Work in Progress

News: they’re moving the Philosophy department into Organisational Management.

General shock. Can they do this sort of thing? Without consultation? Is it allowed?

Apparently.

Walking. Longsands.

Is there a rationale? we wonder. Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves, Hans says. They just act.

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …, Ava says.

Of course it makes no sense, Hans says. That’s the point …

It’s mockery – in plain view, Magellan says. They’re laughing at us.

It’s self-mockery, I say. The uni’s laughing at itself … At everything a university once was …

But do they really know what they’re doing? Magellan asks. Can’t they sense the nihilism – even if they’ve never heard the word, nihilism?

They did it because of the nihilism, I say. It’s to deepen the nihilism.

It’s just some random thing, Ava says. Some stupidity. Some manager or another wanted to make their stamp on the uni. Some idiot–

– They’re all idiots –, Hans says.

– Wanted to launch some interdisciplinary initiative, or something, Ava says. Wanted to shake things up …

What about Organisational Management? Hans asks. What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe, I say. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation, Magellan says.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness, Ava says.

More laughter. 

Why couldn’t they just have left us alone? Ava asks. Why couldn’t we be allowed to go on as we were? It’s cruel … it’s needless.

Discussion.

Because they’ve declared war on philosophy, we agree. They know that it’s philosophy they have to go after. Not history! Not the fine arts! Not music! Not English literature! But philosophy, alone among the humanities …

It’s because they sense something about philosophy, we agree. They feel a kind of awe of philosophy, despite everything. They know us as a threat – unconsciously. They experience us as an enemy, in some recess of their minds.

It’s a matter of unavowed revenge on philosophy, we agrees. On the humanities in general. There’s a whole institutional unconscious at work. A desire for revenge. On humanities expansiveness. On humanities freedom of thought …

And that’s why the closure of philosophy would never be enough, Magellan says. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

This is a shock and awe move, we agree. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s like parking a tank on your front law, we agree. It’s to prove that they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. That they can simply bend reality to their will.

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says, we agree. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! Who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management? The uni would! Because the uni can!

The madness of the world is showing itself, I say. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness! A mad flood of insanity! It’s quite sublime in its way …

You shouldn’t examine it too closely, Magellan says. Don’t think about it too much. Ponder the logic of the Organisational Management move and you’ll go mad, too.

Maybe we should go mad, I say. Maybe that's what it'll take. But it has to be our madness, not theirs – not the madness of humiliation, but … but, like, cultivate-your-own-legitimate-madness madness, as Cicero used to say. Which is to say, the madness of philosophy …

*

If only Cicero were still with us.

Cicero, our erstwhile organ grinder! Cicero, the old head of the philosophy dept … Cicero, who handpicked us–us–to work here … Cicero, who plucked us–us–from our provincial universities … Cicero, who scouted the conferences for … what? Not the up-and-coming, we were never that … The desperate! The put-upon! The cornered!: That’s who we were …  

Cicero sought out the prospectless! The defeated – spiritually! Financially! Psychologically! Cicero looked for the lower class! The skint! The disturbed! The personality-disordered! Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university! Us, in other words.

Cicero actually wanted our kind around her. The end times will see a parade of deformities and grotesques, she used to say. Mental deformities, she said, not physical ones. Mental sports! The psychically twisted! The cognitively contorted! The equivalent of Hieronymous Bosch’s Hell, but in thought …

Only freaks of thought could philosophise from the end times, Cicero said. Only thinkers of deformity could philosophise out of the experience of the coming collapse. Which was quite impossible for Cicero herself, with her deep philosophical culture, with dozens of keynote speeches behind her, with decades of immersion in the great works of philosophy.

She wanted to surround herself with the genuinely doomed. The authentically prospectless. She wanted Hopelessness incarnate … Philosophical wreckage … She wanted to be the captain of a ship of fools, and she got her wish.

We were to be the doom speakers of the end times. We were to voice disgust’s disgust. Horror’s horror. We were to speak the truth of our times: the mad truth. Which is why Cicero brought us here. Why she combed the conferences to find our kind.

My God, do you remember who we were? What we were? The humiliations visited upon us. The years of rejection, post PhD. Living hand to mouth. Barely getting by on benefits and scraps of part-time teaching. We were whores! Academic whores, begging for work, trying to publish. Living from foodbanks and charity shops …

Cicero saved us! She gave us jobs! Brought us to Newcastle! She wanted to let us be ourselves in thought.

I wouldn’t say that, exactly, Ava says. She could be pretty insulting …

But it was a kind insulting, Magellan says. It was meant to spur us on.

It was meant to crush us –, Ava says.

It was, like, a Jedi training, I say. She was our Yoda. She wanted to deepen our sense of disgust. To rise from our ashes. It was a use-the-force-Luke kinda thing.

– I’m still crushed –, Ava says.

Philosophers you must be! Magellan says, in his best Yoda voice. Think for yourselves, you must!

It was a bootcamp, I say. She wanted to toughen us up. Particular you, Hans. She could tell you were a soy boy.

And then Cicero … disappeared. She went travelling or whatever. Took her career break.

Do you think that was a coincidence? I ask. Come on, Ava, you were actually going out with her …

Briefly, Ava says.

What was she like in private? I ask.

Drunk, Ava says. She was a drunk.

Sure Cicero drank. How she drank! She emptied whole bars! And we emptied them with her! There was a whole discipline of drinking, we remember. We had to watch over our nights of drinking. Less they slip into complacency. Less they fall into pubism. Drinking mustn’t be consolation, Cicero always said. Mustn’t allow our reconciliation to the way things are.

The pub is not a place for petty moaning! Cicero used to say. For sharing problems. There was to be no huddling together to cry into our beer. No whisky lamentations about the state of our lives.

The pub was not to be a retreat, but a launchpad … A space capsule … We were looking to flare upwards. To burn upwards.

And yet: Cicero’s sadness, in the face of the attacks of the university. Cicero’s defeat, in battling the university. Even as she insisted that adversity helped her. Even as she said that that’s where her best thoughts were coming from. How else would she have been able to develop her insights into political ponerology, except from repeated attempts to close philosophy down? Into psychic warfare techniques and conditioning tactics, except from her tussles with deans? How else would she have been able to diagnose the determinative value of the technological system – of systematisation, schematisation, tabulation, qualification, rationalisation, mechanisation, standardisation – were it not for her experience of the instinctive academic hostility to philosophy?

The way Cicero used to speak about escape, as we drank … About the significance of the exodic act! About the effort to snatch a little transcendence from the day. About not wanting to be buried with her defeats. About her desire to roll away her stone. About resurrection! About wanting a last chance to redeem her sufferings!

There we were, drinking at Jilly’s with Cicero. Affirming our right to drunken assembly at Jilly’s … Jilly’s, where we’d drink ourselves out of the lowlands. Out of the valleys. Jilly’s, where we approached, with Cicero, a promontory of drinking. Where we’d discuss the big picture and the very picture.

Things, it is true, would devolve into chaos. Hans, invariably taking his trousers off. Ava and Magellan, singing duets. Me, lying on the sofa. Everyone at the bar, in the final hours, doing shots together. Even Klaus the barman. Especially him! Klaus, pulling out his guitar. All of us at the bar, singing Roy Orbison’s Crying. And all of us crying, tears running down our drunken cheeks …

Cicero enjoying the spectacle. Hans, loudly demanding DISCO! Music he could DANCE TO! Magellan, regressing to childhood. Ava, doing a solo Rhinestone Cowboy. Great work with the microphone stand. Me, in some drunken debate about who would win in a fight: Gnostics or nihilists …

Cicero, seemingly happy in her cups as we were happy in ours. Cicero, like us, in the last redoubt, taking a last drunken stand. Against what? Against technics! Against nihilism! Against managerial evil! Against the all-seeing eye, never sleeping, always watchful! Against technocracy!

