Work in Progress

Everyone pretends it isn’t madness, that’s the thing. Moving philosophy to Organisational Management is passed off as perfectly sane! As a sensible plan. As a laudable example of interdisciplinarity! It was praised at Senate for exactly that reason!

Which is why the Philosophy to Organisational Management initiative was approved at every level of the university. Which is how it made its way through the committees. Which is why it was agreed to by the highest managers! The uni’s best – and brightest! Up there on the fifteenth floor!

The picture is bigger up there. They have all the info. They can see things we can’t. It was a question of strategy. Of strategic planning. And they have to plan. They’re in possession of knowledge we can only guess at. Aware of risks …

They did the SWOT plans. Strength! Weaknessess! Opportunities! Threats! We should accept their decisions. As they are handed down to us. Without our input. Without our consultation.

Of course philosophy should move to Organisational Management. Where else? Not to the School of Arts and Cultures. Not to Religious Studies. Not to History. No: to Organisational Management, which is Business Studies, effectively. Of course!

 

So when the email was sent at 5PM on Friday, when the email arrived – just before the weekend, as the office closed – when the news came we should have received it with joy. With great welcome. With a song! With merriment! And not confusion. Not with abysmal despair.

We shouldn’t have gone on one of our famous weekend benders. We shouldn’t have begun drinking and not stopped for the next few days. We shouldn’t have needed to!

Thankful: that’s what we should have been. Grateful. That they’d noticed us. That they’d included us in their plans. That they’d made a decision – a surprising decision, granted – about little old us.

And we wrong to link it to Cicero’s retirement. No doubt! We were wrong to think they supposed they could do what they liked with us now Cicero had gone. We were entirely in error to imagine nefarious plans concerning our future. That it was some covert way of shutting us down.

And why would we need to be consulted? Why should we have to be told except by email? On a Friday? A five PM?

The greatest brains had decided! From the loftiest heights! Who had the greatest vistas! The panorama of the entire university! And beyond!

 

Nothing ill was intended. Our conspiracy theories, our mad guess-work, was merely a product of our paranoia. Of our overactive imaginations.

Weren’t our suspicions were exactly what  you’d expect from near alcoholics. From drunkards. From down-at-heels. From the noises-off crowd. From those who couldn’t see the whole situation. Didn’t understand the threats. Who didn’t have the genius. The vision! Of those higher up! Of the far sighted! Of the true strategists!

What could we see, down in the lowlands, the shameful lowlands. Down in the swamp! In the thickets! In the undergrowth! Who could scarcely see an inch in front of our noses. Who were shortsightedly groping about. Vulnerable to every kind of conspiracy theory. Of arrant speculation. Transient foolishnesses. Travelling madnesses.

We couldn’t understand – how could we? At another level, a higher level, the philosophy to Organisational Management move made perfect sense. The best sense! At their level, with their insight, philosophy could not be moved to anywhere other than Organisational Management. Of course! Perfect! They were playing three dimensional chess. And who were we?

It's an occupational hazard of higher management to be misunderstood by the underlings. A tough job! Thankless! Everyone carping! When really, they should be cheering. Or at least reserving judgement. When really, they should be properly deferential. Allowing that the higher-ups know better than us. Better than we could do.

Things look different on the upper slopes. From the higher slopes. Things look different when you raise yourself to those heights.

A mere philosophy unit … A humble philosophy unit that knows its place shouldn’t have any great say in its future. It’s not for us to judge. To second-guess the decisions of our superiors.

How mad do we need to go? How much madder? How much farther?

 

My God. Stop shouting. I can’t bear your shouting.

We have to shout! We have to match the madness of the times with our madness! There has to be a synchronisation!

Of course, our madness is really a counter-madness. Our madness is really a madness against their madness. Against their delirium. It’s a protective madness, of a sort. It’s a sheltering madness.

We fight their madness with a madness of our own. With mad weapons of our own. We’ll match the hyperbole in reality with our hyperbole in speech!

They would send us mad, but we’ll send ourselves madder. We’ll escape their madness …

 

Sacrifices to be made … Expectations adjusted … That’s what we heard.

Things won’t go on as before. The university has to change. Unexpected things might happen. Fasten your seatbelts. Prepare for turbulence. Choppy waters! Solar storms! Brown outs and black outs! We were warned.

We’ve spent too long in each other’s company. We’ve sent each other mad, that’s the problem. We’re incapable of moderation. But these are the times! Moderation is impossible in our times! Madness has broken out in our times! General madness, in our times! Spreading like a contagion!

You can’t hold it back. Madness has broken its banks. The levees broken. Floodwaters rising! It’s Biblical!

These are times without measure, without proportion. Anything goes.

We’re mad with the madness of our times. We’re delirious – with the delirium of our times.

This is what happens when you implement a new reality. When you rip up the old world. When they’re happy to sacrifice the old world. In the name of the new one!

