Work in Progress

We know all about taste, postgraduates. How it’s about receptors in the mouth. Which work very closely with receptors in the nose. With smell, postgraduates.

There’s a whole science to it, postgraduates. Taste buds respond to the five modes of chemical stimuli: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. The nasal receptor neurons express different chemical signatures. And these become electrical signals which hare sent to the brain.

Taste and smell are brought together in the orbitofrontal cortex to give the sensation of flavour. The brain works out whether what we are eating or drinking is delicious or disgusting. That’s the way we work out what foods and drink are nutritious. Tasting good, smell good, is a reward stimulus. Bad food is aversive. And bad wine!

What’s incubating in the earth – the deep earth? What’s gathering there? What secret? What treasure? What’s been forgotten there? What’s remembering itself there?

What’s coming to itself, underground? What’s stretching its arms?

Something wicked? Some golem of the depths? Some shadow in the depths?

 

The idiot depths. The stupid depths. The depths no sun has ever reached. Touched.

Deep chthonic stupidity. Depthless stupidity. Idiocy of the earth. Itself, only itself.

 

Truculence of the earth. The withholding earth. The sulking earth. The earth turned aside. The shy earth.

The covering its face earth. The hiding from the light earth. The burying itself in itself earth. The staying in darkness earth.

 

The earth that will not serve. Not them – not the organisational managers. The shifting earth – that will let the buildings topple.

 

The tomb earth. The buried earth. The sinking beneath all things earth. The sinking deeper earth. The quagmire earth.

 

The carry it all away earth. The bear it all to nothing earth.

The earth in error. In errancy.

 

The can’t build on it earth. The can’t tame it earth. The can’t pave it over earth.

 

The black earth. The colour-darker-than-black earth. The absorbed-all-light-into-it earth. The earth of the darkest wines, the blackest wines. The deepest wines!

The black wines of the black earth. The darker-than-black wine of the darkest earth.

 

The silencing earth. The earth we want to pull over our heads. The burying us earth. The earth beneath which we’ll sleep. The earth that will fill our mouths. The earth that will cover our eyes. The deader than us earth. The earth that’s all abyss – that’s all void.

They’re destroying the humanities from the inside out. They did it with philosophy. They unleashed analytic philosophy like a virus. They’ve gutted philosophy – real philosophy. It was systematic.

And now Organisational Management is hatching in the humanities’ heart. It’s laid its eggs there, like a parasitic wasp. And the parasites will hatch.

 

It’s like analytic philosophers designed a campus. Like they ordered a campus from analytic philosophy central.

 

Cicero knew the battles we’d fight against analytic philosophy. The internal battles, first of all. The battle against what we were – how we’d been formed. The battle against our UK-ness or Britishness or whatever.

The internal struggle against our home philosophy. Our default philosophy.

Analytic philosophy is the ultimate God is dead philosophy. Where everything is turned over to procedure.

 

Analytic philosophy. Undrunk philosophy. Sober philosophy. Logical busywork. About nothing. With no stakes. No vision. Philosophy for nerds. Philosophy reduced. Compromised. Philosophy for the middle aged.

 

Doubtless, there’s a whole story to tell about analytic philosophy hijack. The way it took over – very deliberately. Charged with a sense of mission. All about clarity! Brevity! Not about writing vast European oeuvres. Not spending half your essay throat-clearing like Jacques Derrida.

Democratic! Scientific! Philosophy done at last on a proper basis! Not all intoxicated. Not all scholarly. Not all history of philosophy.

Philosophy, free of humbug! And nonsense! Liberal philosophy – in the old sense.

 

Natural English clarity. No continental woolliness. No European imprecision. No lure of the -ism. No vast speculative theoretical systems. We’d been cured of that, unlike the damnable continentalists. No speculation! It’s not British!

Forget Whitehead. No one should remember Whitehead.

 

Dalek philosophy.

 

Analytic philosophers are just servants of the Bug, nothing more.

 

Analytic philosophy has met its limit. In us. We’re the resistance. Because we can’t help but be the resistance. We’re the slack. We’re the grit in its eye. Because we can’t be otherwise!

We were never any good at analytic philosophy. We couldn’t be. We lacked the sharpness of mind. The narrowness of focus. We weren’t technical obsessives, like the analytic philosophers. We weren’t logic mad!

