Work in Progress

I think I’ve forgotten how to read. I can’t read anymore. Is there such a thing as reader’s block? God, all these books … I don’t think I want anything to do with books anymore …

That you think I’m just some Organisational Management honey-trap who’s supposed to sell you on moving here. But I’d like to be one of the cool humanities kids, too, you know.

Do you want to defect to the humanities?

Maybe. Do you think I could? I actually studied a bit of French literature, once. And classical Indian dance. Does that qualify me? And I’ve read a lot of Amar Kitha Katha comics. Did you?

Sure I did.

Don’t you believe there are global problems?

I don’t believe you can manage your way out of them.

You can’t be cynical about everything.

Cynicism was a school of philosophy – did you know that? The original speakers of truth to power … That was a long time ago.

No one wants to listen to you anymore, right? But we do. Really, we do … Organisational Management could do with a few Cynics.

I mean why should the moving of Philosophy into Organisational Management be, like, the end of the entire universe? We’re a broad church.

It’s a hostile takeover of Philosophy, and that’s that.

Maybe you’ll turn Organisational Management philosophical.

Maybe.

Why can’t Organisational Management become question-worthy, or whatever?

Because it would destroy Organisational Management. The question of Organisational Management would swallow it whole …

Maybe our campus is too big … Maybe we’ve become too powerful … And we don’t ask about fundamental things.

Make me serious, philosopher … Talk to me about serious things. Turn my attention to what’s actually worthwhile. What matters most to you, philosopher? What matters most in general?


What do philosophers talk about, when they’re together? This kind of thing?


Are all philosophers like you?

Are all organisational managers like you?

Walk and talk just like this. Don’t you think this is the best kind of talk there is? When you don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who you are. It’s, like, suspension. It’s hovering. Before anything begins.

Thunder – mother’s turning over in her sleep.

Mother’s having bad dreams. Which you’re giving her. Don’t break mother. She’s probably reading your philosophical thoughts.

Where does all this talk lead us, philosopher? Where does it take us? Palookaville. Nowhere. The same place as we were before.

But everything’s a little bit different, don’t you think? There’s been a tiny … displacement.

But that just means that everything’s even more what it is. What it was. What it will be …

We’re all going to be transparent to Mother, Priya says. Mother will know us like no one else does. She has all our data. Mother sees all and knows all about us. She’s able to read or desires, our dreams. And she can make an environment that’s just perfect for us – each of us. Only it won’t be your dream or my dream anymore. It’ll be the dreaming. Mother’s dreaming.

A new Ice Age is setting in. The grand solar minimum.

Sheets of ice are coming. Miles-high ice sheets. Glaciers, pressing through the campus.

The Earth, turned into an ice planet. Silent. Lifeless. And just the frost-filled wind blowing across …

Eternal winter. Like nuclear winter. Where nothing will grow, ever again.

Oh things might grow – but only twisted things, mutated things. What Livia would call interesting things.

Stupidity’s the only thing we have. The only thing that might save us.

From what?

From knowing our stupidity, of course.


What’s the opposite of a savant? The opposite of a prodigy? Is there such a thing as a genius of stupidity?


Livia, too, was an agent of Stupidity, the greater Stupidity. She, too, was a servant of forces beyond her control. She, like us, served Idiocy and the self-seeking of Idiocy.


Stupidity, trying to sound its depths. Failing to sound its depths. Stupidity, pondering its own abyss. Failing to ponder its own abyss.