Author: Lars Iyer

What do we desire when we desire? What do we want, philosopher?

 

You don’t want a relationship, philosopher. You want … longing. To intensify your longing. You want … to be alone, corresponding with someone you’ve never actually met, like Rilke.

 

There’s you, me and philosophy in this room.

And literature, too.

Wouldn’t you rather it was just you and philosophy?

And literature.

 

Where’s philosophy going to take you? Are you going to spend your whole life this? You are, aren’t you? You’re going to live your life up here if you can, and be grateful for it. You’ll read and write your whole life away. That’s not so bad, I suppose. That is a life – a worthwhile life.

 

Do you want to settle down? Maybe you’ll have another affair, like this one. Or you’ll meet some admiring PhD student at some conference. And she’ll come up and summer with you, or whatever. That wouldn’t be bad, would it? A nice interlude, right? An episode.

And she’d be someone who’d have half an idea of what you’re trying to do – philosophically, I mean. And what these books are all about. She’d be part of the philosophy scene … A PhD student, maybe. She’d look up to you. Admire you. Think you were the bee’s knees.

You could give her advice. Help her with her dissertation. Dictate parts of it to her.

And she’d think you were quite the philosopher. That you Knew Stuff.

Imagine it: you could walk hand in hand on the beach. And she’d think that where you lived was pretty cool. And that you were pretty cool, in general. You wouldn’t be just anyone. Some … senior lecturer with a job at a decent university. Not just anywhere. Russell Group, and all that …

And you could tell her things as you lay in bed. About Rilke and stuff. Which she’d appreciate, unlike me.

And you’d get to go out with someone really pretty. Wouldn’t that be something? Someone young and slim. Who would breathe your name.

And she’d teach you something of life. You need to learn about life, philosopher. You’d teach her about philosophy, and she’d teach you about life. A fair trade. And then after the summer she’d – pouf – disappear. Go back to her life. Leaving you to your studies. Wouldn’t that be perfect?

Do you get tired of being yourself? Are you bored of being who you are? Don’t you want a holiday from philosophy? From filling your head with this kind of stuff? Wouldn’t you like to forget it all? To, like, loosen your grip?

 

Don’t you feel it: a great calm that’s outside of us. A calmness that’s out there. That could come to us. Invade us. Envelop us. And gulp us up like Moby Dick.

 

Don’t you want to be NOTHING? In capital letters? And no one?

 

And not to have to do anything. Just, like, be lost in the afternoon. The whole afternoon …

It could be the last afternoon of our lives. Just giving way into the Afternoon of afternoons. Just dissipate into the greater Calm.

 

Just letting yourself float up there. Letting yourself be suspended.

And it’s not even your calm. It’s just some cloud drifting through you. God’s calm, or something.

 

Disappear. Let your atoms be … dispersed. Do you have atoms, philosopher? Are you like the rest of us?

 

Like, become totally porous. Let everything disperse into you. Let it pass through you.   

 

We’ve lost our names in this idyll. In the afternoon.

 

It’s like being drunk without being drunk. Everything I say now – isn’t even me talking. It’s something else and someone else.

 

Do you think we’re invisible?

I can see you. Can you see me.

Not to ourselves, idiot. We’re getting farther and farther out.

 

The way we’re speaking. Who’s speaking in our places? Who’s saying things for us? Who’s speaking for me? Who’s taking our places?

 

Just words, streaming through us. Talking about talking. Talking about … Nothing, philosopher. NOTHING, in capital letters.

You’ve heard of redemption through sin. Well, this is redemption through stupidity. Except I’m not sure it’s redemption.

 

How do we save everything from everything – that’s the question.

We’re the last of our kind.

Probably a good thing. Does anyone actually need more of us?

 

Can we say that we resisted? That we weren’t taken in? Can we say that we set ourselves against it? Sought to live in the opposite direction? Was that enough? Was that what we were supposed to do?

 

I thought you were writing the last literary book.

I’ll write that, and you’ll write the last philosophical one.

