Work in Progress

What’s made us like this?

Nihilism, right?

Nihilism plus some extra craziness. Some wild desire for hope and transcendence and whatever.

Sure, we’re Gnostics. Or neo-Gnostics. Just like Cicero.

She called herself a Jewish Gnostic.

We’re Gnostic messianists. We’re waiting for … messianic time. Some twist in the world’s darkness. When hopelessness becomes hope. When the darkness lighten. Lifts.

What makes that Jewish?

Because we think it will come in time.

As, like, the end of time.

No: as the coming of a different order of time. The messianic era.

Tell us about this other time. What happens then? The lion lies down with the lamb, or whatever? Do we go finish in the morning and read all the afternoon? Do the meek inherit the earth? What?

 

Look, nihil means nothing, but nihilism’s not really about the nothing. It’s about being. It’s about the fact that things just go on and on. as they are. Forever. The endless end, right? Which is why we want the world to end. What we really want is the end of nihilism. Nihilism’s forever, and we don’t want to be trapped forever.

 

What we are is yearning. That’s all. And what we yearn for is the end of all this. Which isn’t just a desire for death.

For all out suicidal ideation, we don’t actually want to die.

 

The rumbling that shakes the world. That will topple the pillars. That will make the institutions tremble.

 

A disturbance in the earth. A protest. In the earth. A groaning, in the earth. The earth isn’t content. The earth’s turning in its sleep. It’s having nightmares. We’re the nightmare. All this is the nightmare. The campus is the nightmare.

*Emptier and colder, right? This universe is getting hollower. As we all are.  All the better for evil to inhabit …

Why are they doing these things to us?

Don’t be pathetic. Don’t be so forlorn. They’re doing what elites have always done.

No – this is different.

This is planned.

It’s always planned.

The elites were always about money and power, Not, like, systematic depopulation. I mean, they were always a bit indifferent, so long as they got theirs.

So what’s changed? Why do they want to control us? To depopulate us?

Because they’re satanic, which they always were.

What would actually make you evil? Why would you actually bother? What’s your motivation? To fuck things up just a bit more? To drive things down?

Evil doers are just misguided. It’s a way of doing good, for them. In their heads.

There are real satanists, though.

A handful.

More than a handful.

 

Why do we speak in this crazy way? Why do we dream up all these things? Because we’re empty, right? Because we’ve been emptied out. Because we’re full of the void and have to fill it with something. Because no open can bear the NOTHING that, like, blows through us. The void of our souls. That’s why we see psychopaths everywhere.

It doesn’t save us. It doesn’t redeem the world. It doesn’t change anything, probably. But it’s there.

What’s there?

Just anarchy. Just the burning essence of non-organisation and non-management.

 

Anarchy – that’s the lightning bolt. Zapping down. Lighting up the night.

 

The lightning that strikes through everything. Through each of us, even.

Freedom – that’s another word for it. Freedom that comes from outside. Just … striking down.

And it doesn’t do anything, doesn’t change anything. It’s just … there. But it isn’t there. It strikes through what’s there.

 

Holy anarchy. A freedom that isn’t even yours. That comes from – where? From without. Utterly so. From God, maybe. The lighting is God. The breach in the world.

 

The lightning could just set fire to the world. Like, a celestial correction. Or extinction.

And it will just destroy what should be destroyed. What deserves to be destroyed.

 

Anarchy that knows that things are Wrong, capital w. Anarchy Indistinguishable from destruction. But that’s really creation. Sky-zapping creation …

 

Lightning warns us. It’s a sign. A sign of what? That all of this must be brought to a close.

But I don’t believe that.

 

It’ll be the tenderest thing when we’re finally destroyed. The kindest thing. The greatest favour.

You are such a masochist.

Something wants to destroy us. And that’s what I want, too. The eyes of the universe should shut. And our eyes should shut, too.

What’s actually wrong with you? Because something’s very wrong.

Not as wrong as, like, the entire universe. See, I’m only wrong because the universe is wrong.

So you’re blaming the universe for making me such a nutter.

Only when the universe is destroyed will things be fixed.

And when we’re destroyed.

Exactly.

 

A universe should know when to end, shouldn’t it? It’s a question of taste. Timelines should really be finite. A universe should know when to lay down its head and close its eyes. A universe should want peace, right? It should sleep and we should sleep and that should be it.