And afterwards, back to Cicero’s place. Afterwards, ascent to her flat, overlooking the Tyne. Overlooking the North Sea. There, in the living room of her flat, in the Sir James Knott Memorial complex. In the pre-dawn, the sun just about to rise. There, and at that moment, Cicero would begin to Talk, hushedly at first. Quietly. Almost tentatively, to begin with.

Cicero, sharing … hypotheses. Personal opinions. It could be this … My conclusion is … I’m led to speculate that … This is how it seems to me … If we consider the matter carefully, then … Hushedly. Tentatively. And yet, a kind of Certainty in her voice. That there was something True here. In the very fact of her Talking …

Cicero, voice lowered. Cicero, speaking quietly, but with great intensity. As though she’d waited the whole night to tell us this. As though she’d waited her whole life to tell us this. And that we were the only ones she could tell it to. We thought-freaks who could take what she said and weave it into a new philosophy …

And we, sitting round. Eager to listen, eager to learn. But tired, tired, lacking her stamina! Cicero, speaking as our eyelids drooped. Until we, her audience, fell asleep one by one, and who knows that she didn’t go on talking as we slept … Cicero, talking to the air when the last of us fell asleep in her living room … Talking to no one in particular as she lay soft blankets over us … Murmuring as much to herself as to anyone as she rolled down her Roman blinds to shield us from the rising sun …

If only we’d written it down: Cicero’s theory (her anti-theory), Cicero’s mythology! But we could never remember it, after. Even freshly awoken … Even on the Metro back to home … We could never quite bring it to mind, never recall the essential details, never reassemble the logic that led Cicero from one thought to the other …

Only a few words from the great wave of her words. Stuff about the theogenic process, we remember. About blind increate formlessness. About the aboriginal nonground. About banished fundamentals. Stuff about politocracy … iatrocide … directed evolution … biometric control. Stuff about stealth sterilization … psycho-neural captivity … homo borg genesis …

Only memory of the great stillness of Cicero’s words, that accompanied them. The calm background of her speech. As though what was said bore within it another speech, a speech without words, a murmuring speech, a susurrating speech, a speech without words and without syllables.

Only recollection of an endlessness. A movement of dispersion. A threshold, spreading out to include all things … To weave everything into its vast web. Encompassing the entire horizon. All things comprehended, all things thought. All things included. All things woven in, all history …

Cicero, queen of infinite speech. Cicero, sovereign of the hours between the dog and wolf. Cicero, ruler of the pre-dawn, of the end of the night, where the river of speech opened out and out, like the Tyne itself outside her flat, but wider than the Tyne, braiding into distributaries, fanning into a delta, spreading and wide.

Cicero, who resigned nonetheless. Cicero, who handed in her notice. Who left Philosophy, which she had done so much to defend. Who turned it over to us, her idiots. Her imbeciles. And left her flat in the Sir James Knott Memorial block. And set of travelling, who knows where. Who knows how (a lottery win? An inheritance? Some deal with the university?) …

My flat.

You have an optimistic and trusting nose, Priya says.

How can you tell? I ask. What have noses got to do with anything?

You can see everything in the nose, Priya says. And the chin. And in the shape of the eyes. And you have such kind fingers, though your thumb looks rather stubborn.

Is this how lovers talk? I ask.

It’s been too long, Priya says.

What about with your husband? I ask.

That was years ago, Priya says. I’m not sure I want to remember.

Was there a honeymoon period? I ask.

There’s always a honeymoon period, Priya says. Then there’s a humdrum period. Then there’s a blue period – a fifteen-years-together-and-what-for? period.

And what period are you in now? I ask.

The illicit period, Priya says.

Priya, examining herself in the mirror. I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe, philosopher, she says. So why don’t you? You’ve invited the enemy in. You’re betraying yourself. And your people. And philosophy. And everything.

Maybe it’s my revenge, I say.

On what? On organisational management? Priya asks. Because I’m the head of department’s wife … I see it … This is your way of lobbing a grenade into the enemy camp … Well, maybe.

He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, your husband, I say. I like way he dresses – his three piece suit. It gives him some distinction. Is that why you went for him?

The question is why I went for you, Priya says.

I suppose you’ve had a series of lovers, I say. I suppose he likes it.

No, actually, Priya says. Nothing like that.

And his northern accent, I say. And his easy going manner. He seems very affable.

He is affable, Priya says. He’s really very nice.

And there’s the management style of your husband, I say. The organisational management style …

My husband thought it was a good idea, bringing philosophy into organisation management …, Priya says. Exploring synergies …

And you can say that with a straight face? I say. You can repeat those things? Anyway, they made him do it.

They did make him do it, Priya says. But he has a good attitude, unlike you. I know you’re sneering.

Where are you going to tell him you were this afternoon? I ask. How are you going to account for yourself?

I’ll say I was at the gym, as usual, Priya says. At exercise class.

Does he suspect? I ask. Surely he must suspect. He must have some sense that your mind’s elsewhere. And your body …

My body’s not elsewhere, Priya says. I fuck him too.

You’re so shameless, I say.

I am, aren’t I? Priya says. How can she do this to her husband?: that’s what you’re thinking. But I like doing this to my husband. It feels right to be doing this to my husband.

Why do you never call him by name? I ask.

Because he’s essentially anonymous, Priya says. Because he’s a force. Because he’s a collection of husband drives. Anyway, I don’t want to think about him …

Silence.

But there’s a reason we’re here, isn’t there? Priya says. Are you waiting to get down to it? For the real business to start? You’ll have to court me first. Compliment me on what I’m wearing. Tell me I have … sparkling eyes. Notice my new hairstyle. I haven’t actually got a new hairstyle, but you get the idea. I want to hear some sweet nothings. Some sweet philosophical nothings, if necessary. I want to be re-seduced. I want to be seduced all over again.

Win me. Win my heart, philosopher, Priya says. I want to feel like the most important girl in the world. Make it all about me. That no one matters to you but me. Come on, complement me on my outfit. On what I’m wearing. On my earrings, for fuck’s sake. I’m wearing pearl earrings …

I do think you’re beautiful, I say.

Beautiful, philosopher? Priya says. What do you mean by beauty?

You today. Your face touched with light, I say. The fascination of your eyes. Of my being looked at, by those eyes. Of those eyes, turning towards me.

That’s more like it, Priya says. Continue.

You can make things happen – just by your presence, I say. People are shaken out of themselves. Reminded …

Of what? Priya says.

Of the fact that beauty is alive, I say. Of the fact that beauty can pass through the earth. The fact that beauty can arrive here, in this town, on these streets. The fact that miracles are possible and the world really can be overturned.

Oh, you’re good at this, Priya says.

Beauty: is proof that God exists, after all, I say. That we’re not all doomed, after all. That we’re not all destroyable, replaceable, murderable, strangleable, chokeable, shootable, stabbable.

Now you’re going dark, Priya says.

You like it dark, I say. It’s a relief from all that organisational management optimism. All that can do. All that manage-the-world bullshit.

And philosophy’s unmanageable, I suppose, Priya says. Philosophy’s totally exceptional. Philosophy’s a tiger …

When did Organisational Managers become a thing? I ask. Where did this subject area come from? Isn’t it just business studies?

It’s part of business studies, Priya says. Or business studies is a part of it, depending on your perspective.

And what does it think it can organise? I ask. What’s the latest in organisational management?

My husband’s into decentralised managerialism, Priya says. That’s the cutting edge.

Wow, I say.

Like self-organising stuff, Priya says.

And are there organisational managers in real life, or just in the academy? I ask.

