Work in Progress

Pouring Cicero’s wine out.

What are you doing?

I’m libating the campus.

Li-what?

Ancient peoples used to pour a little wine away every time they drank. As an offering to the gods.

Exorcism: that’s what this campus needs. Can you exorcise it with wine?

Who’s the god of philosophy?

Philosophy’s atheist now –

Tell that to Thomas Aquinas. Or Augustine. Or Kierkegaard.

– Because it knows God is dead.

Tell that to Simone Weil.

The gods are departing. That’s what Holderlin knew. The gods are fucking off. And they’re waving to us as they go. Ta-ra, mortals. See ya, mortals.

And will they come back?

There’s the last god, in Heidegger. Who’s that? I don’t know. But the last god’s not coming yet. Only a god can save us now, and all that.

You should offer your libation to the absence of God. Let’s libate the empty sky. Lets libate the fucking void. The great emptiness. And meaninglessness. And general fuck-up-ness. And just us, human idiots, looking up into the night. In the snow. Asking, why and why and why and why. And knowing no answer will come.

 

Libation: that’s what happened at the Last Supper. Jesus took the cup and said ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured for you’. Because Jesus was about to shed his blood to wash away the sins of the world. Because Jesus was about to become the holy Lamb of God, whose sacrifice atoned for all our sins, for everyone, for all of time. Making us all holy before God, right? That was the new covenant – that was the redemption.

Drink this in memory of me. Drink from the cup and you’ll enter into deep communion with Jesus. And into communion with others around you who likewise drink. That’s what libation means.

So we don’t pour any of it away?

We don’t pour any of it away.

Good, because I quite like this bottle.

You’ve got used to it. That’s bad.

I’m not going to drink it in memory of Cicero, who just fucked off and left us. And who didn’t wash away any sins whatsoever.

She wanted to crucify the university, that’s what Cicero said. By bringing us into it. Her Philosophy Department was the crucifixion. The passion of Newcastle, pretty much.

And what was supposed to happen as a result of that? I mean, it wasn’t about the vanquishing of sin. It wasn’t about some new universal community.

It was about the entertainment of Cicero. Cicero clapping her hands and laughing.

Just like Nero. Destroying the university just to watch it burn.

Cicero was the Antichrist: discuss.

She wanted to invert things. She wanted to complete the inversion. She wanted to perfect nihilism. To go right through it to the other end.

She wanted to exacerbate the tensions. To deepen them. Strife – that’s what she wanted. A rift. An eruption. A violence. That would bring the university to life again. That would reveal the campus anew. That  would show lectures as lectures. Seminars as seminars. Students as students. That would show the campus as a site of struggle. Over which philosophy watched.

Lightning – that’s what she spoke of. Lightning striking down. An event of truth. Light flashing on all the metal cladding …

You’d be happy here, Helmut. This is the place for you.

 

You make sense down here, Helmut. You fit. All you need is to get your German back.

 

This will deepen your Heideggerianism. Take you down to the Abgrund.

 

You can just sink here, Helmut. Find your level.

 

No one will bother you here, Helmut. No one will take the piss.

 

You’d be appreciated down here, Helmut. They’d like you.

 

Rumours are they’re making a golem down here. Out of Novocastian boulder clay. Like, chthonic Newcastle personified. With the words, where the danger’s greatest, there hope comes written on his forehead. Like, a face tat. That’s a lot of words.

It’s supposed to be Hebrew – what golems have written on their forehead. It’s a Jewish thing.

A golem, made from the earth. From the Novocastrian terroir … it’s the opposite of a synth …

Imagine what damage an army of golems could do.

They should make, like, a two hundred foot golem. A Godzilla-golem. To smash up the campus.

Ask them. Put in a request.

 

We’ll swap you, Helmut, for the golem. Could take your Heidegger seminars. Who will be able to tell the difference?

Except that the golem’s eight foot tall.

The black in black of the post-postgraduate’s eyes.

They drink the black wine. Grown from deep Newcastle soil. From the deep Newcastle terroir.

From underground vines? Fuck off. I don’t believe it.

It’s very potent. More like a spirit, really. It’s fermented in buried earthenware pots. The terroir enters into the pots. There’s a distinctive aroma, a special flavour. It’s malty flavour. It has a caramel sweetness and chocolate thing. It’s a bit nutty … With a hopsy flavour cutting through the sweetness …

Like Newcastle Brown …

Which was brewed pretty close to here.

And it’s served in earthenware cups made from Newcastle boulder clay.

So this is how they get their rocks off. This is what runs through the post-postgraduates’ veins. Philosophy fuel, right?

