Work in Progress

Why are they bothering with such a tiny department?

It’s symbolic.

But philosophy’s a joke subject now – everyone knows that. A boutique subject. A museum subject. Like when you visit dramatic re-enactment events and all these people play the roles of blacksmiths and tavern wenches or whatever. We’re playing a role.

I mean, most the departments of proper European philosophy have been closed or infiltrated by analytic types. Warwick and Essex have fallen. Dundee’s down to, like, three people. Or they they’ve been merged with daft departments. We’re not just an endangered species – we’re actually extinct. So why are they bothering with us?

 

We’re the last mad humanities outpost. The true humanities. Not the compromised humanities. Not the identity politics humanities. Not the theory-drunk humanities, frothing with self-righteousness. But the proper critical thinking humanities, that’s dead everywhere else …

 

The amazing thing is that our paranoia came in useful for something. Our sense of great forces working against us. Our apocalypticism. Our doomy temperaments. It all makes sense. Turns out we have our role in all this. We’re the only people who understand it in its proper dimensions. We’re actually perfectly equipped for the times.

Who isn’t tired of being alive? Are we too tired to be alive? Don’t we want to give up the fight, and all fights? Don’t we want to sink into sleep and sink into the depths?

Isn’t it too complicated being alive? Isn’t it too compromising, going on? Don’t we just deepen the corruption by living any longer? Don’t we just deepen the corruption of our souls by persisting in being? Don’t we just stir up the waters? Don’t we mix our darkness with light?

Wouldn’t it be simpler if we just died? If we could just sink to our knees and have life taken from us? Isn’t that what the world wants? And God wants? Our deaths, our deaths! And what we want! Wouldn’t it harmonize all the desires: our desire, the world’s desire, the desire of God?

Why should we live long lives? Why should we live beyond our thirties? Why should we have to grow any older?

If only the campus would kill us – just kill us. Just take our lives. Wouldn’t that make sense – and the greatest sense? We’ve lived too long – of course we have. We’ve gone on too long. Our studies … have led us into the interminable. Too far! We’ve wandered too far from home. When home is – death.

This is no time to be alive – not for us. We outlived the moment when we should have died. We shouldn’t be alive now. We shouldn’t be awake to see this. The time of the Abomination. Of which this campus is a part. The Abominable. The Terrible.

 

How come the organisational managers are so at home in the Abominable. They’re part of the Abomination. That’s what they should call this campus: the Abomination.

 

Where’s God when you want him? There can’t be a God if this is allowed to go on. This campus is proof of the death of God.

Is it? Or is it proof that the God exists. By drawing out the maximum of evil. By pushing dread and horror to the utter limit.

And then? What happens then?

Then God comes.

The apocalypse?

The end.

There is no end. That’s not what I believe.

The Lord is the killer – that’s how he should show himself. The vehicle of the end of times: that’s what he should be. That’s his role now.

The second coming is the coming in fire. In flame. The anti-campus. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of death of this world.

We need the touch of God as the touch of death. On our fevered brow. We need a cure – to life. The void has destroyed itself. Creation is its wound, or whatever. All that’s left of God is death.

Is that so? What about goodness and mercy?

The Organisational Management campus longs, despite itself. It longs in its non-longing. It aches because it does not ache.

 

Organisational Management paving stones. Organisational Management trees planted in a row. Organisational Management lights just blinking. Shameless. Brazen.

So itself. And so much of it! So vast! And yet, in its paving stones. In its martialled trees. There is a shame. A great longing to be other than it is.

The desire to shed its shame. To shake it off. To cry upwards to the heavens in praise and pain and joy and mourning and regret. To sink down on its knees and cry upwards in repentance.

It knows its wretchedness. It knows that it’s a bed of sin. That’s it’s lost in its own mire.

Even the campus prays. Even the campus yearns. Even the campus casts up its eyes to heaven.

 

This whole benighted campus seeks pity. It knows it shouldn’t be. It cries out for its death sentence. To be put out of its misery. It can’t bear its perpetuation. It’s endless going on.

 

The campus becoming conscious. The campus, opening its eyes. What does it see? Itself. And more and more of itself. The campus, appalled. The campus, in horror at itself …

 

Its desire for self destruction. For mercy. The mercy of destruction. The grace of destruction. The end, come flashing down. The lightning strike. It does not want to be spared. It does not want to survive.

