Author: Lars Iyer

He’s giving a speech.

He’s not. God – a speech! – that’s all we need. A speech! What about!?

A welcome speech! A speech about kindness!

No! No!

An organisational manager does profundity. Does sincerity.

 

He was talking about seed beds and test beds. He kept saying there’s work to be done on.

And EDI. He kept talking EDI. It was a whole mantra with him: EDI. And kindness. He loves the word, kindness. He was instructing us on the importance of kindness. That’s what’s replaced ethics, in academia.

 

Is Tyrell sincere? Does he actually mean this stuff?

Isn’t he just stupid?

He’s optimistic. Boundlessly so.

Doesn’t he see that there’s a different culture. A different way of looking at things. He thinks this is the future. He wants to co opt us. Synergise us.

Yeah, says the Borg.

 

I hate him. I really do.

Am I unreasonable? Am I a fanatic? I think I am. I’ve been radicalised. I’m a fundamentalist now.

A fundamentalist what?

I don’t know. I’m just against.

Against what?

Against everything. Against the world. Against their world, anyway.

 

I actually feel ashamed of being human. Ashamed of being alive, of existing.

 

God, how intolerable the intolerable is!

 

How did we get like this? How come we have such a low threshold for university bullshit? We’re not fit for human company anymore.

Were we ever?

We do it to each other. We license it in each other. We’re not good for each other. This is what being in a philosophy department does to you. It’s a hall of mirrors.

So you think we should embrace our Organisational Management overlords?

 

These people are of another species!

These people are robots – fucking robots – and don’t you forget it.

These guys are sinister. They’re like evangelicals. They’re so happy.

Maybe it’s just that we’re unhappy. We’re used to being unhappy. We think that it’s the only way to be.

We’re happy unhappy, in other words. Whereas these guys are happy happy.

But this is Organisational Management happy, which isn’t the same thing.

 

They’re full of normalcy bias. They’re pretending things are normal. They’re acting as if the world hasn’t ended, essentially. The whole system … The whole thing …

Maybe we’ve just got apocalyptic bias.

 

God – I can’t bear it. Like we can all get together and just pool our resources. Work for a better fucking world, or whatever. When we just want the world to end. Do they realise they’ve merged with a bunch of apocalypticists?

 

They’re after us. They want to destroy us. Our joie de vivre. They want to live on our life – our philosophy. We’re philosophical batteries to them. Thought batteries …

 

You’re going to have to save us. You’re our new leader. You’ve got to lead us out of the labyrinth. You’ve got to stand between us and them. You’ve got to be the lightning conductor.

 

I want to run screaming from the room.

Go on then – run screaming.

That’s part of why I want to scream – because I can’t scream. If I could scream, I wouldn’t scream.

 

We need to spike our drinks.

Perhaps they’ve spiked ours.

Scary.

 

This is like the satanic inversion of philosophy. All that’s good and true and right, turned upside-down …

What are the signs? Can you read the signs? Use your ESP, or whatever. Can you still do ESP? Use your power of spiritual discernment, then. Didn’t you always claim to be very spiritually discerning?

She likes you. It’s your tortured philosopher thing.

I don’t like me.

That’s what she likes.

 

She’s going to eat you up.

Do you think?

Just kidding. But her husband floating about … maybe he doesn’t mind … maybe that’s the price you pay to go out with a hottie …

She’s a hottie, right?

Sure she’s a hottie.

 

You’re going to get entangled, I can tell. All caught up. In a spider’s web.

I don’t want to get entangled!

 

You just want to work on your magnum opus, right?

Sure I do.

What is it again? Some literary thing … some philosophical thing. Just what the world is waiting for.

The walls are closing in. The sky seems close. I want … I want to hang myself.

You always want to hang yourself.

 

Where are we going? What’s going to become of us?

Don’t be so hopeless. God, I hate hopelessness.

 

Calm down. You’re getting hysterical. You’re our leader now.

Am I?

The crown hangs heavy, right?

Why aren’t these business people actually running businesses? Why aren’t they out the world?

Because they’re here to instigate the new system. To roll out the new reality system. They’re involved. Organisational Management’s part of it, or in charge of it, or something.

We’re surplus! Useless! We know this! We know our kind! We know our faults! We know what we are! We know we have no place in the new world, the coming world! We know we lag behind! We know we’re tardy! Latecomers! Stick in the muds! We know we should be put down for our own good.

 

Philosophy is the queen of useless subjects! Philosophy is uselessness itself! Both useless and pointless! Philosophy’s for nothing! About nothing! Well, nothing important. Nothing relevant … 

We’re collateral damage. Necessary, no doubt. Something of the old must be destroyed for the new to appear. Something of the old must be nourishment for the new. It’s only right.