 

The amazing analytic philosophy plan – to devour philosophy from the inside. To infiltrate. To take over. And now their takeover is complete, they can reveal themselves as what they really are: Organisational Management.

Their hatred is unfathomable. That’s what they are: haters. That’s what they do: hate. They want to destroy us, that’s all.

They hate the whole created order. They want to bring chaos to order. Their wrecking ball. They’re jealous of us. Jealous of our life. They envy our life. They want it, our life. They want to seize it for themselves. To inhabit it.

The campus is demonic. You should know that. It was built to serve demonic purposes. Can’t you feel it? The evil? Every part of it is defiance. Is a striking against what is good and beautiful. It’s a deliberate desecration. It’s a magic spell.

And by bringing us here … By subjecting Philosophy to this …

What?

 

Worse if they don’t hate us. If none of this was on purpose. That Philosophy was just … collateral damage.

Worse if none of this was planned. That Philosophy had no special place in their operation.

 

They should hate us. The Organisational Management campus should detest us.

Do something! Do something, you fuckers! Nail us up. Crucify us. Make an example of us.

We need pain. We need you to inflict pain. Make it real, this pain. Make it physical. Make it tangible.

Put us in prison, fuckers! Kill us! Take our lives!

You know their type. Middle class, every one of them. Head girl and head boy types, all of them. Eager to please. Keen to do well.

Academia is their horizon. The academic snow globe. They simply do what they’re supposed to.

Passers of exams. Jumpers through hoops. Excelling, in general.

Expecting to be patted on the head. Wanting to be patted on the head. Wanting to tick all the boxes. Appalling.

This is what the system produces. This is what it makes. By the system’s fruit should you judge it. And the fruit are identikit. Pro forma. Standarised models.

They have expectations. God knows. They have ambitions. And aspirations! They really think they’re going somewhere, and that they can actually go somewhere.

They’ve never doubted themselves. Never come against their limits.

They didn’t know that they even had limits.

Accomplished – that’s what they are, in their own way. They’ve achieved things – that’s what they think. Imagine that! They’re going places! Taking steps – giant steps.

They’ll run on their rails. Run in their grooves. Do what they’re supposed to do, and in the usual way, following the usual method.

They’ll think what they’re supposed to think. In the way they’re supposed to thing. Doing what they’re told.

Clever – of course. Clever within the system. Within the rules. They’re players – in the system.

And smug! And pleased with themselves. Good little boys and girls.

And there are sufficient rewards in the system to keep them happy. To keep them incentivised. There are enough drops of dopamine released into their system.

 

With a terrible consensus. A sense of agreement. Homo academicus – entirely diminished. Entirely subservient. Civil servants of thought. With no independence. No autonomy. No independence of mind.
Academic unquestioning. Academic complicity. Academic drones. Academic yes men. Yes women!

 

Academia is the problem. Academia itself is the obstacle. The way it selects for conformity. For obedience. The way it incentivises supporting government narratives. New world order narratives. Big pharma and big ag and big everything else narratives.

 

They think they’re caring. Woolly progressive types left-liberal types. Guardian reader types.

They think they’re doing good. They think they’re helping. Making the world a better place. Working on solutions.

 

They’re unable to attain their idiocy. To reach it. They had never known their failure.

Whereas we … we’re all failure. We’re nothing but failure.

 

They don’t know their mediocrity. They cannot be stupid. Can’t let themselves be idiots.

They’re not even stupid. They don’t even err.

The campus is for something. It’s a model of something. For future … humanity. Or transhumanity, or something. Or synth-humanity. Or synth non-humanity …

This is how we’re going to live. This is how they’re going to make us live.

Either this or death, right? They’ll kill the others, and let a remnant survive here … under their terms and conditions.

And what’s our place going to be? Where’s our place in the great chain of Organisational Management being?

We’re doing their dirty work. The house philosophers of Organisational Management. The philosophical jesters of Organisational Management. The trained philosophical dogs of Organisational Management. Providing them with some kind of philosophical alibi.

There’s still an outside to this campus, postgraduates, hard as it is to believe. There’s a whole world out there, beyond the stony wastes at the campus-edge. There’s a whole world as yet unreached by the Organisational Management Campus. That’s as yet untouched by the University.

The useless population: that’s what’s out there, postgraduates. Untouched by the university. Untutored! Unprocessed! Unruined! Uncorrupted! Whose education didn’t take, beyond the stony wastes.