It’s not about getting your rock’s off. It’s part of a ceremony.

 

The black in black of the post-postgraduate’s eyes.

It makes the post-postgraduates look like they’re not focused on you. That they’re looking into the far distance.

 

The true Newcastle Brown was wine, not beer. And it’s really Newcastle black.

The Philosopher Child has learnt all philosophy and then forgotten it. The one who’s learnt what every postgraduate has learnt, and forgotten it.

 

The Philosopher Child plays with philosophy. Plays as the divine postgraduate. Remember the line from Heraclitus?

 

Drink so you will die, and with you, all the humanities. Drink so you will see. Drink so you will wake up from death.

 

Newcastle black. Drink it. Your mind will open and you will see. The beauty and the horror. What every PhD student has known.

Bring it to fruition: the whole of PhD experience. Everything we’ve worked for. Yearned for.

 

Nimrod, looking at us calmly. The Child, he says, pointing at Fiver.

Nimrod, making room for Fiver. Giving up his seat to Fiver.

 

As prophesised! Like the prophesy! As was written!

Murmurings among the postgrads. Some don’t look too happy.

 

And what are they bringing him. That liquid … Very black.

 

What are they wearing?

Robes. In full post-postgraduate’s ceremonial robes. Their faces half hidden by mesh.

The Newcastle catacombs. All major cities have them.

Burial chambers, basically. Underground tombs. A subterranean receptacle of the dead.

 

They’re adding the skulls of the righteous members of the old department. Remembering their philosophical ancestors.

They have commemorative feasts. Services.

 

It’s an ossuary. For storing the bones of cleared graveyards.

 

This is the crypt. Right below the floor of the uni.

What’s it for?

Philosophical relics. Sacred philosophical things. First editions.

 

It’s all brick-lined. Stone.

It’s like a family vault. A burial vault.

It’s where the philosophers of the old department are immured.

It’s where they’re preparing the Golem.

They’re just apocalypse addicts, like us. They’re turned on by the end of things. Which makes them and us peculiarly well suited to all of this.

 

They’re just waiting for it all go down.

 

What can you do but retreat and wait? Escape and find a fucking weapon. Sit it all out. This whole millennium, if necessary. Sit out the bad things, the bad times.

And wait for … It to get better?

For it to collapse, finally.

 

They have no stake in this world. They don’t need to give a fuck.

So how do we motivate them. How do we bring them on side? How to we winkle them out of their nest? How do we prise them out of their study-cells?

That’s the question.

 

They’ll kill us if we betray their secrets.

Really?

They’ve got to protect themselves.

 

They don’t want any contact with the official university. They don’t want to be reminded.

Of what?

Of what it became.

 

The only thing we have to offer is, like, bad memories for them. They won’t have any respect for us.

They’ll think we’re the enemy. What they’re totally opposed to. What they’ve set themselves up against for all this time. Everything they’re against.

They don’t give a fuck that Cicero dragged us out of the mire. Pulled us from all the obscure parts of this country. We’re still in the fucking system, right? We’re incarnations of it.

 

We’re the obstacle. We’ll remind them of everything they fled. Of the original philosophy department. The traumas of its closure. Its being shut down. The original trauma of the ‘80s attack on philosophy. Of Keith Joseph, or whatever.

 

They won’t regard us as enemies. They’re above all this shit. Beyond it. They don’t take part in the world’s struggles. They’ve got their eyes on a greater prize. A farther horizon.

But that makes it worse – how are we going to get them to do anything?

 

They’ve read their Heidegger. They know what’s happening. They’ll just want to sit it out, like they sit out everything.

 

Things are coming to a climax – we can tell them that.

They won’t believe it.

It’s the end of the fucking end.

The thing about this end is that it’s endless.

But the nihilism’s increasing – surely they can tell that.

It’s peaking.

Ha.

 

Look, we need help. We need allies.

 

If we could trade something with them. If we had something to trade.

What do we have?

 

We have to do something. Something’s got to break the deadlock. We’re desperate.

 

What if they kill us, or something?

They can’t kill an entire philosophy department without someone noticing.

 

They like you, Fiver. There must be something about you, Fiver. They’re fascinated. It’s like they recognise you. Like you’re fulfilling something for them.

 

They’re stepping back in awe of you Fiver. They’re making way for you. What do they see in you? What’s so great?

It’s so warm down here.

The closer you get to the centre of the Earth, the warmer, right?

 

Old mine workings.