 

Our madness is an adjustment to the general madness. Our hyperbole is necessary. We talk like maniacs. Of course! We say the wildest things – we need to say the wildest things. Because these are wild times.  

We can’t be calm. Of course not. How could we be calm? They’ve removed all sense of proportion. Of measure. They’re ripping up the old world. They don’t give a fuck about the old world.

 

And there are people who are pretending it isn’t actually happening. That nothing’s going on. The vast majority! Most people are pretending that things are going on exactly as they were before!

These are hyperbolic times. These are careening times. These are train-jumps-the-track-lines times.

It’s never been as wild as this. There’s never been this degree of arrant madness. Obvious madness. There have never been times like these …

I swear it’s accelerating. I swear it’s intensifying. The madness … The mad madness. They don’t even pretend to make sense, that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter than nothing makes sense.

They even celebrate it, knowing that it doesn’t make sense. Unless – this is the scary thing – they think it does make sense.

Whatever next? English moved to Marine Engineering? History to Chemical engineering? Classics to Chemical Engineering? Don’t they see how mad this is?

The true madness is that they don’t.

And now a party! To celebrate it all, apparently. To celebrate the madness.

Now they’re throwing party for the madness. As if that didn’t just add to the madness.

The university in parody. But it doesn’t mind being in parody.

Pull the emergency break. There has to be an emergency break.

 

We might as well shout at the sky. The sky should hear us! We need to raise the alarm! We need to pull the emergency break!

We can’t go on! We can’t take it! Too … much … senselessness … Too … much … madness.

We’re beyond breaking point. We’re actually broken. We’re in pieces. An ocean of madness has broken in and carried us away. We’ve been dispersed on the great wave …

Once Cicero was removed … Once the rock was lifted … What did they see: us. The ones who shouldn’t be here. The aberrants. The ones who weren’t with the programme. Who weren’t careerists. Who weren’t all about the usual things. Once they saw that …

Were we a threat? Laughter. Some threat. But we needed containing. Sure – to be on the safe side. We needed to be … controlled. Just in case.

We’re different in kind to them – that’s what they knew. In species, more or less. We’re not homo academicus. What are? Home prole. Homo useless. Homo aberrant. Homo fuck up. Homo idioticus. Homo not quite.

Different in kind! Different in outlook. In temperament. And no doubt in IQ …

You’re being groomed for leadership, X – after all, you’re Head of Unit now. That’s what Cicero wanted. That’s why Cicero recruited you.

The irony is you’re the least likely of any of us to be a leader. You’re an unleader, X. You’re virtually silent, for one thing. You’re always on the periphery. Always skulking about on the margins. You never want to talk to anyone. You’ll do anything to avoid chit chat or small talk or indeed any talk. You’re never to be found. You show no leadership qualities whatsoever. In fact, the very opposite.

Which means your so-called leadership is a Cicero joke, a Cicero mockery. But hidden inside her jokes was often seriousness. Great seriousness! What are we to learn from you being appointed as leader?

 

You’re the worst leader, X. An underleader. Who leads by following! Who has nothing to say! Who is always writing in his notebook! Ostentatiously longhand. Writing all the time his mysterious Work. What is the Work, anyway? Read to us from your notebook. Edify us! Share some of your wisdom! We need inspiration!

 

You should be a mascot, not a leader, X. How are you going to stand up to the Organisational Managers in your various meetings? How are you going to advance the philosophical cause? Make a case for us? Voice our objections to pretty much everything?

A breath. A gap. The nothing of creation. That’s what the divine was all along. That we must echo in our own nothingness.

The Nothing! Because the system isn’t complete. Because the Man isn’t omnipotent.

A non-power beyond power. A Shattering. A Violence. A beautiful violence.

Where will it come? When will the sky open again? When will we see it?

 

And when it comes? Relief to our eyes. Cooling our eyes. Wetting our dry, dry eyes. And we’ll weep – doubtless. We’ll weep our eyes cool and moist. Our eyes will glisten with our tears. Our cheeks will run with glad tears.

Because the system isn’t complete after all. Because the unmanageable isn’t manageable after all. Because there’s such a thing as a holy anarchy.

They have something in mind. Why can no one see it but us? There’s a logic to it all. A pattern. A great shaping. At societal level. At the economic level. At the political level.

There’ll be a new society. A new economy. A new politics. It’s all being brought in. Installed. In different phases. At different tempos. Sometimes gradually, sometimes rapidly.

The old world’s being replaced. The old world’s behind dismantled, and a new one built. It’s clever. It's even brilliant. The enemy knows what it’s doing. Working on multiple fronts. With all these vectors of attack. And all at once. And all without anyone really noticing. Clever.

They have the media, of course. They’ve the politicians. The policy makers. They have the institutions. They’ve driven the common sense from us. They’ve educated it out of us. They’ve indoctrinated it out of us. They know what they’re doing.

They have behavioural psychologists in their team.

