Work in Progress

The Organisation Management building.

Through the corridors.

This building reads us, apparently. Like, our minds. Or our moods. It’s supposed to respond to us, detecting when we’re stressed. Changing the lighting. And spraying stuff into the air. Hormones, or something … Have you heard of sick building syndrome? This is the opposite of that. This is a health-promoting building. It actually makes you healthier.

What about your husband: won’t he be wondering where you went?

He won’t have noticed.

I’ll bet he has.

He’s preparing to give his speech – there’ll be a welcome Philosophy speech, you know … Actually, that’s why we’re leaving. I don’t like his speeches.

Won’t he mind?

I … do … my … own … thing. He knows that. He’s used to me disappearing. Wouldn’t you love to be married to me? I make everything … unpredictable.

Upstairs.

I like wandering around the building at night. Wandering past the offices. I like the open space. I like the darkness.

They’re all curved, these corridors …

Getting lost can be productive. Wandering is part of thinking.

Even business thinking?

All thinking, philosopher.

The infinite ranks of Organisational Management offices … All the Organisational Management that must get done here …

These are the offices of the up-and-coming. Young, thrusting types. Really going places.

Upstairs.

And this is superstar row. These are the big name professors. The big guns, from Penn State and Harvard and so on. The Organisational Management elite … Busy keynoting and publishing in the big ten journals … They have, like personal administrators. And superstar offices.

Upstairs.

In there, the hospitality suite. I don’t have access. For entertaining the grandees from government and business. We have everything ready in case Bill Gates flies in …

Upstairs.

And here we are: the Pulse, a bit of a work on progress. Our version of a holodeck – or it’s going to be. There’s, like, an AI that can create virtual landscapes.

Now I actually do have access to this. It’s my baby, this …

Laure, twiddling a dial. The Pulse will put you anywhere you want in the world. That’s the plan, anyway. We have virtual world developers who work on this stuff … It can actually turn into a disco. Watch.

A disco ball, descending. Laser beams, flashing …

And there are gaming options as well … Great for team building. I’ll bet you just love team building …

I’ll set it to temperate woodlands. All green and leafy. Pretty convincing, isn’t it?

We won’t be able to visit nature anymore – that’s the plan. It’s going to be closed off. Rewilded. Kept just for billionaires. We’ll just have the metaverse version. Which is what you have right here …

So paranoid.

Upstairs.

And here’s the common room. Which you guys will be welcome to use.

A noticeboard. Quotations in colour, at jaunty angles. Reading:  Planting seeds of kindness. Kindness is Contagious … Pass It On. A spider diagram. Arrows between compassion, empathy, kindness and equity.

They’re from our away-day. Some brainstorming thing about the things we value as a business community, supposedly … You’ve got a lot to look forward to. You haven’t lived until you experience an Organisational Management awayday …

An animated poster. Positive organisations are developed through the creation of: a positive climate; positive relations; positive communication and positive meaning, including an emphasis on compassion, forgiveness and gratitude among employees.

A framed photo of the Dalai Lama. No one can agree on the word, compassion, but we agree on kindness. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

It’s kindness week. Or kindness month. Or kindness season. Actually, I think it’s permanent kindness now.

Journals, on the rack. Critical Management Studies. Bulletin of the Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research (CCARE).

Flicking through Journal of Global Social Responsibility in Business. The tagline: Facilitating discussion among business stakeholders on issues related to local social responsibility and sustainability. Snappy. Inclusive Capitalism: Making Capitalism more Equitable, Sustainable and Inclusive … Greater Good in Action: Sharing research practices for fostering happiness, resilience, kindness and connection …

See, we not all horrible capitalists, you know. Even corporations are, like, anti capitalist now.

You can look down on us all you like … But there’s nothing terribly terrible about Organisational Management. Nothing awfully awful … I know some of this kindness stuff is kind of cringe, but you can really do things here. Effect, like, change. We have the ear of politicians … NGO types … This is the way the world is going.

I mean why should the moving of Philosophy into Organisational Management be, like, the end of the entire universe? We’re a broad church.

It's a hostile takeover of Philosophy, and that’s that.

Not so hostile. It isn’t exactly the Gulag Archipelago.

Sure, because they’re smarter than that now. They don’t have to be so obvious with their total domination.