Sure, people wo run companies …, Priya says.

And do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? I ask. Seriously. I want to know.

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless, Priya says. I’ll have you know that my husband’s quite the consultant. He flies back and forth to Albania, to advise them on the latest managerial theories …

Lucky Albania, I say.

So snobbish, Priya says.. Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless …

Who are the organisational managers organisational managers? Who are the big names? I ask.

Stop being so sarcastic, Priya says. It’s not all about top-down taking charge, you know. It’s about … managerialism, old style … It’s about fostering a self-starting culture. Entrepreneurship …

What happens to organisational management, in the bedroom – that’s the question, I say. Does organisational management ever allow a bit of disorganisation? Does organisational management ever permit a bit of slack? Does organisational management know its limits? When to hold itself back? Is it like, For everything else, there’s organisational management …?

There’s a whole branch of organisational management concerned with leisure, Priya says.

Sure – for quality time, I say. Which leave you refreshed for workplace. Which help make you a productive worker … But work’s the thing, isn’t it? Productivity?

So? Priya says.

Work used to be understood negatively, I say. As negotium, where the ‘ne’ means not. Otium was the thing: contemplation.

Wow, listen to Etymology Boy, Priya says.

Contemplation came first, I say. Work just meant suspending contemplation.

So people just, like, contemplated all day? Priya says. Sounds dreary.

People thought, maybe, I say. People wondered about things. Asked questions without obvious answers. A bit like us, maybe.

What about philosophy in the bedroom?: that’s what I want to know, Priya says.

Me, pulling Philosophy in the Bedroom from the bookshelf.

The Marquis de Sade, Priya says. Oh this is going to be porn …

It’s mostly just discussion about freedom, I say.

And porn! Priya says. This is filthy … you philosophers are perverts … There’s not much contemplation here. But there’s a lot of ejaculation …

Silence.

What’s the rest of the world doing, while we’re doing this? Priya asks.

The rest of the world’s busy, I say.

I’m tired of … busy, Priya says.

Later.

Time doesn’t seem to matter here, does it? Priya says. It doesn’t flow at the usual speed. It doesn’t flow at all, really. Isn’t it supposed to whizz by when you’re having fun?

Aren’t you having fun? I ask.

I don’t think fun’s the word … , Priya says. It’s like we’ve got lost in the afternoon and we’ll never get out. Like we’re lost in the afternoon maze.

Are you looking for an exit? I ask.

I think I want to get more deeply lost, Priya says. God …

Silence.

What does all this add up to? Priya asks. Our days together. Our affair. What does it mean?

Why does it have to mean anything? I ask.

You’re the philosopher – you tell me, Priya says. I mean, what did we just do? In the middle of the day. In the middle of the universe … Look at us, lying around. In disarray. Are we allowed to be like this? Are we allowed to do this?

We can do what we like, I say.

Should we be allowed to do what we like: I suppose that’s what I’m asking, Priya says.

Who’s stopping us? I ask.

The light on the floor, Priya says. That beams through the skylight … The quivering light. What is it?

Light, just light, I say.

I think it’s God, Priya says.

God? I say.

I think it’s all we know of God, Priya says. A quality of light. A patch of light. Is God watching us?

No one’s watching, I say. Unless your husband’s on the roof.

God’s watching, Priya says. That’s the thing … I like using the word, God, philosopher. I feel like I’m allowed to use the word, God, here.

Do you believe in God? I ask.

I think God believes in me, Priya says. I think I’m a dream in the mind of God.

So God’s dreaming all this, I say. God’s dreaming you and dreaming me.

Maybe – why not? I say.

Why not anything? Priya says. We’re contemplating, aren’t we?

Sure – why not anything, I say. And we are contemplating. It's otium, baby.

Questions, philosopher, questions …, Priya says. I feel I’m just … falling. And you, too – you’re falling, too.

Falling in love? I ask.

Contemplating love, Priya says. We’re holding it at a distance, and looking at it. We’re far from love, just like we’re far from everything …

It’s like something’s taking place through us, Priya says. Despite us, almost. Against us, maybe. Some kind of event – or non-event. Something that’s not happening. That’s … subtracting happening from happening.

I feel so vague, Priya says. Do you feel vague? Are we supposed to feel like this? Like, we can’t think anything. Anything clear, anyway. Anything precise …

And you’re not going to save me – I know that, Priya says. You’re not going to break my fall. You’re not going to do anything.

You don’t need saving, I say.

What do I need? Priya asks. What do I want? What am I doing here? I’m falling, philosopher. When I close my eyes, I get vertigo … Why do I come here? Why do I feel these things? It’s like you’ve cast some spell over me. Like you want to keep me here forever. But I think a spell’s been cast over you, too.

If I fell asleep now, what would happen? Priya asks. If I fell asleep and woke up … If I … If I … I can’t even finish a sentence. It’s being drunk without being drunk. Fuck, I can’t think a single clear thing …

I kinda want to get dressed and go, Priya says. I kinda want to drive off home. I kinda want to actually go to the gym instead of pretending at the gym … Anything except this. But then I like this …

If I fell asleep now, what would happen? Priya asks. If I just stayed here forever … Are we meditating, or something? Are we praying or something? And to who? Who’s listening? Who’s watching?

Silence

God? Priya says. Is it God?

News: they’re moving the Philosophy department into Organisational Management.

General shock. Can they do this sort of thing? Without consultation? Is it allowed?

Apparently.

Walking at the coast.

Is there a rationale? we wonder. Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves, Hans says. They just act.

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …, Ava says.

Of course it makes no sense, Hans says. That’s the point …

It’s mockery–in plain view, Magellan says. They’re laughing at us.

It’s self-mockery, I say. The uni’s laughing at itself … At everything a university once was …

But do they really know what they’re doing? Magellan asks. Can’t they sense the nihilism–even if they’ve never heard the word, nihilism?

They did it because of the nihilism, I say. It’s to deepen the nihilism.

It’s just some random thing, Ava says. Some stupidity. Some manager or another wanted to make their stamp on the uni. Some idiot–

–They’re all idiots–, Hans says.

–Had some interdisciplinary initiative, or something, Ava says. Wanted to shake things up …

What about Organisational Management? Hans asks. What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe, I say. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation, Magellan says.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness, Ava says.

More laughter. 

Why couldn’t they just have left us alone? Ava asks. Why couldn’t we be allowed to go on as we were? It’s cruel … it’s needless.

Because they’ve declared war on philosophy, Magellan says. They know that it’s philosophy they have to go after. Not history! Not the fine arts! Not music! Not English literature! But philosophy, alone among the humanities …

It’s because they sense something about philosophy, Magellan says. They feel a kind of awe of philosophy, despite everything. They know us as a threat–unconsciously. They experience us as an enemy, in some recess of their minds.

It’s a matter of unavowed revenge on philosophy, Magellan says. On the humanities in general. There’s a whole institutional unconscious at work. A desire for revenge. On humanities expansiveness. On humanities freedom of thought …

And that’s why the closure of philosophy would never be enough, Magellan says. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

This is a shock and awe move, Hans says. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s a show of power–of utter power, Hans says. It’s like parking a tank on your front law. It’s to prove that they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. That they can simply bend reality to their will.

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says, Hans says. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! Who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management? The uni would! Because the uni can!

The madness of the world is showing itself, I say. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness! A mad flood of insanity! It’s quite sublime in its way …

Don’t examine it too closely, Magellan says. Don’t think about it too much. Ponder the logic of the organisational management move and you’ll go mad, too.

Maybe we should go mad, I say. Maybe that's what it'll take. But it has to be our madness, not theirs–not the madness they want to drive us to. Not the madness of humiliation, but … but our cultivate-your-own-legitimate-madness madness, like Cicero used to say. Which is to say, the madness of philosophy – real philosophy.

