Work in Progress

Cicero had favourites, it’s true. Cicero could be moody. Cicero could even sulk.

Cicero wasn’t immune from the usual pettinesses. She wasn’t superhuman. She could be short. She could play favourites. She could monologue. She could be changeable, even moody.

Cicero wasn’t always able to maintain front of house. That wasn’t Cicero’s thing: front of house. And it was even a kind of privilege for us to see Cicero’s bad moods. It meant Cicero could let her guard down in front of us.

It meant a kind of confiding in us. It meant Cicero was willing to be who she was in front of us. It meant that she could just be, with us. That we were people she felt comfortable with. Could let her guard down in the company of.

So to see her short-tempered, to see bared teeth, visibly frustrated, was a privilege. A sign of special closeness.

 

To see all the sides of Cicero. To see her from all the angles. That was our privilege. To see all the way into the inner workings of Cicero. To see Cicero’s fallibilities. Her weakness. Her fallenness: why not call it that?

Cicero knew the people she wanted around her. She knew she was getting older. That she couldn’t go on forever. She knew it was a question of assembling a team. Of bringing together a cadre. Of constituting one. People who would Understand.

 

Cicero liked our humility. We were people who’d be happy to remain in the provinces. We didn’t have Lofty Ambitions. We weren’t all Cambridged and Oxforded up. We came from lesser universities. From low league-table universities.

Which were, of course, the only places where you could study European European philosophy. Not Anglicised European philosophy. Not Analytic-style European philosophy. But European European philosophy.

Cicero liked the fact that we were drawn to it, European European philosophy. As she was, back in the day. As Cicero herself was, back behind the iron curtain.

Why did Cicero hand things over to us? Why, in the first place, did she give us jobs? Why did she pluck us out of obscurity?

The fact that we were working class. The fact that we came from the crappier universities. The fact that we had no expectations. That we weren’t careerists. The fact that we weren’t academic mountaineers. We weren’t ascenders. The fact that we weren’t looking for careers in management.

We were low-born: that’s what she like. We saw things from a low point of view. From a rat’s point of view. We looked for corners to hide. For cracks in which to disappear. For strategic retreat.

We didn’t trust the world, that was the thing. We had a natural working class scepticism. We knew something of the enemy. Of ruses. Techniques. We understood something of evil. How evil operated. What evil wanted.

No coincidence that the move happened after Cicero left. After she took extended leave or retired or whatever. Only then, only in the wake of Cicero would they dare to make this move.

Because Cicero knew, and they knew Cicero knew. Because Cicero understood the Great Game – they could see that. Cicero could play strategically. She understood realpolitik.

Cicero had the cunning of old Europe – they could see that. Of the Eastern bloc. Of European culture. Cicero knew their wiles. Their stratagem. Cicero understood the apparatchik logic. The Party mentality. Cicero had a long Mitteleuropean memory …

Didn’t they know who they were dealing with? We’ve read the philosophical books! We’ve tried to think philosophical thoughts. We’re inheritors of philosophy, in our own way. God knows, we’re even guardians of it, philosophy.

Oh maybe crappy ones. Unscholarly ones. Even idiotic ones. But nevertheless. There’s a direct apostolic line from Socrates to us! From the guys in the Upanishads to us! From Confucius to us!

We stand in the tradition! We’re legatees of philosophy! Guardians of it.

Who did they think they were dealing with? Who did they think we were? They had no idea, obviously. And perhaps they didn’t know. Perhaps only the higher-ups know, and perhaps not even them. The higher ups’ higher ups: that’s the level. Up there in the Control Room. That’s where they sit: high above everything.

 

Perhaps that’s our secret weapon: that they underestimate us. That they don’t know who we are. What we are! That they don’t know philosophy and its history. Its martyrs.

The Plan! That only the most discerning can grasp. The spiritually discerning. The spiritually awake. As we are! For all our shortcomings, there’s that! We’re awake! We See. We Hear.

It’s the brazenness that’s offensive. The effrontery. The obviousness of their moves. Their very overtness. It’s the fact that it’s all in plain view. That it’s happening before us. In front of us. That they think they could pull the wool over our eyes. That they think we couldn’t see.