Who are they, anyway?

You don’t think Organisational Management is being played by greater forces?

Possibly.

You don’t think there’s something Vaster going on, capital V?

Maybe. I don’t know.

This is not just about the way the world’s going. None of this is happening by chance. There are people steering this.

People … mysterious people …

I thought you said you were the madwoman in the Organisational Management attic.

Maybe I am … maybe I’m not …

Like, what percentage of you is Organisational Manager?

About … thirty-two … twenty-seven … nineteen … I don’t know. The point is that it won’t actually be that bad being part of this. Everyone’s actually manageable, once you find the levers.

You didn’t just say that …

Management doesn’t mean all the horrendous top-down stuff. Models of leadership have come a long way. Alan, for example, thinks of himself as more of a facilitator. As an underleader. He leads from below, very humbly.

Oh God.

Why do you have to be so cynical?

You’d like to think you’re totally unique, totally uncontrollable, totally … I don’t know, anarchist, but you’re not. Face it. You’re not some terrible threat. You’ll fit right in.

I thought you wanted some anarchy.

I don’t know whether I actually believe in anarchy.

And what about madness? And being dead?

You’ve already been screened. You’re safe.

I’m not – safe.

Do you seriously think you’re a challenge for Organisational Management? Don’t you think we’ll just swallow you up, for all your so-called unmanageability?

That’s your agenda: swallowing us up. You’ve said it.

It’s about interdisciplinarity. We want to reduce Organisational Management groupthink. We want … cognitive diversity, not just demographic diversity. We want to question everything … our basic beliefs. That’s the only way we can address global problems.

God …

Don’t you believe there are global problems?

I don’t believe you can manage your way out of them. Management’s the problem.

Some models of management, maybe … But we’ve moved on from those.

You say you want … dialogue. To reduce groupthink. But what if someone questioned the need for Organisational Management? What if we said Organisational Management shouldn’t exist at all?

That’s allowed.

What if someone said Organisational Management was evil – the greatest evil?

Everything’s open to discussion.  

Everything – which means nothing. Everything’s allowed, which means nothing’s allowed … What is Organisational Management, anyway? When did it start? How did it get that name? Why wasn’t it even heard of before, say, five years ago?

Business studies just sounded too … business-y. Organisational Management was a better name for what we were about. But I think we might abandon that, in turn. Just call ourselves Sustainable Futures or something …

God … God …

Maybe you’ll turn us all philosophical, whatever that means. All subject-areas become philosophical, as they mature, my husband says. Every subject, that once split off from philosophy, returns to it in its moment of deepest need. In its deepest questioning. Which is why there’s a philosophy of maths and a philosophy of physics.

Of course

A philosophy of … literature … And art …

Art’s all about philosophy.

So why not a philosophy of business studies? Why can’t Organisational Management become question-worthy, or whatever?

Because it would destroy Organisational Management. The question of Organisational Management would swallow it whole ..

Maybe it should be destroyed … Maybe we’re too much … Maybe our campus is too big … Maybe we’ve become too powerful … And we don’t ask about fundamental things. You see, I feel these things too, philosopher. I want to … rebel, or whatever. Maybe I don’t know how. Maybe that’s what I’m doing now: rebelling by walking through the building with you.

There are supposed to be philosophers in Business Studies. Pragmatic ones, who went where the money was. Who got Business Studies scholarships to fund their PhDs. Smart move, now that humanities PhD funding has dried up. And who found themselves Business Studies or Organisational Management jobs … Which allow them to hide in plain sight …

There are probably some amongst you, leading secret philosophical lives. Recognising each other by secret handshakes. Nodding in the corridors. Occasionally meeting in secret for philosophy reading groups. You could be one of them …

I’d know if I was one of them.

Maybe they caught you and brain-wiped you. Reprogrammed you, like an Organisational Management version of Jason Bourne. But maybe you’re still part of a secret philosophy sleeper cell. You just need to hear the right trigger word.

So what’s the right trigger word?

I don’t know … Wittgenstein?

Doesn’t do anything to me.

Heidegger? The good beyond being?

Nope … nothing.

Upstairs.

This is the Dome. It’s, like, a contemplation space.

Are those lava lights?

Sure. They’re supposed to be restful.

They’re changing colour.

