Work in Progress

I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a philosopher before.

I don’t think I’ve never met an Organisational Manager before.

What do you make of us Organisational Managers? Admit it, you’re sceptical.

 

I saw you at a meeting, I always thought you looked kinda interesting.

Are you flirting with me?

I thought you were flirting with me. There’s a … sexual magnetism.

I’m a married woman.

How married?

You’re chancing your arm.

 

I’m literally flirting with the right.

And I’m literally flirting with the humanities.

 

Are you even straight? It’d be a surprise if you were. Humanities types are all queer, I know that. You’re all gender fluid, right? Gender fluidity hasn’t hit Organisational Management yet. We’re behind the times. Perhaps you philosophers will tell us all about it. Perhaps you’ll liberate us from the patriarchy. But you philosophers don’t go in for that kind of thing, do you? It’s more the English department.

 

So: your origin story: how did you become a philosopher?  

We don’t call ourselves philosophers. I teach philosophy, sure. But philosopher is an honorific – something you’re called by other people. No one would actually call themselves a philosopher.

How insufferably pompous! I’m going to call you a philosopher, philosopher. That’s how I’m going to refer to you, philosopher.

 

What about your origin story? How did you become a – philosopher?

How did you become an organisational manager?

Oh come on, its not half as interesting. I met my husband. Or rather, he was teaching me. He was my lecturer. And I was just an innocent Business studies student.

You 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.

If I hadn’t been unemployed, I wouldn’t have got anywhere.

Typical: the rest of society has to pay for you to lie about and contemplate.

I’m dangerous, philosopher. I’m at a loose end. I’m careening. I’m fucking things up. I’m taking revenge for my fucked-up life … Actually, I’m not really fucked-up. I didn’t have a traumatised childhood, or anything like that. I’ve got no fucking excuse – just boredom.

 

I wasn’t even in rehab. I just said that to make myself sound interesting. I don’t even have a drink problem. I don’t have anything … What do you say to make yourself sound interesting? Oh I know you actually think you’re interesting. Isn’t that something? Interesting enough not to have to sound interesting …

See, you think you’re very interesting: I can tell. You’re terribly presumptuous, philosopher. 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 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 … that’s the philosophy side of things in Organisational Management – see, we do have a philosophical dimension in Organisational Management …

I’m more about applied Organisational Management. How Organisational Management works on the ground. I’m pragmatic. I haven’t poked my nose into all the old European corners, like you.

 

You think you’re dark, well I’m darker than you. You think you’re profound. Well …

Go on.

I think I’m already dead. I’m dead and this is all a dream. Or maybe it’s what flashes before you in the last moment before you die. Either way, it’s not real.

I’m … dissociated. Probably autistic. I’ve been hiding my symptoms all my life. Have you?

I don’t know. That’s what everyone says no, isn’t it?

 

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

By what?

By life. I don’t have any consolations. You have your philosophy. And I have … what?

You’re in a frivolous mood today.

Sure I am. I’m feeling flighty. Do you like me flighty? Actually, I irritate myself when I’m flightly. I was kinda hoping you could tether me down. Do you ever get like that, when you can’t even concentrate? When your mind’s everywhere at once? I’ll bet you don’t.

Make me serious … Tell me about serious things, philosopher. Turn my attention to what’s actually worthwhile. Actually, I should be practising my German … for my upcoming trip … Did I tell you about that? I’ll bet you don’t even speak German.

I read it.

But you don’t speak it, and that’s the difference. Anyway, my Germany trip is the natural break. The way we’ll come to an end. How about that? A break … that’s what we’ll need. It’ll be quite natural. We should really round things off, don’t you think?

Maybe you’ll meet a German.

Maybe I will. A German Helmut. A strapping lad … properly virile, not like you.

Would we despise ourselves if we knew how we’d turn out? If we knew we’d lose our edge?

What edge?

When we were young we’d go round and set fire to things. And break things. And when we were young PhD students … We were just pleased too be off the streets. Off the fucking dole. We’d never thought of careers. We thought we’d be dead by thirty …

So what happened?

Maybe we’d just get worn out. Our blood thinned. All that whoring for work wasn’t good for us.

But we’re safe now, right? We’re secure. We’ve got jobs.