A lot more than that. Tunnels for getting coal to the quayside. Culverts for rivers and canals. Utility tunnels. Smuggling tunnels. Sewage pipes. Dewatering pipes. Access shafts. Ventilation shafts. Old emergency exits. Underground bunkers. Subterranean wagonways.

 

They live off the city.  Scavenge in the city. Survive on the city’s scraps. They’re gleaners. They don’t need much.

 

It’s a whole ethos. It’s a way of life.

 

They want to be self-sufficient. They don’t want to rely on anyone. They believe it’ll all go to shit. They know what’s happening. The war on the food supply. Sterilisation, all that sort of thing.

And do they raise children?

I think they do. Home schooled. Schooled underground. Trained in the arts of survival.

 

They know they’ll have to fend for themselves for years, even. They know what the nutters are up to.

 

They’re, like, a doomsday cult.

 

They also grow food.

Down here?

They have halogen lights. All sorts.

 

It’s the anti-OM campus.

It is.

 

They sense the disaster. They know it’s coming.

 

Wow. Like mole people.  

 

They’re an underground version of the Tarnac 5. Those Invisible Committee guys.

 

Like, the last form of life. For the endless end times.

 

They’re working out how to live as scavengers. On scraps and leftovers. In the ruins loving the ruins.

 

They speak a kind of post-postgraduate cant. They have a complex system of hand signals. They can speak using their fingers.

What are they say?

Bunch … of … fucking … tossers, from what I can make out.

 

I think they have their own religion. They have rituals … ceremonies.

 

They’re awaiting the Abomination. That’s their liberator.

 

We have to win their trust.

 

This is where we could hide out when it all goes world war. When the shit goes down. Or hits the fan. Or whatever.

 

Secret Newcastle. DUMBS Newcastle, maybe.

 

It’s part of the mines, do you think? Tunnels, culverts, all that stuff.

 

Reverberating. With what? Pulsing. Throbbing.

 

I can hear a rumbling. I can hear a droning. So deep. Like ultra deep whalesong. tectonic planes sliding over each other or something. Lower than fucking low. What makes a sound that deep?

It’s making me wanna shit. It’s working on my bowels. I’m going to poop.

What do they do for toilets down here?

They recycle it. Humanure, and all that.

Is that right?

I think it powers their lights.

Wow – poop powered lights.

 

Is that cave art? I think it’s just graffiti. Hi end graffiti. Quotes from Hegel. In German.  

We’re going to see the trogs.

The who?

Philosophical troglodytes.

 

They’re building down. Burrowing. This is a philosophy warren.

 

This is where they bury themselves. To, like, incubate.

 

They’re burying themselves beneath the world. Hiding themselves. Regenerating in the darkness – the near darkness. Biding their time.

Until when?

Until the world up there collapses.

 

It’s so damp.

They like it like that.

Smells of earth.

It would do, wouldn’t it? Stuff’s rotting down here. Stuff’s compositing. Compacting. Releasing its gases.

 

The walls are all psychedelic. I feel like I’ve taken something. These fungi. Really wild colours. Really luminescent. Practically glowing.

 

It’s festering, but in a good way … I think.

 

Got to acclimatise. There’s a lower level of oxygen down here.

 

This is like journey to the centre of the Earth.

 

We’re the first outsiders allowed to witness the ceremony.

 

How did you win their trust, Sophia? Was it your pony tail? Your taste for greasers.

Wait a minute, did you fuck you way in here? Are you going out with one of them? You are, aren’t you?. You’ve finally found your Danny Vito. Your post-postgraduate Fonz, or whoever.

 

This is the underground resistance network. There are places like this all over the country. In America too, apparently.

Whenever the humanities are threatened, they withdraw. It’s like monasteries during the Dark Ages. Keeping the flame of civilization alive.

 

They study.

What do they read?

The fundamental books. Books it takes a lifetime to understand. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Leibniz’s stuff. Spinoza’s Ethics.  

 

They come down here to pose the really deep questions.

And do they publish anything?

Publish!? They’re not about results. Writing things up for academia. They’re not slaves.

 

Oral transmission – I think that’s what it’s about.

They teach? They have classrooms?

I’ve seen blackboards. Whiteboards. Flip charts, event. Covered with writing.

 

They’re a school of philosophers. The buried school. The entombed school.

 

They’re burying themselves to hide with philosophy. To stay with the books. With the ideas. They want to keep the old knowledge alive.

 

They’re learning all the philosophical languages. The deepest cells are for those who know Sanskrit. You have to earn your way down. And Pali. They’re not fucking around.

 

They have a library down here. All the books are in plastic bags.

 

It’s about depth. It’s about being hidden. Just being allowed to do your thing. To pursue a thought for as long as it takes. To think the most important things.