They’re responding to you. This is an interactive environment. They’re trying to calm you down – do you see?

I don’t want to be calm.

They’re trying to slow your heartbeat. Calm your breathing.

Reading: A space for contemplation. An area that has no purpose. A whatever space. A spatial remnant. Pure potentiality. For whatever use we want to make of it.

Alan’s idea.

I can’t believe you guys are taking over contemplation. And purposelessness.

Why, does philosophy own it?

Laure: how did you get that name, anyway? Are you French?

Half French.

You know who the original Laure was, don’t you?

Was there an original?

She was the mad girlfriend of Georges Bataille. Have you heard of him?

I … might have.

He was a mad philosopher. And she wrote deranged poetry and mad essays. And died terribly young.

Is he your hero, Georges Bataille?

You pronounce it beautifully.

I studied Business Studies with French, philosopher. Imagine that. I spent a year abroad in Paris.

I’ve never been. I’m desperately provincial.

And proud of it, I’ll bet.

The lights on the wall, changing.

I don’t believe anything you said about Organisational Management

Nor did I.

Life, for Georges Bataille and Laure was a breaking of forms. A breaking with nature, the laws of nature. A breakout from prison – from the natural prison. From the order of this world.

Is that true?

Life, for them, was about the unmanageable. About becoming … un-organisable. About contamination. The mixing of things that shouldn’t mix. General defilement. The dissolution of natural boundaries, limits.

It’s about revolution.

You humanities types still believe in that?

In … apocalypse. The destruction of the present order of things. When chaos is unleashed. When a kind of lightning strikes.

Do you think we’d survive the apocalypse, you and I?

I think we’d go right down with the world.

But would we rise again?

There’s a desire in us to … destroy. To twist. To invert. And it’s a desire for truth. A desire to … stop lying. To stop … mocking meaning.

Organisational Management’s destroying meaning – it’s quite deliberate. It’s a … nihilism factory. It’s sucking all the meaning out of the world. The better to organise it. The better to manage it. But it will perish by what it creates. It’s perishing now.

This building … this tower … Is already dead. It’s a shell. This whole campus … It’s the void – nothing else. In the real night, beyond the fake one … In the real darkness … there’s just Meaninglessness, because all meaning is exhausted. Chaos, because all ordering has failed. That’s what lying in wait, behind the fake sky …

But we in Philosophy have special powers. And that’s why we bear the alien fire. We can make meaning from meaninglessness. That’s our magic. We live against the world – against your world. Against any word …

In a world that’s gone dark, meaning withdraws. You can find it only in the questioning of meaning – of what’s called meaning … And there’s meaning in that – do you see?

What does meaning mean, anyway? I’m confused …

You know what it means. You know it because you demand it. You shake the bars of the world, crying out for it. And crying out for it makes the prison no longer seem so bad.

The questioning of meaning … What does that mean?

It means this world isn’t enough for us. That we’re dissatisfied with the world itself … When the world becomes a purely functional mechanism, the conditions of meaning come from outside. Our despair – our crying out – doesn’t even come from us. It comes from outside – out there. In the night of the world.

Outside – outside what?

Outside this tower. Outside this campus. Outside Organisational Management. Meaning’s transcendent or not at all. Meaning arrives from without – only from without. That’s how it is now. Meaning is not given in the order of things. It’s given in the destruction of that order. In its sacrifice. In its calling upwards. And meaning, when it comes, will strike down like lightning. Meaning will set this whole world on fire.

The apocalypse.

Yes, the apocalypse.

You’d like this to be the last night of the world – of this world. The last night there ever was. But it won’t be, will it? There’ll be another night and another one …

This isn’t yet the night of the world, philosopher. This isn’t yet the last night. This is the penultimate night. The night before the last night – the endless night. But at least we have a corner of the night all to ourselves. Where we can do whatever we like …

Where do your friends think you’ve gone, do you think ?

Off with a beautiful and mysterious organisational manager …

Are there really such things? They’ll think I’ve kidnapped you. Turned you. They’ll think I’m a walking honey trap …

And was it? Did Alan put you up to this?

You’re already trapped – you know that. If you are trapped, that is …

I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe, philosopher. So why don’t you? You’re in the enemy’s camp. With the enemy’s wife. You’re a traitor …

You’re a traitor, too. You don’t believe in all this – in Organisational Management. Even when you say you do. Especially then.