We can do better than this. We could be better people. Or more interesting people. Or wilder people.

Tell me something Susan Taubes said. Read me some Taubes.

If there is something to be healed, the brokenness is within the world. To ask for the eradication of brokenness as such is to wish the annihilation of the world. To heal the broken relations within the world, requires first that we acknowledge the reality of these relations (instead of fleeing into the imaginary) + then drawing from the tree of life, science, art, wisdom, cultivate + transform them. The powers of creation, of life are also the powers of destruction: every transformation passes through chaos.

That’s weapons grade Taubes. She’s, like, the heart of fucking darkness. Susan Taubes looked so cool. So chic. All intelligence and melancholy and attitude. And she was an émigré – a Mitteleuropean Jew. Whose family had gone through unbelievable suffering. And she killed herself. Fuck. The queen of cool.

We’re overconscious humanities types. We’re the humanities, idling. The humanities, left to do nothing. Left to just lie there, like a pool staring up at the sky. Until … until what?

All the humanities, dreaming. The whole of the humanities, dreaming in us. We’re the humanities ‘ unconscious. We’re the humanities, asleep. All the subjects …

We had a few good years.

Did we?

We were left alone. Left to get on with things. We were under the radar. And now we’re above the radar. We were Noticed. And a Plan had to be made. And now here we are.

Organisational Management, though! Organisational Management!

Some Buddhists actually pray for adversity. They like to test themselves.

So we’re being tested?

We’ll just end up teaching Organisational Management ethics, that’s all.

A test, like I said.

 

To think: Cicero left us to this.

It’s hardly her fault.

She left us. She disappeared. And now look what happened.

Cicero gave us our reputation. Shielded us. From the reality of the institution. From university shennanigans. She was very good at that. It was her Eastern European background. She knew how to negotiate with apparatchiks. Face it, we were spoilt. And now … welcome to reality.

I don’t like reality. I just want to close my eyes and pretend it never happened.

 

Let’s do something wild and unpredictable. Let’s turn suicide bomber, or whatever. Take a few of them out.

But we won’t, will we? We’re housetrained now. We’re housebroken.

If they knew what was in our head … in our heart … We’d burn them up. We’d burn everything up …

 

What’s all our philosophy good for if we can’t stop this?

How long did you think it could last, once Cicero left? The dream is over, right?

And this is what we’ve awoken to? God. I want to go back to sleep.

 

I want something to Happen. I want the roof to cave in. I want the Second Coming – Cicero’s second Coming. Why couldn’t she save us? We need saving.

I feel actual dread. I’m full of dread. I’m all dread. It’s like I’m on some high gravity planet. My limbs are so heavy.

 

Come on, we have something they’ll never have.

Like what?

Despair. A sense of total defeat.

 

It’s like we’re being readied for something …

Yeah, the kill.

 

It’ll be a slow strangulation. They’ll just drain the life out of us, but slowly. We’ll be teaching applied ethics, for all we know. Organisational Management ethics. God!

That’s what the humanities should do: rebel. That’s how the humanities should go out: definantly. Sovereignly. Biting off its own tongue, spitting it out.

We should just offer it up, everything we’ve learnt. In a sacrificial bonfire. An auto da fé … The highest meaning of life is just a burning up, right? Is just meaninglessness.

 

A little apocalypse. That’s how the humanities should go out: gloriously. Not just diminishment. Not just administered into nothing.

Philosophy should rise up against its fate, tragically. Gloriously. Just burn upwards.

To what? To God?

God is only a sacrifice, idiot. Just like the stars are sacrifices – a great gratuitous burning. An offering of NOTHING to NOTHING. A fuck you to the universe. Which is really the universe’s fuck you to anything that would make it useful …

 

Just defiance. It’s not about making the case for our existence. Of having to prove ourselves useful. Of having to justify ourselves in their terms, the enemy’s terms.

The very opposite – that’s what needed. A sacrifice. The great for-nothing of the humanities. Raising our supposedly futility to the highest power.

 

We should confuse the enemy! Bewilder Organisational Management! Overturn the Organisational Management tables! Show them what philosophy really means!

Go on – you do it. It could be your one-man show.

We have to put an end to it now: our servitude. Acting like we’ll just do their bidding. If we don’t stop it now, they’ll only make more demands.

