Work in Progress

They’re zombiefying us. We’re the new zombies. Kind zombies, tolerant zombies, but zombies nevertheless.

 

Our heads are empty. And our hearts are empty. Souls – we have no souls. They’ve emptied out the place where our souls once were.

 

We’re the new androids. We’re the replicants.

That’s what the university is about: the creation of replicants. That’s what the whole of education is about: human soul capture. Human soul evacuation.

Zombiefication: that’s what the new campus is about. And Organisational Management is a zombie finishing school.

 

Come on, zombies just walk stupidly along with the arms outstretched.

Not these zombies.

 

The new Zombies are, like, totally optimised. Totally there.

They’re not like us. They don’t lag behind themselves. They aren’t vague, or dreamy. Productive types. Who do stuff. Who are full of vim. People who are fully themselves. Absolutely themselves. And nothing else! People without potentiality, that’s the thing.

Potentiality for what?

To be something else. To do nothing in particular. Just to be, without being anything. Who can’t be optimised. Who can’t disappear into function.

A luxury buffet. Bottles of wine. Imagine that! Drinking on campus! We thought that had been banned years ago … We thought the campus was an alcohol free zone …

The times for drink are gone – that’s what we thought. No one trusts a drinker on campus. Drinking is moral dubious now.

People don’t even go out for drinks anymore. There’s no after-work pint. Everyone just disappears … melts away back to their domestic lives, if they have them.

 

There are no campus alcoholics anymore. No lives cut short. No youthful promise dissipated, more’s the pity.

Everyone’s active, efficient. Everyone’s clear-headed. Too clear-headed! Everyone’s able to concentrate. To focus. To put themselves to work.

 

Gone are the days you could secret a bottle of whiskey in a filing cabinet.

Gone are the three pint lunches. Not even for leaving dos.

 

All the eccentrics, driven away years ago. No Personalities, capital P, on campus. No Characters. Oddnesses have been smoothed out. Quirks lost.

Only smiling pleasantness now. Only amiability. Capability. Only, Yes I can do it. Only willingness! Hard-workingness. A perpetual jumping to attention. To get things done!

 

X’s hipflask. Thank God for x’s hipflask. It’d saved us on many occasions, X’s hipflask. Who would we be without X’s hipflask?

Really, we should all have hipflasks. It should be an urgent priority: buying hipflasks.

 

No one’s witty anymore on campus. No one’s funny – have you noticed that?

No one laughs. It’s all seriousness. Not High Seriousness, it’s true. But a sober seriousness. An industrial seriousness.

 

No one says anything outrageous on campus. Nothing loud.

There are no loud voices anymore. The academic whisper, instead. The pss pss pss instead. So you have to lean forwards at meetings.

 

The invisible consensus. Need to make everyone feel Safe.

Nothing confrontational. Nothing contentious. No joking about certain subjects.

Agreeability. Non-offensiveness. We’re virtually whispering. Respectfully. Unoffensively …

Only certain personality types will do. Who score high for Agreeability. For Communitarianism. There are no sovereign individuals here. No room for toxic individualism …

 

Total Inclusivity. Which is the new form of exclusion. Total Tolerance. Which is the new form of Intolerance. It’s all about what’s good for All, which is to say for Them. It’s about what’s good for the Collective, which is to say, not good for us.

 

Totally Tolerant. This is how it is.

Happening right now: the quiet revolution. The coming of the new commissars. The new apparatchiks. The head boys and girls. All calm and efficient. Whisperers. Nearly humourless.

Calling out all toxicity! All antisocial behaviour! Who lead by example – by quiet example. Who speak fluent equity and equality and all that.

The rise of a new Type. The rise of the New Rulers.

We have to guarded, on campus. We have to Watch Out, on campus. We might say the wrong thing, in the wrong tone. We might end up with a lawsuit. With a disciplinary.

Don’t be caught off guard … Don’t chat in the corridors. There are no friends here. Only potential betrayers …

 

Mild positivity. That’s the New Way.

They’re learning from each other. The necessary behaviour. The mode of groupthink. They’re picking it up …

And for the rest of us? No friends. No allies. No one to roll your eyes with.

Philosophers in residence: that’s what we are! Pet philosophers! Toy philosophers! For amusement! For diversion! For a break in the Organisational Management routine!

