Self-disgust. We see who we are when we write. When we publish things. That’s who we are: there on the page. That’s what we’ve made, what we’ve done. That’s who are, externalised.
All our efforts. Our sacrifices. Our years of study. That’s where it lead. That’s the result. This is the product of the people we take ourselves to be. Of our academic adventure. Of our PhDs. Of the hundreds of thousands of pounds it cost to educate us.
This is the result. You could kill yourself over the result. You could hang yourself. Are we no better than this? Is this what it’s come to? Is this where it led: to this?
The shame. Should we even feel shame? Wouldn’t that be to pretend that it actually mattered? Shame: as if anyone cared. As if anyone’s checking. As if the whole thing wasn’t some great shameful con.
We keep on writing. Perpetuating the lie. Living it. More dross. More articles. More rubbish. More of the stuff. More than anyone could possibly read. What shame is there in it? The system made us opportunists, that’s all. Publish or perish, right?
What shame is there in this? Our own shame. We notice, that’s the thing. We read our own work. We shame ourselves. We shame who we could have been, if we didn’t write such rubbish. We shame the ones who were, who had dreams of what they could write. Of what they might be capable of.
What we’ve done to our language. What we’ve done to our studies. What we’ve done to our potential – do you remember that, our potential? To have written these things.
And we can’t say that we didn’t know better. We can’t say that we didn’t know what we were doing. We did know. We do know. We know, and we go on. Which redoubles our shame. Which multiplies it. Which deepens it.
Who’s watching? Is God watching? Are the great thinkers watching? The great scholars, are they watching? The philosophers we admire, alive or dead? Of course not. So why shame?
We’re part of the machine. We’re being ground out by the machine. We’re grinding ourselves out. We’re complicit. Part of it. We’re of the machine. Don’t pretend otherwise. The academic machine. The world machine. The whole system.
We should opt out. Declare that we’d prefer not to. But we don’t, do we? We keep on writing. We make more of it. More pulp. More nothing-words.
The machine lies and we lie. And we tell ourselves that we don’t want to lie. That we want some time to write some worthwhile thing. Some worthwhile sentences. Some worthwhile words. And yet we lie and feel ashamed.
We can’t unpublish what we’ve written. That’s the tragedy, if it can be called a tragedy. And what’s worse is that it doesn’t matter, because no one would read it anyway.
Academic overproduction. Academic prolifigacy. Academic more-of-it. Academic writing by the yard. By the ream. Academic seas of writing. Academic oceans.
All to enhance our CVs. All to help us get a job. Or keep our jobs. Or get made permanent. Or get promoted. Or seek another job. Or remain eligible on the job market.
Which means that no one knows our shame but us. But we know our shame. It burns deeply in us, our shame.
And will we ever forget our shame, now that we have no excuse. Now that we actually have jobs – open ended contracts. Not there’s no reason to produce more of this dreck. To pollute the journals. To fill publishing house catalogues.
Prematurely written. Rushed. Without reflection. Without the years it would take to write real work. to produce something profound.
Our excuse: we were desperate! We needed jobs! We’d do anything, pretty much.
Can’t we reconcile ourselves to that? To our compromise? What did we really expect of ourselves? Did we think we could do better? Isn’t that what we’re ashamed of: the fact that we thought we could do better?
What did we think we could do, anyway? What misplaced confidence did we have in ourselves? In our potential? Why did we think that we could be the exception? What was so amazing about us?
Our secret dreams of being geniuses. How pathetic. How laughable. Did we really think we had the flame of genius inside us? That there it was, in potential. Waiting to flower in our work. Laughable.
Poorly skilled. Poorly educated. Stumblers. Opportunists. With our crappy PhDs from the weaker universities. Taught by the weak, who were taught by the weak. Pale imitations. Photocopies of photocopies. Xeroxes of Xeroxes. More faded, each time. Tracing their lineage back to the Greats. Tracing their succession. Their Doktorfaters and Doktormutters. Back to Germany. Back to France. Back to Italy. Back to Austria. To France. And somehow reaching here.
As we busily betray our tradition. As we work at destroying our legacy. As we deface the great memorials. As we vandalise the great books. By our commentaries! By our pseudo-scholarly discussions! By our citations! By our summaries! By our expliations du texte! By our critical discussions! By our translations – God knows, our translations! By our Footnoting! And endnoting! By our abstracts! By our conference papers!
Our excuse: we were learning. We were learning our craft. Plying our trade. We were on the make. Looking for jobs. We had to publish. It was publish or perish. What else could we do? We didn’t have time for ethical qualms. It wasn’t a time of crises of conscience. Integrity was for later! Probity was for later! A clear conscience was for later!
And in the meantime: work. Which meant pseudo-work. Which meant commentary and critique of the great books, the poor great books. The Critique of Pure Reason, open before us. The Phenomenology of Spirit, open before us. The Crisis of European Thought, open before us. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, open before us. Ready for desecration.
But the great books could withstand our drivel. They were more than the seas of drivel that washed up on their shores. There they were, and there they will be.
What we’ve done! Our crimes against philosophy! Our philosophy-desecrations! Our philosophy-strangulation!
Work in Progress 