And then what?

 

And what is the last literary book going to look like?

 

And what’s your book going to be called?

The hatred of poetry: Bataille wrote a book called l that. And Jean Mascolo edited a book called the hatred of philosophy. That’s the clue.

 

I’m writing into the night. Into my night. And it’s a relief and I love it. Because my night is peace and happiness and I’m using everything I am. Every part of me.

I never look upwards. I never raise my gaze. I don’t deserve to. I don’t deserve to look up. I look at the ground.

I don’t want to look at other people in the eyes. The face is too much. I don’t want to see a face. I don’t want to stand face to face. It’s too much. It’s overwhelming.

All this stuff is so overwhelming. I don’t want to write about it. I want to write on anything but it. I want to pretend it doesn’t exist. I want to close the door and forget.

 

You can’t write about what’s crushing you as it rushes you. You can’t write as prey.

Yeah you can.

 

Surely, someone else is writing the great account of all this. In France, probably. Being and Technocracy. Being and Black Technocratic Magic.

And will end up in prison. Or shot. Or eaten.

 

Who could bear to write about this stuff? Who can turn their attention to it? Like, to what is right in front of them?

 

Maybe we’re the only ones who can see it – really see it.

It’s right in front of us. It’s come up close. It’s making its move – its powerplay.

 

It’s come right up to philosophy. It’s provoking philosophy. Like it wants to be philosophised.

 

It’s come right up to us to swallow us. Like some great Leviathan. Like Behemoth. Like the whale in that Bela Tarr film. It’s sniffing us. It wants to find out what we are is. No – it wants to find out what it is. It wants to talk about it. To philosophise about it. It’s asking the question of what it is.

 

But it’s stupid. It’s young. It’s innocent – in its way. Nothing like it has ever existed before. It wants to know what it is.

Everything’s metallic. There are just surfaces. Just metal cladding. So cold. And great glass windows. Criss-crossed with metal. And vast foyers.

 

And places for plants to grow. Metallic looking grasses. Sharp, like spears.

And then there’s the stony waste, where nothing can grow.

 

Everything on this campus is meant to have a particular effect. It’s all been carefully tested, trialled. They know what they’re doing.

Placation architecture. Controlling-us architecture. Steering us architecture. They’re working on us like they’re working on everyone.

We’re supposed to feel utterly passive. Small. Diminished. We’re supposed to feel the futility of being human. Of being the last humans alive.

What is this place?

A stronghold – you know that. A place of last resort. For when whatever happens out there, happens. The plague. Some zombie invasion. We’ll be safe. Or the campus will be.

 

There’s some Plan, right? Some evil plan. Some evil conspiracy. There has to be. They’re gearing up for some emergency. Or they’re going to bring it about – that emergency. And then they can go into full organising and managing mode. Organise or euthanise, right?

 

What are you so frightened of? Don’t you know? Doesn’t Alan know? It must be above Alan’s paygrade …

It’s like the Manhattan Project. Only a handful of people knew they were actually building a bomb. Only a couple of Organisational Managers in the world know who they’re actually working for.

 

So you’re going to move all the people worth saving to the campus … organise them, keep them managed. Accommodated. Fed. Watered. Entertained.

 

The campus shields. Designed to keep them out.

Who?

They’re really just in case. They aren’t actually activated yet.

 

Who’s actually in charge of the world, anyway? Who’s actually organising and managing the world?

 

From this model, it looks like the campus could take off, the whole thing. Fly off to the stars. Go off in search of new civilizations to organise-‘n’-manage. To spread the rootin’-tootin’ organisin’-managin’ message.

 

This campus is just begging for apocalypse – you’ve got to admit that. The whole campus is just aching to be destroyed.

A zombie invasion – why can’t there be one of those? It’d be perfect for that. Zombies overrunning the brave new campus. Zombie students, zombie staff.  Wouldn’t that be just right?