There’s no satire anymore. No one laughs at absurdities. What happened to humour? What happened to laughter?

It’s all official humour. It’s all conformist laughter. Real comedians … what happen to them? Gone underground. Working at secret comedy clubs.

Philosophy itself is at risk – of course it is. Oh, not Anglophone philosophy. Not Analytic philosophy. Real philosophy – that’s what’s at risk.

Philosophy’s dying, vanishing – real philosophy. The conditions for philosophy are disappearing – real philosophy.

We want to sound a great philosophical lament. For philosophy. For the conditions of philosophy.

We’re always being told about kindness. That we should be kind to one another. And the system should be kind. But we know that kindness is cruelty – the greatest cruelty. An ethics of kindness! Tolerance! Mutual respect! Whereas what we need is mutual cruelty. Whereas what we need is brutal honesty.

 

Kindness: that’s the official philosophy of these times. You hear of nothing else: kindness. The desire for more kindness. To increase kindness! Is that what it’s come to: kindness? Is this how civilization ends: in kindness? In agreeableness?

The snow adds to it. it’s positively Russian. The whirling snow. The eternal dark. You’re supposed to be able to see Northern Lights tonight …

Fuck the Northern Lights! I wouldn’t turn around to see the Northern Lights! I hate all that cosmic shit. I hate being made to feel small. Fuck off with your wonder. I’m sick of wonder.

Philosophy begins with wonder.

Bollocks. Philosophy begins with horror – world horror! World sickness! World hatred! World suspicion! Luckily, some of us still have that. Luckily, some of us are still full of that. Happily, some of us feel nothing but horror. We have no stake in this wicked old cosmos.

We’re the only philosophy unit in the region. For miles. Nothing at Northumbria. They closed down the department at Sunderland. Of course they did!

Nothing at Teeside. There’s Durham, of course. Yes, Durham! We’re all envious of Durham! But we’re carrying the philosophical torch for the city. We’re its sole bearers in Newcastle. A great responsibility!

We’re bearers of civilisation. We’re keeping the flame – the philosophical flame. And the European philosophy flame to boot. There are barely any European philosophy departments left anywhere.

Attitudes like ours … thought-patterns like ours … are the product of this kind of world. We’re a symptom of this kind of world. We’re this world’s madness. We’re this world’s perversity. We’re this world’s fever.

This is our world, and we belong to it. We wish we didn’t! We wish we were from somewhere complete different! But we’re not. And this world explains us.

 

A philosophy like ours doesn’t come from nowhere. This world – it comes from here. Nowhere else.

We’re thinkers of his world, born of this world. Which is why we can’t trust any of our impulses. Why we can’t trust any of our desires. Because they’re the world’s impulses! The world’s desires!

They closed philosophy in the ‘80s. that was the warning sign. That was their shot across the bows. Did we really think that there could be a philosophy department again?

Sure, all the higher-ups had changed. Sure, senior management had moved on. No one from that time remained at the university. But there was a legacy of philosophy-suppression at our cherished university. There was a tradition of philosophy-banishment. And we should respect that!

The lesson was clear: not merely that there was nothing special about Philosophy. Nor just that Philosophy was not exempt to university restructuring. Not simply that Philosophy as subject to the same laws, the same rules as other subjects. No: Philosophy had to assume a special humility. A singular abjection. Philosophy had to stand, cap in hand, head bent, to be ready for orders.

 

And what this will mean for Organisational Management? The risk of disorganised derangement! Of chaotic unmanagement!

Organisational Management could pay a great price agreeing to take us. We should realise that. We should feel grateful that anyone would accept us.

We should remember that Organisational Management aren’t being forced to do this. That Organisational Management volunteered for this.

Organisational Management stood up to be counted. Organisational Management are making a gamble. Taking a punt. There are risks! Obvious risks! But they decided to take us in. And take us on. And bring us round to the Organisational Management way of doing things.

Doubtless lessons will have to be learnt on both sides (especially our side.) Adjustments made (especially our adjustments.) Compromises (our compromises, obviously.) It won’t be straightforward. There’ll be teething problems, probably. Cultural misunderstandings. Misprisions. Inevitably. But if we decide to work together. With a good attitude …

Then a new symbiosis might be possible. A successful grafting of Philosophy onto Organisational Management. Is that the aim?