Work in Progress

The twilight of the Heideggerian. The whole Heideggerdamerung …


Tell us about your Heideggerian hopes and dreams. What’s the next big thing in Heidegger studies? Is there a next big thing in Heidegger studies?


Look, the analytic philosophers have their Nazis, too. Frege – he was a Nazi.
Who else?


The Heideggerian hulk. I think he’s turning green?


You have to memorise the whole of Heidegger. And there’s a lot of Heidegger. There’s a quote from Heidegger for every occasion, right Helmut? Weddings. Birthdays. Bar mitzvahs.

A place to rest for a few years, but no more. A place to catch our breaths. A reprieve. A respite. A safe perch – for a while, but only for a while.


She wanted to stop us from finding our place in the uni. From finding our footing in the uni. For finding our academic sea legs.


We were not to become naturalised. Native academic speakers! We were never to be given full university citizenship.

The question that philosophy guards. That it watches over. That it asks itself endlessly. That it asks the world. That’s its sole justification.

Hasn’t analytic philosophy spread to Germany now. Isn’t it spreading across Scandinavia? North American’s gone – obviously. So is Australia. There are a few holdouts mainland France, for example. In India. China! They tried to import analytic philosophy to China, and they failed! Hilarious! They rejected it, the Chinese. Of course they did! But the pressure’s on. They’ll conquer China in time …

Haven’t they made in-roads into Africa? Aren’t they scratching logical notation on Ghanian blackboards?

The car park.

You haven’t even got a car. How do you manage, without a car? I suppose you have philosophical objections to cars. And business. And general prosperity.

It’s just resentment, anyway.

Why? I can’t even drive.

Exactly – that’s part of it. You won’t equip yourself for a normal life. Like normal people. You think you’re special. Which just means that you’re especially incompetent. Don’t deign to function in the world. To be normal. To act like a responsible grow up.

Is that what you are, a responsible grown up?

You don’t even have a smartphone, do you?

It’s resistance.

What a joke.

You can’t use cash in this carpark. You have to have the app.

You let me pick you up, didn’t you? You didn’t walk here. You’re content to be otherworldly. Looked after. You think you’re always going to be looked after. You’re dependent, right. Not much of a turn on, is it?

A big car makes me feel all girly and looked after.

Really?

What if – what if that? Your parents should have taken care of you better. Prepared you.

I’ve done okay, haven’t I?

Anyway, I’m skint.

Skint … You’ll never be a good provider, will you?

You’re so quiet today. When you should be apologising.

Apologising for what?

For it being so cold. For bring me out here.

It was your idea.

It was yours. Let’s go for a walk, you said. Let’s get some air, you said. Let’s fill our lungs. And now we’re dying of exposure. Well, I am.


Aren’t you scared someone will recognise you out here? Expose our torrid affair? Our affairlete, anyway.

I want it exposed. I want the world to know. I don’t care. Anyway, who’d be out on a day like this?

We’re sports. We’re stunts. We’re experiments – stupidity’s experiments. We’re mutants of ignorance.


How could she inflict us upon philosophy, Livia? How could she do this to philosophy? Why did she want to be so cruel to philosophy? What had philosophy ever wanted to do to her?

A doubled up laughter. A laughter at laughter. That attained … what?


Last laughter. A laughter that knew the folly of all things, and of everything that tried to rise above folly! A laughter that knew the folly of rising above folly. Of all dreams of transcendence. Of all the substitutes for religion. Even our religion without religion. Even our religion of the empty sky. Of shattered immanence. Even out religion of the void – only the void.

Dear, dear Boner. The idiot’s idiot. An actual, workaday idiot, who somehow stumbled into philosophy. Who somehow got a philosophy PhD.

How was that possible? Can you somehow end up with a philosophy Ph.D.? Like a tattoo, after a drunken night out? Like a Las Vegas wedding?


What’s the opposite of a consigliere? That’s you, Boner.


Boner is here to make even the idiots look less idiotic.


Boner’s stupid questions. The play of Boner’s idiocies. Like a family dog. Amusing us because his stupidities are even greater than ours.


A clown’s clown. An idiot’s idiot. A fool’s fool. The jester’s jester, right. Village idiot of the year.

Every department needs one. Just for a point of contrast. To make us feel somewhat better about ourselves. Or as a mirror in which to see ourselves, reflected back.


The farce’s farce. What the farce watches to amuse itself.


Even the comic relief need comic relief. Even the slapstickers enjoy slapstick.


I think Boner was sent from the future to save us.

From what? Intelligence?


Dear, sweet Hardon – where would we be without your questions?


Questions, always questions, hard boy. An inquiring mind! Always eager to learn!


Fuck stick. Mr Stiffie. Tentpole Tudor. Morning Wood. Every day’s a school day. Love truncheon. Donkey schlong. King Dong.

The postwar humanities horn of plenty.

Before mass higher education had flooded the academy with midwits. Before those midwits became midwit lecturers in turn. The dreadful cycle of diminution. The academic descent …

God made the word so that we could hate it.

And love God?

Love God as the opposite of the Creation.


God has nothing to do with the Creation. God despises the Creation.

You’re a lunatic.


The Creation is God’s going away. Is God’s disappearance. Is God fleeing from everything. From us.