Work in Progress

The water of life.

That stuff …

The rumours … are they true?

I don’t get it – what’s the water of life?

Postgraduates are always in the line of apostolic succession. Take Fiver. He’s being supervised by Io. And Io was supervised by …?

Ron Flowers, at Essex.

The guy forced into retirement?

Fucked too many students or something …

And who supervised him?

Someone quiet famous, actually: Eloise Springer.

And who supervised her?

That’s going pretty far back. She was American. I think it was …

Hannah Arendt. It was Hannah Arendt.

Fuck off. Look it up.

Eloise Springer … supervised by Curt Broadstairs … supervised by HANNAH ARENDT. It’s fucking her!

See, a direct apostolic line to Hannah Arendt. To old Europe. Pretty fucking cool.

Well, the water of life is supposed to release the accumulated wisdom of the chain of supervisors. To let your supervisor and then your supervisor’s supervisor and so on, speak through you. All the way back.

And Hannah Ardent was supervised by Heidegger, right? I’d like to hear what the old Nazi has to say …

The water of life – if it actually exists – means that the postgraduate student becomes legion. Becomes multiple. The whole tradition speaks through them.

Has that ever happened before?

I never knew the water of life actually existed before. It was always only a postgraduate legend …

 

The water of life is about getting the whole chain of supervisors speaking through you. Going all the way back.

All the way back to where?

You can just go back and back. So if your supervisor was Prof Shithead back at the University of Shite, she might have been supervised by Prof Bellend from the University of Fuckery. So what? So what? Because Prof Bellend might have been supervised by someone good. Someone continental. Who might have supervised by someone at the Sorbonne. Who might have been supervised by Foucault himself. Or Deleuze. Or Laurelle – who knows?

Wow, so we could channel some French philosopher?

Theoretically.

So let’s try it.

On the way to a postgraduate party.

I don’t get why they’re inviting us. Would we have invited staff to a postgraduate party? Would the staff who taught us actually have gone to a postgraduate party?

I mean, we’ve made it, right? We’ve done what they’re dreaming of doing, and probably never do. We’ve got the job. We’ve got the fucking career. God knows how, but we have. Whilst they’re … fucked, right?

We won’t be able but to appear as smug. As complacent.

As old, for fuck’s sake. What’s the average age here?  

These guys aren’t anything like as fucked as we were. They’re Russell group, for one thing. That’s an advantage.

Yeah, but they don’t have our desperation. Our desire to make it despite all odds.

They don’t have a Cicero to rescue them from total oblivion.

They’ve got more book learning than we did. Some of them even have languages.

Which means they don’t have the despair that we did. They aren’t as mad.

I wish I was still a postgraduate. They’re not yet at the age when they have to deliver, right? They live in possibility. In pure potential ..

We still have some potential, though. We’ve got a few years. Heidegger wrote Being and Time at thirty-seven.

That gives us a few years. Wait – how old are you?

Thirty-three.

Heidegger had already give the History of the Concept of Time lectures by the time he was thirty-three.

Merleau-Ponty had already written The Phenomenology of Perception at thirty-three.

Simone Weil was writing her best notebook stuff. She was dead a year later.

Kristeva published Revolution of Poetic Language at twenty-nine …

Fucking Schelling was published at seventeen. Hume wrote his Treatise at twenty three.

We could always be late bloomers.

You’re going to bring up Kant, aren’t you? Someone has to bring up Kant.

He was fifty-seven when he published The Critique of Pure Reason. Fifty fucking seven …

We could still bloom at fifty-seven …

Delusion.

But it’s an enabling delusion. It makes us feel like we could have something to say. Philosophy’s generous like that. You don’t have to give up your philosophical hopes until you’re positively ancient …

Which means you spend your whole life living in a dream.

What about the great works of commentary – like, secondary stuff. How old was Hyppolite when he finished his book on Hegel?

Thirty-seven, I reckon.

And Derrida published those three books at thirty-seven.

They were hardly commentary …

Cixous published that enormous book on Joyce when she was thirty-one. That was her doctorat d’État. Much higher than a British doctorate.

And they do habilitations on the continent, don’t they?

Sure. Doctorates are for pussies: that’s what they think over there. Benjamin’s Trauerspiel study was supposed to get him his habilitation.

How old was he?

I don’t know. Twenty-nine, maybe.

We’ve to buckle down. Get something written …

Common room.

Is this where you all hang out?

I don’t hang out.

Is this where you have a cup of tea together, a nice chat? Pore over the magazines together?

Examining the titles. Journal of Critical Management Studies. Inclusive Capitalism Bulletin. Yearbook of the Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research: sharing research practices for fostering happiness, resilience, kindness and connection: that’s the tagline.  

Business Dialogue magazine. Here’s the mission statement: Facilitating discussion among business stakeholders on issues related to local social responsibility and sustainability. That’s really snappy. I love it when capitalism does ethics.