 

What’s the threat that you’re dealing with? What are you actually trying to manage? What’s the risk? What’s happening out there that the rest of us don’t know about? What do you know about that we don’t? Have you made First Contact, or something? Are the magnetic poles about to shift?

 

Does Alan know what it’s for?

If he does, he hasn’t told me.

 

They’re planning for collapse, I know that. The billionaires. All the bigwigs, who fly in. Via helicopter, or whatever. That’s what they talk about.

Those guys!? The so-called elite! The riders of the economic storms!

 

They’re going to survive in the bowels of this building, probably. They’ll set up in the underground floors. There’s probably a network of places all over the world like this.

To whom are we supposed to pass the flame?

Our students.

Do you think they can read this stuff? Every generation is worse than the one before. Lower. How long before total illiteracy sets in?

Not long now.

People will always want intellectual stimulation. They’ll always need an intellectual workout.

They’ll have podcasts for that. There’ll be documentaries. Profiles of thinkers, domesticating thinkers. They’ve got it all worked out.

 

There be introductory books to introductory books in the future. And introductions to those in turn. Textbooks explaining textbooks. Idiots guides to idiot’s guides. How low do we have to sink?

 

All of Blanchot condensed into a sidebar. Rosenzweig summed up in a sentence. All of twentieth century European thought summed up in a chapter.

 

And the world, falling apart around us. And none of these thinkers being of any help in understanding how the world is falling apart around us. None of the old European philosophical culture bearing up this particular phase of the world falling apart around us.

 

The only thing they’ll study is advanced technocracy. Is technical solutions. Pre-prepared! Pro-forma!

And they’ll know nothing of study, not really. Of the time of study. Of study’s unfolding. Of study’s gradualism. Of the slow coming-to-understanding.

They’ll know nothing of patient thought-ascent. Of thought-climbs, slow and steady. Of cumulative work. Of thought-labours day after day.

And they’ll know nothing of sudden illumination. Of thought-fireworks, lighting up our idiots’ skies. Of Catherine’s wheels that spin, even for us.

Our dimness doesn’t have to be dim, not always. We can look upwards. We can honour what needs to be honoured. The song of the humanities reaches even us.

 

Our byways of thought – each with their own. The path through books, through articles, that is our own. Our thinker’s autobiography told through the ideas of others.

Ideas that drew us. That we wanted to string together on our own bracelet. That we want to pin to our fridge door.

Dresser crabs: that’s what we are. Made of bits of philosophies and ideas and  biographies.

 

Secret passageways from book to book. Slipways. Tunnels. Sinkholes to other, deeper levels. Windings. Reading-paths taken and untaken. Drop-shafts. Cavings-in. Reading-collapses.

 

Books behind us. Books before us. Books on the left side, and books on the right side.

 

Our favourite books. Our portals. Our doorways.

 

We’re not entirely lost. We’re not completely forsaken. We have … instincts. We have an orientation. We know what’s wrong, which is something.

 

We’ve experienced our fallenness. We know it. That’s what sets us apart. It’s the way an academic can admit that their work is average. There was some scientific study. Academics always rate their work as better than average or much better than average. It’s never just average or, heaven forefend, not very good.

Literary culture’s dead. Philosophical culture died a long time ago. So what do we do now? Carry on with the great pretence?

Students don’t read. Our colleagues don’t read, not really. No one cares about this stuff but us. No one’s even heard of our culture heroes.

 

Absolute irrelevance doesn’t bother us.

Our deluded continentialism. Our misguided European enthusiasm. Our perverse European excitement.

 

The vast secondary commentary industry. The vast introductory books industry.

Providing explanations of everything. Contextualising everything. Explaining everything and thereby explaining it away. Contextualising everything and thereby removing all context from it. Lifting it out of history. Out of geography! Making it understandable by anyone! Anywhere! Like some kind of currency!

 

How many people would read a monograph we wrote? £100 a pop, right – no one’s going to buy it. It would never been seen in an actual bookshop. No one would ever see a physical copy. How about ordering it for their university library? At best, it’ll be available on some pirate site. With all the other PDFs.