I think it’s possible that I willed you into existence. That you didn’t exist until I … wanted you to. I think you were born from my … deadness. I dreamt you up, one night I couldn’t sleep. I conjured you up out of my desire for the opposite of Organisational Management …

Nothing matters on a night like this. None of the normal rules apply. They’re all suspended. This is a state of exception.

Silence.

Laure, drawing close.

This is the part where we kiss, philosopher.

Kissing.

Are you still dead?

Still dead. More dead than ever.

Haven’t I woken you up?

You’ve woken up death, destroyer of worlds. Destroyer of Organisational Management.  

Kissing.

How long will you stay dead?

Forever. I’ll never be alive.

And will you ever die – finally?

Death isn’t going to come. There’ll be no end for me. I’m immortal, philosopher. Wouldn’t you like to be immortal?

There is just one eternal day, without morning or evening. That’s what Augustine said.

That’s how it is. And on that day – tonight, right now, we’re going to live forever. We’re living forever right now, right here. Am I allowed to say things like that?

Kissing.

I think we should fall into a question together. How do we do that?

We’re doing it now.

I’ll be Laure, and you can be Georges Bataille. We’ll both be mad.

Her phone, buzzing.

That’s my husband. He wants to know where I am.

Does he know you’re with me?

Maybe he does.

What are you going to say to him?

That I was with you. Maybe. Not really. I don’t know. I’ll lie.

What will you say?

That I had a migraine. That I had to go back to my office to lie down.

Won’t he come looking for you?

He knows I like to be alone sometimes. And he wouldn’t be so tasteless to pursue me. Anyway, I’ve got to show you one more thing.

The Organisational Management Christmas Party.

Laure, she says, shaking my hand.

I know who you are, I say. I saw you at the meeting,

Oh – the meeting. You wouldn’t eat anything of the buffet – that’s what I remember. And it was a luxury buffet. The best Organisational Management could offer. With prawns and everything. And you were just sitting there with folded arms –

I wasn’t going to dignify the occasion –

– like a spoilt child. Like Dr fucking Sulky. Too good for the meet and greet … You and the rest of your Philosophy Department, sitting their with your arms crossed. Actually, I was impressed, kind of. Like it was our job to win you over – all seven of you, in your failing department, rather than the other way round.

Assimilate or die, right?

Actually, Alan – the Head of School, who’s also my husband as you probably know –

– I know.

Is all for the move. It wasn’t our idea, but he wasn’t against it. Organisational Management needs a kick up the rear. The only way Organisational Management can improve is by coming up against different views.

He thinks you guys can bring with you a different kind of thinking – something more holistic and relational. The left-brain hemisphere to complement our right one … or is it the other way round? Your yin to our yang. There are interesting conversations to be had. Synergies to develop …

Use the word, synergy again, and I’ll kill myself.

Whereas I would welcome some anarchy. Some madness, even. I’m tired of being the only mad person in the Organisational Management attic.

Everyone’s mad now. All the students are, anyway.

Your students, maybe. Humanities students. Our students are desperately sane. And my colleagues, too …

They’re just pretending.  

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to an actual philosopher before.

We don’t call ourselves philosophers. Philosophy lecturers, sure. But philosopher … it’s an honorific. Something you have to achieve.  

How seriously you take yourselves!

Some things are serious.

I’ll call you philosopher, philosopher … You have a philosophical air. As I, no doubt, have an Organisational Management air.

I don’t think you have a particularly Organisational Management air.

I think I’m actually very philosophical, for an organisational manager. But I don’t expect you to believe that.

Looking down at our colleagues. Alan, talking to Driss. Helmut, mute and glowering. Furio, scowling. Fiver sitting beside Io, looking frail. Sophia talking to a giant organisational manager. Postgraduates, in a huddle.

Alan genuinely loves philosophy. That’s what he says: he loves it. He loves what you guys do.

How does he know what we do?

He reads philosophy. Well, business philosophy. Organisational Management theory …

It’s terrible to be caught up in someone else’s enthusiasm. Because they’ll inevitably be disappointed with you when you’re not what they want.

I think you’re exactly what he wants.

