Author: Lars Iyer

Face it: we’re maggots on the rotting body of philosophy.

 

We’re guardians of the pathos. We stand guard over the great European moods. We have versions of them ourselves.

 

Not the mathematico-philosophical, but the literary philosophical. That’s where we went wrong.

 

European philosophy – driven into the most lowly unis. By the rigged system. By analytic philosophy hegemony. What chance did we have?

 

Cramming European philosophy into our clown car.

 

There’s poison in the old European well! Fire in the old European hole!

 

Do you ever think you’ll be part of the continental philosophy elite? The jetsetters? The don’t-have-to-try-anymore types?

Cicero used to speak of the stupidity of the humanities. Identical with the studiousness of the humanities. With the stupefaction of the humanities. With the idiocy of the humanities.

 

All that’s left of the humanities is pathos. Oh that ol’ humanities feeling!

 

The humanities’ last gasp: on our nights of drinking. The last humanities: on our nights at Trillians.

 

Trillians: it was our version of the university. The counter uni. The shadow uni. The deep drinking uni. The university of Trillians.

This is God’s suicide watch. God’s looking down.

Have we ever really reached it, our stupidity? Where we could really come into our stupidity. Own up to it. Inherit it.

Will we ever be able to inhabit it, our stupidity? Dwell in it.

Have we really been released into our stupidity?

 

Cicero herself was doubtless an agent of Stupidity, the greater Stupidity. Cicero’s Purpose was not her own. She, too, was a servant of forces beyond her control. She, like us, served Idiocy and the self-seeking of idiocy. Idiocy’s desire to come to itself. To breathe real breaths. To live, for a while in the world. To attain itself in the world. To be there, for a while, in the world.

 

An idiocy that had yet to arrive, in some sense. An idiocy that hadn’t met with itself. That didn’t coincide with itself.

An idiocy that had yet to look at itself in the mirror. That could bear its own gaze. That could look back at itself, reflected. That could say, I am idiocy, destroyer of worlds.

 

We haven’t seen it yet. We haven’t experienced it all yet. We haven’t got there yet. It’s still to come, the opening of our idiocy. It’s still ahead of us. We’re still waiting for it. We’ve yet to come into our own, as idiots.

Cicero’s waiting, too. Cicero’s excited. Cicero knows that it isn’t here yet, but that it will be. She’s waiting to see what we will do. She’s waiting to see what her charges will do, when idiocy arrives.

 

Idiocy Itself. Capital I, for Itself. Idiocy, arriving. Idiocy, coming. Idiocy, terrifying – great. Like an angel. Are there angels of idiocy?

And might there be another name for idiocy? Might it be, innocence? Is there such a thing as a divine idiocy? Is there a messianic idiocy? Is there an idiot messiah, a messiah of idiocy? Is idiocy arriving as the messiah, and as nothing other than the messiah?

We were idiocy carriers – that’s it. And we knew it. We’d been infected by idiocy. But we hated it, our infection.

Again and again, to expose it to the light, our idiocy. It had to be confirmed to us, our idiocy. Nothing was more important. We’ve only ever brought ourselves into situations where it where it would be more clearly manifest, our idiocy.

 

Experiencing our idiocy again – and anew. Again, and as for the first time.

Our idiocy. And the ferocity of our stupidity.

 

We should let our idiocy be idiocy: that’s what Cicero told us. It was more than accepting our idiocy. More than reconciling ourselves to our idiocy. It was affirming it, our idiocy. Our idiocy, and the sources of our idiocy. It was channelling the greater Idiocy of which our idiocy was a part.

Let us be these idiots: that’s what we should say to ourselves. Let us step into our idiocy. We should let idiocy drink a toast to idiocy. Receive a draught of real idiocy, deep idiocy.  

 

Let us be, really be these idiots. Let us own our idiocy – not fight against it. Let idiocy be the seed from which it would grow, our intellectual life.