They know what they’re doing – oh, not the organisational managers so much as the higher-ups. The Bigs. Organisational Management are being steered, just as we are.

Yeah, but we know it! We’re alert to it! We’re awake, as they are not!

You know how they work. It’s all compartmentalised. They don’t want the Organisational Managers to know. Just as the higher-ups probably don’t know the real agenda – the higher agenda. It’s compartmentalisation all the way up. Until you reach the Control Room, right. The people with the Plan.

The destruction of philosophy plan? Of all rational thought in the university plan?

That’s only part of it. It’s bigger than that.

They’ll want us to teach Organisational Management ethics, you realise that, don’t you? That’s the only way they can conceive philosophy: as ethics. They have no idea about the other branches of philosophy. Of aesthetics! Of metaphysics! Of ontology! Of logic!

They have no idea about the history of philosophy! Of course not! Or our specialisms. Our so-called research interests. Which do not include anything to do with Organisational Management. Which are notable for their lack of relevance to Organisational Management. What’s clear: that we are not and cannot be, by any stretch of the imagination, Organisational Managers. What’s clear: Philosophy is, like, a war-machine against Organisational Management.  

And they’re much bigger than we are, that’s the thing. They have the numbers. And we have … very little.

Yeah, but we’ve got attitude! Rebelliousness! Avant-gardism!

They scoff at our attitude! Come on! This whole thing is a pacification technique. It’s a neutralisation move. They’re clamping down on thought, right? They’re closing down the possibility of thought.

It’s not enough that they moved us to Organisational Management – they have to rub our faces in it. The forced marriage of Organisational Management and philosophy isn’t sufficient a humiliation; we have celebrate the marriage; we have to pretend the marriage is a good thing.

As if it wasn’t enough of an outrage to plan to move philosophy to Organisational Management! The fact that such decisions could be taken – and without consultation. That such things could be forced. In spite of all common sense! In spite of all precedent! No: they want more. They want to see us squirm.

But why? This can’t be simple vindictiveness, can it? There must be a deeper motivation. Someone, somewhere, believes they’re doing good by this move. They believe they’re doing the right thing. That’s what’s frightening. The delusion! The moralism! That’s what you have to be afraid of.

It’s a logic – the same logic as everywhere. Productivity. Efficiency. Easier management. Rationalisation.

But moving Philosophy to Organisational Management!? That’s not about rationalisation.

It’s some misplaced idea of developing synergies. Of bringing together disparate subject areas. Of, like, interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity or whatever … They wanted to effect the becoming Organisational Management of philosophy! The becoming philosophy of Organisational Management!

And now we’re supposed to celebrate the absurdity. Now we’re supposed to sup with the enemy …

I’m not eating anything in front of them. I’m not filling my plate in front of these losers. I’m not going to chat. I’m not going to make small talk. I’m not going to shoot the breeze with those fuckers …

God, if only we had a bomb! Or flamethrowers! If only we were armed! A suicidal last stand! Armed resistance!

Why do you always have to go from 0 to 60 with your lunacy?

Cicero’s gone. And we … we’re not up to the job. Or any job. Or anything. This is just the playing out … of our mediocrity. It begins and ends with our mediocrity. With the fact that we aren’t Cicero …

But Cicero chose us, didn’t she? She practically combed the country for us.

True.

She sought us out.

We probably disappointed her.

I don’t think we did. She used to listen to us lecture ourside the lecture hall. She’d listen in the foyer.

She liked our pathos. Our perspective … The English working class perspective. Real people perspective, she said.

All I remember is Cicero calling us libtards.

That was to train us. To get us used to adversity.

She criticised my shoes. She said they weren’t smart enough.

That was part of the training. She thought you wouldn’t take yourself seriously without proper shoes. Look, you’re wearing them now. Fucking brogues.

 

And she had a special love for you, Shiva. The way she always kept you back for further instruction. You were, like, her chosen successor. Selected for special attention. As the chosen one. As the future leader. To whom everything was going to be entrusted.