Author: Lars Iyer

Remembering how Cicero fought all kinds of dreadful administrative battles to keep Philosophy open. Cicero, going to the most gruelling meetings. The most trying meetings. Which is where, in fact, she developed some of her most crucial thoughts as the dialectical opposite to said meetings.

How else would she have been able to develop her insights into politocracy! Into synthetic biology! Into psychic warfare techniques! Into information control! Into conditioning tactics! Into compulsory positivity! The condition of all of these was academic bureaucracy.

How else could she have been able to diagnose the determinative value of the technological system – of systematisation, schematisation, tabulation, qualification, rationalisation, mechanisation, standardisation – were it not for her own experience of exactly these things?

The way she used to speak about escape! About the significance of the exodic act! About the cultivation of tactical failure and ineffectiveness in and as study – to drifting, scattering and vagueness: our role, she used to say. Our specialism.

She kept Philosophy open for us, I say. To bring us on. To let us come into our own.

I wouldn’t say that, exactly, Ava says. She could be pretty insulting …

But it was a kind insulting, Magellan says. It was meant to spur us on.

It was meant to crush us, Ava says.

It was, like, a Jedi training, I say. She was our Yoda. She wanted to deepen our sense of disgust. To rise from our ashes. It was a use-the-force-Luke kinda thing.

… I’m still crushed …, Ava says.

Philosophers you must be! Magellan says, in his best Yoda voice. Think for yourselves, you must!

It was a bootcamp, I say. She wanted to toughen us up. Particular you, Hans. She could tell you were a soy boy.

And then she … disappeared, Ava says. She went travelling or whatever. Took her career break.

Do you think that was a coincidence? I ask. She wanted to set us free. To see how we did without her.

She made you leader, Marcus, Hans says.

She did, more fool her, I say.

And then this: the Organisational Management move, Magellan says. Do you think it as just coincidence that it happened just after Cicero left?

Like they were planning it all along, Ava says. They were waiting until the coast was clear. When they knew no one would put up a fight …

Unless …, I say.

What – what do you know? Hans asks. What were you privy to?

Unless the Organisational Management move was part of Cicero’s masterplan, I say.

What!?

I don’t know any more than you do, I say. But if you think about it …

Cicero wouldn’t betray us like that …, Magellan says.

Unless it was like her insults, I say. Her so-called Jedi training …

You mean … Ava says.

First, she left, turning the department over to us, I say. Then, she plotted for it to be moved to, like, the opposite of philosophy.

But why? Ava asks.

To push us into becoming what she wanted us to be, I say. Philosophers.

Philosophers!? Us? Ava says.

Not academic philosophers, but the real thing, I say. Thinkers who embody their thought. Who live it. Who incarnate the thinking life. For whom thinking was a matter of the flesh.

But she thought we were idiots! Ava says. She told us so! Over and over again.

Cicero always enjoyed farce, Magellan says, thoughtfully. She wanted to deepen the farce … To push farce to its maximum …

I can’t believe it … Ava says. That kind of self-sabotage …The philosophy department she’d so lovingly built up …

Philosophy is a living against: Cicero always said that, I say. You must live as not: that’s what she said. Be university philosophers as not university philosophers. Be applied ethics philosophers as not applied ethics philosophers. Be tame academics as not tame academics. There’s a way of living in the opposite direction.

So we have to live in the opposite direction to Organisational Management, Magellan says. That’s what will intensify our resistance. Our thought.

Exactly! I say.

And the fact that it’s Organisational Management isn’t a coincidence, Magellan says. Cicero wanted to bring philosophy into collision with what she knew from university administration. With the endless administration of the world. Its ceaseless management. With the coordinates we’re given. The social coordinates. The governmental coordinates. The biopolitical coordinates. The philosophical coordinates …

Our philosophy will have to go underground, I say. It’ll be about an inward revolution. Pure refusal. Pure retreat. Like, an inward principle of subversion, revolt and antinomianism. A way of living against the world.

It’s just nihilism, Ava says. More nihilism!

Nihilism will flip and become something else, that’s what Cicero’s banking on, I say.

It’s some gamble! Hans says.

Cicero’s a gambler, I say.