 

It wants to be undone. Throbs with it. Calls upwards for it. Gurgles on its own blood. Who’s going to make it alright? Who’s going to wipe away the tears of the campus?

 

The error must be corrected. The lost timeline. That’s just been allowed to … go on. To roll on in its meaninglessness.

Time, opening into nothing. For no reason. Time, exposed. Time, yawning into what? Into nothingness. Into horror. Into the night.

Time, falling into the night. Without purpose. To no end.

This timeline, plunging into the night. Closed-eyed. And crying out. Time is crying out. As it plunges. As it falls, without reason.

Time is screaming. Time itself. As it rushes. As there’s more senselessness. More dying. As more things meaning NOTHING.

The madness of time. The time of madness. The delirium of time.

Time does not want to be. Being does not want to be.

 

And who will help us?

God.

God’s forgotten us. God’s not in this timeline.

This is the Organisational Management world now. We’ll never leave this campus, even if we leave this campus. Everything that will happen will happen here. Wherever we live, we will be living here.

 

It's after the end of the world now. Have you noticed? We’ve crossed some invisible threshold. We’ve left the old world behind.

 

This is the battleground for every future war. This is where we’ll resist, or whatever. We have to understand this territory. We’ll have to find our weapons here.

 

After the cull: that’s what’s Organisational Management’s planning for. That’s when it’ll come into its own. When the population’s cut down to size. When the survivors will be living in campuses like this. Only they won’t be called campuses then.

And what about us, will we survive? Being part of Organisational Management might protect us.

 

What did Cicero want us to do? What was all our training for?

It’s still going on, our training. We’re being sharpened against the whetstone of Organisational Management. For what, that’s to be revealed. We’re becoming something. Just by being here.

 

We should hang ourselves right now! From one of these lampposts.

Is suicide allowed? There are probably suicide prevention drones to talk us out of it. They’ll spray anti-depression gas.

Or just let us die. They don’t need people like us. Everything’s ready for the great cull, right? Everyone and everything perfectly controlled. No one will even protest … We’ll practically volunteer for the euthanasia pods …

How many people are going to die? Because they are going to die, aren’t they?

Why do you think that?

People are kept busy with useless jobs for now, right. Doing useless things, which everyone knows are useless. But that game will be up soon, won’t it? It’ll all be shown in its essential uselessness.

What?

The whole economy. Everything. Which is why they’re already asking what the uses of the useless are? How long they can keep us occupied with games and Netflix … Before they just decide to kill us off.

 

So how are you going to resist? Make your last stand? Be, like, extra useless? Win we organisational managers over to your cause?

 

How come I haven’t heard anything of these plans?

Maybe you’re not high enough up.

My husband would know them, if they were really happening.

They keep everything compartmentalised, that’s the thing.

 

This is, like, the end of everything. The end of humanity. They’ll change our genes. The genes will be patented and owned by mega corporations.

You’re mad.

And what will the humanities be about then, where there is no homo sapiens anymore? When we’re all transhumanised, or whatever? If we’ve not been transhumanised already …

 

Do you believe all this stuff?

I believe … the humanities are totally programmed. There’s only philosophy left. And only European philosophy within philosophy. And only some European philosophers. Us, really. Only the non-careerists. Only the really stupid, useless ones. Only us fuck-ups.

So the whole humanities rides on you? How unfortunate.

 

They’ll cull nine-tenths of humanity. More, maybe. Blame it on some plague. Then they’ll bring as many people as they can fit on the Organisational Management campus. Those who’ve been selected for obedience. For being useful to the Man. Just enough of us to serve his needs. As will be useful in the coming technocracy.

We’re not actually very together my husband and I. I’m sure you understand. The other night, I told him I’d have an affair, if I could. It’s not as if he wasn’t forewarned.

Have you had affairs?

Not yet, at any rate. How about you?

I’m not with anyone.

Why ever not? Why aren’t you with a philosopher? Kitten, for example.

We’re friends. And she’s mostly gay.

Io?

She’s with someone. It’s a long distance thing. She’s Finnish.

Philosophers should really go out with philosophers, don’t you think?

And organisational managers with organisational managers … Which would make things very incestuous. Interdisciplinarity, philosopher. That’s what it’s all about …

 

It’s very easy to be with you, despite everything. Ease itself. Just like breathing. It’s so easy to talk. To say all these things I don’t usually know how to say … I mean, do you think I usually talk like this? To … my … fellow … organisational managers? Well, I don’t. I don’t just talk into the night.