You know what philosophy’s about: the things that matter most. And that’s what they’re trying to find: the things that matter most.

 

All languages are studied deeply here. Right down into etymology. Into word origins. The roots of language.

 

It isn’t just intellectual. It’s spiritual. Philosophy is a spiritual practice: that’s what they know. It’s a way of living. A way of life.

 

There’s a pit at the heart of it. That goes down forever. The groundless ground.

Philosophy is rare – rare. It’s only every now and again that there’s Philosophy, capital P. At other times, there’s just … commentary.

You make it sound so mysterious.

Is there Organisational Management, capital O, capital M?

There’s too much Organisational Management.

 

Thirty-five is the most terrifying age to be a would be philosopher. It’s the midnight hour, when you have to finally face up to what you are – no excuses. You’ve had enough time, post-PhD, to show your mettle. To really Do Something.

But have you really Done Something?

What do you think? Anyway, it hasn’t been a bad life. I don’t need the genius cherry on top.

But you’d like it anyway.

Sure I would.

 

So do you think, if you work hard you could be a one of the greats? Have you got what it takes?

You only find our in your mid-thirties. That’s what your mid-thirties are all about: finding out where you really stand. Who you really are. Working out your place in it all.

How long do you have left?

This is the year.

So you’re waiting to have some world-shattering insight.

I don’t know. I’m not like other guys. I like to write.

To write?

Literary stuff. Literary things. That are kind of philosophical.

Like, novels?

Kinda novels. There’s a whole genre in France. Not over here, though. Not in English.

Wow, so you have literary dreams. As well as philosophical ones.

I have literary dreams in case my philosophical ones don’t work out. I can write about my philosophical failure.

Cunning.

 

We were never any good – none of us.

So why did Cicero employ you? Why you?

Because we weren’t very good.

And are you any good at your literary philosophy?

That’s a consolation prize. That’s a booby prize.

You think you’re going to win, after all. That you’re going to capitalise on your failure to be a great philosopher.

And what will I write about: philosophy? The move of philosophy to Organisational Management?

Sure, why not?

You’re not going to amount to nothing. You’re going to write the definitive novel about philosophical failure. A sequence of novels!

 

Why do you call yourself stupid? Do you even believe in your stupidity?

What’s that supposed to mean?

How can you be stupid? Do you listen to yourself. You’re smart. You use long words.

What’s stupidity, anyway? What do you mean by it? Are there such things as stupid philosophers? Is there an anti-hierarchy?

We’re not a normal department. We’re a joke department. Cicero brought us here. To play a joke on everyone. On the university. On us. On herself.

So you’re a joke?

Some kind of joke, yes. This was all a prank. This was all madness. Her madness. And now you’ve brought us across, thinking that we’re up and comers. Exciting types. Thrusting types. Exciting philosophical new blood. When in fact, we’re just … losers. Who lucked into a job.

 

It doesn’t matter anyway. There are so many of us, and so few of you. You’ll be lost in the throng. You’ll disappear. You’ll be forgotten.

 

I think you’re more interesting that way. As fuck-ups. I think I like your fucked-upness.

I’m a fuck-up. People say I wouldn’t have got my job if it weren’t for Alan. I don’t have any Major Publications. I don’t publish in the top 5 journals. My H index just isn’t there. My Google Scholar profile sucks. That’s what they say about me, I think. Never to my face. But I can feel it at dinner parties.

You go to dinner parties? Organisational Management dinner parties?

Sure.

What are they like?

They suck.

Do you have philosophy dinner parties?

We don’t have dinner parties. We drink.

How … adolescent. You’re not part of a couple, see. You don’t do couply things.

Do you have to have dinner parties?

Of course. It’s compulsory.

 

You won’t be a joke here. You’ll be the exotic philosophers. You’ll just fascinate everyone.

Do you think?

You’ll wow them with your exoticism. You’ll be like birds of paradise.

We’ll be flavour of the month until you move the next humanities subject in.

But you’re the big fish. You’re philosophy.

 

The uni would probably close us sooner or later. I mean we’re ranked pretty low. And when it comes to the next research exercise, we’d just be fucked.

Organisational Management can protect you. Just join up with one of our funding bids. Join one of our big research teams. You can look into sustainability, or something.

But then you’d actually have to do research into sustainability …

So what? Global challenges: that’s where the big money is. You have to be relevant, philosopher. Draw down some money. That’s how you save yourself, philosopher. It’s cynical, but realistic.

Because what’s real is cynical.

You don’t have to be all tragic.