Author: Lars Iyer

News: they’re moving the Philosophy department into Organisational Management.

General shock. Can they do this sort of thing? Without consultation? Is it allowed?

Apparently.

Is there a rationale? Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves. They just act.

This never would have happened in the old days.

In the old days, we’d never have got jobs. Not at this kind of uni.

True.

Look, It’s just some random thing. Some stupidity. Some manager or another wanted to make their stamp on the uni. Some idiot …

… They’re all idiots …

… Had some interdisciplinary initiative, or something.

What about Organisational Management? What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness.

More laughter. 

Why couldn’t they just have left us alone? Why couldn’t we be allowed to go on as we were, untroubled, unharassed? Why should we have to be destroyed and remade? It’s cruel … it’s needless.

Come on – you think this is arbitrary? They’ve declared war on philosophy. They know that it’s philosophy they have to go after. Not history! Not the fine arts! Not music! Not English literature! But philosophy, alone among the humanities!

Because they sense something about philosophy. They feel a kind of awe of philosophy, despite everything. They know us as a threat – unconsciously. They experience us as an enemy – in some recess of their minds.

Because they know only philosophy can grasp what they’re up to. Only philosophy can put all the pieces together and understand their Plan. That only philosophy has the possibility of seeing it in all its dimensions.

What plan?

For unconscious revenge on philosophy. On the humanities in general. There’s a whole institutional unconscious at work. A desire for revenge. On humanities expansiveness. On humanities freedom of thought.

And that’s why the closure of philosophy would never be enough. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

Whence the organisational management move. It’s meant to discipline us. To make us biddable. To make us understandable to the university authorities. To have us all teaching business ethics, or whatever. Because the authorities dislike what they cannot contain. What questions them. What questions authority and the limits of authority.

Sheer grandiosity. They have no idea about philosophy! They don't know what we teach!

That’s just it: they have no idea. And they want an idea. They want us teaching applied ethics. Organisational ethics! Management ethics!

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …

Of course it makes no sense. That’s the point …

What about meaning?

Forget meaning!

It’s mockery – in plain view. They’re laughing at us.

It’s self-mockery. The uni’s laughing at itself … At everything a university once was …

Were they laughing as they did it? Did it amuse them? Do they know what they’re doing? Couldn’t they sense the nihilism – even if they’d never heard of the word, nihilism? Or did they do it because of the nihilism – an unconscious nihilism, but nihilism nonetheless. Did they do it because of the absurdity?

Look, it’s the madness of the world showing itself. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness. A mad flood of insanity. And it’s a sublime madness. It’s genius in some random way. Because who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management?

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! This is a shock and awe move. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s like parking a tank on your front law. They can do whatever they like: that’s what they’re showing. They’re doing it because they can – however mad it is. In fact, they’re doing it because of that madness.

Because they’re above reasons, with their like, omnipotence. Above rationality. It’s a show of power – of utter power. It’s to prove they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. They can simply bend reality to their will.

Anyway, don’t look at it too closely. Don’t think about it too much. Ponder the logic of the organisational management move and you’ll go quite mad.

Maybe we should go mad. Maybe that's what it'll take. 

We’re misusing our time, Priya says. We’re desecrating our time. Doing wrong things with it. This isn’t how we should be living, is it?

I dont know, I say.

We’re at the bottom of some pit … looking up …, Priya says.

At what? I ask.

I don’t know, Priya says. God, maybe …

Silence.

We don’t have to live like this, Priya says. Things don’t have to be this way. But we do, don’t we? We’re sinners …

We’re fallen, Priya says. Desperately so. Because we don’t lament our fallenness. We don’t experience it, not really. It hasn’t reached us …

What are you turning me into? Priya asks. You and your philosophy! You’ve infected me with philosophy. You’ve made it okay to talk like this – as no one should be allowed talk. No one should be allowed to say these fucking things …

Who’s the organisational manager’s organisational manager? I ask. Who do common or garden organisational managers talk about in reverence? Who’s, like the organisational management G.O.A.T.?

Like, how old is the field? I say. When was organisational management first a thing? Do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? Seriously. I want to know.

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless, Priya says. And no one British can basically do it …

I swear time’s slowing down, Priya says. It’s supposed to go quickly when you’ve having fun.

Is that what we’re doing: having fun? I ask.

The day’s going on without us, Priya says. The day’s doing its day thing. And we’re doing our you and I thing. Whatever that is. What is it, anyway? Who are we, anyway? These questions, philosopher. These afternoon questions …

We’re just falling into the afternoon, Priya says. Faster and faster. We’re castaways of the afternoon, the eternal afternoon.