It was really a question of calling forth Idiocy – the greater Idiocy. We should let it be, the Idiocy of our idiocy. The Stupidity of our stupidity.

 

What you could power with it, our idiocy? Certainly, a philosophy department. Cicero’s philosophy department could be plugged straight into our idiocy. We could give idiot lectures and deliver idiot seminars and set idiot assignments. And raise idiot student in turn. Cohort after cohort. And send them out into the world, infected with idiocy.

We could devise a whole idiot syllabus. A whole stupidity curriculum. Of course!

 

We could sacrifice of a philosophy department to stupidity. A philosophy department entirely given over to idiocy. Through which idiocy burns. From which the flames of stupidity leapt up. A sacrifice! To the gods of stupidity. In honour of Stupidity.

 

The university would see us and tremble. The academic staff would shrink from us. Clear a path from us. Behold, they would say, the Stupid Ones have come. The inheritors have come. Those to whom the university belongs now. The barbarians, from far off places. From the far off lands of stupidity.

We’d Unfathomable to them, in our idiocy. We’d bring them what they could not grasp.

The university would tremble. The administrators would flee the horror.

Chaos unleashed! The tohu vavohu of the university! Chaos primeval!

Is there such a thing as an idiot’s philosophy? Or does idiocy always fall short of philosophy? Can you philosophise from your idiocy – or do you have to philosophise against it?

Our questions. The questions of idiots. But are the question of idiots idiotic questions?

 

Our wager: that we might have something to say as idiots – as philosophical idiots. But we don’t know how – or why. We’re too idiotic for that.

Philosophical idiocy – is it the same as idiotic philosophy? The same thing? The idiocy of philosophy and the philosophy of idiocy: what’s the difference?

 

Are we fundamental idiots, or just idiots? How deep is our idiocy – that’s the question. How far down does it go?

The dimensions of our idiocy. How far does it extend? What does it include? What does it enclose?

Did Cicero’s Europeans see in us what would succeed them? And succeed the university? Did they whisper in their hearts, the barbarians had come?

Did they not understand Cicero’s apocalyptic mission? That Cicero was an End Times impresario?

Did they sense it, those Europeans, that were an invading force, meek as we seemed? That we brought with us the seeds of their destruction?

That we were an occupying army, nothing less. Cicero had brought us in, but what had she brought in? Who had she ushered over the threshold?

That we bore the Sickness with us. That we came with the Hatred. That we brought with us Disturbance. That we were Contagious. That we brought the Plague that would destroy the university. That we were bearers of it, the anti university virus.

That the Charge was building up. That there was Electricity in the air. That the Lightning would strike, soon, soon. That we were the heavy clouds from which lightning would strike.

Did fear grip them in their hearts, Cicero’s Europeans? Were they frightened? Was that the reason for their small talk? As if they could try small talk, with us! As if they could talk to us as to anyone else! As if we were any other young academics! As if we were like any of the other up and comings!

Getting jobs raised our expectations. We expect more from life now. It’s fatal.

We were given too much hope. And security. Things have been too good.

We need difficulty. We thrive in difficulty. What a joke. Who were we before we came here. Scattered. Lost. Solitaries. Well, we’re not solitaries anymore, are we? We have each other. Friendship … if this can be called friendship.

At any rate, we’re not entirely alone. Life doesn’t entirely disgust us anymore. We’re not entirely appalled. But that’s what we should be: entirely appalled. That’s what Cicero would have wanted.

Entirely appalled. Appalled at everything. World-hatred: we were full of that. World renunciation: that was our gift.

We were natural Gnostics, she said. It came easily to us: world rejection, Gnosticism. Some vague faith in something else. In something hidden.

 

She’d had to learn Gnosticism the hard way, the slow way, Cicero said. In a communist country!

She came to Gnosticism gradually. But us – it was as though we were born to it. As though we’d woken into it. As though we first opened our eyes in Gnosticism.