And then – what? – is she going to return to see what she wrought? Hans asks.

Then, who knows, I say.

If only Cicero were still with us.

Cicero, our erstwhile organ grinder! Cicero, the old head of the philosophy dept! Cicero, who handpicked us – us – to work here! Cicero, who plucked us – us – from our provincial universities! Cicero, who scouted the conferences for … what? Not the up-and-coming, we were never that …

The desperate! The put-upon! The cornered! That’s who we were …  

Cicero sought out the prospectless! The defeated – spiritually! Financially! The lower class! The skint! The manner-less! The pretty-much-down-and-out! The bordering-on-resentful! The all-but-embittered! The personality-disordered-from-sheer-prospectlessness! Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university! Us: who else?

Cicero actually wanted our kind around her. Part of the end times will be a parade of deformities and grotesques, she said. Not physical, but, like, mental deformity. There’ll be mental sports! Psychic twistings! Cognitive contortions! Like in that Hieronymous Bosch painting, but in thought …

And only the thought-freakshow would be able to understand the end times, Cicero thought. Would be able to communicate it. Which Cicero herself, with her European education, with her great list of notable publications, with her command of languages, ancient and modern, with dozens of keynote speeches behind her, could never do. Which Cicero herself, with her deep philosophical culture, with her personal philosophical library lining the walls of her flat, with her decades-long immersion in philosophical life, could never hope but aspire to.

We were to be the doom speakers of the end times. We were to voice disgust’s disgust. Horror’s horror. We were to voice the truth of our times: the mad truth. Which is why Cicero wanted to make a place for us.

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? we wonder. Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves, Hans says. They just act.

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …, Ava says.

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

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

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

But do they really know what they’re doing? Magellan asks. Can’t they sense the nihilism – even if they’d never heard of the word, nihilism?

They probably did it because of the nihilism – an unconscious nihilism, but nihilism nonetheless, I say.

This never would have happened in the old days, Ava says.

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

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

… They’re all idiots …, Hans says.

… Had some interdisciplinary initiative, or something, Magellan says. Wanted to shake things up … in the name of dynamic juxtaposition, or something …

What about Organisational Management? Ava asks. What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe, I say. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation, Hans says.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness, Magellan says.

More laughter. 

Discussion.

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

Come on – you think this is arbitrary? Hans says. 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 …

It’s because they sense something about philosophy, we agree. 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.

It’s a matter of unconscious revenge on philosophy, we agree. 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, we agree. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

This is a shock and awe move, Magellan says. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s a show of power – of utter power, I say. It’s like parking a tank on your front law. It’s to prove they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. They can simply bend reality to their will.

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says, Hans says. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! Who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management? The uni would! Because the uni can!

The madness of the world is showing itself, Magellan says. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness! A mad flood of insanity! It’s quite sublime in its way …

Don’t examine it too closely, I say. 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, Hans says. Maybe that's what it'll take. 

But it has to be our madness, not theirs – not the madness they want to drive us to. Not the madness of humiliation, but … but our cultivate-your-own-legitimate-madness madness, like Réné Char said. Which is to say, the madness of philosophy – real philosophy.

Cicero would approve, we agree.

Inspecting our new offices.

They’re very … purple.

Did anyone ask for them to be painted purple?

Not me.

You’re the new Head – surely they consulted you on the plans.

I didn’t say anything about purple. I wanted magnolia. Like, a cooling colour.

Did Cicero say anything about purple, before she left? Does Cicero have an attachment to purple?

Shrugs.

Someone’s attached to purple, anyway. And all the shades of purple!

Maybe it’s some psychological warfare thing. Some demoralising thing. Maybe purple’s a uniquely depressing colour.

Googling psychological effects of purple.

… A blend of a high energy colour, red, and a calming colour, blue. So it can be energising or relaxing, depending.

What about depressing? Does it say anything about depressing?

It says here that toned down hues like lavender are soft and feminine, but darker hues can lead to impatience, frustration and irritability.

Exactly! They’re trying to provoke us!

Purple’s supposed to be a polarising colour. Either you like it or you don’t.

I don’t.

And if you do like it, you’re supposed to be artistic, thoughtful and intuitive. You like thinking about the meaning of life.