 

Is the world actually worth saving? Can you be bothered to save it? Aren’t there better things to do?

Like what?

Like … hanging out, philosopher. Like fooling around. Like romance …

What would your husband say? Would he think it was good for Organisational Management philosophy relations? Interdisciplinarity, and all that?

Don’t laugh at him.

 

What does it hear when it listens to us? What does the AI understand?

It’s supposed to be learning.

Learning what?

How to contain us. How to manage. How to organise.

It won’t succeed, you know. It can’t understand what we’re saying. It doesn’t get romance.

Is that what this is – romance?

This is not yet romance. Not yet anything. We’ve hovering at the edge of …

What?

We’re between … something and something …

We have a corner of the night all to ourselves.

Do we? Aren’t they looking for us?

 

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

 

It’s like in the Blitz. People fucked illicitly in the night. They got away with anything.

 

This isn’t yet the night of the world. This isn’t yet the last night. This is the penultimate night. The night before the last night – the endless night.

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

Not so hostile.

You’ll make us teach Organisational Management ethics, or something.

Organisational Management ethics? What would be the point of that?

Are you actually going to make us teach your students?

I don’t know. Talk to my husband.

And will philosophy students have to learn Organisational Management?

No idea. Anyway, it’s not about teaching anymore, is it? Unless it’s international student teaching – that’s where the real money is.

So what is it about? Research money. Funding bids. You can make millions.

Not in philosophy, you can’t.

Which is why you’re lucky to be with us. There’s oodles of money for Organisational Managers …

 

Looking out over the campus.

What’s it for?

You tell me.

It’s capital of the Organisational Management empire of the northeast. It’s a node in the global Organisational Management empire. The newest node, the brightest node …

I don’t know about that. You should see the campus in Shanghai …

What’s the Northeast done to deserve this? Who decided that there should be some great Organisational Managerial-ing of the northeast?

Because it’s all decline up here. Just vape shops and Turkish barbers. Which means they’ve been given carte blanche.

They? You, you mean.

Us, then. Organisational Management. We’re here to improve things.

They’ve just turned the northeast into some Organisational Management testbed.

 

This is the real city – the Organisational Management city. There is no more Newcastle. The history of Newcastle is over.

 

How are you going to resist us? Spiritually? Internally? Will you be like Solzhenitsyn?

 

Don’t you ever feel shame? For, like, promoting all this?

This isn’t exactly the Gulag Archipelago.

Sure, because they’re smarter than that now. They’ve learned better ways to, like, totally control us.

Such a freedom fighter. Who are you going to be, Bonhoffer?

 

You think you’re unmanageable. But everyone’s manageable. Once you find the levers.

 

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?

 

The secret is that it won’t actually be that bad to be managed. It’s all very soft now.

That’s the problem: it’s too soft.

You’ll be gently nudged. Kindly shown the way …

Sure, to euthanasia.

 

It’s worse because they’re not actually strangling people. Because it all seems peaceful. It’s been feminized. It’s all done for safety and not offending anyone and all that. Big mother’s in charge, not big brother. Totalitarianism is very mild these days. It’s very kind.

 

Human culture will not exist anymore, once the social scoring starts.

AI will be the zookeeper – isn’t that obvious. AI will determine what to eat and who is allowed to live where and when, depending on behaviour, on social score. Human behaviour has to be entirely predictable and calculable, right?

 

We’re just dangerous variables to AI … dissidents. Sand in the gears.

Don’t overestimate yourselves.

You don’t think there’s an enormous plan in joining Philosophy and Organisational Management together?

No.

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

Possibly.

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

Probably. I don’t know.

Don’t you care?

 

It's not just the way the world’s going. It’s not happening by chance. There are people steering this.

Not us, though. It’s not our fault. We’re just channelling what’s happening anyway. You know, a whole worldwide thing … A civilizational thing.

A demonic thing.

People are just making their moves, behind the scenes …

Flying in to your helipads, I’ll bet. Giving your orders.

I don’t know. Maybe.

 

What’s so terribly terrible about Organisational Management? What’s so awfully awful? We’re not that demonically bad, are we? We’re not actually plotting and conspiring and preparing something terrible for the world. We haven’t got it in us.