We were prodigies of a sort, clearly. Gnostic prodigies. Savants of world hatred.

Cicero should learn from us, she said. She would watch us very carefully. And so she did. Drinking with us. Listening outside the lecture hall when we were teaching. She watched and she listened. She was learning, she said.

 

Amazing that she’d find such Gnosticism here, in this country, she said. Here! Where life was good – or where it once seemed good. Where it didn’t seem entirely disastrous. Compared to where she grew up, God knows. To where she was from. And what she was used to.

The UK provinces held surprises. The UK sink estates. There was something special about of cultural poverty. No religion – of course. No political hope. No competence. And everything falling apart.

No one reads, in this country. No one thinks. Not in those places. The places from which we came. Out of which we burst. Thinking only of escape.

We will never be able to live normal lives. What good would they be to us: normal lives? What would we do with them: normal lives? They’d be wasted on us, normal lives.

And normal satisfactions! And all the things that other people want! We don’t even know what we want. Our kind doesn’t.

We can’t count upon our normal instincts. We don’t have them – normal instincts. We aren’t like other people.

We’re always … casting about, our kind. And philosophy’s just our mode of … casting about.

We’re restless. We lie awake at night. We worry about improbable things. We have strange things on our minds.

 

Nothing is as it should be – we know that. Something hasn’t been settled. There’s a … debt to pay. A cosmic debt. Something’s owed. The whole of reality … has been bought on credit. And it has to be paid back.

And until it is, it’s not ours. We don’t live here. And there’s nowhere to live. And we don’t know what to do. How to … occupy ourselves. We make mistakes … but are they mistakes?

 

Someone turned the lights off. In our lives. In our heads. We were dealt blows – terrible blows. And we ended up here. Here we are.

And what are we doing here? Here, rather than anywhere else? What are we hallucinating? Everything? Anything? Why isn’t the world just the world? Why isn’t the world the world anymore? Why are we so lost?

 

Sordid. It’s so sordid. It’s so disgusting. That we have to be involved with this. That we have to be here. That we have to live at this level. Among these things. That we have to be tied up with all this. That we have to be a part of it. That we have to inhabit this disgusting world. That we have to feel these disgusting things.

We’re stunned. We’re still stunned. Still surprised. That things have turned out as they have.

 

So tawdry. So vacuous. So empty. So hollow. We shout out and no one responds. We cry out.

 

The world’s exhausted. This world. It’s spent. Just like we’re spent. Like spent cartridges. The world’s fired. It’s shot its bullet into the void. And now?

 

We’re all cut off. We’re all aliens. What would we do, if it weren’t for each other?

We’re all equally disgusted. That’s what holds us together. Equal in disgust. Equal in despair.

And it was Cicero who saw this. Cicero, who chose us.

Eternal gratitude to Cicero, right? Who never sought to hire Oxford and Cambridge types. Who never looked for high flyers. As she told us! She didn’t want fly-by-nighters. Who’d get their job at Newcastle and plan escape. Who’d be thinking constantly of their next job. About where else they’d go.

She chose those with no prospects. Who’d stay put. Who were grateful to have a job. Who wouldn’t think to fly the coop. Who’d be there forever. Year after year! Who were Dependable. Who’d Deliver what she wanted.

 

Cicero admired our dedication. She used to probe us about it. What did we think we were doing? Who did we take ourselves to be? What were we writing – and why? She wanted to understand. She wanted to play the anthropologist.

She was interested – never dismissive. She wanted to see what we were doing from our perspective. As she sipped her Diet coke.

Was she laughing at us? Perhaps a little. Was she taking the piss? Oh, that was there, too. But what was the world like through our eyes? To write our curio-papers? To follow our interest in odd things? In neglected things?

 

We went looking in figurative dusty corners. In philosophical attics and basements. For out of the way things. For packed away and forgotten things.

