Author: Lars Iyer

So this is where they’re going to bury us! A philosophical crypt, in the basement. This is where they’re going to move Philosophy once we’re incorporated into Organisation Management.

And it’s so purple! Why did it have to be purple?

It’s so warm. And wet. It’s positively damp. Are we going to catch consumption?

They don’t understand that by burying us, they’ll resurrect us, too. We’re going to be reborn, don’t you see? We’ll burst out of the crypt. We’ll show what philosophy was all along. Only now, in the final hour, when philosophy’s dead and buried, will philosophy be revealed.

 

We’re thinkers of the basement! Of the underground! In the Newcastle mud, basically. Among the buried things.

 

This is where it ends! From Athens to this! The whole adventure of Western thought! The whole history! The whole tradition! This is where it’s buried!

 

In the basement, and full of messianic fever. With our own sky, the philosophical sky.

 

This is what philosophy needed: to be lost, so it can find itself again. And we’re the ones who are going to find it.

Are we?

 

The philosophical dungeon. The philosophical pit. Where they’ll scatter the philosophical ashes.

 

This is the very example of a messianic inversion. Which we’ll have to invert in turn. Because Organisation Management really is the opposite of philosophy …

 

The philosophical oubliette. Where they’re going to forget us! Bury us forever!

 

We’re the philosophical nearly dead. The philosophical undead.

 

There’s a spirit still hovering over the Organisational Management ashes: philosophy’s spirit, which hasn’t been lost.

Life-pods. Oh these are going to be good.

Check it out. This is how we’re all going to live …

AI run … AI programmes specific air quality, scent and solar intensity … Continually filtering the air and capturing carbon … Helping to manage energy levels …

AI watches over you while you sleep, apparently … Analysing your emotional responses as you dream.

AI examines you piss, to analyse your pancreatic function. And your shit, to analyse your gut bacteria and antibiotic use. Fucking A. And your smart-fridge can give you tailored diet recommendations. So it can ferment the right soybeans that are growing on your roof. And your smart-oven will suggest food customised to your unique digestive system and give you personalised and dynamic nutrition plans. And then your smart-sink can mix the right biotic mix in your water.

Yay preventative health strategies! Yay living forever!

The Organisational Management campus.

Reading the virtual guide.

Our overarching vision is to create one of the world’s premier locations for the integration of science, business and economic development. Our ultimate aim is to make people’s lives healthier, longer and more prosperous.

They’re here to help us all to live better lives! Better – did you hear that? Healthier! Smarter! Longer! Who could object to that?

Reading further.

They’re showing how researchers, businesses, progressive home owners can live side by side. Progressive home owners only, note. I’ll bet there’s serious vetting …

They’ll want good-attitude people. Positive people. Solutions-focused people. Bigger-picture people. Communitarian types. Who care about the planet. Not nay-sayers, like us. Not draggers-down-of-others.

Reading further.

A collaborative ecosystem for public and private bodies. It’s a place of Curiosity and Innovation … State of the art amenities … New office spaces! Championing collaboration! Connectivity!

That building’s called The Catalyst. Do they think by actually calling it a catalyst that it’ll actually be a catalyst?

That one’s called Innovation Engine. Kind of hubristic, isn’t it? They should call a building, A Really Good Idea, by the same logic. Or Money Maker. Or Cash Cow.

That building’s called The Catalyst. Do they think by actually calling it a catalyst that it’ll actually be a catalyst?

That one’s called Innovation Engine. Kind of hubristic, isn’t it? They should call a building, A Really Good Idea, by the same logic. Or Money Maker. Or Cash Cow.

The way it’s all laid out. They’ve put thought into this. Planning. It must be based on some UN model of population pacification. They know what they’re doing. This isn’t random. Perfect for social control, or whatever. Perfect for future lockdowns …

It’s working on us now. Can’t you feel it? The very architecture. The very layout of the buildings. The paving stones they use. Nature, like, in homeopathic doses. Those trees – so called trees. The synthetic biological trees. And those … squirrels. Are they squirrels?

They’re robotic 3D printers, it says here. Strengthening stress points, adding carbon resistance patches.

Fucking A.

Check out the roof trees, or whatever.

They’re actually vertical farms … God, this place is aggressively sustainable.

All buildings autoregulated for efficiency. Their energy codes synchronised. All of them biomimetic, incorporating biological architecture.

This isn’t just a campus, it’s a vision of the world. Of how things should be. A perfect alliance of technology and care! Green tech solutions! A solution for all! To all the global challenges!

My God, the world’s going to be so green-organised! So green-managed! They’re doing it for the planet, on the Organisational Management campus. They’re doing it for eco-diversity! It’s sublime!

The planet’s crying! The planet’s in pain! And Organisational Management has come to wipe its tears.

They’re idealists, in their way. They’re fighting for a kinder world. Who couldn’t get behind this? It’s for our children, and our children’s children! Who could possibly object?

I want to kill myself.

Wow, this place is called the catalyst café. Is it really called that. Pick up a drink to go, it says. Hold informal meetings and catch-ups. Would you like a catch-up, guys? Shall we have an informal meeting?