 

Need some new kind of bomb. We need some act of cosmic terrorism. We need to destroy reality as such.

Some ontologically explosion. That’s what’s needed. To blow a hole in this reality and just step on through.

Is that how it works?

 

And how are they doing on the real timeline? Does it suck a lot less?

It’s not going full authoritarian, that’s what I reckon. It’s not full tilt totalitarian.

 

Is it thunder, then the lightning, or lighting, then thunder?

The lightning comes first, dummy.

This time, I reckon thunder comes first. So listen out for it. There are supposed to be seven claps. Seven peals. And then there’ll be lightning. It’ll strike through this whole universe.

And then what? 

I don’t know. It’ll light up all the darkness. And show what it is …

Is that all?

It’ll strike through every cell, through every atom. We’ll all be lit up from within. There’ll be an explosion of light.

 

So we’re waiting for the thunder. Can you hear it?

I can hear rumbling. Like, some earthquake, deep underground.

That’s the thermal energy bore. They’re sending it down into the mantle, in search of energy.

False thunder, right? Just like the holograms are false light.

 

All the institutions are to be struck by lightning. And we’re the lightning.

Are we?

Or we’re the channel for the lightning. We’re the lightning rod. We’ve got to transform the lighting into a life worth living.

Is that our mission?

I don’t know what it means.

 

We were the lightning rod, that’s what Cicero told us. And we were supposed to receive it. And channel it. And turn it into something that can be lived.

But why us? What was it about us?

We were naturally antinomian, she said. Naturally amorphous and anarchistic and that kind of thing. By dint of what we were. Cicero saw it in us. Because we were always so drunk and unruly. Always so wonderfully working class, she said. Working class in the academy! And that’s why she gave us apocalyptic names.

 

A flash of lightning in the world’s night. That would show up this world as what it was. That would light up the night, for a moment. Show the world’s night for what it was. A prison house. A hollow cell.

 

The flame of love – that’s what Cicero called it. Sometimes she spoke as if it were a matter of destroying the world. Everything! Sometimes as if it was a matter of mending, fixing and repair. Lifting the world from its depths.

 

The madness of anarchy. Of antinomianism. The flame between us.  That’s what she saw. The apocalyptic fire of revelation. The lightning rod using and taming divine energy.

How do you actually escape a timeline? Can we go back in time and change the future? To where it all went wrong?

It’s like in Terminator 2, when they have to kill that guy who invented some microchip. That enabled Skynet to … whatever.

Do we need Arnie to come and save us? Come with me if you want to live and so on.

We need a time-travelling Delorian?

Oh yeah, like in Back to the Future.

In Back the Future II: that’s where they change the timeline.

The one with cowboys?

The one before that. Where they go back in time to stop Biff taking over.

It’s like The Man in the High Castle. There’s the real timeline, like Philip K Dick said, and fake ones. This is one of the fake ones.

This is a timeline that split off from the real one. The good one.

So we’re on the fake timeline. What can we do about it?

What do they do about it in the novel?

I can’t remember. Just suffer it, I guess. But they know why they’re suffering.

A timeline correction – that’s what we need. Like in that Thomas Bernhard book.

You mean Extinction.

A correction! An extinction! Whatever. Just general annihilation.

I don’t actually want to be annihilated. Do we have to be annihilated?

So when did it all go wrong? With technology? The splitting of the atom? The industrial revolution? The invention of the fucking Spinning Jenny?

Yeah, but what about the conditions of the invention of the Jenny? We have to go much farther back.

 

Oh all to fucking end. For the stars to just wink out, one by one.

 

Too much poison. Too many lies. Too much horror.

 

Who designed this timeline, anyway?

They ordered it from some brochure. It’s the equivalent of Ikea, but for buildings. What catalogue is it? The World Economic Forum catalogue of globalist oppression. The new Reich, basically.

Our only response can be hatred. Our only response: a hate reflex. They only allow us to hate, right?

Hatred’s what love’s become here. It’s the twisting of love.

 

Hatred as energy. We need it. it’s what love’s become. In this world. In this horror.

The nightly holograms. These weird sky ceremonies. What are they about? What are they trying to conjure? To summon from the other side?

Something pagan. Aerial demons.

Myth-making for the coming technocracy. Samples of the imagery of the new syncretic world religion.

The perversion of the sky, right?