My flat.

You’re drunk, Priya says.

I am drunk, I say.

So this is drunken you, Priya says. I don’t think I like drunken you.

Have a drink, I say. Catch up.

I don’t want to drink, Priya says. I don’t like seeing you like this.

Like what? I ask. It’s okay. Join me. Come on, you’re staying the night. Follow me down the drain.

You are my drain, Priya says.

So come on down, I say. Flush yourself down.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Priya asks. Am I supposed to patch you up, take care of you, like some tragic fucking artist?

You’re not supposed to do anything, I say.

I’m doing this to you, aren’t I? Priya says. Driving you to drink. I mean why are you drinking today, when I was coming to stay?

Because, because, because, I say.

I shouldn’t get in your way, Priya says. I should just leave you here for you to drink on your own.

Don’t go, I say.

Why not? Priya asks. Why shouldn’t I go?

Because you’re so – fucking – hot, I say. Because you transfigure the world – my world.

Aren’t I part of the natural world? Priya asks. Aren’t I part of the honey trap?

I’m tired of burning out my eyes, writing, I say. I want to look at something … beautiful. And here you are.

You’re so weak, Priya says. You’re a weak man. I despise weak men.

I’m very glad that you’re here, I say. You’re proof that … it doesn’t all suck. The problem is … The problem is … everything. The problem is life. The problem is existence. The problem is time. The fact that there’s more of it. That it never stops.

The problem is the great mechanism’s at work, I say. Pumping on. Making more of the same. More of the more.

The problem is the tedium, I say. It’s the boredom of existence. I hate it. I hate it all.

Yet you don’t hate me, imagine, Priya says. Why is that? You hate everyone but me. There must be something very special about me. To escape your hatred. Your scorn.

My hatred for all things is a sign of my … capacity to love, I say. It’s the inverse of a love – a great love. See, I love the world, too. I love it more than anything. The real world – not this fakery. Not this stage set. Not this scenery … And I love you.

Don’t just say things, Priya says.

I just told you –, I say.

You told me nothing, Priya says. The other day, I was part of nature’s honey trap, or whatever. And today –

Today is today, and full of love, I say. And full of God! Hallelujah!

God was drunk when he made us, I say. He’s drunk as he loves us. And we’re drunk when we turn to him. When we pray. Drunken prayers are the only ones God hears. When we bow our drunken heads. When we speak our drunken prayers. When we slur our drunken words.

God is waiting for us … on the other side, I say. And drinking is the way to go to him. Which is why God wants us to drink. Which is why God wants me to drink more and more.

Let’s dance, I say. Let’s drunk dance. Let’s dance ourselves to death, or drink ourselves to death, or whatever.

Don’t – touch – me, Priya says. You haven’t earnt the right. And you know, drinking like this has been done. It’s very mid twentieth century, alcoholism. No one’s into that anymore. People are more sensible.

I hate sensible, I say.

Alcoholism’s so boring, Priya says. It’s such a cliché. You hate clichés too, don’t you?

But I’m not actually an alcoholic, I say. I’m not even an alcoholic. I’m not even anything. This is just an … afternoon thing. It’s an afternoon melancholy thing. Don’t you ever feel afternoon melancholy? When you started the day with such hopes, such dreams. When you set out to write the best things you could, and then …

Then what? Priya says.

Then you run aground …, I say. Inevitably …

You thrive on this, Priya says. On failure. On nihilism. This is what you’re like.

Do not entrust yourself to failure, I quote. That only makes you nostalgic for success.

You should write about wanting to write a magnum opus, that’s what I think, Priya says. About the impossibility of your writing a magnum opus. That might be more interesting than trying to actually write a magnum opus and failing.

Write about what you can’t do, Priya says. Write about how mediocre you feel. Write about how you disappoint yourself. Write about afternoon melancholy …

My bedroom.

In bed.

Tell me something that happened to you when you were young, I say. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.

When I was young … I lived an ordinary life, Priya says. I did ordinary things. I had ordinary happinesses and, God knows, ordinary sadnesses. Which is to say: nothing happened. Nothing extraordinary, anyway.

I wasn’t talking about anything extraordinary, I say.

Of course you were, Priya says. I’ll bet you’ve always been determined to be extraordinary. Which means you’ll always run up against my ordinariness. Because I am ordinary. Just as I’m mundane. Are you disappointed?

No, I say. Because I don’t believe you. You’re the most philosophical organisational manager who’s ever lived.