We need to make a stand! A last stand! But a stand nonetheless! For ourselves! For our subject area! For Philosophy! For the humanities!

I actually think the world might end tonight. I think the Organisational Management / Philosophy merger is going to break reality. I think it’s so crazy. It’s going to cause some tear in the space-time continuum, or whatever.

 

It’s an omen. Like the birth of a two-headed cow.

An omen of what?

That reality – so called reality – is crazy and out of control.

We knew that.

We didn’t know it. We thought all the craziness would just blow by like some hurricane and leave us alone. We thought we could batten down the hatches and be okay.

So it reached us. So what? What did you think would happen?

 

They hate us without knowing that they hate us. Without realising it. But they have to hate us. Because they’re part of a system that hates us.

The system does the hating. The system wants to destroy us. Which means they can only want to destroy us – of course. It’s their logic. It’s what they’re about.

But it’s a benign hatred. A hatred that doesn’t look like hatred. A hatred dressed as kindness. They’re kind murderers, but murderers nonetheless. The system does all the actual hating, whereas they can appear to be kindness itself – generosity itself.

All the hating’s done for them. All the logic’s working out. And they’re like the smiling figurehead …

 

Come on, they’re welcoming us. This is a meet and greet. To discover areas of synergy. Of mutual research interests. Areas of research overlap. Ways to prepare joint bids. Seek impact.

It’s meeting of minds. A might meld. Bringing Organisational Management and philosophy together …

 

What happened to the idea of philosophical honour?

You made up the idea of philosophical honour.

What about the great martyrs of philosophy? What did they die for?

This is your moment. You can add your name to the great list. Turn berserker. Run amok into the Organisational Management crowd.

 

We’re traitors – of course we are. We’re weak-willed. Weak-minded! We’re stupid – deeply so. Very deeply. We’re the philosophers these times deserve.

Compromisers! Forelock tuggers. Kneelers to power. Betrayers. It’s generations of class based deference. It’s our psychological conditioning.

 

It's dishonour! Compromise! We’ve lost face! Philosophy’s been betrayed.

We should just suicide, all of us. Without question! We should just stab ourselves and collapse! En masse! Like, the last stand of Philosophy. Its last triumph! In uselessness! In sacrifice! Setting itself utterly apart from the world of Organisational Management.

 

A murder-suicide: that’s what you should go for. Take a few of them out …

Come on, they’ll win you over. The Head is pretty charming. Good sense of humour. He’s pretty amiable.

But amiability’s part of the problem. No – it is the problem. Middle-class moderation is the problem. And we’re middle-class, too – which is part of our problem. There’ll be no murder-suicides tonight.

 

What’s the most self-destructive thing that I could do right now? Kill everyone? Run anok? No – kill myself! I’d do it, too, if I had a gun! I’d, like, turn the weapon on myself. Wouldn’t that be something?

They’d just say you were mentally ill.

Not if I wrote a really boss suicide note, indicting these fuckers. Indicting the Organisational Management move. I’d make the university news.

They’d supress it. They wouldn’t understand it.

I was going to write a book that was just a suicide note. I was going to write it and die.

So what stopped you?

I couldn’t finish it.

Finish it now! Finish it tonight!

 

An act of pure exhilarated despair.

We’re laughing … at ourselves laughing … at ourselves laughing. Our laughter is becoming abyssal in the night.

We’ve swallowed the abyss of the night …

 

We’re laughing at the fact of laughter, that anyone laughs, that anyone has ever laughed.

 

Our comical apocalypse. What’s shown as we laugh all the way to the last night? What shows itself?

 

Moths batter themselves against the window. And we find it funny, that battering. We laugh as we batter ourselves. For wanting to batter ourselves.

 

Our laughing self-torture.

We laugh at our humiliation mechanisms. At our self-degradation machine. We laugh at our auto-ridicule. At our spontaneous foolishness.

 

A cosmic laugher.

The universe, in us, finds itself amusing. The universe understands that it’s told itself a joke. That the creation itself was a joke.

On what? On who?

On the created, of course. On us – all of us.

 

Laughter, instead of the silence of the universe. Laughter, at the silence of the universe. At the great silence. At the great indifference. Laughter, rising.

 

Laughing at our manacles. Laughing at our muzzles.