Can’t you just feel the life? Can’t you feel the networking opportunities?

I want to kill myself.

Wow, this place is called the catalyst café. Is it really called that. Pick up a drink to go, it says. Hold informal meetings and catch-ups. Would you like a catch-up, guys? Shall we have an informal meeting?

Can’t you just feel the life? Can’t you feel the networking opportunities?

And here are the eateries. Perfect spots to grab food – see you grab food. You don’t sit down and eat it. You’re too fucking dynamic for that.

Okay – entertainment zone. Are you ready? Are you braced? Spaces and places for everyone, apparently. It’s buzzing with events. With pop ups.

Places to eat and drink. And stunning public spaces! For people to meet, chat, share ideas and challenge one another!

Ooh challenge one another. Won’t that be something! It’s not all consensus here.

Bars … They have mixologists at the ready. They’re preparing signature cocktails.

Comedy clubs. Organisation Management campus comedy!? What’s that like?

You never actually have to leave the campus. All these happy people, right. All organisationally managed.

There’s a spiritual space. There’s an innovation hub. There’s an artist’s space.

Poets have been involved in the design. Their words run along the paths. Artists, too. Some sound works. Some sculptural works.

Philosophers?

Not philosophers yet … but we’ll have a role, I’m sure.

I WANT TO KILL MYSELF.

See, you’re just the sort of person Organisational Management campus doesn’t need. You’ve got entirely the wrong attitude.

What would do, if we lost all this? Where would we go? We’d be penniless. Homeless, probably. Developing major fucking addictions.

This is the only life we’re used to. We’re not equipped for anything else. We haven’t got the skills. The personality. The can-do attitude.

A can’t-do attitude: that’s what we have. An instant defeat attitude. A sink-down-on-our-knees-and-wail attitude.

 

Compromise … Negotiation … We’re not made for that. We’re not diplomats. We’re not careful with what we say. We’re erratic. We’re not used to speaking to outsiders. To non-philosophers.

 

They could close us down, just like that. It’d be nothing to them. Don’t forget that. We’ve got to sell ourselves. We’ve got to survive. Compromise. We can’t be fanatics now. We can’t be fundamentalists. We have to sleep with the enemy, basically.

Philosophy, absorbed into Organisational Management! Philosophy, become part of the Organisational Management extended universe! Philosophy, drawn into the Organisational Management orbit!

 

Why has Organisational Management seized upon us? Why have we aroused Organisational Management’s interest? We tried to be unobtrusive. We tried to camoflague ourselves. We kept quiet. We stuck our heads over no parapet.

We did what we were told, pretty much. We played along with all the university idiocies. We followed the rules. We didn’t ask any questions. And we were ignored, for the most part. We were left to get on with it …

 

The Organisational Management move.

A comedy. A farce. But who’s laughing? A black comedy. Comedy of a time without rules, without centre. Comedy of a time when anything goes and everything goes. Comedy of a time beyond satire. That satirises itself, and no one notices.

Comedy of a time without the old norms, without the old values. Without a shared sense of what is just, what is unjust. Comedy of a time where the old values have been swept away, carried away.

Anomic comedy. Abyssal comedy. Comedy that laughs at itself laughing, and at the futility of laughing at itself laughing. Comedy after tragedy, after face.

 

Organisational Management regard us as an object of interest. Of curiosity. They’re interested in us. Would that they weren’t interested! Would that they were perfectly indifferent! Would that they simply ignore us! Would that they let us simply exist in our corner, more or less unnoticed.

Intolerable! That’s what it is. Unendurable! Why do we have to be put through these things?

Omoi! Omoi! That’s we should cry, like tragic heroes. But it isn’t even tragic, that’s the thing. We don’t even have tragic grandeur, that’s the pity of it. It’s less than tragic. It’s pathetic. Laughable. Derisory.

 

The Organisational Management move.

A comedy. A farce. But who’s laughing? A black comedy. Comedy of a time without rules, without centre. Comedy of a time when anything goes and everything goes. Comedy of a time beyond satire. That satirises itself, and no one notices.

Comedy of a time without the old norms, without the old values. Without a shared sense of what is just, what is unjust. Comedy of a time where the old values have been swept away, carried away.

Anomic comedy. Abyssal comedy. Comedy that laughs at itself laughing, and at the futility of laughing at itself laughing. Comedy after tragedy, after face.

I had a … vision. Or really, a series of visions.

What did you see?

It was the near future. I never knew the date. Something terrible had happened. It was perpetually dark. Like perma-twilight. And it was so heavy. Like gravity had been turned up. Doing the simplest thing cost such effort. And everything was muffled and distant. There was this terrible disconnection. If you shouted, you wouldn’t be heard. If you cried out, no one would hear you.

There were all these imagines – very brief. People running for their lives, with their children. And then there were these fake people: like robots, but flesh and blood … Wraps, they were called. I don’t know how I knew that. And the wraps were possessed. They were Inhabited by … demons. Like, evil spirits,  seeking embodiment.