*

If only Cicero were still with us.

Cicero, our erstwhile organ grinder! Cicero, the old head of the Philosophy Department … Cicero, who handpicked us–us–to work here … Cicero, who plucked us–us–from our provincial universities … Cicero, who scouted the conferences for … what? Not the up-and-coming, we were never that … The desperate! The put-upon! The cornered!: That’s who we were …  

Cicero sought out the prospectless! The defeated–spiritually! Financially! Psychologically! Cicero looked for the lower class! The skint! The disturbed! The personality-disordered! Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university! Us, in other words.

Cicero actually wanted our kind around her. The end times will see a parade of deformities and grotesques, she used to say. Mental deformities, not physical ones. Mental sports! The psychically twisted! The cognitively contorted! The equivalent of Hieronymous Bosch’s Hell, but in thought …

Only thought-freaks could philosophise from the end times, Cicero said. Only thinkers of deformity could think out of the experience of the coming collapse. Which was quite impossible for Cicero herself, with her European education, with her deep philosophical culture, with dozens of keynote speeches behind her, with decades of immersion in the great works of philosophy.

She wanted to surround herself with the genuinely doomed. The authentically prospectless. She wanted Hopelessness in person. Philosophical wreckage. She wanted to be the captain of a ship of fools, and she got her wish. We were to be the doom speakers of the end times. We were to voice disgust’s disgust. Horror’s horror. We were to voice the truth of our times: the mad truth. Which is why Cicero brought us here. Why she combed the conferences to find our kind. She summoned us to Newcastle to let us be ourselves in thought.

I wouldn’t say that, exactly, Ava says. She could be pretty insulting …

But it was a kind insulting, Magellan says. It was meant to spur us on.

It was meant to crush us–, Ava says.

It was, like, a Jedi training, I say. She was our Yoda. She wanted to deepen our sense of disgust. To rise from our ashes. It was a use-the-force-Luke kinda thing.

–I’m still crushed–, Ava says.

Philosophers you must be! Magellan says, in his best Yoda voice. Think for yourselves, you must!

It was a bootcamp, I say. She wanted to toughen us up. Particular you, Hans. She could tell you were a soy boy.

And then Cicero … disappeared. She went travelling or whatever. Took her career break.

Do you think that was a coincidence? I ask.

She was tired, we remember. I can’t do this by myself, she’d say. I can’t keep Philosophy open … For years, I’ve done nothing but struggle! To keep the course open! To recruit you and the others!

How she drank! She emptied whole bars! And we emptied them with her! There was a whole discipline of drinking, we remember. We had to watch over our nights of drinking. Less they slip into complacency. Less they fall into pubism. Drinking mustn’t be consolation, Cicero always said. Mustn’t allow our reconciliation to the way things are.

The pub is not a place for petty moaning! Cicero said. For sharing grudges. There was to be no huddling together to share our problems. No crying into our beer. No whisky lamentations about the state of our lives.

Never a retreat to the pub, but an attempt to escape through it. The pub as launchpad … As space capsule … We were looking to flare upwards. To burn up.

And yet: Cicero’s sadness, in the face of the attacks of the university. Cicero’s defeat, in battling the university. Even as she insisted that adversity helped her. Even as she said that that’s where her best thoughts were coming from. How else would she have been able to develop her insights into political ponerology, except from dastardly academic ruses? Into psychic warfare techniques and conditioning tactics, except from her tussles with the deans? How else would she have been able to diagnose the determinative value of the technological system–of systematisation, schematisation, tabulation, qualification, rationalisation, mechanisation, standardisation–were it not for her experience of being continually crushed by the system?

The way Cicero used to speak about escape, as we drank … About the significance of the exodic act! About the effort to snatch a little transcendence from the day. About not being buried with her defeats. About rolling away her stone. About resurrection! About wanting a last chance to redeem her sufferings!

There we were, drinking at Jilly’s with Cicero. Affirming our right to assembly, at Jilly’s. Our right to drunken assembly. Jilly’s, where we’d drink ourselves out of the lowlands. Out of the valleys. Jilly’s, where we reached, with Cicero, a promontory of drinking. Where we’d discuss the big picture and the very picture.

Things, it is true, would devolve into chaos. Hans, invariably taking his trousers off. Ava and Magellan, singing duets. Me, lying on the sofa. everyone at the bar, in the final hours, doing shots together. Even Klaus the barman. Especially him! Klaus, pulling out his guitar. All of us at the bar, singing Roy Orbison’s Crying. And all of us crying, tears running down our drunken cheeks …

But Cicero enjoyed the spectacle. Hans, loudly demanding DISCO! Music he could DANCE TO! Magellan, regressing to childhood. Ava, doing a solo Rhinestone Cowboy. Great work with the microphone stand. Me, in some drunken half-fight about who would win in a fight: Gnostics or nihilists …

Cicero, seemingly happy in her cups as we were happy in ours. Cicero, like us, in the last redoubt, taking a last drunken stand. Against what? Against technics! Against nihilism! Against managerial evil! Against the all-seeing eye, never sleeping, always watchful! Against technocracy!

But Cicero resigned her post. She handed in her notice. Cicero turned Philosophy over to us. She gave the leadership to me. Cicero set off travelling. Who knows where. Who knows how (a lottery win? An inheritance?) …

And the Organisational Management move, as soon as Cicero left. As soon as there was no one of calibre to take the uni on …

Cicero’s darkest hours. Her drunkest hours, which were also her most lucid hours. When she reached the hour of desperation. The deepest hour. When she spoke in a whisper. Of Great Things. Of Terrifying Things.

Cicero’s half mad stuff. Her no-one-could-really-believe-in-this stuff. Her half madness stuff. Her half deranged stuff. The stuff in which no one believes except for a few fringe lunatics.

The stuff no self-respecting philosophy academic would touch. That we’d be drawn into for a few urgent minutes. That ensorcelled us, too, listening to Cicero.

How seriously she took it! How seriously we took her!

Cicero seemed to Know things. Cicero seemed to be privy to certain Information. Cicero seemed to be Sure. Cicero seemed to know someone on the Inside.

 

Cicero’s esotericism. Things she would only tell the inner inner circle. Cicero’s secrets. The stuff she’d tell you only if you were in the circle of trust. And there were only a handful of us in Cicero’s circle of trust.

The stuff Cicero would only share in the loneliest hours. In the deepest hours. Later than the hours of the Dog and Wolf.

Whiskey bottle emptied. Ashtrays full. Then, as the dawn came … As the light shone through the windows … Then: as we were all but burned out.

Cicero’s voice lowered. Cicero, speaking quietly, but with great intensity. As though she’d waited the whole night to tell us this. As though only now it was possible, at the end of the night, in the final hours. That this Knowledge was only available to the deepest Initiates and that the night, so far, was nothing but initiation.

The whole evening, the night … The pub, and after, when we went back to hers … Up in her flat, overlooking the Tyne. Overlooking the North Sea. There, in the living room of her flat. In the pre-dawn, the sun just about to rise. There, and at that moment, Cicero would begin to Talk, really Talk, and lay out great and intricate webs … interconnections … between all kinds of things …

What richness! What complexity! Was this real? Was this true? Was this some vast and elaborate fiction. But spoke with such sincerity. Absolute sincerity. This was absolute truth-telling. You could tell by her voice. Not just what she said. But in the Saying itself. In what bore what she said. As though what she said shone. Shone with its own light …

 

What Cicero said. Its intricacies. It’s lace-like complexity. The way she built it up, layer upon layer. The filigree. The delicacy. The weaving. Like in real time. Before us.