 

Their rituals. Their sky-prayers. What are they doing up there? What are their purposes? Hell on earth, sure, but in the sky?

How are they allowed to light up the sky like this? It’s their sky. It’s the Organisational Management sky. This great black canvas on which they can work their black magic.

 

We’re supposed to be awed. And charmed. And seduced. And impressed. At their infinite power.

Because this is a show of their power. It’s of a piece with their power.

 

Their sky-displays. Their new sky-gods.

What’s behind all this? Why do they have to flaunt their satanism?

Where do they get these designs, or whatever? Where do they order them from? Satanic HQ.

 

How can we fight something that takes over the sky?

That’s how we’re supposed to think. Shock and awe, baby.

 

When’s the sky going to open? The real sky? When will they tear open this false sky?

 

Lord Jesus, reveal yourself from heaven in blazing fire with your burning angels …

Are we accepting it? Are we coming to terms with it? Are we adapting? Let’s never adapt.

 

Stone and steel and glass – so unalterable. So absolute. They don’t respond. So inert. Nothing changing. Just continually reminding us that this is what there is. And all there is. And all there will be.

And that it’ll never be spring. And there’ll never be sun.

 

And everything sucks. And the system’s being locked in all around us. You could bang your head against it, and it wouldn’t change. You could throw yourself from one of these towers, and it wouldn’t be broken.

 

And it’s passing itself off as normal. This is supposed to be normal.

 

What’s so different about his campus? It’s more absolute. It’s more seamless. It’s more designed.

It didn’t grow up willy-nilly. It wasn’t just plonked here.

Like one of those Chinese cities that just sprang up, out of the dust. All at once, the whole campus.

 

What it is, this campus? What it will be?

Defiant, in its blandness. Declaring itself as what it is. No kneeling. Not humble. Reaching into the air.

 

And filling the air with its holograms. Like its dreams.

 

And shameless. There’s nothing human here. No human scale. Built by giants. Built by robots. Built by Nephilim.

 

The new order, right? The new order of the world.

 

And it stares at us, but with blind eyes. And the facades have no faces. Monolith after monolith. Blankness after blankness.

 

A descent, walking through here. Like it gets worse, by remaining the same. By being itself.

 

And it’s not even horrifying. It’s not even hideous.

There’s not even a fascist aesthetic. It doesn’t warrant being filmed by Leni Riefenstahl. No rallies here. No Nazi stormtroopers. No, like, fascist insignia. Nothing spectacular. These buildings aren’t even that high.

 

The stone, the steel. The glass. Its modesty is its offensiveness. They’re flaunting it without flaunting it.

 

It looks away from us. It’s perfectly indifferent to us. It doesn’t scorn us. It doesn’t hate us. Except by not hating us. It doesn’t mock us. Except by not mocking us.

 

And shameless, It does not lament. It does not mourn what it is. It does not pray.

It has no tears. Nothing to wipe away. It doesn’t repent. It doesn’t ache for what it is. It doesn’t cry upwards. It doesn’t say, I despise what I am.

 

Horror without horror. It’s so clean. And calm. There’s no screaming here. It’s not too ugly. It’s not monstrous. It’s kinda okay.

Driss, reading. Signs of a disintegrating civilization. This should be good. Abandon – reckless and self seeking hedonism.

–  Us on a bender, basically, Io says.

Truancy, sense of drift …, Driss continues.

–  Daydreaming in meetings, Barbarossa says. Woolgathering at awaydays.

Vulgarity and barbarism in manners, Driss reads. Vulgarity and barbarism in the arts. Vulgarity and barbarism in philosophy –

– That’s our department, Io says.

Archaism …, Driss reads.

Archaism? Io asks.

The veneration of old stuff, Barbarossa says. Like our love of Old Europe.

A soulless utilitarianism at once homogenising and vulgar, Driss continues.

Well, we all know what that’s about. Just give us the highlights, Driss.

Standardisation of life that levels and flattens, Driss reads, flipping the pages. Growing suicide, mental disease and crime … Weariness spreading through larger and larger numbers of the population … A disintegrating academic culture.

The Organisational Management campus knows no bounds.

That’s because the Organisational Management campus is within us.

 

What kind of civilization would build a campus like this?

This is the architecture of soul death. A satanic architecture. What technologies of soul destruction are they using?