What if you don’t like it?

It means you’re unartistic, unthoughtful and unintuitive.

Fuck.

Shades of purple: amethyst, lavender, lilac, mulberry, orchid, plum, puce, pomegranate. Wine, of colour. And there’s royal purple … Associated with royalty, extravagance and aristocracy … The Queen wore the Purple Robe of Estate after her coronation …

Would you call this royal purple?

It’s just, like, too much purple. Totally saturated purple. Like, deep purple.

And there’s the Prince connection. He associated purple with the end times, apparently. The pouring of red blood from the heaven, mixed with the sky’s natural blue …

I think purple’s the colour of the endless end times.

This would be the perfect place to await the end times. The sixth floor, views of the sky …

They say they’re going to beam holograms into the sky to make us think there’s an alien invasion. They’re already filling the sky with reflective materials for their lasers to bounce off.

Like, why?

To spread fear and confusion. And to distract from the fucked up economy.

Cunning.

And some say they’re going to simulate the Second Coming. Like, Christ coming in on the clouds.

Again: why?

To show that they can. It’s a mockery operation. It’s a laughing-at-what-people-believe-in thing. Showing that they can do better with laser beams, or whatever.

Maybe our purple offices are part of the psy-ops. They have a role for us with the fake-Second-Coming thing. They want us to be prophets of their fake Jesus, sent mad by the purple.

Of their Antichrist …

We want to drink ourselves into the void. We want to think the void’s drunken thoughts. We want to think the thoughts the void would think.

Because drinking is the path to the fucking void. Because drinking’s what brings you closest to the void. When you stop struggling. Stop thrashing about. Stop resisting. When you can let the void carry you away …

 

The void: that’s what we’re drinking towards. That’s where we’re heading. At full fucking speed. We’re accelerating into NOWHERE. Which is okay because we like nowhere. We want to be nowhere.

 

See we can only hang out with people exactly like us. Which would be a problem if we didn’t have each other.

We bring it out in each other.

We recognise it in each other. We’re fellow nihilists. Fellow knowers of the void.

Anyway, we can’t drink ourselves to death yet. I mean, if we did now, there’d be no one to say,  They showed such promise. What they could have been, were it not for their fatal flaw. There’d be no one to say, What a loss. What a wasted talent. What they could have been. What potential.

No one’s trying to snatch the pint glass from our lips. No one’s decided to stage an intervention. No one’s saying, Don’t you think you’ve had too much? 

Destiny still regards us as randomers. As random fuckheads. Not as, like, philosophy-princes in waiting, or anything. We haven’t been abroad as serious players. As philosophical contenders. No one’s expecting anything of us.

 

There’s nothing tragic about mediocrity, that’s the thing. We’re not mad, or even half mad. We’re not alcoholics, or even half-alcoholics. The instinct of self-preservation’s too strong in us.

Mediocrity’s not at war with itself, like genius. Mediocrity doesn’t find life unbearable, like genius. Mediocrity’s happy to cruise on, self-satisfied. Mediocrity’s happy enough with itself as it is.

Which is why our professed despair is only ever mediocre despair. Why we’ve never been really on our knees. Never utterly desperate. Never praying to be anything other than we are.

 

We’re not actually mad, that’s the thing. We show no real signs of madness. Madness isn’t driving us to brilliance. We’re not fundamentally imbalanced. There’s not some basic chemical error in our makeup. We’re sane – terribly sane! Boringly sane! Mediocrely sane!

There’s no Friedrich Hölderlin amongst us. There’s no Antonin Artaud. There’s no Anne Sexton, no Sylvia Plath. And we’re not perturbed about that! We don’t mind about that!

We read the wild stuff, but we’re not wild. We comment on the mad stuff, but we’re not mad. There’s not a flame we don’t want to dampen. There’s not a fire we aren’t drawn to smother.

Sure, you’ll hear intense talk from us. You’ll bear burning the world down talk. You’ll hear revolutionary talk. Turning the world upside down talk. You’ll ever hear desperation talk. To think, we even specialise in that: desperation talk.