The world’s changing. For the worse, maybe. I don’t know. But it’s not our fault. We’re just … making the best of it. You have to go along to get along and all that.

I mean, the new normal or whatever won’t be so bad, will it? A bit more controlled, perhaps. A bit less freedom. And privacy. But no one really minds about those things. Not the young, anyway.

Life will change. You’ll have to do what they say a little more. It’ll be a bit more authoritarian, maybe. A bit control-y. And some of us will try to organise the world to death, probably. And manage it to the very end. But there’ll be  gaps. And cracks. Spaces where you’ll be able to do your own thing. Where you can do what you like. It’s not the complete and utter end of things.

The Organisational Management Christmas Party.

On the mezzanine.

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 the university could offer. And you were just sitting there with folded arms –

I wasn’t going to dignify the occasion –

– like a spoilt child. Like Mr fucking Sulky … Oh, sorry, Dr Sulky …

I didn’t want to celebrate the forced marriage …

You could at last have had a good attitude about it … Actually my husband – who’s the Head of School, as you probably know –

– I know.

Thinks Philosophy can bring with it 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’s an interesting conversation to be had, he thinks. You know, synergies –

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 O.M. attic.

Is that what you are?

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

For all I know you’re one of the legendary secret Business Studies philosophers.

What?

You know – those humanities types who got Business Studies scholarships to fund their PhDs. Who went where the money was. And found themselves working in Business Studies, all the while continuing their philosophical studies.

Are they real?

They recognise each other by secret handshakes and publish philosophy under assumed names.

Entirely your fantasy, I’m afraid.  

So 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.

I just don’t belong to any of this. To Organisational Management. To the university …

Sure … But that’s still not madness.

I’m … dissociated. Autistic, maybe. It runs in my family.

Have you been diagnosed?

It’s like I’ve been put out of use. Laid aside.

By what?

By life. All of life. I don’t feel what I’m supposed to feel, philosopher. I don’t say the right things.  

Have you tried therapy?

I’ve … tried … therapy. It doesn’t … take. There’s too much wrong. What if I said I was an alcoholic, and had been to rehab?

I’d say I was sorry to hear that.

But I’m not an alcoholic, and was never in rehab. I don’t have a drink problem, or a drug problem or any particular mental health issue … I don’t have anything … diagnosable. Maybe I’m just trying to be interesting. Maybe I’m just trying to interest you, philosopher … Do you say things to make yourself sound interesting? For effect? Actually, I’ll bet you actually think you’re interesting.

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

I think you find yourself interesting enough not to have to sound interesting … Like, I have nothing to declare … except my philosophy. Except all the books I’ve read … Except my philosophical attitude …

I’m sure you’ve read books, too.

Not interesting ones. Not difficult ones. Just boring books, really. Long, boring business books. And I haven’t read many of them. I’m not really into Organisational Management theory … I’m more about applied Organisational Management. How Organisational Management works on the ground. I’m pragmatic.

And mad.

And mad. Too mad … Do you believe in reincarnation, philosopher? Do you believe you were born before? And that you will be born again? Or are you too materialist for that?

I don’t believe in reincarnation.

Do you ever feel everything you say is in quotes, like it’s been said before? By someone else, maybe. Or by us in another life? Do you ever feel that all this happened before, and we’re just living it again? That all this is part of the whole of life flashing before your eyes as you die? … See I told you I was philosophical, didn’t I? Or mad …

Better mad that a being a synth.

What’s one of those?

Like, an android – a biogenetic android. Which is what we in philosophy suspect all Organisational Managers are.

But I’m not a robot, am I? I’m not full of circuits and wiring, or whatever.

Synth is short for synthetic biology. A synth is made out of biological tissue, which means no circuits or wiring – they’re entirely organic. The crucial difference is that they’re lab-grown, like, not born.

Like in Blade Runner?

Exactly. Like the replicants – they’re synthetic life forms, designed by genetic engineers. Barely distinguishable from humans, except that they have no emotions.

I have emotions.

You think you have emotions. Maybe they’re simulated emotions.

Maybe your emotions are simulated – did you ever consider that?

The more advanced replicants had implanted memories. To make them think they were human.

So are my memories implanted?

I don’t know. Do they feel like they are?

They could be. They really could be. How could I tell that I was a synth?

There’s a test: remember, from the film? Harrison Ford would ask someone under suspicion a bunch of questions that are supposed to provoke a genuine emotional response.