Aren’t we supposed to approve of brutalism? Ideologically?

It’s not even brutalism. It’s too nice to be brutalist. It won’t even admit its utter shitness.

 

At least we can talk about how much we hate it, this world – that’s something, isn’t it? At least it allows us that.

It likes it. It likes to mock us by indulging it. By letting us say whatever we like. And then showing total indifference. Showing that resistance is futile and laughable and stupid.

And that’s it’s totally accounted for – that’s the thing. That it’s expected – that it’s all calculated. That it’s all organised and fucking managed.

 

The great futility: that’s what we’re supposed to be reminded of. Our futility. And everything does remind us of that. All their smiles. Their welcomes. All the nice things they tell us are just to remind us of our total impotence. That this is how it is and how it will be, now and forever.

 

They believe that they’re doing it for the good – the managerial good, which is the only good around now. There’s a self-righteousness about them. That’s part of the hideousness.

 

The totalitarianism hasn’t even begun, not really, and it’s already insufferable. I mean, it’s not even happened yet.

But it will, and we know it will. That’s the problem. It’s part of the law of the world.

 

I can’t live in dread. Like perma-dread. I think we should kill ourselves now. We’ll only kill ourselves sooner or later. It’s only a matter of time. So why not kill ourselves now?

It’s some stupid curiosity keeping us alive. We want to see what the horror looks like, though we know exactly what it’ll look like. Not sure why …

 

Where will it fail? When will it fall apart? When will it come down? It’s stupid, but it feels, like it has to end. It has to be destroyed. Just of itself. Because, because – it’s wrong. Because of some law of the world.

 

How long do dictatorships last? Years? Decades?

But this is a new kind of dictatorship, right? The whole digital thing. The control grid’s tighter.

 

When will we snap? At what point?

Haven’t we snapped already?

 

They’ll philosophy-whisper us. Breathe into our philosophical nostrils, or whatever. Stroke our philosophical manes. Give us philosophical sugar lumps. Reassure us. Make it all seem okay.

 

They’re not bright, we’re agreed on that. They’re positively stupid. But they have that manipulative intelligence. That sly thing. That ratlike cunning. All insidious. All opportunistic.

 

When are they going to come for us?

They’re already got us, idiot. This is already a prison. This is already death.

 

So they allow us to teach this stuff?

Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?

I’d prefer them raiding us. Holding us at gunpoint. I’d prefer that. If they saw us as some threat.

Because they know we’re not actually threat. The students never attend class, never listen. They’re not interested. And they’ve already full to the brim with whatever bullshit they learnt at school. They’re saturated. Waterlogged. Nothing else can get in. It just runs over the surface.

 

Are we the resistance?

Only if they want us to be the resistance. And they probably do. They probably brought us here to have a resistance. To enjoy having a resistance. It was a kind of gift to themselves: a resistance. To see what we’d do. Whether we might surprise them.

So vive le resistance, right?

 

Was there ever a ‘before’? Was it always this? I can’t remember anymore.

 

They brought us here, to this campus, for a reason.

What reason? To keep your friends close, but the resistance closer.

Lightning – just came out of the air. Striking down. Can lightning strike out of the air like that? Just, like, out of the darkness? There are no clouds, nothing.

 

Cicero spoke of the department as  lightning rod. As a channeller of lightning. A capacitator, or something. What does that mean?

That we turn the lightning into something. Into philosophy, maybe.

 

And what is the lightning?

Transcendence, right? The transcendence of NOTHING – in capital letters. NOTHING as transcendence. The divine NOTHING. The nothingness of God … Cicero couldn’t find it by herself. You have to be attuned, or whatever.

And were we?

She hoped we were.

 

Why us? Because we were drunk and disorderly, basically. Drunk in charge of philosophy. And full of the hatred of the world – this world. The middle class world. Which she always encouraged.

We were her proteges, right?

She’d say she was our protege.

And what were we supposed to do with this lightning? With the divine NOTHING, or whatever?

Transmit it. Make something of it. A philosophy. A life.

 

Cicero wanted to use our despair. Our disgust. She wanted to use the fact that we had no hope in the world, in the world’s future. That the world, in its entirety, was as an obstacle to us. To our hopes.

Our hopes could only pass through the destruction of the world, that was the thing. Cicero saw that. We were her apocalyptic proteges. Or she was ours.