Do you know what Stalin said to Shostakovich? We have criticised you, but we did so because we love you … That was after criticising him in pubic … destroying his career. Because we love you … And it’ll be the same when you guys start telling us to become more business-relevant, or when you strong-arm us to teach Organisational Management ethics, which will inevitably happen …

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless.

Now it comes out: what you really think.

Well – isn’t it?

It depends on what you mean by use.

You would say that.

Because I don’t believe in what you call, use.

The university does – which is why it moved you.

Sure it does. Which is why Philosophy has become a kind of scapegoat. Why we’ve been made to bear all the sins of the humanities and sent into the Organisational Management wilderness …

Is that what's happened?

Sure. Because Philosophy’s the most supposedly useless humanities subject them of all.

And proud of it.

Pouring me a drink.

Tell me your origin story. How did you become a – philosopher?

I asked a question so big I fell into it. And never climbed out.

And you must have been so intelligent to ask such a thing.

It’s not about intelligence. It’s about the way I felt.

You must have been a genius of feeling. Someone with a special sensitivity. What was the question, anyway?

It was the question of everything. Why things were at all. Why there wasn’t nothing.

A useless and unanswerable question, in other words.

How did become a supposedly mad organisational manager?

It’s not half as interesting, I’m sure. I was just a young, innocent Business Studies student … I hadn’t even heard of Organisational Management. Which was soon to become the latest thing …

You actually studied business studies? You actually signed up for business studies?

I actually wanted to make my way in the world. Not just be another unemployed humanities grad …

I owe everything to unemployment.

So pompous! So contrary! You think you’re very interesting: I can tell. You think you’re perfectly fascinating.

I don’t think there’s anything interesting about me.

See, there you go: nothing interesting. I have nothing to declare … except the great questions I ask. Except the very difficult and interesting books I’ve read … Except the prestige of my ancient subject area … Is philosophy really the oldest subject there is? The oldest subject ever?

All the subject areas were part of philosophy, and then broke off. Maths, physics, law …

Leaving only … philosophy. And what’s philosophy when it’s just what’s leftover?

Questioning.

Questioning things no one can answer? Questions that leave you in exactly the same place as you were before you asked them, only a little more miserable?

I want to know about your madness. Has Organisational Management driven you mad? Has it made you ask questions?

Not questions as deep as yours. God, this is all so meta. Talking about questions, instead of …

What?

Answering them. Or trying to. You’re probably used to this kind of conversation, philosophy. You probably talk like this all the time. Well, I don’t. Not usually. Not even when my husband and I go on long car trips. When we drive down south to see our friends.

What do you talk about? I ask.

All the usual stuff. Friends. Family. Work. All that kind of stuff. My dream business, that I want to set up one day …

Do you have an amazing business idea?

I have several.

I don’t believe you.

Actually, I’m just someone who could go into a business and reorganise it. Make It more efficient. More … productive.

More useful.

More … useful. Exactly.

But what about your madness?

My … madness … I’m not telling you about that …

Is it about what can’t be organised? Or managed? What kind of mad person are you?

I’m not interested in any of the chit chat down there, for one thing.

That isn’t madness – it’s just good taste.

Shall I tell you a secret? You’ll have to lean in, philosopher.

Ok.

I’ll whisper it: I feel … dead.

Dead?

Not dead – but … like I’m dying. What if I said that I’m terminally ill?

Are you terminally ill?

Do I appear terminally ill to you? I could be terminally ill. But I’m not. I’m not terminally ill … I’d like to be terminally ill, maybe. It might give some meaning to my life. The idea of the end being close … That things wouldn’t just go on forever … Because they're in serious danger of going on forever … 

Do you ever feel that you’re falling, philosopher? I do. I think I’m falling. Everything in me is falling. There’s this great sadness. There’s a great sadness that just drifts like a cloud. And is drifting through me. And I’m sad – terribly sad. But it’s not even my sadness …

I feel like I’m falling, philosopher. When I close my eyes, I get vertigo. I’m falling into the night. Faster and faster. I’m dying inside. I’m numb inside. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel … life. And I’m tired of pretending to feel alive.

And I’m going to sink lower, philosopher. There’s further to fall. It’s like I have to let myself fall. Give myself over to falling. It’s like I shouldn’t resist anymore. But let despair claim me. Drown me. I should just close my eyes in despair. But I’m too frightened to do that.