But we’re unlearning intensity, even as we speak. We’re forgetting desperation. We have jobs. We’re not poor. We’re have places to live. We’re not couch surfing. We don’t burn with resentment anymore. There’s nothing left of late adolescent zeal. Of excluded-from-the-world hatred.

God was drunk when he made us. He’s drunk as he loves us. And we’re drunk when we turn to him. When we pray. Drunken prayers are the most sincere prayers.

God loves us most when we bow our drunken heads. When we mutter drunken prayers. Slurred prayers. The prayers of staggerers. 

 

We want to hear a drunken sermon. Bothering Cicero for a drunken sermon. Read it out: that stuff from Paul! About the fucking principalities!

WE WANT PAUL! WE WANT PAUL!

Cicero, reading: … For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places … take unto you the whole armour of God …

Yeah, fucking A! Now hit us with a Psalm. Hit us with no. 23!

NUMBER 23! NUMBER 23!

 

Tell us about God, Cicero! Fucking testify! Tell us the most beautiful God-stories! We want to hear about angels! About Adam! About the Son of fucking Man!

Tell us the most beautiful things Jesus did. How he overturned the tables! How he chased the moneylenders from the temples! Tell us how he told those parables! How he was crucified – fucking crucified! How he was fucking born again! Tell us about the fucking Resurrection! How he rolled away the fucking stone!

 

Tonight, the whole world is drunk. Tonight, everyone and everything is drunk. Tonight, we’re drunk in the world-drunkenness. And drunken prayers are the only ones God hears.

Faith – drunken faith.

Drinking, waiting for the revelation. Because it’s there, ahead of us, on the other side of our drunken nights. It’s there, apocalyptic, at the end of our nights. And that’s what we’re waiting for. That’s what we Want, capital W. We know it. We taste it. It’s in the air – the drunken air. It’s what we want to draw closer.

Certainty. Truth. The truth you reach by way of drinking. The truth that makes you drink, that draws you to it. Let it come: the drunken truth. Let it be close: our drunken certainty.

 

We drink – and reach by drinking. We drink and reach beyond this terrible world.

Until the absence of love becomes our loving itself. Until our loss becomes what we’ve found.

We know how wretched we are. And we know that God loves wretches – even us.

Which is why we become solemn in our drinking. Which is why we become Serious – grandly serious. Which is why we look upwards, silently, expectantly …

This is our journey to the end of night. This is our night voyage. This is our night ride to sunset.

Soon, it will come. Soon, the messiah will come – the messiah of drinking. Soon, each of us will become the messiah, saving the world in our own way.

We’re not lost, after all. Or our lostness was a way of seeking. Of finding.

We have to watch over our nights of drinking. Less they slip into complacency. Less they fall away into pubism.

Drinking mustn’t be consolation. Mustn’t allow our reconciliation to the way things are.

The pub is not a place for petty moanings. For gossip. For he said this or she said that. And I said. There’s to be no huddling together to share our problems. No crying into our beer. No whisky lamentation about the state of our lives.

This is not a retreat into the pub, but an escape through it. This is the pub as launchpad. As space capsule.

We don’t want to live low. We don’t want to sink. We’re looking to flare upwards. To burn up. If it’s oblivion we want, it’s oblivion in flames.

No pubism. No pub mediocrity. We’re mediocre in life, God knows. There’s mediocrity everywhere – God knows. But in the pub …

We’re exploring. This is a voyage, right here at our table. Right here, with our beer mats. With our pints.

We’re looking to bestir ourselves. To snatch a little transcendence from the day. We trying not to be buried with our defeats. We want to roll away our stones. We want to be resurrected. We want a last chance, in the last hours before closing time,  to redeem our day …

Jilly’s. After hours.

The last place like this in the city.

Where everybody knows your name – and hates it.

Look, Robot’s taking his trousers off.

I like being in a pub that let you do that.

And Sonny and Ganymede are singing a duet.

Roy Orbison’s Crying. Nice.

Bartleby, crying and crying on the sofa.

Jezebel, tucking Flint up to sleep on another sofa.

Everyone doing shots together. Even the barman.

Sven, lamenting his penile cancer. Svenessa, lamenting her vaginal cancer.

These are our people. Drunken people.

Inbred people, by the looks of it.

This is the best night of our lives, like every night here.