Do you ever think that I might say something profound, just by chance? Priya asks.  That would surprise you, wouldn’t it? Out of the mouth of the organisational manager, eh, philosopher? Out of my humble organisational manager’s mouth … It might speak through me, whatever it is …

What’s ‘it’, anyway? I ask.

That’s the question, Priya says. That’s the mystery … All the things we talk about. All the questions we ask … No one’s going to answer, are they? No one’s interested.

Maybe they aren’t questions, but prayers, I say. Maybe they’re ways of praying.

To who? Priya asks. To what?

God, maybe, I say. The sky, maybe. The light, maybe.

I’ll miss our talks, Priya says. I’ll miss talking like this.

It isn’t over yet, I say.

It is though, really, Priya says. It was always over. It’s like we’ve outlived ourselves. We’re already dead. It’s like we’ve been dead for the longest time. We’re just waiting for death to catch up with us.

Death has other things to do, I think, I say. Death’s fucking busy …

God, what do we add up to, we two? Priya says. What do we add to the universe? Sharing our nothings. Our… insignificances. Contemplating the nothingness of the day and our nothingness and our obscurity and the fact that Earth's just falling through space forever.

These are the skylight dialogues, I say. A erotic merger between organisational management and philosophy.

It feels like philosophy’s winning, Priya says.

Like I said, you’re the least organisational organisational manager who’s ever lived, I say. And the least managerial.

Does that make me a philosopher? Priya asks.

Maybe it makes you a poet, I say.

I'll say something poetic, Priya says. It feels like the day’s fallen out of step with itself. That there are these strange lakes of time … Pools of time, just lying there … Reflecting the sky. It feels like we’re in some … split off universe. Some ox-bow lake universe that’s broken from the river of the real one. From the real flow of history. This is where time’s got lost. Where everything’s forgetting itself, and so are we.

Wow, I say. Just wow.

Silence.

Now you have to tell me about yourself when you were young, Priya says. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.

It’s simple: I used to want to write a perfect book, and then kill myself, I say.

Is that it? Priya asks.

The work, I called it, I say. Everything was about the work. I used write night and day. Or edit. It was mostly about editing.

And what was it about, the work? Priya asks.

It was supposed to be some absolute statement, I say. To be an absolute book, totally incomparable. Like Lautreamont’s Maldoror, if you know that.

I don’t know anything about Lotry-what-not’s anything, Priya says.

It was supposed to say everything through a kind of inversion, I say. By saying the opposite. I saw it as a Gnostic treatise. As an expression of the Gnostic imaginary.

And did you ever finish it? Priya asks.

I’m still trying to write it now, I say.

So you can kill yourself after? Priya says. How melodramatic.

It was cheating, because I knew I’d never finish, I say. And that I’d never write anything perfect. Or that was even any good.

Longsands, Tynemouth.

It’s so foggy, Priya says. Where’s, like, the sea?  

Out there somewhere, I say. I can hear the waves, crashing.

It all feels so unreal, Priya says. So … slowed down. It’s like nothing’s in focus. It’s all so muffled and echoey … What are you supposed to do on days like this?

Gaze into the nothingness, I say.

Is that what it is: nothingness? Priya asks. Then you should know all about it. This should be your specialism: nothingness.

Silence. Walking in the sand.

We’re always at a remove from everything, aren’t we? Priya says. We’re always stepping out of the moment and looking down at it. Or looking up at it. Or looking sideways at it. But we’re never in it, are we? Or perhaps you are. But I’m not. Don’t get me wrong – I like being here with you. I like our erotic afternoons, but we’re so meta- … Talking about this stuff. Instead of … whatever …

Talking’s part of it, I say.

We’re always talking, Priya says. And never deciding anything. Never concluding. Where does all this talk lead? Where does it take us? Nowhere. The same place as we were before.

But everything’s a little bit different, I say.

No, everything’s even more the same …, Priya says. All this talking, and we never get to the point.

What point? I say. There is no point.

There’s something important to be said, I’m sure of it, Priya says. Something that wants to be said … Something that could overturn the world. 

Tell me something, then, I say. Say it. Let it speak.

It's not about me speaking, Priya says. Everyting I say just gets in the way.

Just say things, I say. Let it intervene, or whatver.  Tell a story about your past. About your girlhood.

I don’t want to tell … stories …, Priya says. I want to talk about what stories are about. I want to get behind the stories. I want to talk, without saying anything. I want to leave words just … hanging in the air. Just … vibrating  in the fog. God. I’m turning into a philosopher … Turns out philosophy’s infectious. Turns out I can play philosopher.