We volunteer! Put our hands into the air! We’re not ready for this brave new world! We’re quite happy to give up our place in the techno-utopia! We know our kind are defunct, our of time. We’re happy to go down. We’re happy for the future army to crunch down on our bones. Happy to be buried in an ecocoffin. To rot back into the soil. To feed the earth …

The Organisational Management newsletter. The many achievements of our Organisational Management staff! The grants they’ve won, our Organisational Management colleagues. The grants to seek grants they’ve secured, our Organisational Management colleagues. The seedcorn money they’ve drawn down, our Organisational Management colleagues. The impact case studies with which they’re busy, our Organisational Management colleagues.

News of upcoming Organisational Management conferences! Of Organisational Management funding opportunities! Of Organisational Management journals, soliciting for articles. Of the new Organisational Management book series.

News from the Organisational Management field. Recent appointments. Promotions. Hires. Photos of Organisational Managers from all over the world. Chinese Organisational Managers! Peruvian Organisational Managers! Photos from an Organisational Management expedition to Antarctica! Photos from Organisational Managers canoeing their way through the Grand Canyon. Photos of Organisational Managers with hitherto uncontacted Amazonian tribes.

And there are even Organisational Management poems! Organisational Management creative writing! Organisational Management life-writing!

Should we ask whether there should be a philosophy section in the Organisational Management newsletter? Is that’s what missing: a section for philosophical achievements! For philosophical grants won! For philosophical impact case studies! It’d be a short section …

 

The Organisational Management newsletter. A way into the Organisational Management universe. Who knew that it was so broad, so deep! That there was so much of it!

We’re lucky to be part of it! To be included! To be enfolded in the arms of the Organisational Management family! We’re learning things! How a really twenty-first century subject area works! How it really runs itself! It’s professionalism. How seriously it takes itself. You can see why Organisational Management is taking over the world.

And it’s not just full of explicitly Organisational Management stuff. It’s not concerned solely with matters commercial. There’s Organisational Management creative writing, for one thing. Poems about the Lake District, by one very sensitive organisational manager. A prose piece about a Yorkshire girlhood, by another. There are Organisational Management prayers. There’s a photo of one particularly enterprising organisational manager with the Dalai Lama. There’s Organisational Management art.

This is a multifaceted academic discipline: that’s what the Organisational Management newsletter shows. It's a way of life! Even a philosophy! The Organisational Management universe really hangs together. The part in the whole, and the whole in the part. There’s a way of being an organisational manager, that’s clear.

 

There’s even Organisational Management lonely hearts.

Organisational Management meetings Superefficient. Super organised. Over and done with in forty-five minutes. You get whiplash, pretty much.

Why should we be surprised? After all, business is Organisational Management’s business. They’re experts on business. They know what they’re doing. It’s business as it should be, in Organisational Management. Business as usual, with no monkey business. No pauses. No lulls. No reeling at the latest university nihilism. At the latest stupidity from on high.

It’s all good attitude. Without laments. Without wailings. No bonding over horror at crazy central admin decisions. They almost surf on waves of admin, Organisational Managers. They almost pride themselves on the vastly complex matters they can deal with. That they can see off. They’re like matadors of business. It’s even done with a flurry. It’s done with panache. Organisational Managers all but cry ole!

They’re showing off in front of one another. No, that’s ungenerous: they’re showcasing their skills, their virtuosity. Sharing them. Revelling together im what they can do.  

Because this is who they are! This is what they’re made for. Organisational Management at its best, doing what it does best! Rushing through the agenda. Item after item. Swiftly! With certainty! With eagle-eyes! They’ve read the documents. Nothing escapes them. They’ve prepared in advance. It’s a matter of pride.

They don’t stumble. They soar. This is their sky. This is their soaring. Wings outstretched. What a marvel. The beauty of Organisational Managers in full flight.

It’s sublime, in its way. There’s a beauty to it. Some nature programme should be filming this. David Attenborough should provide a voiceover. This is the magnificence to Organisational Management. This is what it does, Organisational Management. This is what it’s for, Organisational Management.

Look how they work together, the Organisational Managers. As a team! As a pack! Look at how they coordinate. True teamwork! It’s seamless. Everyone knows their cue. Everyone knows when to speak and to be silent.

The art of the meeting. No: it should be the science of the meeting. The technology of the meeting. Like a stealth fighter in full flight. Like a guided jet, staying under radar, tracking the contours. Like some low-orbit direct energy weapon, zapping down from the clouds.