There’s a depth I haven’t reached, not yet. There’s something that has yet to be fulfilled. I have to go to the limit. But I don’t want to go to the limit. I have to let myself fall – fall through my life. To reach – what? I don’t know. I don’t know, philosopher.

If only there was something to break it, my fall, philosopher. If only there was an end to it. Something to be broken against. And just … destroyed. If only it was possible to finish dying. To die and to be free – both at once. At the same stroke. Now, I’d say to myself. Here, I’d say to myself. But I wouldn’t say anything, because I’d have finished dying.

There, I’ve said. I’ve made my … confession. Are you impressed? Am I a philosopher, too? Am I the most useless person alive?

I think you’re falling into a question, too.

Come on, let’s go. Let’s escape.

Where to?

I’ll show you the building. It’s quite a building.

Stupidity, contemplating itself. Stupidity, amusing itself. Laughing at itself. Stupidity, entertaining itself. Stupidity is what we do, right? Stupidity is what holds us together. Stupidity is what we talk about. What we talk from. The twists and turns of our stupidity keep us alive. We were a study, Cicero said.

Is our stupidity sincere? Is our stupidity really a wanting to change? Is our despair an actual prayer? Do we merely wallow in our stupidity, dwell in it, rather than actually want to be transformed?

If we felt, really felt, our stupidity, what then? Might something really happen then? If we experienced, really experienced our despair at our stupidity, might we not be idiots anymore?

Open space, at the heart of the camps.

What’s it for? As big as St Peters Square … As Times Square …

There must be some reason for this, Sophia says. Spaces like this are left open for a reason.

It’s a … dreaming space, I say. Pure potentiality. Where the campus is allowed to yearn to be something else. And where it’s not yet anything. Where it isn’t some great tower. Where it isn’t some leisure facility – some park.

Not yet philosophers: that’s what Cicero said we were, I say. Philosophical innocents, she called us. We had an innocent’s enthusiasm for philosophy. We mustn’t lose it, she said.

We used to imagine a whole not-yet-philosophy movement, remember? I say. Like, not-yet philosophy becoming the latest thing. Word spreading through the more alert postgraduates … Through the more vibrant postdocs … Through MA students looking for something really transgressive …

Except not-yet philosophy wasn’t anything – that was the point, I say. It was pure potential. The potential to do philosophy – or not. The potential to take a day off, instead. To laze about, instead.

To contemplate – that’s what Cicero called it, I say. To doss about. She thought we were very good at that.

And drinking – she was always impressed with our drinking, Furio says.

We were at our best when we were talking about nothing, she told us, I say. That’s when we were at peak not-yet-philosophical …

More idle talk, Helmut, Furio says. Don’t scowl …

Pointless rumination: that was our great gift, Cicero told us, I say. Chewing the nihilistic cud. Meta-prattle, doubling up the nonsense. Words and words and words, in total pointlessness. Like an endlessly idling engine. Nihilism’s speech, nihilism’s echoing to nothing …

Except we were actually making something out of nothing, I say. That’s what Heidegger never understood. It’s not about morose solitaries, being anxious all alone. It’s about … this. Our whole Waiting for Godot thing. Our aimless passing the time. Our taking the piss. Our endless permutations of disgust … That’s what saves us, even if you don’t think so, Helmut.

Are you really making a snow angel, Driss? Sophia asks.

It’s supposed to be a snow devil, Driss says.

You’ve given it wings! Io sys.

Sure – bat wings, Driss says.

I can see why Cicero thought you’d be a totalitarian survivor, Furio says.

I actually think I’ve reached a new level of self-disgust, Driss says.

I didn’t think there were more levels, I say.

There are, apparently, Driss says.

There’s such a life to self-hatred, Sophia says. All our thrashings … Our convulsions …

Nothing hates itself like a human being, Furio says. We’re the uniquely fucked up species, right?

Because we know our sin, Io says. And we can do something about it.

But we don’t actually want to, except you, Driss says. And Fiver, maybe. We’re just lost in the coils of evil. Lost in the coiling, the writhing. Lost in the agitation of sin. And we don’t even mind, that’s the thing. Or not enough to do something about it.

On that logic, we should just let Organisational Management destroy us, Sophia says.