Listen to me … listen to me talking, Priya says. How come I can talk like this? How did I get to talk like this? It’s like … I’ve swapped places with the air. Like the air’s speaking. Like the fog is speaking. Like the day’s speaking. Like this is the speech of the afternoon.

Do I sound pretentious? Priya asks. I’ll bet I do. Desperately pretentious … Insufferably pretentious …

Priya, picking a book from the shelf. Reading: Who, if I cried out, who would hear me among the angelic orders? Poems about angels. Do you believe in angels, philosopher?

Fallen angels, maybe, I say. And the Nephilim, who were the offspring of fallen angels and human women.

I don’t care about Nephilim, Priya says. Rainer Maria Rilke: I’ve heard of him, I know the name; don’t think I’m totally ignorant. The Dunio Elegies. Is the kind of thing you read – really? … It’s like intruding on something, opening these pages. On some old European dream … What’s wrong with us? Why can’t we be reached by this stuff? Why aren’t we touched by this?

Speak for yourself, I say.

This just zooms over your head, too, Priya says. Don’t pretend. This doesn’t mean anything to you either. Except as some talisman. As something to worship from afar. When Rilke wants to open us … to God, or whatever. To the sky, or whatever. To death, or whatever. All those things. All those things our great-great-grandparents might have understood …

Once upon a time … once people would have set themselves to learn it by heart, Priya says. To be able to quote this. To remember it all, line by line …

All your books, philosopher … These old books, Priya says. They’re from a different time and about a different time, only you haven’t understood that yet … They’re outdated … they’ve been left behind. Haven’t you realised that yet?

You know what I think about your book-filled bedroom? Priya asks. About your life up here? You’re playing at being a philosopher and I’m playing at having an affair with a philosopher. You’re following your blind alley, as I’m no doubt following mine.

What’s your blind alley? I ask.

Romance, maybe, Priya says. This romance … Which will only last for a while – that’s what I tell myself. It will last for a while and burn itself out, and then you’ll forget me, and I’ll forget you, and that’s how it should be.

And you’ll still be with hubbie? I ask.

That is my fate, I’m sure, Priya says. I’ll be with him forever … It’ll just go on and on …

One day, a long time from now,  you’ll tell your husband all about our affair, I say. One day, when you’re feeling particularly close. On your fiftieth wedding anniversary, or something. On his birthday, or yours … You’ll tell him about your love affair – that’s what you’ll call it. About reading Rilke with your philosopher lover. Reading Rilke in bed, the pair of us! The Dunio Elegies! High modernist stuff about angels!

That’ll teach him not to take you for granted, I say. To show him that you could have lead an entirely different life had you chosen to. That would add an unexpected twist to your anniversary dinner, wouldn’t it? That would make him sit up and listen …

You know, if you met someone else, I’d be terribly jealous, Priya says. Which makes me think you should be more jealous of my husband than you are. Unbearably so. Tormentedly so.

I am jealous, I say.

Don’t feign, Priya says. I know when you’re lying. See, I’d like to matter. Like everyone wants to matter. I want to be someone for whom someone else would live or die.

Your husband, I say.

Maybe him, though probably not, Priya says. Okay – I want you to want me. Desperately. Seriously.

You said we were just going to burn ourselves out …,  I say.

But that could be fun, right? Priya says. That could be fiery.

I do want you, anyway, I say.

I want you to want me more, Priya says. Not to be able to go on without me.

You’re actually married, I say. Which makes you very greedy.

Well maybe I don’t want to be married to him, Priya says. Maybe I’d leave him for you. If it wasn’t for … your work. Your life or death work which comes between you and me.

See, you think you’re exceptional …, Priya says. That you’re better than the rest of us … to stay up here in your eerie and write your stuff … You and your philosophical muse.

Maybe you’re my muse, I say. My new muse.

Maybe you’ll have to court me – properly, Priya. You have to make some effort. Everything just comes to you. I just drive out here.

I’ll write you a love letter, I say. I’ll send it right to your door. Rilke wrote a lot of love letters, you know. He wandered round Europe writing to various women.

It’s easy to love people when they’re absent, right? Priya says. You can imagine me exactly as you like. A philosophical me. A profound me. Who could join you in revering these old books. Rainer Maria Rilke, or whoever …

Whitley Sands.

Walking up the beach.

Are you worried you’ll be seen? I ask.

Maybe I’d like to be seen, Priya says. With my … young … lover.

What about your couple friends: what if they saw you? I ask.

Fuck my couple friends, Priya says. God, they’re to blame for a million dull evenings. I’ve done my time …

Walking.