It’s all disinformation and misinformation, beyond the stony wastes. Full of hate speech! They’re all domestic terrorists out there. They’re all wackos and nutjobs, beyond the stony wastes. They’re not on board … They’re not with the programme, beyond the stony wastes …

Such vulgar people out there, beyond the stony wastes. Low people. Never planning their actions. Never thinking things through. Never considering the morrow – the rest of the day even, beyond the stony wastes.

They’re the useless people out there. The unbusy. The unoccupied. Who can’t even look after their own interests. Loiterers without plan. Guileless. Witless. They just stand there, catching flies.

They’re in the way, out there. Like dementia patients. Like bed blockers. They’re living obstructions. To a useful society. To an efficient society.

They’re unproductive, out there, beyond the stony wastes. They’re good-for-nothings. Dependents. They’re not even wily. Not even grifters. They’re not even taking advantage. Not even on the take. They aren’t even out for themselves, nor really. They can’t even stand up for themselves. They can’t even advocate for themselves. They need help filling in forms.

They’re the exasperating, out there. They’re plain annoying. They won’t follow rules. They aren’t defiant, just … recalcitrant. Unreformable. They’re not even pitiful. They don’t even arouse the feeling of pity. They don’t even call forth human compassion. They’re undeserving even of maternal instinct.

Nothing can be done for them, out there, beyond the stony wastes. Nothing can be given to them. They’d only vandalise it anyway. They’d only soil their own nests.

And they’re obese, out there. They eat the wrong things. They have all the wrong habits. They’re degraded. Toxic. They should be quarantined. How long are they for this world? Before they develop some prole myxomatosis? How long before they spread it to the rest of us?

They’re really sub everything, out there, beyond the stony wastes. They’re not even human – not really. Which is why all the bad batches were sent their way. All the opiates. Why every attempt was made to addict them. To cancer them. To sterilize them, at least.

Why is why all the bad batches were sent their way. All the opiates. Every attempt was made to addict them. To cancer them. To sterilize them, at least. Which is why they’ve been micro-plastic’d. Chem-trailed. Geo-engineered. Mercury’d. Aluminium’d. Borion’d. Even more than the rest of us!

They’re the undeserving poor, out there, beyond the stony wastes. The despicable poor. The disgusting poor. The no-one-knows-what-to-do-with-them poor. Human cul-de-sacs, having only their idiosyncrasies to show. Their weirdnesses.

They’re recalcitrant, out there. They’re playing truant from life – from the responsibilities of life. They’re plebians. Low lifes. Who cannot be otherwise. They’re background noise. Noises off. Extras of life. Human magma. They’re a perpetual affront. Problem children and problem adults. Racists, probably.

They’re inglorious, out there, beyond the stony wastes. Uncelebrated, disliked, rude. Faintly scary, or just outright scary. They’re disliked – by everyone. Disjecta. The equivalent of slurry. Of industrial waste.  

They’re truants – but agelessly so. Endlessly so. The socially passed over. Social refuse. Socially dead. Just a remnant, that’s all. A nameless and powerless residue. An anthropological residue, arousing only a general repugnance. Who don’t know how to live, but just live. Stubbornly. Persistently. Having only their idiosyncrasies to show. Their weirdnesses. Their legitimate and illegitimate strangenesses.

They have no answer as to why they exist, out there, beyond the stony wastes. Or what they are. Or what they’re for. Which is why they’ve long since been declared exterminable. Declared murderable. Declared extinguishable. Declared poisonable. Declared destroyable.

But they are the destroyable who will not be destroyed, out there. They are the exterminable who will not be exterminated. They are the poisonable who will not be poisoned.

They’re unreachable out there, beyond the stony wastes, even though the state has all their contact details. They’re untrackable, though the state can track and trace them anywhere. They’re unprogrammable, though the state controls all the media they watch.

They’re invisible, even in their visibility. They’re inaudible, even though you can hear everything they say. They’re unknowable, even though we know everything about them. They’re secret – even though they keep no secrets. They’re hidden in their very unhiddenness. The all-seeing eye can see everything but them.

Which is why they’re our people out there, beyond the stony wastes. Our brethren. Which is why they’re the ones we’re thinking for. Which is why they’re the ones who place we keep. Whose memory we serve. Because they’re the ones we nearly are. Who belong to the non-university. To the non-institution.