I looked in books – familiar books – but couldn’t understand them. All the words were corrupted. I listened to music – music I used to know. And all I heard were terrible tones.

There were these time loops. That people got stuck in. Repetitive behaviours. Just lopping round and round … And the weirdest thing was that you couldn’t die. Like, if you died, you’d just come back to life.

There’s something abrasive about us. A wild look in our eyes. As though we were perpetually on the verge of explosion. As if we were going to make a wild, unpredictable move. As though we were about to swerve. To veer, all of a sudden. To call out the university.

We’re not good technocrats. We’re not happy nihilists. We’re not good technocrats. We’re not happy nihilists. We’re maladjusted. Well, we need to be adjusted. We need to be shown the way. We need to be brought on board. Retrained, if necessary. Re-educated. Sent on appropriate training courses.

We need to be more understandable. More relatable. Management has to understand that our core values align with theirs. It’s really a matter of clarification. Of showing what we’re about.

We’re educable, right? We’re trainable. A few university courses. Visions and Values. That sort of thing. It’s a comms problem. It’s a an internal marketing problem. It’s a question of alignment. We need to learn an appropriate language to express ourselves.

We need to be brought into the Organisational Management family. We’re a little too wild for the uni authorities. We’ll be shown how to behave. How to do things properly.

No doubt Organisational Management will learn from us, as we will learn from Organisational Management. It’s a two-way street. We’ll be learning from each other.

And don’t worry – they fully mean to respect the integrity of our Board of Studies. We’re just a little out of sync, that’s all. It’s a question of alignment. What we really need is to have a Visions and Values away-day. A sandbox day.

And here Organisational Management can help. Organisational Management can be a kind of go-between. It can help us articulate our visions and values, and help us understand university values, and the points of synergy between them.

It’s really about helping us communicate. Help us share our vision in the terms senior management recognise. Granted they can be a bit fuddy-duddy. A bit stuck in the old ways. We need to show the positive contribution philosophy is making society. Critical thinking skills – we could all do with those, don’t we?

We have to ask ourselves what kind of philosophy unit we want to be. What our visions and values are. There’s a piece of work to be done on that.

It’s a question of sitting down together. With a facilitator. And the university has great facilitators. Make an away day of it. With university catering for the lunches. They do these amazing wraps …

 

Organisational Management and philosophy: together, we’ll be invincible.

We’re going to end up in prison, all of us. We’ll end up shot. Disgraced. Pedophiled. Cancelled and memory-holed. We’ll end up locked up as domestic terrorists. In the nearest FEMA camp. They’re building holding pens for our kind.

They’ll outlaw thought as terrorism. As far-rightism. As anti-equityism. That’s what they’re ready for. As sins against the Guardian. Against Rightspeak. As dangerous. As unkind. As placing our students At Risk.

 

Sins against big pharma. Or big tech. Or the big government. Or big everything. We don’t want to take up our role in the new communitarianism. We’re not signing up for the New Consensus. We’re not going to eat ze bugs, or whatever.

We’re not genuflecting to the new idols. We don’t have the Permitted Opinions. We’re not the Right Kind of People. We’re Conspiracists. We’re Agitators. We’re against the Latest Thing. We’re probably racists. And anti-Semites!

We’re the resistance – don’t forget that.

But what do we actually resist? We just go along with things and moan.

But it’s a beautiful moaning. It’s a transcendental moaning.

 

We’ve become inured to this world. We’ve accepted its terms. We’ve surrendered. We’ve put our hands up. And they didn’t even demand our surrender …

They didn’t ask for anything – not explicitly. They knew we’d behave. They couldn’t conceive of our not behaving. Of sweeping all the food from the tables. Of overturning the fucking tables.

We don’t need them as our prison guards. We confine ourselves. We tell ourselves off. We lock ourselves down.

 

We’re captives – that’s clear. They’ve captured us. Psychologically. We’re trapped in our own heads. We’re walled up inside ourselves. We’re our own prison cells, our own warders, our own prison guards.

We’ve locked ourselves up. We’re collaborators. We’ve betrayed ourselves. We’ve sold all our secrets. We’re our own secret police. Keeping watch on who we are.

We’re internalising all of this. It’s becoming our soul. It’s what our souls are: prison cells. And we don’t even know it. The world’s been captured, and so have we.

 

How did we become so reasonable? Years of training. Years of obedience school. Like cows led by the nose-ring. Look at us. We can’t put up the slightest protest. Because we know it’s futile.

 

This impossibility … this strangulation. Should force us into thinking. The very crampedness … The very fact that there’s nowhere to go … That we can’t manoeuvre.

It should force us into … what?

 

The only thing that interests me is the end of the world. That’s what I want to tell them about: the end of the world. And not their human-made climate change. Not their climate mitigation strategies. Not some manageable transition away from fossil fuels. Fuck that.

Some sudden end. Some cosmological event. Some galactic force that’s ripping the rings off Saturn. About which there’s fuck all to be done.

 

I want to go home and crawl into bed. And, like, comfort-masturbate.