer

Some members of senior management took pity on us. Some of the highest of the high were our secret supporters. Just as most of them were our enemies.

The manager who summoned us to his office, said, I didn’t show you this, placed a printed document on the table about the proposed future of philosophy, about the proposed Organisational Management move, and left the room.

We read it, X and I. We went through it, horrified. At least we’d been warned … At least we had time to prepare ourselves, spiritually …  

And this manager was supposed to be the most ruthless of all. The toughest of all. And yet even he felt sorry for us. Even he helped us. He even began a university level inquiry about the future of philosophy at the university. About the place of philosophy.

 

Yes, we had our allies. Our sympathisers.

And there were, of course, Cicero’s friends. The angels she appointed to watch over us. And the future of philosophy.

Of course, they were outflanked! Outranked! As soon as Cicero left. They weren’t managers. They couldn’t have their say. Mere academics, mere professors of their subject areas, and who would listen to them? No; this was to be decided at management level. At Senate level.

A shameful episode, they agreed. They shook their heads at meetings. Tutted to themselves. They went home and told their spouses about the obvious injustice. Tried not to think about it too much. Wondered what Cicero would have thought.

It made no sense! But so little now was making sense! They took early retirement, some of them. It was one of the last straws. One of the last humiliations. Not their humiliation – not really. Ours!

And a humiliation of  reason! Of good sense! They couldn’t work for a university that made such decisions. They couldn’t stomach being part of a university that forced through such a move.

Philosophy in Organisational Management! Their whole being revolted. They trembled. Shook. Tears welled up in their eyes. They consoled us in sad tones when we bumped into them in the corridors.

It wouldn’t have happened in the old days, they said. (But didn’t they close the original Philosophy Department back then, too, in the old days?)

There was nothing they could do. It made no sense to petition the managers, who would simply close great doors against them. Behind their office doors. At unminuted meetings. With no transparency.

 

Organisational Management’s clear plans for uni-domination. Swallowing the humanities subjects one by one, starting with Philosophy (Philosophical Studies). Unless Philosophy (Philosophical Studies)was some kind of scapegoat. Made to bear all the sins of the humanities – uselessness, irrelevance and so on – and sent into the Organisational Management wilderness.

Unless they thought that by offering up Philosophy (Philosophical Studies), they’d save themselves. Perhaps that was it. Where was the head of History to defend our name? Where were the heads of English, of Music, of the Fine Arts? Where were the heads of Archaeology, in Museum Studies and Geography and modern languages? Didn’t they fear for their own futures?

Of course, Classics had already been shut. And theology was long gone. Religious Studies had been moved to another university entirely. But no one stuck up for us. No one said a word for Philosophy (Philosophical Studies.)

They will use our apocalypticism against us. They know how to do these things. They’re experts. They’ll trauma-bond us to them.

But we know – we know what they’re doing. We know what they up to. Is this a gift that we have: the power of discernment? Or is it a further curse: to know of our torture before they torture us?

 

To add to the dread. To lay dread upon dread. To thicken the dread, which already lies thick.

Why should we have to know? Why do we have to know? Why is it given to us to know? Why should we know what is to come? What purpose does it serve?

It won’t save us. It won’t help us. It does nothing: our knowledge. We simply know. And that knowledge is philosophy. That’s what’s left of philosophy in us.

An instinct? An aliveness? A curse?

We know. We see. We feel it.

Our dread. That’s what’s true. We all know it, but Fiver sees it. You have to be very special to have visions.

 

Sink lower. There’s further to fall. To sink. Let yourself fall. Give yourself over to falling. Don’t resist anymore. Let despair claim you. Drown you.

Die in despair. Close your eyes in despair. Don’t resist. Don’t try to stop the process. Let the end come.

There’s a whole art of giving up. You can be a virtuoso of giving up.

 

There’s much further to go, that’s the truth of it.

There’s a depth we haven’t reached, not yet. There’s still further to fall, would you believe it. And we must fall. We must go to the limit. There’s something that has to be fulfilled. A process. Which is ongoing but not complete.

Hell on earth – that’s what they want. To bring Hell to earth.

They want us dead – of course they do. Us, our kind. So we mustn’t kill ourselves. We mustn’t give in to despair.

We have to let our despair carry us elsewhere. Let’s let our despair make us dream of elsewhere. Let our longing turn us from their world.

We can only live against this world. We have to live in the intensity of our hatred. We have to dwell there: in our absolute hatred. In our total opposition of the world – to their world. This cannot be enough for us.

They’re zombiefying us. We’re the new zombies. Kind zombies, tolerant zombies, but zombies nevertheless.

 

Our heads are empty. And our hearts are empty. Souls – we have no souls. They’ve emptied out the place where our souls once were.

 

We’re the new androids. We’re the replicants.

That’s what the university is about: the creation of replicants. That’s what the whole of education is about: human soul capture. Human soul evacuation.

Zombiefication: that’s what the new campus is about. And Organisational Management is a zombie finishing school.

 

Come on, zombies just walk stupidly along with the arms outstretched.

Not these zombies.

 

The new Zombies are, like, totally optimised. Totally there.

