Work in Progress

Organisational Management has taken the wheel! The faculty wheel and soon the university wheel.

Its ambition has become epochal. Its wings are spreading. Covering up the sky. There’s even a madness to Organisational Management. It’s quite visible here on their campus.

All of academia, its entire history, will come alive again on the Organisational Management campus. The whole university. All universities! In some great recapitulation.

There’ll be Organisational Management history and Organisational Management physics and Organisational Management art and Organisational Management engineering. All here! That’s its mad ambition, the Organisational Management campus!

They knew they had to eliminate Philosophy first, the organisational managers. They knew they had to wipe us out. We’re a danger. Because their mad plans are the sort of thing that philosophers can discern. We can tell. And they know we can tell.

So why are they moving us to Organisational Management, rather than just shutting us down?

They want a witness, maybe. They want Philosophy to know – that’s the thing. They want Philosophy to see. It’s like those villains in Bond movies, explaining their secret plans. It’s the narcissism of Dr Evil.

Maybe it’s some karmic thing. They have to show their plans to someone … we have to give our tacit permission … that’s what gets them off a kind of karmic debt.

Our hope: a black dawn is rising. The dark sky is opening. The greater sky. The blacker sky. Our hope: the sky of non-meaning is rising. The nihilistic sky.

To be saturated by it: the nihilistic sky. To feel it pass through us, ever pore: the sky of nihilism.

We have to reach perfect hopelessness. We have to complete nihilism. Perfect it.

The perfect nihilist can see that the world lacks nothing. That it’s self-enclosed. Integral. Full as it is. And that’s what the Organisational Management campus is.

It lacks nothing. What it lacks … is what it’s not. And isn’t it only the perfect nihilist who can see what it’s not?

The void of God: that’s what we have to know. The Organisational Management campus as the void of God.

Nothing ever rises to apocalypse. Not even here! On the Organisational Management campus! The world never just bursts spontaneously into flame. The world itself can’t be bothered to end. The universe limps on.

Why can’t the end just come? Why can’t the universe just admit that the game is up? That we’ve turned the last page. Why won’t the universe just click its fingers and destroy itself?

You’re supposed to be able to see Northern Lights tonight.

Fuck the Northern Lights! They’re a mockery, the Northern lights. I hate all that cosmic shit. I hate being made to feel awed and small. Fuck off with your wonder! I’m sick of wonder!

That’s how philosophy begins: wonder.

Bollocks. Philosophy begins with horror – world horror! World sickness! With the uttermost of world disgust. Luckily, some of us still have that.

Discussion. We should kill ourselves! At once! 

No – suicide grants too much power to them. It’s their gesture, not yours. We should just sink down, and wait to die. Sink down, and drink, waiting to die. There’s an honour in that.

But how long would that take?

Cruelty – that’s what we want. A cruel, but quick death. Not torture – we’ve had enough of torture. Every day is fucking torture. Time is torture.

The point is an end of time. The point is the severing. The cutting off the head of time. The great guillotine blade, flashing down. The beauty of starlight on the blade. And time’s head severed from its neck, flying out.

A cauterized wound. A burnt-clean wound. Just a blow – the swordstroke – and the smooth wound. The end at one blow. Death, sudden. Apocalypse, lightning-striking. We don’t want to wait any longer. Waiting itself is torture.

Remembering our old Philosophical Studies Christmas parties. When Cicero was in charge.

Guests from all over the university … Cicero’s guardian angels, she used to all them. Lofty people! Senior people! The great and the good, among the academic staff, like a protective guard, over our unit. Over Philosophy!

And that choral music Cicero used to play. Beautiful. And the way we’d head out on the town. To Jilly’s. Cicero liked to watch us drink. She liked to watch us down pint after pint. She like to find us in the zone – the drunken zone. On the drunken plateau. And maintaining it, our drunkenness, for hour after hour. How she admired it! Our pacing. Our deliberation. Our steadiness. The fact we were out for the long haul.

And back to hers … Out to the coast. Out to Tynemouth. Ascending the stairs to her flat, in the Sir James Knott Memorial building. Falling asleep one by one, Cicero laying soft blankets over us …

Did you ever wonder – really wonder – why we’re here? Why Cicero picked us? When we’re so … pathetic. We’re at a Russell group uni. Do you think that was by chance?

That was just to amuse Cicero. She was perverse like that.

Don’t talk about her in the past tense!