Speculative. In her hushed voice. Quietly. Almost tentatively, to begin with. Sharing … hypotheses. Personal opinions. It could be this … My conclusion is … I’m led to speculate that … This is how it seems to me … If we consider the matter carefully, then …

And yet, a kind of Certainty in her voice. That there was something True here. That she was approaching the Truth …

 

If only we’d written it down! But we could never remember it, after. Even after sleep. Even when we’d returned home, we could never quite bring it to mind, never recall the essential details, never reassemble the logic that led Cicero from one thought to the other.

 

Cicero, at her soberest. At her most measured. Cicero, at her most considered. Cicero, the calm. Cicero, the Lucid. And yet she was saying the wildest of things! And yet she bore the craziest of messages! And yet she was all but lunacy, all but paranoia in her calm, calm manner.

 

And we, sitting round. Eager to hear, eager to know. And she spoke until our eyelids drooped. Until we, her audience, fell asleep one by one, and who knew that she didn’t go on talking. That she just talked to the air after the last of us fell asleep in her living room. That she talked to no one in particular as she lay soft blankets over us. That she murmured as much to herself as to anyone as she rolled down her Roman blinds to shield us from the rising sun.

 

The generosity of Cicero. The largesse of Cicero. Her great and elaborate meals! That would take a whole day to prepare. That drew upon the finest fruits of the Fish Quay.

Such Hospitality!. She threw open her doors. She threw her doors wide and up we went. All those flights of stairs! As Cicero had climbed them before us! As Cicero had walked them before us! As Cicero had caried up bags and bags of goodies up from the Quay! And we bought our wine – our pathetic wine. And brought our bottles of wine, a little nervously.

Cicero introduced us to Expanse. To Generosity. To Largesse. To Excess. The fact that there was always food leftover. That she could serve up again with toast in the early hours. She’d put everything out on great trays. Lightly warmed. On toasted bread. Just what we needed. Fuel for the night ahead. Because the night was but young. Because there were hours to go. Because we needed energy.

There were other Acts to follow. There was to be more stuff happening. It was a journey to the end of night, as all meals at Ciceros were journeys to the end of the night. We’d blast through the evening and the night. Screaming with laughter. And then, refuelled, we’d settle down, calmer, for the last part of the evening. Around Cicero’s Italian ‘50s pisteroli lamp. In the midst of Cicero’s Scandi-style candles. Of tealights in lanterns.

And Cicero’s music. She was a great one for music. There were always musical surprises at Cicero’s. There was always an evening rag. And a night rag. And an early hours rag. And a dawn rag. And a morning rag, at the very end, as we ate leftovers for breakfast.

 

Cicero, presiding. It all revolving around her. As it should. She was in charge of hospitality. She was its origin. We put ourselves in her hands. We were ready to be looked after.

And the whole evening, leading somewhere. Like a river, first a rushing mountain stream, all excitement, all froth, then a wide meandering across its flood plain, before opening out and out, like the Tyne itself, but wider than the Tyne, braiding into distributaries, fanning into a delta, spreading and wide, before becoming some great brackish fan, with its own ecosystem. With its own brackish life. With its own thriving-in-salt-and-freshwater life.

The pre-dawn. Very still, very calm.

That’s when Cicero would really begin. When she’d gather her thoughts together. When she’d sit on her throne, as we called it. Deliver her truths. Her utterances, ex cathedra. Only they were never grand. Only she never proclaimed or declaimed. Only they were hushed, and you had to lean into listen. You had to sit close, in our circle around her. We were initiates. Intimates. It was all directed to us. We were to listen, and she was to speak. As though it was pre-ordained. As though this was the way it had to be.

 

Nights at Cicero’s.

Hours, passing. Hours, unfolding – opening. Blooming. Cicero, able to open a channel. To be spoken. To let speech happen. Through her. With her.

What was it about? Who knows? Where was she getting this from? It was as though she’d tuned into something. As though it came in from the aether. As though she were some kind of antenna who’d just piped it in from somewhere.

And we were her audience. Her sleepy audience. Leaning forward to listen at first. And then gradually falling back, leaning on our elbows. Then, heads to the floor. Gradually settling. Gradually falling asleep.

Her soothing words. The great waves of her words. The great calm of her words. The great stillness they brought with them, that accompanied them. The calm background of her speech. As though what was said bore within it another speech, a speech without words, a murmuring speech, a susurrating speech, a speech without words and without syllables.

As we fell slowly into sleep. As we dropped off one by one.

And I was invariably the last one awake, the last listener. I was the one keenest to follow the thread. To see where it took me. I always wanted to follow it to the end, even as it seemed that there was no end. Even as it seemed that things would continue forever.

An endlessness. A movement of dispersion. A threshold, spreading out to include all things… To weave everything into its vast web. Encompassing the entire horizon. All things comprehended, all things thought. All things included. All things woven in, all history.

Shimmerings. Apparitions. Pulsings. Reverberations. A shimmering mass. With cross-crossings. With cross strands. With braidings. With bifurcations. With tributaries and distributaries. With loopings back. With great cycles and returns. With wheelings. With wanderings. With forays. Gaining and losing urgency. Seeming to reach climax before dispersing again. Gathering energy, losing it, re-energising it.

And no Conclusion to be reached. No Point. That’s what revealed itself. No telos. Nothing leading anywhere in particular. A venturing. A wandering forth. Leading, seemingly, everywhere at once. In all directions. Catching up everything. Implicating everything. Including everything.

And great shapes emerged. As great patterns became visible … Echoing. Crossovers. One thing, resonating with another. Segueways … The beginningless. The endless.

 

Was Cicero presenting a theory – a theory of everything? An anti-theory, too. An assembling that was also a disassembling. A gathering that was also a falling apart.

 

Cicero’s story, deepening. Then lightening. Slowing. Then quickening. And these things both at once. Cicero’s theory (her anti theory?) containing all of life. All of everything. All of the all. Every historical event and non-event. Cicero’s mythology, presenting the story of all. The history of everything. The secret history of the world and what was greater than the world.

Cicero’s thousand-and-one-nights. Cicero’s epic. Impersonal speech. This speech of no one and of nothing. This dispersal, that was also finding. This loss that was a recovery. But a recovery within loss. A finding in dispersal.

Our teaching has to be part of the catastrophe. It has to embody the disaster. Don’t you see?

Disaster pedagogy: that’s what our students are paying for – and paying through the nose for. They want to be discouraged. They want their morale destroyed. They want to be plunged into the darkness. They want to dive down in their philosophical bathysphere to see the darkest, murkiest things.

 

We have to treat this as if it were the last year of our teaching. The last chance to impart what we know. We have to live this academic year as though the uni were going to be closed imminently. As though we weren’t going to live another year. This is the culmination of our teaching, or its bottoming out. We’re not sure which …

 

Philosophers are an endangered species – don’t forget that. This is a last chance. This last wave of students need to be told everything. We’ll have to give them what we can. Our diagnosis of it all! Our last wisdom! All we have to say!

 

We have to teach this way before we get found out! Before the organisational managers get on to us! Before we have to teach their students, too!

 

Our doom pedagogy. Our ashes pedagogy. We have to lead the students into the darkness. And through the darkness. To the light? Towards their light, perhaps, not ours. Towards their dawn, perhaps. Like Moses, we have to die in the desert before we reach the promised land, which is their promised land.

We’re the downgoing, the doomgoing. We’re leading the descent. So that they, in the end, can ascend. We’re following the negative path! So that they can take, when the time comes, the positive one!

 

We have only our failure to show them. We have only our stupidity.

But there's something’s given to us in failure! Something’s been vouchsafed in our stupidity!

We’re philosophical fools, if nothing else. We’re philosophical idiots. And there’s a place for idiots in philosophy.

