What battle? There isn’t going to be a battle. They’ve already won. Look at this place. They’re breaking in the new system. Everything’s lined up – every major logistical element. Every working part … It’s out in the open. They’re not trying to sneak up on the herd anymore.
And they’re actually accelerating their agendas. Bringing things forward. It’s all happening at once. It’s, like, a thousand apocalypses now …
But why … what do they want to do?
The mystical marriage of philosophy and organisational management. The marriage of heaven and hell, right?
Opposites attract, maybe.
Opposites repel.
It might destroy the universe, you know. Like matter and anti-matter. Because philosophy is anti- organisational management, just as organisational management is anti-philosophy. At opposite poles. Bring them together and you risk tearing the universe apart.
I don’t even know what Organisational Management is, that’s the funny thing.
That’s because it’s completely made up. It’s, like, ten years old as an academic subject.
It’s management theory, sort of. All that stuff about improving the culture of organisations. About maximising efficiency, in general.
Organisational Management’s a logic. Not so much a subject area as a way of doing things.
A technocratic way of doing things.
Helmut: Everything is functioning. And that the functioning drives us more and more to even further functioning. There are only technical things and technical relationships …
The Organisational Management move.
It’s a university suicide. It’s an SOS. It’s uni self-harm. Self-parody. As a way of saying to the world: look at what they’ve done to me. Look what they’ve reduced me to … It’s pathetic.
This is our re-education camp. They’re re-educating us through their stone. Through their towers. Through the patterns in the paving stones. Through the slogans written on their benches. Through their endless plaques.
They’re re-educating us through their gentle walkways. Through the building names. And the listening lampposts. Through their glass and steel. Through their surveillance equipment. Through their satellites, looking down.
The psychologists designed it all. The behavioural psychologists. At every turn, some behavioural psychology’s trick. Some subordination strategy. Some destroying of questioning and of the power to question.
This is what they’re doing to us. This is how they’re destroying us. How they’re making us capitulate. How they forcing us to think.
We should see it in the pavement – the patterned pavement. Is it supposed to hypnotise us? Is it supposed to placate us? We see it in the rivulets – in their channelled water. Is it supposed to tame us, too? Is it supposed to assist in our channelling?
We think we’re defeated – because of them. We think we’re crushed – and its their fault. We think they’ve won – but they haven’t won. We think we have no chance – but we do. We think we’re ruined – but we’re far from ruined.
The way we looked upwards at philosophy – that impressed Cicero. The way we held philosophy above everything. As drowning people look upwards to be saved.
You need philosophy more than they do: that’s what she said. And what you want from philosophy is greater, too.
Would-be thinkers are the best thinkers, Cicero said, on another occasion. Thinkers who do not presume they think. For whom thinking itself is a problem, and never straightforward. Thinkers who make a problem of philosophy – of what philosophy is. Of what thought is.
But we’re half mad, we told her. We’re deranged, we told her. Better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion, she said, quoting Kierkegaard. The passion of thought is to discover something that thought itself cannot think, Cicero said, quoting Kierkegaard again.
Who are we? Thrashings, nothing more. Convulsions. Corrupted. Twisted. Sick animals.
As sick as the world. As contorted as the world …
So what’s going in the real timeline? Are there versions of us?
I … guess so.
What are we doing? I mean … are we in Newcastle?
We would never have got jobs here … Cicero wouldn’t have needed us.
And where’d we be? What would we have been doing?
Stuck in part-time hell, probably. Whoring for work in one department or another. Invisible adjuncts, right? Thinking of packing the whole academic thing in …
We probably would never have got PhDs. That always seemed strange to me: that people like us could actually get PhDs. We’d never have got scholarships. Never have passed our MAs. Our BAs …
On the true timeline, we’d never have been born. Beautiful fucking idea! Never have opened our fucking eyes! Never even been conceived! We’d be literally in-con-fucking-ceivable, which is exactly as it should be …
I reckon she’s gone in search of the true timeline. She’s looking for admittance into the real world.
You can’t cross to the true timeline. All you can do is destroy this one.
So maybe that’s her plan: to destroy this world. Fuck …
We want to report ourselves, Organisational Management campus! We want to shop ourselves in! We’re extremists, basically. Domestic terrorists, basically.
We’re objectors to enlightened managerialism, Organisational Management campus. Resistors of programming. Who aren’t thinking what we’re supposed to. Who aren’t steered by government-approved talking points. Upon whom behavioural psychology doesn’t seem to work.
We’re spreaders of disinformation, Organisational Management Campus! Of mal-information, probably! We’re not the sort you want around! We’re not going to be good global citizens! Your nudges aren’t working on us!
We’re allergic to behavioural psychology, Organisational Management Campus! To mass formation! We’re not going to be obedient! Your new normal isn’t for us! Your brave new world! We’re not and never will be good technocratic subjects! We haven’t got the temperament! We’re the wrong kind! We’re not the type to kiss the ring!
And it’s not even defiance, Organisational Management Campus! We can’t help it! We’re not drones! We’re not non-player characters! It’s a temperament thing. Who knows, it’s probably a mutation thing. There’s something wrong with us. It can’t be corrected. It can’t be gene-edited out. We're recalcitrants! Throwbacks! We're yesterday's people!
So we volunteer for depopulation, Organisational Management Campus! We’ve put our hands up for the cull! Turn on your sirens! Let the spotlights find us! Send in the guard dogs! Or the killer drones! What does it take to get executed around here!?
Destroy us, Organisational Management Campus! We’re consuming precious resources! Polluting the campus! We’re useless eaters! We’re useless people! Doing a useless subject!
There’s even euphoria to be snatched from the ruin of the humanities. Of philosophy! Despair can be altered into joy. Hopelessness can be raised a notch, and then another notch.
We don’t feel so utterly defeated. We don’t feel quite as crushed. We can crawl out from under our stones. We’re no longer buried – not as deeply. We’re not completely lost in the wreckage.
Death isn’t just pressing into death. Horror-world isn’t quite as horrible. We can open our eyes in Hell. Laugh at our revulsion. It’s not quite the end of the world – not anymore.
There’s life in death – imagine that! It’s not entirely horror. Desolation is not quite as desolate. There’s a gap! A break! An opening. My God, we can breathe, if you can call this breathing. Some last, late gasp. Our negativity howling.
It's not revolution. It’s not the overturning of the world in blood and fire. But at least it’s a gasp. At least it’s something. At least we can see it all and hate it all and stand back from it all. At least we’re not entirely victims.
Work in Progress 