They’re not like us. They don’t lag behind themselves. They aren’t vague, or dreamy. Productive types. Who do stuff. Who are full of vim. People who are fully themselves. Absolutely themselves. And nothing else! People without potentiality, that’s the thing.

Potentiality for what?

To be something else. To do nothing in particular. Just to be, without being anything. Who can’t be optimised. Who can’t disappear into function.

A luxury buffet. Bottles of wine. Imagine that! Drinking on campus! We thought that had been banned years ago … We thought the campus was an alcohol free zone …

The times for drink are gone – that’s what we thought. No one trusts a drinker on campus. Drinking is moral dubious now.

People don’t even go out for drinks anymore. There’s no after-work pint. Everyone just disappears … melts away back to their domestic lives, if they have them.

 

There are no campus alcoholics anymore. No lives cut short. No youthful promise dissipated, more’s the pity.

Everyone’s active, efficient. Everyone’s clear-headed. Too clear-headed! Everyone’s able to concentrate. To focus. To put themselves to work.

 

Gone are the days you could secret a bottle of whiskey in a filing cabinet.

Gone are the three pint lunches. Not even for leaving dos.

 

All the eccentrics, driven away years ago. No Personalities, capital P, on campus. No Characters. Oddnesses have been smoothed out. Quirks lost.

Only smiling pleasantness now. Only amiability. Capability. Only, Yes I can do it. Only willingness! Hard-workingness. A perpetual jumping to attention. To get things done!

 

X’s hipflask. Thank God for x’s hipflask. It’d saved us on many occasions, X’s hipflask. Who would we be without X’s hipflask?

Really, we should all have hipflasks. It should be an urgent priority: buying hipflasks.

 

No one’s witty anymore on campus. No one’s funny – have you noticed that?

No one laughs. It’s all seriousness. Not High Seriousness, it’s true. But a sober seriousness. An industrial seriousness.

 

No one says anything outrageous on campus. Nothing loud.

There are no loud voices anymore. The academic whisper, instead. The pss pss pss instead. So you have to lean forwards at meetings.

 

The invisible consensus. Need to make everyone feel Safe.

Nothing confrontational. Nothing contentious. No joking about certain subjects.

Agreeability. Non-offensiveness. We’re virtually whispering. Respectfully. Unoffensively …

Only certain personality types will do. Who score high for Agreeability. For Communitarianism. There are no sovereign individuals here. No room for toxic individualism …

 

Total Inclusivity. Which is the new form of exclusion. Total Tolerance. Which is the new form of Intolerance. It’s all about what’s good for All, which is to say for Them. It’s about what’s good for the Collective, which is to say, not good for us.

 

Totally Tolerant. This is how it is.

Happening right now: the quiet revolution. The coming of the new commissars. The new apparatchiks. The head boys and girls. All calm and efficient. Whisperers. Nearly humourless.

Calling out all toxicity! All antisocial behaviour! Who lead by example – by quiet example. Who speak fluent equity and equality and all that.

The rise of a new Type. The rise of the New Rulers.

We have to guarded, on campus. We have to Watch Out, on campus. We might say the wrong thing, in the wrong tone. We might end up with a lawsuit. With a disciplinary.

Don’t be caught off guard … Don’t chat in the corridors. There are no friends here. Only potential betrayers …

 

Mild positivity. That’s the New Way.

They’re learning from each other. The necessary behaviour. The mode of groupthink. They’re picking it up …

And for the rest of us? No friends. No allies. No one to roll your eyes with.

Philosophers in residence: that’s what we are! Pet philosophers! Toy philosophers! For amusement! For diversion! For a break in the Organisational Management routine!

There’s no satire anymore. No one laughs at absurdities. What happened to humour? What happened to laughter?

It’s all official humour. It’s all conformist laughter. Real comedians … what happen to them? Gone underground. Working at secret comedy clubs.

Philosophy itself is at risk – of course it is. Oh, not Anglophone philosophy. Not Analytic philosophy. Real philosophy – that’s what’s at risk.

Philosophy’s dying, vanishing – real philosophy. The conditions for philosophy are disappearing – real philosophy.

We want to sound a great philosophical lament. For philosophy. For the conditions of philosophy.

We’re always being told about kindness. That we should be kind to one another. And the system should be kind. But we know that kindness is cruelty – the greatest cruelty. An ethics of kindness! Tolerance! Mutual respect! Whereas what we need is mutual cruelty. Whereas what we need is brutal honesty.

 

Kindness: that’s the official philosophy of these times. You hear of nothing else: kindness. The desire for more kindness. To increase kindness! Is that what it’s come to: kindness? Is this how civilization ends: in kindness? In agreeableness?

The snow adds to it. it’s positively Russian. The whirling snow. The eternal dark. You’re supposed to be able to see Northern Lights tonight …

Fuck the Northern Lights! I wouldn’t turn around to see the Northern Lights! I hate all that cosmic shit. I hate being made to feel small. Fuck off with your wonder. I’m sick of wonder.

Philosophy begins with wonder.

Bollocks. Philosophy begins with horror – world horror! World sickness! World hatred! World suspicion! Luckily, some of us still have that. Luckily, some of us are still full of that. Happily, some of us feel nothing but horror. We have no stake in this wicked old cosmos.