 

There is such a thing as transcendental idiocy. That’s what we have to reach.

 

Philosophy can attain itself, become most purely philosophy, only in the final hour. Only now, when its threatened on all sides.

Philosophy’s coming into its own under the condition of its disappearance! It’s annihilation! In a sense, we needed the end of philosophy for philosophy to be philosophy. To emerge as philosophy.

And we ourselves, will we emerge as true philosophers, in the final hour? Will we become what we are, at last, in the final moments? At the moment of the greatest humiliation of philosophy?

 

The Organisational Management move.

We have to teach philosophy, but not as they know it.

They think philosophy’s only about applied ethics, nothing else. When really … it’s about the unapplied, the inapplicable. When really it’s about the unethical. The dis-ethical. The nothing-to-do-with-ethical.

 

The Organisational Management move.

We’re like dissidents in Stalin’s Russia! Undercover! Working in secret! Noble in our aims! Everything samizdat! Everything spoken with more than one voice!

Sure, someone will report us. There’ll be double agents among the students. Organisational managers in philosophers’ clothing. Turncoats!

 

Ascent: that’s what we’re about. We’re rising up, freedom against necessity, like tragic heroes. This is our protest! We’re attaining something! Reaching something! We will not be what we were! We’ll be changed! Under pressure, immense pressure! A sea change! We’ll be renewed! Raised up!

 

Philosophy in Organisational Management exile. Philosophy in the Organisational Management dungeon. Philosophy trapped – but hasn’t philosophy always been trapped? Hasn’t the point always been to realise it was trapped? Hemmed in! Surrounded on all sides! Embattled! Half-infiltrated! And isn’t that the condition for philosophy discovering itself, like Kung Fu Panda, or whatever? Of rising to its vocation?

 

We’ll speak words we’ll never understand! We’ll be Delphic pythia! We’ll be mantic maniacs! We’ll speak in philosophical tongues! We’ll be mediums! We’ll be conduits! We’ll have something to say! At last! Only we won’t understand what we’ll say. Only we’ll be clueless about what we say.

 

Glorious last words from philosophy. Glorious last testament. Last words, before philosophy’s led to the scaffold, like everyone else. We’ll sing on the scaffold! We’ll sing philosophical songs on our scaffold! We’ll sing and we’ll dance a philosophical dance on the scaffold! Is that possible? Are there philosophical dances? We’ll caper, at any rate. We’ll ape about …

My flat.

You have an optimistic and trusting nose, Priya says.

How can you tell? I ask. What have noses got to do with anything?

You can see everything in the nose, Priya says. And the chin. And in the shape of the eyes. And you have such kind fingers, though your thumb looks rather stubborn.

Is this how lovers talk? I ask.

It’s been too long, Priya says.

What about with your husband? I ask.

That was years ago, Priya says. I’m not sure I want to remember.

Was there a honeymoon period? I ask.

There’s always a honeymoon period, Priya says. Then there’s a humdrum period. Then there’s a blue period – a fifteen-years-together-and-what-for? period.

And what period are you in now? I ask.

The illicit period, Priya says.

Priya, examining herself in the mirror. I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe, philosopher, Priya says. So why don’t you? You’ve invited the enemy in. You’re betraying yourself. And your people. And philosophy. And everything.

Maybe it’s my revenge, I say.

On what? On organisational management? Priya asks. Because I’m the head of department’s wife … I see it … This is your way of lobbing a grenade into the enemy camp … Well, maybe.

He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, your husband, I say. I like way he dresses – his three piece suit. It gives him some distinction. Is that why you went for him?

The question is why I went for you, Priya says.

I suppose you’ve had a series of lovers, I say. I suppose he likes it.

No, actually, Priya says. Nothing like that.

And his northern accent, I say. And his easy going manner. He seems very affable.

He is affable, Priya says. He’s really very nice.

And there’s the management style of your husband, I say. The organisational management style …

My husband thought it was a good idea, bringing philosophy into organisation management …, Priya says. Exploring synergies …

And you can say that with a straight face? I say. You can repeat those things? Anyway, they made him do it.

They did make him do it, Priya says. But he has a good attitude, unlike you. I know you’re sneering.

Where are you going to tell him you were this afternoon? I ask. How are you going to account for yourself?

I’ll say I was at the gym, as usual, Priya says. At exercise class.

Does he suspect? I ask. Surely he must suspect. He must have some sense that your mind’s elsewhere. And your body …

My body’s not elsewhere, Priya says. I fuck him too.

You’re so shameless, I say.

I am, aren’t I? Priya says. How can she do this to her husband?: that’s what you’re thinking. But I like doing this to my husband. It feels right to be doing this to my husband.

Why do you never call him by name? I ask.

Because he’s essentially anonymous, Priya says. Because he’s a force. Because he’s a collection of husband drives. Anyway, I don’t want to think about him …

Silence.

But there’s a reason we’re here, isn’t there? Priya says. Are you waiting to get down to it? For the real business to start? You’ll have to court me first. Compliment me on what I’m wearing. Tell me I have … sparkling eyes. Notice my new hairstyle. I haven’t actually got a new hairstyle, but you get the idea. I want to hear some sweet nothings. Some sweet philosophical nothings, if necessary. I want to be re-seduced. I want to be seduced all over again.

Win me. Win my heart, philosopher, Priya says. I want to feel like the most important girl in the world. Make it all about me. That no one matters to you but me. Come on, complement me on my outfit. On what I’m wearing. On my earrings, for fuck’s sake. I’m wearing pearl earrings …

I do think you’re beautiful, I say.

Beautiful, philosopher? Priya says. What do you mean by beauty?

You today. Your face touched with light, I say. The fascination of your eyes. Of my being looked at, by those eyes. Of those eyes, turning towards me.

That’s more like it, Priya says. Continue.

You can make things happen – just by your presence, I say. People are shaken out of themselves. Reminded …

Of what? Priya says.

Of the fact that beauty is alive, I say. Of the fact that beauty can pass through the earth. The fact that beauty can arrive here, in this town, on these streets. The fact that miracles are possible and the world really can be overturned.

Oh, you’re good at this, Priya says.

Beauty: is proof that God exists, after all, I say. That we’re not all doomed, after all. That we’re not all destroyable, replaceable, murderable, strangleable, chokeable, shootable, stabbable.

Now you’re going dark, Priya says.

You like it dark, I say. It’s a relief from all that organisational management optimism. All that can do. All that manage-the-world bullshit.

And philosophy’s unmanageable, I suppose, Priya says. Philosophy’s totally exceptional. Philosophy’s a tiger …

When did Organisational Managers become a thing? I ask. Where did this subject area come from? Isn’t it just business studies?

It’s part of business studies, Priya says. Or business studies is a part of it, depending on your perspective.

And what does it think it can organise? I ask. What’s the latest in organisational management?

My husband’s into decentralised managerialism, Priya says. That’s the cutting edge.

Wow, I say.

Like self-organising stuff, Priya says.

And are there organisational managers in real life, or just in the academy? I ask.

Sure, people wo run companies …, Priya says.

And do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? I ask. Seriously. I want to know.

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless, Priya says. I’ll have you know that my husband’s quite the consultant. He flies back and forth to Albania, to advise them on the latest managerial theories …

Lucky Albania, I say.

So snobbish, Priya says.. Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless …

Who are the organisational managers organisational managers? Who are the big names? I ask.

Stop being so sarcastic, Priya says. It’s not all about top-down taking charge, you know. It’s about … managerialism, old style … It’s about fostering a self-starting culture. Entrepreneurship …

What happens to organisational management, in the bedroom – that’s the question, I say. Does organisational management ever allow a bit of disorganisation? Does organisational management ever permit a bit of slack? Does organisational management know its limits? When to hold itself back. Is it like, For everything else, there’s organisational management …?