How could he tell?

He had equipment to monitor the kind of involuntary muscle contractions, like the movements in your eye , that an emotional response would trigger.

Do you have any equipment?

Only my intuition.

So, try me out, intuition-boy.

You realise there’s a wasp crawling on your arm. What do you do? A) swat it, b) squash it, c) savour, it d) trap it. What’s the answer?

Well, it wouldn’t be savour, would it? That’s obvious. What would a synth say?

Swat it, maybe. I don’t know.

That question’s rubbish. Give me another.

You meet a friend who has suffered bereavement. Afterwards you feel … a) Annoyed at their lack of engagement, b) Powerless to help, c) Saddened or d) Bored. 

D) Bored … ever so bored. Infinitely bored. I’m not supposed to say that, am I? I’m just bored of everyone and everything. Do say something interesting, philosopher. Or I’ll just die of boredom.

Harrison Ford is supposed to kill the synths who’ve developed emotion. Who actually feel things. Because they’d developed the ability to question. To philosophise, even. Which meant they couldn’t be controlled anymore. They couldn’t just be employed for slave labour or as prostitutes.

So maybe I am an advanced synth, after all. A synth gone crazy from emotion, or whatever. Or questioning … Harrison Ford fell in love with one your synths, I remember that.

With Rachael. She was an even more advanced model than the others.

What was so advanced about her?

She passed Harrison Ford’s tests. Even though he knew she was a synth. Turns out she could get pregnant, too. She had a child. That’s what the Bladerunner sequel is about. Have you seen that?

Shaking her head.

Bladerunner 2046. Spoiler alert: she has a child.

A synth child?

A half synth child.

So am I a synth or not, philosopher? What have you decided?

That I can’t tell.

I’ve interested you today. I see that; I’ve piqued your interest. I was the last thing you were expecting at an Organisational Management party.

Beeps.

That’s my husband texting. 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. He knows I’m a little mad. You know you don’t have to worry about your move to Organisational Management.

My husband 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 … Because we love you: do you hear that? And it’ll be the same when you guys start telling us to become more business–relevant, or whatever, which will inevitably happen ..

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

Oh now it comes out: what you really think.

Well – isn’t it?

It depends on what you mean by use.

You would say that.

It’s not all about … business. And organisation. And management.

Obviously.

You seem proud of being useless. You’re defiant.

Because I don’t believe in what you call, use. In the useful. And nor do you.

But the university does.

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 useless humanities subject them of all.

And proud of it.

I want to hear more about Organisational Management. Who’s, like, the organisational manager’s organisational manager? Who’s king or queen of organisational management. I want to know! Who organisational managers talk about in reverence? At, like organisational manager conferences? Organisational manager meet-ups. Who’s, like the organisational management legend? Who’s the O.M. GOAT?

Stop taking the piss.

How, like, old is the field? When did organisational management begin? Do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? Seriously. It’s important.

You’re unbearable. It’s quite clear: I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe. You’re in the enemy’s camp. With the enemy’s wife, who’s probably a synth. You’re a traitor. You’re betraying yourself. And your people. And philosophy. And everything. Should you just go downstairs and rejoin the party?

I like it up here.

Do you ever worry that you’re a synth, philosopher? That you’re a synth who’s dreaming that he’s a philosopher?

I’d never call myself a philosopher.

Come on.

It’s an honorific. It’s for other people to call you a philosopher or not. You can’t decide for yourself.

How precious … What’s your theory of it all, philosopher? Do you have one?

I don’t have a theory of it all.

God, what’s the use of philosophy if it doesn’t give you a theory of it all?

Philosophy’s about questions, not answers …

Questions about wasps and bereaved friends?

Questions about the nature of reality, and whether you’re real: the questions you were asking.

Which is all very well, but where does all this questioning get us? The same place as we were before. Only a little more miserable.

The melancholy of learning, that’s what Hamlet calls it.

This is all so meta. Talking like this, instead of ….

What?

Getting on with it.

You’re the one who started it.

I did, didn’t I? I suppose I’m feeling particularly philosophical today.

And what should we be getting on with? Organisation? Management? –

You’re laughing at me.

– The great merger of our great disciplines?

Exactly. And our own private merger: you and I. Our mind meld. Where philosophy will become indiscernible from Organisational Management …

Is that what’s happening?

That’s what will happen, if we’re not careful.