Work in Progress

Defiant in despair. Shaking our fists in despair. At what? And why?

How pitiful, our protest. Directed at what, our protest? And who is there to listen to it, our protest? Each other, maybe. But what comfort is that?

We became deep – but in the wrong way. Buckled deep. Contorted deep, like the roots of the Alps. Deformed.

Sicknesses of the head. Fuckedupness of the head. Disorders of the brain. Of thought! Of speech!

Hatreds – festering hatreds. Disgusts – vast and formless disgusts. Screams, even. Screams in the head.

Thoughts of emergency. Emergency thoughts. Life under pressure. Philosophy under pressure. What did it do to our thought, that pressure?

We can’t survive this. We can’t go on like this. We can’t let it go on. We can’t let it go on. It has to be ended – and soon. It has to be brought to an end – imminently.

There must be no more of this. No more outrage. No more gratuitousness. No more more. Not again again. Not the next day and the day after that.

Is it compulsory? Does it have to be compulsory? Must there always be more?


You want out. You want to opt out. You want to escape. You want to press eject. You want the exit. You can’t breathe. You’re suffocating. You can’t get a breath. You can’t take in any air. There’s no air to breathe. Not here. Not in this universe.


You want to retch. You want to retch it all up. Everything you’ve swallowed. Everything you’ve eaten and drink. Everything you’ve taken in of this world. Everything imbibed. Everything drawn down. Everything swallowed.

The desire to vomit it all up. The desire to expel it all, all the poison that you were made to take. All the evil stuff that you swallowed down. That they made us eat and drink and breathe.


The only world is their world. The only air is their air. The only sky is their sky. The only earth is their earth. The only snow is their snow. The only ice is their ice. The only days are their days. The only nights …  

And you can’t even kill yourself. Because the only death is their death. You can’t stab yourself to death because the only knives are their knives.

Does it think it can out-disgust us, this wine? Does it think it’s going to win?

Of course it’ll win. This wine’s going to beat us. It’s, like the most vomit-inducing thing of all the vomit-induing things. The most foul thing, of all the foul things. The most rotten thing, out of all the rotten things.

The wine wins. We lose. But what do we lose?

The game of life, I dunno. The game of existence.

Which we never wanted to win! Which we were dragooned into playing! Which we were betrayed into playing! Without being asked! Without being consulted!

No more! We cry. No more! But there’s still more. There’s much more. And it’s actually increasing. It’s actually getting worse.

We can’t take it – of course we can’t. it’s breaking us – of course it is.

We were made to be broken. We’re supposed to be broken. We’re supposed to cry out, in all kinds of pain. That’s our role.

We haven’t fallen far enough, not yet. There’s farther to go.

How can there be any farther to go?

The process isn’t complete – the dreadful process. Can’t you feel it – a kind of pressure in the air? A crushing, in the air? Can’t you discern it – a horror in the air?

We’re sinking somehow. We’re … getting lower. It’s making us kneel, this pressure. It’s making us get down on our knees.


It’s all too disgusting for us. It’s all so overwhelmingly disgusting. Worse than before – much worse.

It’s all too horrifying! It’s all too dreadful!

How can we survive this? But we haven’t survived. We’ve already gone under. In another life, in a real life, we’re already dead. We’ve already been murdered. We’re already killed.

In another life, in our real lives, we’ve been buried deep. We rest in our graves. No – we were cremated. We were all burnt up. But here – in this fake life?

What a state we’re in! What an abasement! What wretchedness!

And we’re the most wretched beings of all because we know our wretchedness! Because we revel in it, our wretchedness! Because we’re all too aware of our wretchedness. Because it’s all we know, our wretchedness.


We’ve woken up to it: to the fact of our abasement! To the fact of our wretchedness! We’re saturated with it! We’re nothing other than it: the fact of our abasement.

We’re all wretchedness and nothing more. We’re ruination and nothing else!


And philosophy has only ever been the possibility of articulating it, our abasement. Philosophy has only even been about calling wretchedness by its name.

Self-loathing is an energy. Self-hatred is fuel. The desire for self-destruction can become a self-creation. You make something out of the shit.

Self-disgust is a potency. The autoallergic reaction to yourself as a UK European thinker. Perfect!

UK European philosophy runs on self-disgust and self-hatred. Just as UK analytic philosophy runs on synth assurance.


A war of philosophies. Of philosophy against philosophy. No – it’s more than that! A war of carbon versus silicon-based life. Of the humanities versus science. Of the soft versus the hard.


The great analytic boredom. The great analytic nihilism. The great analytic same-old. The great analytic yawn.

The great analytic despair – yes, despair. Unavowed despair! Displaced despair!


All those would be humanities scientists. All those chin strokers, with their inherited thought gestures. All that overuse of the phrase, horns of a dilemma. Of the word, robust.


Better a continental philosophy idiot than an analytic philosophy robot. Better the European thinking fool than the analytic synth.


The last idiots! The last of European thought! Waving our idiot banners! Waving the flags of our stupidity!