But she’s gone, isn’t she? She’s not in Newcastle anymore.

Cicero’s beyond the uni now. Beyond philosophy, even. Cicero’s undergone a phase change. She’s passed on to another level of life.

Cicero picked us out …

Sure, we’re Cicero’s army. Cicero’s ragtag. Cicero’s band of … what? Cicero’s philosophers … Cicero wanted to recruit a posse. She wanted a gang. So she went out and found us.

And who were we? Doomers. Losers. Off the rails. All of us, teaching part time. Magellan, business ethics at Bangor Uni. Ava, the ethics of chemical engineering at Teeside University. Little Hans and Big Hans, busy with applied ethics at various London universities.

Sven, covering the teaching of sacked lecturers in a university that was closing all its humanities departments. Sven, seeing the last few students as the university reinvented itself around him as a new media hub …

Barbarossa, practically shaking when Cicero found her. Barbarossa, plagued by academic bullying. By concocted charges of something or other. Because she refused the advances of an older academic. Who swore he’d make sure Barbarossa never worked again in academia.

Barbarossa, now with a stammer. A stutter. But Cicero saw beyond that.

Cecil, teaching TEFL somewhere, Cecil, forgetting he ever did a PhD. Forgetting the papers he spun out so effortlessly from his PhD. Forgetting his legendary early promise. But Cecil saw the advert, by chance. Cecil applied …

And there I’d been, busy with pregnancy cover in Hatfield. Hatfield! Living in Hatfield! A nowhere place! A nothing place! The most dead-ended of dead end unis. In the London suburbs. In the nowhere suburbs.

And Cicero, coming to find us. Cicero,  doing the conferences. Cicero, asking questions: Who should she employ? Who are the best? The brightest? And avoiding the most obviously bright. The most obviously best.

Cicero, showing up at obscure symposia at obscure universities, keeping her eye out. Cicero, scouting the conferences for the up and coming – and the right kind of up and coming. The desperate. The spiritually intense. The put-upon. The cornered.

Cicero sought us out: the prospectless. The defeated – spiritually. The lower class. We were low-born: that’s what she like. We saw things from a low point of view. From a rat’s point of view. We looked for corners to hide. For cracks in which to disappear.

The bordering-on-resentful. The embittered. The skint. The all but down and out. Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university.

We were the desperate – which she knew. Because she thought she could shape something from our desperation. We were the bitter – she knew that, too. Because she thought she could make something of our bitterness.

So Cicero swept us up in her angel’s wings. We were saved, lifted, when we didn’t expect to be. We’d escaped, when we never expected to escape … From certain mental illness! Certain suicide! Certain soul death! Certain life murder! Certain fuck up! Certain doom!  

Cicero swept us up. Cicero scooped up the philosophical undesirables. The philosophical no ones. The seven … what? Seven idiots. Seven mediocres. Seven fuck ups. Seven failures …

Cold! It’s so cold!

We’re thinking only of mulled wine at the Organisational Management party – will they serve mulled wine?

But isn’t alcohol is banned on campus now?

Mince pies, then! Will the mince pies be warm at the Organisational Management party?

Can you imagine how bad university catering mince pies will be?

At least Organisational Management towers will be heated. At least there will be the warmth of other bodies …

Sheltering from the wind.

Our PhD students are turning blue.

Passing them X’s hipflask. Giving them a nip. That’ll warm them up.  

A pep talk: You’re representing us at the Organisational Management Christmas party, postgraduates, don’t forget that! There’s to be no Organisational Management merriment. You’re to regard the enemy with suspicion! Dislike! Just because we’re fraternising with the enemy doesn’t mean we can let down our guard.

The Organisational Managers probably bought their postgraduates from a plan. They probably built their postgraduates. But you are human all too human. Human 1.0. You’re delicate. Brilliant! Brilliant in your delicacy! In your half-derangement. My God! We’ve brought you this far – we don’t want to lose you now.

Don’t weep, postgraduates! We’re defeated, postgraduates! Cosmically! Actually! But you … you still have hope. You have to have hope. Just as we have hope, but not for us. But for you, postgraduates! For your nobility! Your incorruptibility!

No, we mustn’t let you freeze to death. The most painful thing in the world: having your PhD student die before you. No PhD supervisor deserves that.

You’re our future, postgraduates. They’re supposed to outlive us, live beyond us. Reach farther. Achieve what we’ve never been able to achieve.