It’s like there’s some absolute divide between us and everyone else, Priya says. Because we’re in lurrve. We’re, like, a loving elite. Who feel their love more intensely than anyone else. Who live more intensely. I mean, love … makes you feel exalted, doesn’t it? It makes you high. You feel like some secret aristocrat who knows the secret of everything …

Lovers are always in love with themselves – that’s the thing, I say. With their love. With their being in love. It’s a recipe for smugness.

You always have to be a downer on everything, Priya says.

Nature’s thrown us a treat and we’re supposed to be grateful, I say. To moon over one another in gratitude. When really it’s part of the whole machine.

What machine? Priya asks.

The natural machine, I say. The machine of nature. Romance is  nature’s honey trap. That’s what it’s called isn’t it: when they lure you in via someone pretty? Some hottie specifically sent out to target you? … See, nature wants us trapped. Confined. Seeking all our salvation from romantic love …

So where should we seek it? Priya asks.

In being against nature, I say. In not just being grateful for what we’re given. I mean, we think romance is an exception. That we’ve been given all this as a special gift. All these feelings … This elation … This craving … It’s all it’s supposed to be. That’s the very sane madness of lovers. Our rational irrationality. Our law-abiding prohibition. To which we totally succumb …

But it is an exception, Priya says. It’s like a reprieve. It’s like we’ve been let off from ordinary life. The usual rules don’t apply, right? We’ve got an exemption. A pass …

Sure, it’s like a reprieve, I say. It’s like we’re exempt.

God, you’re so meta, Priya says. You can’t just experience stuff. You can’t just give yourself over to things.

Can you? I ask.

This is our … secret kingdom, Priya says. The secret just between the two of us. That no one will know but us. How we are together. How we talk to each other. Tease each other. Our … gestures, or whatever. The way we fuck, even … Something … new has come into the world. Don’t you feel that?

It doesn’t matter what we feel, I say.

Look around you, Priya says. The sky’s doing its sky thing, the sea’s doing its sea thing. And we’re supposed to be doing our lovers on the beach thing. Just being happy, or whatever. And instead, we have to be meta. Have to talk about life instead of living it. We have to ask our questions.

It just means we’re conscious, I say. We’re awake.

It means we’re detached and in denial, Priya says.

I just want us not subject to everything – to, like, every passing feeling, I say. Even love. Even infatuation. You know what lovers are like. Aren’t we lucky? they think to ourselves. Why can’t everyone be as lucky as us? And then they become, like, love-evangelists. Trying to pair up their friends, or whatever. Telling everyone the story of their romance. How they got together. About how the world relented. When the remorseless logic of it all pulled back for a few moments. When they were granted an apparent reprieve.

Maybe it’s natural for think we’ can be against nature, Priya says. Maybe that’s human hubris.

What we are is a capacity to negate nature, I say. To say no. 

I haven't heard any nos from you lately, Priya says. Anyway, I think our whole thing's a no to the world. 

Tell me something that happened to you when you were young, I say. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.

When I was young … I lived an ordinary life, Priya says. I did ordinary things. I had ordinary happinesses and, God knows, ordinary sadnesses. Which is to say: nothing happened. Nothing extraordinary, anyway.

I wasn’t talking about anything extraordinary, I say.

Of course you were, Priya says. I’ll bet you’ve always been determined to be extraordinary. Which means you’ll always run up against my ordinariness. Because I am ordinary. Just as I’m mundane. Are you disappointed?

No, I say. Because I don’t believe you. You’re the most philosophical organisational manager who’s ever lived.

Is there much competition? Priya asks.

These are the skylight dialogues, I say. A erotic merger between organisational management and philosophy. In bed.

Anyway, tell me about yourself when you were young, Priya says. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.

It’s simple: I used to want to write a perfect book, and then kill myself, I say.

Is that it? Priya asks.

The work, I called it, I say. Everything was about the work. I used write night and day. Or edit. It was mostly about editing.

And what was it about, the work? Priya asks.

I never knew, I say. It was supposed to be some absolute statement. To be an absolute book, totally incomparable. Like Lautreamont’s Maldoror, if you know that.

I don’t know anything about Lotry-what-not’s anything, Priya says.

It was supposed to say everything through a kind of inversion. By saying the opposite. I saw it as a Gnostic treatise.

And did you ever finish it? Priya asks.

I’m still trying to write it now, I say.

So you can kill yourself after? Priya says. How melodramatic.

It was cheating, because I knew I’d never finish, I say. And that I’d never write anything perfect. Or that was even any good.