We wanted to set up camp somewhere. To find a corner all of our own. A little play pen. Where we could be undisturbed. Where we could busy ourselves quietly. Away from the clamour! Whilst the rest of the world did what it did.

 

Ours was almost a wilful obscurity. A desired failure. We were almost ostentatiously useless. We wanted to find the key to understanding the present world in old theologies. In forgotten scholastic debates.

This was our excuse for not living normal lives. For not choosing the normal things. This was the reason we gave for keeping ourselves sequestered. For hiding out half our lives. For taking shelter, always. For keeping to our books. For reading, for writing. For turning from the world and the affairs of the world.

 

This was the reason why we always wanted time. Wanted peace! And silence! And to be left alone. Ignored.

Why did we want this? What was wrong with us? Was this how we were going to live our lives – really? Was this what we’re going to do with our lives? Was this our answer: To retreat? To hide away? Of course it was …

 

To act as if we have a vocation. As if we were being led. As if there were somewhere we were Going. As if there was a Destination. And as if we were really, really good at this.

As if we were in in possession of some Clue. As if we knew what other people didn’t. As if the lives other peoples lived couldn’t be for us.

 

Why were we so intolerant of others? Why had we always sought our own path? Why had we always separated ourselves? Why had we wanted our own solitude?

Why did we want to close our office doors – to work? To be bent over our desks. Hunched over our laptops? Our notebooks?

Why did we want to open this book or that one? As if our lives depended on it! As if it mattered! Why did we want to contemplate this problem?

Wasn’t life enough? Weren’t ordinary things enough? Weren’t ordinary satisfactions enough? Why had we let ourselves be steered in this direction?

 

Why had we never been put off by our stupidity? Why, in the end, hadn’t it held us back?

Why did we take these thinkers as our heroes and heroines? How did they become our exemplars?

Why were these books important? Why did we think we’d discover the secret of life in these pages?

What were we looking for that we couldn’t find in the world? What further satisfaction did we seek?

What kind of instinct was this? For something higher? Better? Greater? What were we looking for?

Why did we want farther and farther horizons? Why did we want to do what we could not do?

We wanted to learn how to Seek. We wanted to be taught – how to look for it: the secret. As though we were made for nothing else.

As though we were looking for the Good. For the True. For the Beautiful. As though there were such things as the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. As though they were only names for the same distant, impossible thing: the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

 

All of this was our version of a prayer. All of it, a way of saying that we didn’t want to be what we were. All of it, a way of saying that the world needed to be redeemed. Needed salvation. That there was evil – terrible evil. That we must turn from this wicked world. That we must hate it. And must strike back from our hatred.

All this was a way of saying that this was not how the world should be. That the Good is missing from it, the world.  And the True! And the Beautiful! That we must hold ourselves back from the world. That we shouldn’t give into it. That we shouldn’t yield to the Evil. That we must seek the Good in our own way. In a stupid way!

That this was not God’s world. That Satan was real. That the Antichrist was real. That the Devastation was real. The Abomination was abroad. That the Natural Order is to be despised. That Nature is to be despised.

That the poison was everywhere. That it fell with the rain, and dripped from the trees. That it ran in the rivers and swam in the lakes. That it was there in the fields, in the woods, on the sand of the beaches.

 

As though we were no lost, after all. As though the world wasn’t poisoned, and we weren’t poisoned and evil didn’t cry out inside us.

 

This world was not enough, and we’d gone looking for help. And we didn’t know where we were going. And we didn’t know what were doing. And we were lost- quite lost – in the world. But the world wasn’t all there was.

Our infinite philosophical eros. Our undefeatable Desire. For Cicero, it was Gnostic. She knew us as Gnostic. She saw the signs in us.

The world as a prison: we knew that, just as she did Cicero. Cicero was certain of it, and so must we be.

Gnostic Saints: that what we were, to Cicero. That’s what Cicero wanted us to be. Gnostic Saints? Saint Doom and Saint Horrified and Saint Murdered and Saint Horrified?