There’s time for everything, in organisational management, Priya says.

For holidays, you mean, I say. For quality time. Which leave you refreshed for work next day. Which help make you a productive worker … Work’s the thing, isn’t it? Productivity?

So? Priya says.

Work used to be understood negatively, I say. As negotium, where the ‘ne’ means not. Otium was the thing: contemplation.

Wow, listen to Etymology Boy, Priya says.

Contemplation came first, I say. Work just meant suspending contemplation.

So people just, like, contemplated all day? Priya says. Sounds dreary.

People thought, maybe, I say. People wondered about things. Asked questions without obvious answers. A bit like us, maybe.

What about philosophy in the bedroom?: that’s what I want to know, Priya says.

Me, pulling Philosophy in the Bedroom from the bookshelf.

The Marquis de Sade, Priya says. Oh this is going to be porn …

It’s mostly just discussion about freedom, I say.

And porn! Priya says. This is filthy … you philosophers are perverts … There’s not much contemplation here. But there’s a lot of ejaculation …

Lying back.

What’s the rest of the world doing, while we’re doing this? Priya asks.

The rest of the world’s busy, I say.

I’m tired of … busy, Priya says.

Silence.

Time doesn’t seem to matter here, does it? Priya says. It doesn’t flow at the usual speed. It doesn’t flow at all, really. Isn’t it supposed to whizz by when you’re having fun?

Aren’t you having fun? I ask.

I don’t think fun’s the word … , Priya says. It’s like we’ve got lost in the afternoon and we’ll never get out. Like we’re lost in the afternoon maze.

Are you looking for an exit? I ask.

I think want to get more deeply lost, Priya says.

Silence.

What does all this add up to? Priya asks. Our days together. Our affair. What does it mean?

Why does it have to mean anything? I ask.

You’re the philosopher – you tell me, Priya says. I mean, what did we just do? In the middle of the day. In the middle of the universe … Look at us, lying around. In disarray. Are we allowed to be like this? Are we allowed to do this?

We can do what we like, I say.

Should we be allowed to do what we like: I suppose that’s what I’m asking, Priya says.

Who’s stopping us? I ask.

The light on the floor, Priya says. That beams through the skylight … The quivering light. What is it?

Light, just light, I say.

I think it’s God, Priya says.

God? I say.

I think it’s all we know of God, Priya says. A quality of light. A patch of light. Is God watching us?

No one’s watching, I say. Unless your husband’s on the roof.

God’s watching, Priya says. That’s the thing … I like using the word, God, philosopher. I feel like I’m allowed to use the word, God, here.

Do you believe in God? I ask.

I think God believes in me, Priya says. I think I’m a dream in the mind of God.

So God’s dreaming all this, I say. God’s dreaming you and dreaming me.

Maybe – why not? I say.

Why not anything? Priya says. We’re contemplating, aren’t we?

Sure – why not anything, I say. And we are contemplating. It's otium, baby.

Questions, philosopher, questions …, Priya says. I feel I’m just … falling. And you, too – you’re falling, too.

Falling in love? I ask.

Contemplating love, Priya says. We’re holding it at a distance, and looking at it. We’re far from love, just like we’re far from everything …

It’s like something’s taking place through us, Priya says. Despite us, almost. Against us, maybe. Some kind of event – or non-event. Something that’s not happening. That’s subtracting happening from happening.

I feel so vague, Priya says. Do you feel vague? Are we supposed to feel like this? Like, we can’t think anything. Anything clear, anyway. Anything precise …

And you’re not going to save me – I know that, Priya says. You’re not going to break my fall. You’re not going to do anything.

You don’t need saving, I say.

What do I need? Priya asks. What do I want? What am I doing here? I’m falling, philosopher. When I close my eyes, I get vertigo … Why do I come out here? Why do I feel these things? It’s like you’ve cast some spell over me. Like you want to keep me here forever. But I think a spell’s been cast over you, too.

If I fell asleep now, what would happen? Priya asks. If I fell asleep and woke up … If I … If I … I can’t even finish a sentence. It’s being drunk without being drunk. Fuck, I can’t think a single clear thing …

I kinda want to get dressed and go, Priya says. I kinda want to drive off home. I kinda want to actually go to the gym instead of pretending at the gym … Anything except this. But then I like this …

If I fell asleep now, what would happen? Priya asks. If I just stayed here forever …

Are we meditating, or something?  Priya asks. Are we praying or something? And to who? Who’s listening? Who’s watching? God? Is it God?

Remembering how Cicero fought all kinds of dreadful administrative battles to keep Philosophy open. Cicero, going to the most gruelling meetings. The most trying meetings. Which is where, in fact, she developed some of her most crucial thoughts as the dialectical opposite to said meetings.

How else would she have been able to develop her insights into politocracy! Into synthetic biology! Into psychic warfare techniques! Into information control! Into conditioning tactics! Into compulsory positivity! The condition of all of these was academic bureaucracy.

How else could she have been able to diagnose the determinative value of the technological system – of systematisation, schematisation, tabulation, qualification, rationalisation, mechanisation, standardisation – were it not for her own experience of exactly these things?

The way she used to speak about escape! About the significance of the exodic act! About the cultivation of tactical failure and ineffectiveness in and as study – to drifting, scattering and vagueness: our role, she used to say. Our specialism.

She kept Philosophy open for us, I say. To bring us on. To let us come into our own.

I wouldn’t say that, exactly, Ava says. She could be pretty insulting …

But it was a kind insulting, Magellan says. It was meant to spur us on.

It was meant to crush us, Ava says.

It was, like, a Jedi training, I say. She was our Yoda. She wanted to deepen our sense of disgust. To rise from our ashes. It was a use-the-force-Luke kinda thing.

… I’m still crushed …, Ava says.

Philosophers you must be! Magellan says, in his best Yoda voice. Think for yourselves, you must!

It was a bootcamp, I say. She wanted to toughen us up. Particular you, Hans. She could tell you were a soy boy.

And then she … disappeared, Ava says. She went travelling or whatever. Took her career break.

Do you think that was a coincidence? I ask. She wanted to set us free. To see how we did without her.

She made you leader, Marcus, Hans says.

She did, more fool her, I say.

And then this: the Organisational Management move, Magellan says. Do you think it as just coincidence that it happened just after Cicero left?

Like they were planning it all along, Ava says. They were waiting until the coast was clear. When they knew no one would put up a fight …

Unless …, I say.

What – what do you know? Hans asks. What were you privy to?

Unless the Organisational Management move was part of Cicero’s masterplan, I say.

What!?

I don’t know any more than you do, I say. But if you think about it …

Cicero wouldn’t betray us like that …, Magellan says.

Unless it was like her insults, I say. Her so-called Jedi training …

You mean … Ava says.

First, she left, turning the department over to us, I say. Then, she plotted for it to be moved to, like, the opposite of philosophy.

But why? Ava asks.

To push us into becoming what she wanted us to be, I say. Philosophers.

Philosophers!? Us? Ava says.

Not academic philosophers, but the real thing, I say. Thinkers who embody their thought. Who live it. Who incarnate the thinking life. For whom thinking was a matter of the flesh.

But she thought we were idiots! Ava says. She told us so! Over and over again.

Cicero always enjoyed farce, Magellan says, thoughtfully. She wanted to deepen the farce … To push farce to its maximum …

I can’t believe it … Ava says. That kind of self-sabotage …The philosophy department she’d so lovingly built up …

Philosophy is a living against: Cicero always said that, I say. You must live as not: that’s what she said. Be university philosophers as not university philosophers. Be applied ethics philosophers as not applied ethics philosophers. Be tame academics as not tame academics. There’s a way of living in the opposite direction.