Rescue us from analytic intelligence. From analytic competence. From the analytic mindset. From analytic optimism. From analytic can-do. From analytic cheerfulness. From the analytic programme. From analytic obliviousness. From analytic anti-apocalypticism.

We were free, though we didn’t know it: that’s what Livia saw.

Our irreverence. We weren’t subject to the rules. We didn’t do as other people did. We didn’t know how to.

Our obliviousness. We couldn’t play along – we didn’t know how. We couldn’t follow the rules – we were incapable of it.

Our wildness. We were natural anarchists. We couldn’t obey authority. We didn’t acknowledge the rules. We barely knew that there were rules.

Our barbarity. We didn’t speak the language of the academy. We weren’t fluent in academese.

And yet we wanted to study. We had our idea of study. To be alone with books. To read, to jot down notes. Intellectual projects: we even had those. With which we were engaged. Primitively, no doubt. Stupidly! Without know what we were doing.

We were busy! Even industrious! What did we think we were doing?

But our role in the academy wasn’t just going to be about pursuing our supposed projects. Livia had something else in mind for us. Livia had her own project.

We had a role in her drama. We had our place in Livia’s fantasies. For good or for ill.


We were antinomians as she was not, Livia said. She lacked our anarchy. She didn’t have our irreverence. Our energy! Our animal spirits! That were natural to us. That belonged to people of our class.

We weren’t to be muzzled. Bridled! We weren’t to be disciplined.

And yet we had PhDs. In philosophy. How was that possible? What an enigma. We’d learnt something, after all. We’d actually sat still for long enough. We’d been able to stay at our laptops. We’d been able to read a few books.

But who were we, really? Who were we going to become?


Livia had her plans. Which was to set us loose in the academy, as you’d set loose rats into a building you wanted to be condemned.

We were Livia’s rats. Livia’s vermin. Livia’s plague. We were Livia’s partisans, deep behind enemy lines.


Our stupidity was something we couldn’t understand. Couldn’t appreciate. We had no idea of it, our idiocy – our true idiocy. We were nearly entirely unwitting.

Only Livia could savour it. Only Livia knew it, our idiocy, in its true dimensions. Only Livia understood it. could do something with it. Could turn it to her ends. To the fulfilment of her plan.

Anarchy in the academy! Idiocy in the academy! Tomfoolery in the academy! Jokes and jesters in the academy. Unleashed! At play! Abroad!


And we wouldn’t understand our role, not really. It would never be clear to us, our significance. Our uniqueness.

Only Livia could enjoy us. Only Livia would savour us.


And Livia could set us free in front of the students. There we were, lecturing. With our immense personal problems. With our vast inadequacy and sense of impostor’s syndrome.

Livia, who’d played the game for so long, and so well. Livia, who’d risen up the ranks. Who’d climbed the academic ladder. Livia, who’d succeeded. Who’d Ascended. Who’d Risen. Who’d crested, pretty much.

Livia, a a professor of many years, and one of the most respected professors. Livia, a university player, and one of the best of the university players.

Who could open a Philosophy department, at the hear of it all. Granted, it hasn’t called a philosophy department yet, but it would be. And staff it with idiots. Imbeciles. The entirely underserving.


Livia, orchestrating it all. Livia enjoying it all. Her wind-up toy philosophy department, that she’d set in motion.


We couldn’t help but escape. We’d already escaped. We were already outside. We were already in relation to the Outside.

In our writings, in our studies – no, it wasn’t there. But in the way we drank!. In the way we were!  In the way we lived in the everyday – it was there. It was precious. It was important.

Which we never understood. Of course not! Just like animals would never understand what they were.


She could delight in us, Livia. In our banter. In the way we were together. She could delight in herself. In her own good taste. In the way she’d brought us together. Curated us. It was idiot’s assemble. It was her Z team. Handpicked! Handplucked! For her nefarious purposes. That we’d never understand.

We’re ready for the worst disaster. We’re braced. In fact, that’s when we’d come into our own: when it’s imminent, the worst disaster.

That’s when we’d really wake up to ourselves. Become what we are. A strange calm would come over us. People would turn to us for solace. For advice.

But the end isn’t coming, that’s the thing. Things are just going to go on. It’s going to be like this forever. Which means we’re never going to appear to be seers. We’ll never appear to be calm. Or wise. We’ll just look like maniacs. Doom-spreaders.


We’ve already mourned the death of all things. We’ve already said all our prayers for it all. We’ve already come to terms with the loss.

But there isn’t going to be any loss. There’s nothing to pray for. The end isn’t coming. Everything’s just … continuing. Things are blundering on. One day is succeeding another. It’s offensive. It’s wrong. And who see that but us?


We’re braced from the end. We’re ready for the end. We’re waiting for the end. We’ve planned for the end. We’d bathe in the end, of we could. We’d have an end of it all party. We’d celebrate a deathday, like a birthday, only better. We’d toast to the Finality. To the coming Night. To non existence! To our being no more. We’d be so cheerful, right? We’d dance and sing. We’d wear party hats. Put up bunting. Blow party horns. celebrate! Bake a cake. Join hands and sing our It’s the End song.