We’re your Doktorvaters and Doktormutters, as they say in Germany, postgraduates. You’re our Doktorkinderen. You’ll carry forward our work. You’ll quote us. Remember us. So that it will not have been in vain. So that we will not have been in vain. Our academic careers will have meant something. Because it led to you, postgraduates. It bloomed in you. It reached full flower in you.

You’re spears flung through the philosophical night, postgraduates. You’re soaring! At the height of your flight! You’re like we were, ten years ago – our younger selves. You’re younger versions of who we are. Not yet compromised. Not yet all loss-of-innocence. Not yet fully disappointed. Not yet crashed up against the reality-principle. Against the so-called real world.

And you’re not suited to social chit chat, postgraduates. To an Organisational Management party. Neither are we, for God’s sake! Look at us! We’re not small talkers! We’re burners-down. We’re destroyers. We’re apocalypticists. We’re end-of-the-world-ists.

Only an auto-da-fe of the Organisational Management campus will do. A destruction of the entire Organisational Management world. Some magnificent potlatch. A destruction as great as the campus. The unmanageable – as explosion.

These paving stones, swelling upwards. Breaking apart. And the Earth, revealing itself. There it will be: an open wound: the earth.

Rending – just that. Tearing. The revenge of the Earth, welling up beneath the campus. All the buildings, heaving up. All the glass and steel. The Earth, rising up to meet the sky. And that will be the most beautiful day of all.

Late! We’re going to be late!

Of course we’re going to be late. We have to be late. The least thing we could is to be late! There’s a question of philosophical honour.

We’ll appear at the Organisational Management party when we choose to appear. We’re not slaves of the Organisational Managers – not yet. We’re not here to follow their orders – not for now. We still have a week or so before the move of Philosophy to Organisational Management …

We need them to see us as unmanageable. Unconquerable. We need to set a precedent.

So we’ll roll in drunk in our own time. Sweetly drunk! Singing drunk!

I mean, we’re actually coming to the party – surely that’s something (except Daria.) We’re showing good will! We’re making an effort (except Daria.) Left our homes on the coast! Braved the Newcastle winter! (Except Daria) We’ve torn ourselves away from our Russian film watching. We could have been inside, watching Hard to be a God or the thousandth time. Pondering My Car, Khrushtalev! for the millionth time. Or just drinking – drinking! Watching the snow from inside instead of being in the snow. Watching the whirling flakes (except Daria) …

But here we are! Walking against the Organisational Management campus. Walking through it, but against it. We’re opposing the campus. With everything we are! The magnificent seven (f we include our PhD students), across the Organisational Management campus! Marching over the paving stones! Among the great buildings.

The Catalyst, this one’s called. The Hub, this one. And that’s the Engine. And that’s the Core. And over there, the Nexus. Kind of hubristic, isn’t it?

It’s supposed to be an innovation campus. A collaborative ecosystem for public and private bodies. A place of Curiosity and Innovation! With state of the art amenities … New office spaces! Championing collaboration! Connectivity!

And isn’t that why Philosophy is being brought to Organisational Management? Isn’t that the reason for the marriage of the subject areas?

Opposites attract, maybe.

Opposites repel.

It might destroy the universe, you know. Like matter and anti-matter. Because philosophy is anti- organisational management, just as organisational management is anti-philosophy. At opposite poles. Bring them together and you risk tearing the universe apart.

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. We thought we could just hide out until the end of civilization, or whatever … But no: our rock’s been lifted! We’ve been seen. The university was peering at us, which is never a good thing. The university made a Decisions, which can only be a disaster.

We didn’t even know the name, Organisational Management until recently. It didn’t call itself that. Business Studies – that was the old name …

But now, Organisational Management is naming itself as such. It isn’t a new university subject anymore. It isn’t a Johnny-come-lately. Some trendy upstart. It’s moved into the old universities. Into the traditional universities.

And now it’s coming out into the open as exactly what it is. It doesn’t need to disguise itself any longer. Here it is: the Organisational Management campus. Abroad. In fading daylight. All around us, unashamed and unabashed …

 

Can’t we feel the dynamism? The energy? Are we inspired?

The future’s here. The future’s angular. The future’s covered in metal cladding. Like some knock off Daniel Libeskind.

This is Architecture, new style. It’s supposed to be dynamic. Exciting. It’s supposed to be inspiring. To generate ideas! Have we had any ideas? Any thoughts?