How come you look down your nose at all these things. Are you some kind of commie?

Cicero used to call us libtard commies. She was brought up behind the iron curtain. When there still was an iron curtain.

So she was anti-left?

She was of the superior left – that’s what she called it.

Actually, business studies has gone rather anti-capitalist. It’s all ESG now.

Sure, capitalism does woke. I’ve heard about that.

It’s all about kindness and diversity.

Sure, it’s right here: the kindness board. Reading: Embedding kindness behaviours in the organisation culture. Planting seeds of kindness. Kindness is Contagious … Pass It On. No one can agree on the word, compassion, but we agree on kindness. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

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

You know you’re in trouble when corporate types start taking about ethics …

The corridor, widening.

Philosophy PhD students, sitting on cushions. Fiver, recumbent. Closed-eyed.

How did you guys get here? I ask.

Postgraduates, shrugging. We wanted some quiet.

And what are you actually doing? I ask.

Fiver’s trying to reach the other timeline – the real one, the postgraduates say.

Laudable, I say. Via ayahuasca?

Yeah, they say. Wanna join?

We’re busy, I say.

We’re having an illicit affair, Laure says.

Cool, the postgraduates say.

Scatter cushions. Floor to ceiling windows . Mobiles, dangling. The faint sound of a drone.

What is this place? I ask.

The notch, Laure says, pointing to a plaque.

Me, reading: A space for contemplation. An area that has no purpose. A whatever space. Pure potentiality. Ready for any activity. That can be used … however anyone likes.

Which is what the postgrads are doing: using the space, Laure says. You guys are pretty fucking cool. Not at all as doomy as Shiva. Is this guy – Fiver – okay?

Postgraduates, eyeing Laure suspiciously.

She’s cool, I say. She’s on side.

Are you guys as paranoid as Shiva? Laure asks.

Uh … maybe, the postgraduates say.

More paranoid! I say. They believe in the Bug.

The Bug? Laure says.

The postgraduates, silent.

Do you have apocalyptic names too? Laure asks.

Shaking their heads.

The Bug. Laure says. Is that like who’s in control of it all?

Maybe, the postgraduates say.

So what’s going on in the proper timeline? Laure asks.

We don’t know yet, the postgraduates say. Fiver’s trying to remote-view it.

Go gentle with him, I say. He already had one vision this evening.

So this isn't the real timeline …, Laure says, wonderingly. 

This is the timeline to fucksville, the postgraduates say.

Why do you philosophers always think you’re doomed? Laure says.

Everything's doomed on this timetline, the postgraduates say. 

They might be right, I say.

Is it all Organisational Management's fault? Laure asks.

There is no Organisational Management in the real timeline, the postgraduates say. We're sure of that. This building doesn't exist in the real timeline. This whole campus.

What about me – do I exist? Laure says.

You'd be doing something else, probably, the postgraduates say.

That might not be a bad thing, Laure says. But then I wouldn't have met Shiva.

Another thing: we spiked the drinks, the postgraduates say.

At the party? Laure asks. Right on. It needed a bit of life.

What with? I ask.

We have stuff, the postgraduates say. You know us.

I’m not feeling anything, Laure says.

Did you drink any punch? the postgraduates ask.

Just the wine, I say.

Should be hitting them about now, the postgraduates say.

Righteous, Laure says.

They’re retooling and rewiring our bodies. And it’s clever. It’s not via some kind of surgery. It’s not about putting chips in your brain. They’re injecting this stuff into you. It self-assembles, swarms through your body, crosses the blood brain barrier. And then you’re ready to receive your marching orders. From frequencies.

 

It’s genome editing. Genome engineering. Where your DNA is deleted, modified or replaced live.

 

Whoever owns the patent on your gene alteration, owns you and can do what they like with you. They can clone you. Kill you. Enslave you.

 

They’re programming us at the level of the cell. The molecule. Turning us into biological robotic machines.

 

There are new kinds of human, engineered in the lab. Grown there. Who are going to inherit the earth. Old humans are being phased out.

They’re turning us into synthetic humans. From within. That’s the plan. We’re to become zombies.

Really?

Zombies or synths. Same difference. Biohybrids, basically – that’s the new name for cyborgs. Biorobotic machines. Biology by design, right?

So it’s not about actual robots. About building androids.

We’re going to become synthetic humans. Us. They’re modifying us from within. They’re working on us. Our blood’s full of genetically modified nanoparticles allowing them to track us, manipulate us, programme us, and hybridise us. And to alter our genes, apparently. To fuck with our DNA. So that we aren’t homo sapiens anymore.

What are we going to be?

Homo borg genesis. That’s their name for it.

Fuck off. They named it after Star Trek.

They have a sense of humour. But they actually mean it.