They’re the true idiots – not like us, pretend idiots. They’re the real imbeciles. Who we are. Our mirrors. They’re even disabled. Just … unable. They’re not even neurodivergent. Just divergent.

They’re not even of the kingdom of God out there, beyond the stony wastes. They’re not even the beloved of Jesus. Who are not even the meek that will inherit the earth. They’re not even a proletariat. Or a lumpenproletariat. Which is why they’re our kind. To whom we’re always answerable.

Intelligence is overrated, anyway. Intelligence is about discerning the latest thing we’re supposed to be going along with. It makes you very good at sniffing the air. Sensing the opportunities. Seizing the main chance. Intelligence is what makes you move vey cleverly with the crowd.

In the end, intelligence is always dragooned. It’s always held hostage. Always press-ganged into service. Even as it’s always pleased with itself. With its ability to ride the tiger. To work out what’s hot and what’s not. To know the right flag to wave. The right thing to virtue-signal.

Which is why intelligence is always pleased with itself. Always smug.

It’s all about participating in the lies, intelligence. Knowing which lies to tell. And how they’re supposed to be told. It’s about maintaining the lies. Furthering them. Telling more lies about the lies!

Because intelligence is all about greasing the wheels. Greasing its own wheels. Because intelligence is opportunistic, basically. Making sure it survives, which it always does.

Which is why intelligence always loves authority. It worships authority. Which is why it’s conformist.

Stupidity, on the other hand … is completely different. Stupidity’s incapable of opportunism. It never thinks about itself. About its own interests.

What is stupidity thinking about, then?

About nothing in particular. About nothing yet. Stupidity’s vague … The funny thing is that no one wants to be an idiot. No one calls themselves an idiot and means it. They think they’re smart enough to know their so called idiocy. As though they could outwit it. That they can master it, their own idiocy. And that they are therefore most assuredly not idiots.

In the end, no one knows their idiocy, which is to say, the idiosyncrasies of your idiocy. It’s particularity. The way your idiocy is different to everyone else’s idiocy. Your idiocy is the most personal thing about you – did you know that? The most singular thing. The thing that really sets you apart. Much more than your so-called intelligence.

Idiocy’s about who you cannot help but be. It’s about the way that you can’t lie. It’d about who you are despite your opportunism. And wheel-greasing.

And what about genius? Does genius exist?

Genius is about thinking unashamedly from your idiocy. About realising your own legitimate strangeness. No one’s as stupid as an idiot.

Splashing wine onto concrete.

What are you doing?

It’s an anti-libation. The opposite of a blessing. I’m cursing the campus with Cicero’s disgusting wine …

I thought we were supposed to drink the wine in memory of Cicero, or whatever. Of what she promised us.

What did she promise us?

Some kind of meaning. Some … transcendence. Something messianic. That we were supposed to bring about. Which had to be reached through nihilism. Though some deep experience of meaninglessness. Or disgustingness, in the case of this wine.

European disgustingness – that’s what she wanted us to taste. From the European earth. The European terroir, soaked with blood.  Probably radioactive. Sprouting terrible fascisms and communisms … All that craziness. All those ideologies.

We had sober philosophers over here. Sensible ones. Who were never caried away by European unreason. By insane European ideologies. Our island kept us distant – which means, kept us safe. We were good liberals – never prey to all their -isms.

They had Bataille, but we had Ayer. They had Heidegger, but we had Russell. They had Adorno, but we had Strawson. And when a continentalist did make it over here – Wittgenstein, Berlin – they sobered up, too. They became sensible in turn.

 Cicero wanted us to imbibe the real conditions of thought – of European thought, I say. All the mad stuff. The crazy stuff. Wine drunk by Hegel. By the young Marx. By the existentialists, in Parisian cafes. Wine drunk by Adorno and Horkheimer. Wine in the blood of Georges Bataille, dancing nose to nose with Jean-Paul Sartre. The opposite of everything we grew up with …

But Cicero’s wine’s disgusting.

Cicero wanted us to disgust us with the real conditions of thought. Wine that we wanted to spit out! To retch up! Wine from over there – on the philosophical mainland. That could only be undrinkable in our island smugness. That could only make us want to vomit it up with our self-satisfaction.

Yeah, but we actually like European philosophy. We teach that philosophy.

But we don’t understand its conditions – not yet. We have to go deeper. There’s an anguish we have to know. And that anguish is in this wine. Until it tastes like the sweetest nectar, we have to drink more.