The Catalyst, the Hub, the Engine, the Core, and over there, the Nexus.

We’re being channelled by the campus. Led somewhere. Taken. We’re flowing, with the campus. We don’t need signposts. We’re being borne along to its centre, to the Organisational Management Tower (not its real name.) We’re being taken to the centre.

The campus steers us, almost without our know it. Gentle descents. The downward slope of the paving stones. We’re following a poem, written on a metal band that’s wending through the campus. We’re follow its sinuous curve, as it replicates the course of a culvetted river.

And there’s running water on the campus. Sort-of-rivers – created rivers, channels of paving tiles, elevated a little. Water flowing. Sheets of water over concrete. Slow rivulets down concrete runs.

These aren’t real rivers, X says. These are engineered rivers. I thought we could depend on water. I thought it’d just do its own thing, like in Tarkovsky films. Raining inside, and the like. I thought water was anarchic. Turns out water’s a tart. Water just does whatever it’s told.

The campus, doing sinuous. The campus, doing flow. The campus, doing ups and downs. There’s a drama to the topography. They couldn’t flatten it. Or is it part of the design? Perhaps it was all planned this way. Perhaps they made hills and valleys to give it its sinuousness. To give it its flow.

Probably the whole design is some international template. Probably exactly the same campuses are being built all over the world. In one hundred and four countries at once, as part of some Organisational Management coup d’état. A whole synchronised global takeover.

The Organisation of everything! The Management of everything! Soon, everyone will be studying Organisational Management, nothing but Organisational Management. In the beginning, there was philosophy, and all the other disciplines split off from philosophy. In the end, there will be only Organisational Management, as all the other disciplines have been subsumed by Organisational Management.

 

It’s supposed to be a thinking campus. A campus for ideas.

What do these buildings think about? we wonder. What is the glass and steel thinking? And these paving stones? These fancy lampposts? And what do they think of us, wandering through?

They’re monitoring us, that’s all we know. They’re listening to our conversation. For dodgy keywords and phrases. For hate speech and disinformation. They’re measuring our body temperature. The rate our hearts beat. Any … agitation we might be feeling.

They’re probably spraying things to calm us down. They’re pumping something into the air, to alter our mood. They’re probably changing the lightning, to make us see things differently.

They’re reading our minds, I reckon. They know that we’re against them. They know that we’re negation – pure negation. That we hate them.

They can probably read our thoughts … Our unsafe thoughts. Our disinformational thoughts.

 

Living pods, with grass roofs. Synthetic biological trees. Vertical farms. Robot squirrels, strengthening stress points. Adding carbon resistance patches.

All pods autoregulated for efficiency. Their energy codes synchronised. All of them biomimetic, incorporating biological architecture.

All pods AI run … AI programming specific air quality, scent and solar intensity … AI, continually filtering the air and capturing carbon … AI, examining your piss, to analyse your pancreatic function. And your shit, to analyse your gut bacteria and antibiotic use. AI, fermenting the the right soybeans that are growing on your roof. AI, directing your smart-oven will suggest food customised to your unique digestive system and give you personalised and dynamic nutrition plans. AI, making sure your smart-sink can mix the right biotic mix in your water. 

Reading a plaque. An entirely new model for sustainable living … Changing how the world does business … Easing the way for entrepreneurial innovation … Remaking the way we look after nature and our planet … Making people’s lives healthier, longer and more prosperous.

They’re here to help us all to live better lives! Better – did you hear that? Healthier! Smarter! Longer! Who could object to that?

They’re showing how researchers, businesses, progressive home owners can live side by side. Progressive home owners only, note. I’ll bet there’s serious vetting …

They’ll want good-attitude people. Positive people. Solutions-focused people. Bigger-picture people. Communitarian types. Who care about the planet. Not nay-sayers, like us. Not draggers-down-of-others, as we are.

This isn’t just a campus, it’s a vision of the world. Of how things should be. A perfect alliance of technology and biology! Green tech solutions! A solution for all! To all the global challenges!

What’s wrong with us? How did this become a form of enjoyment? Like scorpions stinging themselves.

Nothing hates itself like a human being. We’re the uniquely fucked up species, right? That’s what comes of having a big brain. Which it uses for torturing itself. And why shouldn’t it?

We’re so profoundly fucked up. So fucking deeply. And the smarter you are, the more fucked up you are.