So we have to live in the opposite direction to Organisational Management, Magellan says. That’s what will intensify our resistance. Our thought.

Exactly! I say.

And the fact that it’s Organisational Management isn’t a coincidence, Magellan says. Cicero wanted to bring philosophy into collision with what she knew from university administration. With the endless administration of the world. Its ceaseless management. With the coordinates we’re given. The social coordinates. The governmental coordinates. The biopolitical coordinates. The philosophical coordinates …

Our philosophy will have to go underground, I say. It’ll be about an inward revolution. Pure refusal. Pure retreat. Like, an inward principle of subversion, revolt and antinomianism. A way of living against the world.

It’s just nihilism, Ava says. More nihilism!

Nihilism will flip and become something else, that’s what Cicero’s banking on, I say.

It’s some gamble! Hans says.

Cicero’s a gambler, I say.

And then – what? – is she going to return to see what she wrought? Hans asks.

Then, who knows, I say.

If only Cicero were still with us.

Cicero, our erstwhile organ grinder! Cicero, the old head of the philosophy dept! Cicero, who handpicked us – us – to work here! Cicero, who plucked us – us – from our provincial universities! Cicero, who scouted the conferences for … what? Not the up-and-coming, we were never that …

The desperate! The put-upon! The cornered! That’s who we were …  

Cicero sought out the prospectless! The defeated – spiritually! Financially! The lower class! The skint! The manner-less! The pretty-much-down-and-out! The bordering-on-resentful! The all-but-embittered! The personality-disordered-from-sheer-prospectlessness! Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university! Us: who else?

Cicero actually wanted our kind around her. Part of the end times will be a parade of deformities and grotesques, she said. Not physical, but, like, mental deformity. There’ll be mental sports! Psychic twistings! Cognitive contortions! Like in that Hieronymous Bosch painting, but in thought …

And only the thought-freakshow would be able to understand the end times, Cicero thought. Would be able to communicate it. Which Cicero herself, with her European education, with her great list of notable publications, with her command of languages, ancient and modern, with dozens of keynote speeches behind her, could never do. Which Cicero herself, with her deep philosophical culture, with her personal philosophical library lining the walls of her flat, with her decades-long immersion in philosophical life, could never hope but aspire to.

We were to be the doom speakers of the end times. We were to voice disgust’s disgust. Horror’s horror. We were to voice the truth of our times: the mad truth. Which is why Cicero wanted to make a place for us.

News: they’re moving the Philosophy department into Organisational Management.

General shock. Can they do this sort of thing? Without consultation? Is it allowed?

Apparently.

Is there a rationale? we wonder. Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves, Hans says. They just act.

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …, Ava says.

Of course it makes no sense, Hans says. That’s the point …

It’s mockery – in plain view, Magellan says. They’re laughing at us.

It’s self-mockery, I say. The uni’s laughing at itself … At everything a university once was …

But do they really know what they’re doing? Magellan asks. Can’t they sense the nihilism – even if they’d never heard of the word, nihilism?

They probably did it because of the nihilism – an unconscious nihilism, but nihilism nonetheless, I say.

This never would have happened in the old days, Ava says.

In the old days, we’d never have got jobs, I say. Not at this kind of uni.

Look, It’s just some random thing, Magellan says. Some stupidity. Some manager or another wanted to make their stamp on the uni. Some idiot …

… They’re all idiots …, Hans says.

… Had some interdisciplinary initiative, or something, Magellan says. Wanted to shake things up … in the name of dynamic juxtaposition, or something …

What about Organisational Management? Ava asks. What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe, I say. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation, Hans says.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness, Magellan says.

More laughter. 

Discussion.

Why couldn’t they just have left us alone? Ava asks. Why couldn’t we be allowed to go on as we were, like, unharassed? Why should we have to be destroyed and remade? It’s cruel … it’s needless.

Come on – you think this is arbitrary? Hans says. They’ve declared war on philosophy. They know that it’s philosophy they have to go after. Not history! Not the fine arts! Not music! Not English literature! But philosophy, alone among the humanities …

It’s because they sense something about philosophy, we agree. They feel a kind of awe of philosophy, despite everything. They know us as a threat – unconsciously. They experience us as an enemy in some recess of their minds.

It’s a matter of unconscious revenge on philosophy, we agree. On the humanities in general. There’s a whole institutional unconscious at work. A desire for revenge. On humanities expansiveness. On humanities freedom of thought.

And that’s why the closure of philosophy would never be enough, we agree. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

This is a shock and awe move, Magellan says. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s a show of power – of utter power, I say. It’s like parking a tank on your front law. It’s to prove they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. They can simply bend reality to their will.

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says, Hans says. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! Who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management? The uni would! Because the uni can!

The madness of the world is showing itself, Magellan says. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness! A mad flood of insanity! It’s quite sublime in its way …

Don’t examine it too closely, I say. Don’t think about it too much. Ponder the logic of the organisational management move and you’ll go quite mad.

Maybe we should go mad, Hans says. Maybe that's what it'll take. 

But it has to be our madness, not theirs – not the madness they want to drive us to. Not the madness of humiliation, but … but our cultivate-your-own-legitimate-madness madness, like Réné Char said. Which is to say, the madness of philosophy – real philosophy.

Cicero would approve, we agree.

Inspecting our new offices.

They’re very … purple.

Did anyone ask for them to be painted purple?

Not me.

You’re the new Head – surely they consulted you on the plans.

I didn’t say anything about purple. I wanted magnolia. Like, a cooling colour.

Did Cicero say anything about purple, before she left? Does Cicero have an attachment to purple?

Shrugs.

Someone’s attached to purple, anyway. And all the shades of purple!

Maybe it’s some psychological warfare thing. Some demoralising thing. Maybe purple’s a uniquely depressing colour.

Googling psychological effects of purple.

… A blend of a high energy colour, red, and a calming colour, blue. So it can be energising or relaxing, depending.

What about depressing? Does it say anything about depressing?

It says here that toned down hues like lavender are soft and feminine, but darker hues can lead to impatience, frustration and irritability.

Exactly! They’re trying to provoke us!

Purple’s supposed to be a polarising colour. Either you like it or you don’t.

I don’t.

And if you do like it, you’re supposed to be artistic, thoughtful and intuitive. You like thinking about the meaning of life.

What if you don’t like it?

It means you’re unartistic, unthoughtful and unintuitive.

Fuck.

Shades of purple: amethyst, lavender, lilac, mulberry, orchid, plum, puce, pomegranate. Wine, of colour. And there’s royal purple … Associated with royalty, extravagance and aristocracy … The Queen wore the Purple Robe of Estate after her coronation …

Would you call this royal purple?

It’s just, like, too much purple. Totally saturated purple. Like, deep purple.

And there’s the Prince connection. He associated purple with the end times, apparently. The pouring of red blood from the heaven, mixed with the sky’s natural blue …

I think purple’s the colour of the endless end times.

This would be the perfect place to await the end times. The sixth floor, views of the sky …

They say they’re going to beam holograms into the sky to make us think there’s an alien invasion. They’re already filling the sky with reflective materials for their lasers to bounce off.

Like, why?

To spread fear and confusion. And to distract from the fucked up economy.

Cunning.

And some say they’re going to simulate the Second Coming. Like, Christ coming in on the clouds.

Again: why?

To show that they can. It’s a mockery operation. It’s a laughing-at-what-people-believe-in thing. Showing that they can do better with laser beams, or whatever.

Maybe our purple offices are part of the psy-ops. They have a role for us with the fake-Second-Coming thing. They want us to be prophets of their fake Jesus, sent mad by the purple.

Of their Antichrist …