We’re becoming borgs …

Whatever we’re becoming, they’ve got the patent on it. They’ve patented our altered genes. Which means they own us. Just like with GM crops. We’re chattels, basically. New kinds of slave.

And you think this is happening?

Sure. They’ve gone from beta to operational. They’re rolling it out. It’s happening in real time.

What will they actually do with us, as homo borg genesis?

Their bidding. Whatever they want. They can just kill us, if they want to. Simulate any disease. Blood could just pour out of our edifices at any time, if they decide so.

Why don’t they just do it?

Wait and see. Perhaps they will.

Shiva’s not my real name, you know.

What is it?

Sunil.

I prefer Shiva.

It’s a badass name. Cicero came up with it.

Cicero? What did she have to do with it?

She gave us new names. Actually, she gave herself a new name: Cicero wasn’t her real name. Her real name was something Eastern European.

Yeah, but why Cicero?

I don’t know.

Did she identify with Cicero?

She never said anything about it, if she did.

So you just let Cicero give you new names.

Sure. It seemed fun.

It’s like you joined a cult.

Yeah, it is a kind of cult. I didn’t want to be who I was.

You guys are so fucked up.

It was kind of like the Magic Band. Do you remember how Captain Beefheart gave them new names?

But this is like a philosophy department.

Sure.

And Cicero got your email addresses changed.

Yes.

Thorough. You know, I don’t even understand the names she gave you. Why did she call Barbarossa, Barbarossa? Was it actually after some Holy Roman Empire? Did it have anything to do with Operation Barbarossa.

I think she just liked the name. How it sounded. Apocalyptic names, she called them. Like you’re supposed to different names at the apocalypse in the Bible. You get white robes and new names – so long as you’re one of the righteous.

The university is being revealed as what it is. For what it is. As Organisational Management – nothing but Organisational Management. As Organisational Management, in all its details. As Organisational-Managing – nothing else.

 

The university is only now revealing itself in its truth. As what it is now. As all it can be. The university is only being honest. Only showing what it is. The university’s only taken its mask off. Only revealed its real purpose.

The dead afternoons we’d endured! The days without work, when we couldn’t write, when we couldn’t think of anything.

Blocked days, stalled days. Days like great marshes. When we’d lost hold of our projects. Of ourselves. When we were barely anything at all.

 

All those nothing days. Bogus days. All those days of deadends and wandering. All the days lived in lieu. Those days where we said to ourselves: tomorrow we might think. Tomorrow we might write. Those days, rising, when we knew we’d accomplish nothing. When we knew we were too thick-headed, too heavy-skulled to think anything worthwhile. When we knew straightaway that the day would be botched.

 

The day, ruined. How many days when we’d run up against impossibility. When we’d suffer the loss of the capacity for work. For the forward-momentum of work.

And who were we, without work? Who were we when we couldn’t think, couldn’t write? Who were we to be without being able to be able?

No talent to rely on. No ability to fall back upon. Always reinventing ourselves from nothing, every morning. Always lurching out of – what? What swamp? What mire? The swamp of ourselves! The mire of stupidity!

Fresh efforts. New attempts to rise. But battered down again. Hammered down again.

The fog in our heads. The mists passing through us. Where we really to achieve so little? Where we destined always to go so wrong?

 

No ability to rely on. No brilliance to bear us along. No world-shattering talent that might let us get on. That might let us see our project through to completion.

No more projects! Not even beginnings! Not even the ability to begin. Not even a first step. Not even movement. Not even today, let alone tomorrow.

 

Botched beginnings. No-beginnings. Failures again, and then again and again. Failures to launch, and again and again.

Failures of our work catching fire. Failures of our lives to catch fire. Failures of the work to hatch from our lives. Failures of our lives to hatch from our work.

For our lives to bear fruit. For our lives to be about something, rather than just living.

We want to be of some significance. We want to be biography-worthy. We want to be secondary-commentator-worthy. We want to be special-edition-of-a-journal worthy.

We want to be interview-worthy, at least. To be discussed-in-footnotes worthy …

Not to be no marks. Not to be nothings. Which of course we are.

And what is our mission?

We have to set off a bomb – blow up the humanities as a bomb. And take this campus with it. Take this whole timeline with it.

We need to blow it all up – blow up everything. Letting the explosion rip through the world. And actually blow through the world. Blow a hole through to reality. To real reality. Where none of this existed in the first place.

 

We have to detonate the humanities somehow. Detonate ourselves. We have to become humanities suicide bombers. No – to wire up the whole of the humanities as a suicide bomb. Ka-boom.

We have to summon up the last humanities energy. What’s left to it at the last moment. Before the final collapse. We need the humanities to go nova. To just explore. Or maybe for the humanities to turn black hole. To implode. And draw everything into itself. Across its event horizon.