We’ll destroy ourselves, thank you very much, Furio says. We’ll do it in our own way. In our own time. With our own style. And we’ll do it with panache. And humour.

Computing building.

That’s where all the computational power is, Driss says. The Organisational Management Brain.

Evil AI, like in every science fiction film, I say.

Alphaville’s the best, Driss says. With the Alpha-60 that outlaws free thought. Bans all creative expression. And interrogates all those who show emotion, before killing them. In swimming pools, strangely, with all these synchronised swimmers …

There’s this great interrogation scene, Driss says. They haul Lemmy Caution in – he’s this hardboiled detective type. What transforms night into day? Alpha-60 asks him. Poetry, he says. What is your religion? I believe in the immediate inspirations of my conscience, he says. What is the privilege of the dead? he’s asked. To die no longer, he says.

Poetic questions, for a computer, Sophia says.

Caution quotes from Eluard, Driss says. The Capital of Pain. And tries to make Anna Karina’s character tell him she loves him. Love is totally banned, you see.

Does love destroy the supercomputer? Sophia asks. Does love win in the end?

They escape, Driss says. They drive off into the outer realms.

That’s what we have to do: fall in love and escape, I say. To die no longer …

Do you think organisational managers approve of love? Io asks. Do they know what it is?

Angels – that’s what we need, Sophia says. Bring on the angels! Angels of Newcastle, like the angels of Berlin in Wings of Desire! Angels with ponytails, who just watch over everyone. Who witness our lives, our joys, our sufferings, and comfort us without our knowing it. Putting an arm around us when we need it …

Newcastle angels – sure.

What about St Cuthbert? Eric Burdon? The guys who wrote Fog on the Tyne …

Lindesfarne aren’t dead, I say.

Is Gazza dead? Driss asks.

He wouldn’t be an angel, I say.

A drunken angel, maybe, Driss says. Are there drunken angels?

Look, angels aren’t ghosts, idiot, Io says. They aren’t angels of people. Angels are their own thing.

We need avenging angels, Furio says. Badass angels, like St Michael. A whole legion of them, to tear down the campus. Do angels do that kind of thing anymore?

Maybe if we pray hard enough …, Driss says.

Are we allowed to pray for vengeance? Sophia asks.

I think it’d be cool to actually be an angel, Furio says. To have an angel’s powers. How do we get those?

Maybe we have to invite them in, like demons in the Exorcist, Driss says. Demons are always looking to inhabit bodies, right?

Sure – possession, Io says. Infestation.

I want to be possessed by something good, not something evil, Driss says. I’d like to be possessed by an angel, and do only good things. Wouldn’t you like to be the instrument of something very, very good?

I’d like to die as an angel, I say. Emptied of all things, all sin. All my twistedness untwisted. All my hatred transmuted into love. All my life, gathered up, offered up. Cured, right? Just an aching soul, crying upwards to be extinguished. And then … extinguished.

Faith Zone, Sophia says. This is going to be good.

Faith in what? Driss asks. What is there left to have in faith in, on the Organisational Management campus? It’s nihilism itself, right? Disenchantment itself. Nothing remains of God but the void: that’s what this campus says.

Cicero would approve, Furio says.

Cicero would say that the campus shows things as they are, I say. Creation stripped to the bone. Naked … facticity. The whole creaturely realm, not as some holy gift – sorry, Io – not as some magic.

God isn’t revealed through the world, according to Cicero, I say. God and the world are antagonistic. We have to know the world as illuminated by nothing, by no meaning, by no direction.

And that’s the campus? Sophia asks.

That’s the test of the campus, Driss says. That’s what the campus is pushing us towards.

We have to hold onto the … nihilistic perception, I say. Have to hold on to what creatureliness shows us – that’s what Cicero would say. The worst the world becomes, the greater the chance for redemption.

For Cicero, there was a new faith … which is made from doubt and disbelief, I say. Which creates itself out of the void – the divine void. God has to spring anew from his nothingness.

And God will do so, I say. Because we demand the meaning of meaning. Because we shake the bars of this world – cry out. Because we know that what there is is horror.

No, Io says. No.

Can you find meaning in this campus, Io? Furio asks. Seriously? In the faith zone. In that tawdry half-built Millennium Dome thing?