 

They’re remaking our world. They’re remaking us. We’re being … refashioned. We won’t be who we were.

It’s not only the contents of our thinking that they want to change. But its logic. That’s what it means to remake us.

It’s cunning …. It’s deft …

 

And ourselves? What can we do to save ourselves? A kind of practice. A way of living. Life – lived. An ethics – why not. Or rather, an ethos. With its own … spiritual exercises.

Which mostly involve drinking. Which are mostly about … inebriation.

 

A dezombie-fication, in the pub. A de-robotification – there in the pub.

 

We’re drinking ourselves sober. We’re sobering up – from the world. We’re awakening – from the world.

And from our stupidity? Maybe.

Unless our stupidity is our awakening. Unless it’s a salvific stupidity. Unless it’s saving us, our stupidity. Our obstinacy. Our stubbornness.

 

Only human unpredictability can save us now. Human unmanageability. Human perversity. Human twistedness. Human stupidity – why not call it that. That’s what we have to call upon in our students. That’s what we have to awaken.

A great call to the stupidity of our students. From stupidity to stupidity. From our stupidity to theirs …

Let’s just take our fucking lives. That can be our Movement. Total negation. Total despair – realised. Come alive.

Let’s just leaving our fresh fucking corpses.

And a manifesto. Put it up online.

Or maybe no manifesto. Leave it reasonless. Don’t explain it. Or anything. It’s more powerful that way.

What message do you think we’d send?

That life isn’t worth it. That nothing’s worth it. The odds are stacked against you. The house always wins. So you might as well just … get out of the game. Press fucking eject.

But they want us killing ourselves. They want us declaring that we’re out of the game. They want us fucking resigning. To get the numbers down. It’s all about population reduction. So they’re spreading an ideology of self-loathing and suicide. By killing ourselves, we’d just be doing what we were supposed to. We’d be change agents for mass suicide, which is what they want.

 

It’s hardly a movement we’re starting. It’s a free floating disgust. A contagious disgust. That will spread through the world. A rejection of all things – even life. Especially life. Life’s not what we want. Living itself – is in bad taste. Suicide … is the only honourable course of action. We might as well just kill ourselves now. Straightaway.

 

Who was that group who gave up on sex. Like, a long time ago. They died out pretty quickly.

The Shakers …

Yeah, them. Well, so will our movement – die out, I mean. But we’ll die out all at once. At one stroke. We’d be the had-enoughs. The fuck-it-alls. It’d all be about abstinence – but abstinence from life.

And the very fact we were philosophy lectures would only add to it. People would expect reasons. Logic. A general argument why life isn’t work it.

So we have to write a manifesto. Explain why.

A glorified suicide note? No: the fact we didn’t would show our state of mind.

What: craziness?

We’d had enough of explanations .. reasons … logic: that’s what would strike them.

Who?

The discerning. People who know how to read the signs.

Naive. They’d love a mass cull of zoomers. Of gen-xers. Of everyone really. We’d just be playing into their hands.

 

The young people do not want to live. Nor do the middle-aged people. Nor the old people. A collective death-wish. That we’re articulating. That we’re letting speak. Death for everyone. Death here, there and everywhere.

 

The world is too much. There’s too much world in the world. We’re dazed. Hit by some blow. Staggering.

We’ve let ourselves be cornered.

By what?

By life. By having to fucking life. There’s another way. There’s a way of escaping. Of evading.

 

They want us to dispose of ourselves. They’re spreading these ideas, and using us to spread them. That’s what philosophy departments are for, nowadays. The whole of the humanities. It’s suicide training, nothing else. Throwing-yourselves-out-of-the-window training.

 

We have to go further. Go deeper. Our despair isn’t despair enough. Our hatred isn’t hatred enough …

 

Philosophy’s being taken over by an eliminativists. Killing yourself types. Because of climate change. Because of Malthusiasnism: because there are too many of us on the planet.

The Newcastle eliminativists … that’s who we are. Following a fucking script.

 

Applied philosophy: that’s what we’re about. Applied nihilism. Practical suicide.

We’re suicide influencers, basically.

 

Can we not talk about killing ourselves for a few minutes?

 

You get offered euthanasia for mental disorders in Canada. Why not philosophical ones? We have to save people not kill them. We need to give people a reason to live in this degenerate world.

We’re a pirate department. On the high seas of philosophy. Don’t lie!! It’s an untruth! What delusion!.

We’re a disaster department. We’re a scuttled department. We’re not even a department. A unit! That’s what they call us: a unit!

And we’re a sinking unit. We can’t recruit. We’re being kept open as an indulgence. As a joke. Their joke – the university’s joke. We’re adrift! At sea!

 

We should be shot like mad dogs. Of course. Imprisoned! And we should be allowed to hang ourselves in prison. For our own dignity. To uphold it somehow …

Because there’s some last dignity we all have. Any of us. A dignity that isn’t even ours …