This whole campus is nothing, Io says. It’s lost. It’s pushed God away. It’s left the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God. It can only be destroyed – that, I accept. But you want to burn up the world. You hate the whole world.

Be not conformed to the world: isn’t that what the Bible says, I say.

Don’t be conformed to the human world – sure, Io says. To the Organisational Management world. But that’s not all the world is.

The deepest nihilistic fall of the world: that’s what we need to know, I say. The whole of the Creation has to be allowed to fall into the night. God’s withdrawal from the world has to be complete. And that will be the revelation: a new form of revelation.

There’s still goodness in the world, Io says. Still beauty. Still truth.

I actually think Faith Zone is the deepest nihilistic fall of the world, Driss says. It really is tawdry.

It’s supposed to be for all faiths, according to the plaque, Furio says. It’s about the common core to all religion.

Organisational Management syncretism: that’s all we need, Driss says. Some cavitated temple, consecrated to fuck-all …

They want us to worship the void – their void, Io says. They want us to pray to the void they’ve created.

The Faith Zone is also a panicked reaction to the void that they’re creating, Driss says. They can’t face it – what they’ve opened up. The nihilistic fall of everything.

I thought the void was all about vastness and lawlessness and chaos, Sophie says. I thought it was on our side.

But Organisational Management wants to keep it under control, Driss says. Seize it for itself.

I’m confused, Sophia says. Is the void good or bad? How can you tell if it’s divine or not?

We have to become the antinomians, I say. The bearers of the alien fire. Waiting only to see the flash of the transcendent in the immanent. The apocalyptic fire of divine love.

What do you see, Fiver? What’s the Faith Zone about?

Abomination, Fiver whispers.

Something terrible’s going to happen here, I know it, Io says. Something vast – vaster than this campus. Something good – that will appear evil. Something merciful – that will appear merciless. Isn’t that right, Fiver?

Fiver, silent.

Faith Zone. This is going to be good.

Faith in what? What is there left to have in faith in, in Organisational Management land?

Organisational Management’s an essentially nihilistic project – that’s the thing. It’s just pure functioning. And functioning has no meaning.

All Organisational Management reveals is the void. Which is also what it’s most afraid of. Which is why it’s so busy organising and managing.

Organisational Management is nihilism itself. Disenchantment itself. It shows the world as purely function. Which means mostly deeply fallen.

 

The faith zone.

It can only be absolutely generic. Absolutely bland. A hollowing out of all temples. A cavitated temple, consecrated to nothing.

The evacuation of God: that’s what Organisational Management’s about. That’s what the campus is about.

 

Nothing remains of God but the void, that’s what this campus says.

 

It’s supposed to be for all faiths, according to the plaque. It’s about the common core to all religion.

 

Organisational Management is a panicked reaction to the void that it’s created. To the way the void is coming to itself – the way it’s awakening to itself, opening its eyes. Becoming absolute. Becoming all …

 

They started it. If they weren’t hollowing everything out. If they weren’t nihilizing the world …

 

From a certain perspective, the meaningless of the world is itself meaningful, that’s what Cicero said. It actually means something.

 

When the world is purely functional, the conditions of meaning must come from outside – that’s what Cicero said.

Faith zone.

It’s like millennium dome, only smaller.

 

This is the Organisational Management idea of religion. This is Organisational Management syncretic religion. Mixing them all up. Blanding them out.

 

Faith zones. They’re building these all over the world. You can just nip inside for a quiet pray. For a bit of meditation. Yoga, maybe. To contemplate the great Emptiness. The great Void.

 

The Organisational Management holy of holies. It’s a contemplation space, rather than a temple. You can rent it out for classes and so on.

 

This is what they take religion to be.

Must have really strained their Organisational Management imaginations.

Official religion, right? Meeting our spiritual needs.

 

Faith zone: they want us to worship the void – their void. They want us to pray to the void they’ve created.

 

The void: is that what they believe in? There’s nothing to believe in: that’s the point.

 

Organisational Management’s voiding the world – it’s quite deliberate. It’s a nihilism factory. But it will perish by what it creates.

There’s a meaning deficit. It’s sucked all the meaning out of the world. The better to organise it. The better to manage it.

But there’s a midnight hour coming, when it’ll have to state into the void of itself.

 

Organisational Management’s created the void that it fears. By destroying everything but the void.