Work in Progress

Formlessness, hate and death. That’s the world.

 

The world is a gift of love.

Fuck off! No it isn’t!

It’s a debt. It’s guilt. All life is guilty, right?

 

It’s enchanted. Sanctified.

It fucking isn’t.

 

This nihilistic, horrific vision of the world. The return of the horrific repressed.

 

Formlessness, hate, death, meaning-dearth. That’s what nihilism shows. The horrific vision. Creation stripped to the bone. Stripped down. Naked fucking facticity …

 

Nihilism can be brought into the heart of religion. That’s the point. That’s what we have to do.

 

The permanent fucking catastrophe. The fucking revolution. The permanent apocalypse now, right?

 

Everything’s just dissolving. Everything’s dust and ruins. 

 

General apocalyptic fright.

 

Creation is not God, right. And it fucking shows. Amorphy. Disintegration. Death, bringing everything to dust.

 

The abysmal fucking … matrix.

 

God and the world are antagonistic. They’re counter-principles. Creation is the disaster.

There’s an absolute difference between world and God.

 

There’s such a thing as a messianic nihilism. That nihilises the world. That shows that the world is not some holy gift. That it doesn’t have some magical hold over us.

 

There’s a nihilism that empties the world of everything but what it really is. That shows the world as it really is.

It’s messianic disenchantment.

 

None of this gift bullshit! I hate the gift bullshit!

 

You can’t just passively accept all this stuff. You have to hate it. None of this communion with the divine stuff.

 

The horrific vision. The fallen, horrific status of the creaturely world. None of this mystical passive private reconciliation between the created world and God, right? There can be no fucking truce between you and this.

 

We need negativity! We have to hate things! To negate everything up to a saving catastrophe.

 

We need dread and fucking ruin. The more negative the world is, the greater the chance for redemption.

 

We need our hatred. We need to reject all this. Reality – what’s called reality. Which is only worthy of being destroyed.

 

Everything’s got to sink to its lowest level. It’s got to show it itself as guilty. As wholly culpable. The world is only worthy of being destroyed, right?

That’s a negation too far. It’s Manichean. When does Judaism become Gnosticism?

 

You can’t praise and glorify all this. The architectonic order of creation, or whatever. You can’t just promote naturalism.

 

A new form of revelation. That’s what nihilism is.

 

Perfecting nihilism. Completing it. And that’s when it will happen?

When what happens?

A new opening of meaning. The conversion. That’s what it’s called: conversion.

This false … day.

I like false nature, don’t you?

False nature really does look very real. It’s supposed to be drawing on our memories. And dreams. Both of us together.

 

Does it remind you of anything? Does it look like anything? Your distant youth? Before … philosophy. Before anything …

Is it supposed to?

 

There is no countryside in Southall. Osterley Park. I remember that. That was countryside-y.

 

Fake greensward. Fake river. Fake rushes in the river.

 

Don’t deny yourself, philosopher. Give ib.

 

You could almost forget.

I can’t forget.

That’s because you’re insufferable … a bit.

 

The holodeck, right?

A sky like God made used to make them..

The blue fake sky. No chemtrails. No particulates.

It’s actually bright.

No one’s fucking with the weather.

You think people fuck with the weather?

 

Give in. This is the countryside we’ve made.

 

The water feels like water, doesn’t it?

Sure.

Can you see the fish?

Could you catch a fish?

Not sure. Don’t push it.

 

See, you’re curious, aren’t you? You want to know more. And it is intriguing, isn’t it?

 

You can have meetings by the pond.

Fuck the fake pond. Fuck everything.

Are you in a bad mood now?

 

The lull – the great lull. That’s how we’re going to live: in the great lull.

 

What’s the setting?

North east England.

Do you want high summer?

That’d be too much.

Spring? Autumn?

Sure – Spring. I want to see fate Spring.

 

This is so beautiful

It’s like Blue-Ray beautiful. 4KD beautiful. It’s in such high resolution. It’s too bright. Like it’s all … backlit.

 

The thing is, it’s not just an imitation of the world. It’s an imitation of Paradise. Of the New Jerusalem.

 

Did you ever see a sky as beautiful as that? Isn’t it the most beautiful sky in the world? The eternal summer, to our eternal winter.

It’s unreal. It’s lifted somehow. Made higher than it is.

 

This whole … box was made by Satan. It’s total deception. And lies.

But I like the lies. There’s such a thing as pretty lies.

 

Don’t you breathe more easily, philosopher? Isn’t your blood pressure lowering? This is, like the last temptation.

 

Wouldn’t you like to escape into summer?

Sure I would.

It makes you feel so much better. All this natural-unnatural light. Can you remember a sky like that? The skies of your childhood. Of summer holidays. Without chemtrails. Without particulates.

 

The Imaginarium … I’m not sure how it works. Or what it is. It’s supposed to stimulate ideas.

How does it do that?

It reads your brain in some complicated way. I suppose your brain will be entirely too deep for it, philosopher. And too despairing. Not least at the Imaginarium. It’ll probably cause it to self-destruct.

 

The Imaginarium … It’s hard to say.

Very grand name.

 

Do you believe in telepathy, philosopher?

Shaking my head.

Thought not. Or in anything supernatural. So where do we go after we die, philosophy? Do you know the answer to that kind of thig? Do you have an opinion?  Do you believe in an afterlife?

 

Wander the meadows in your mind.

 

It’s just an empty box.

It’s very far from an empty box.

 

Even better than your Northern Lights show.

 

A lush, verdant paradise. You can actually pick and eat the berries here.

No way.

Actually, I’m not sure you can.

 

You can do a whole solo Imaginarium journey thing. What you see is personal to you. You have to lie face down on this pillow thing. Close you eyes. Relax. Just let the images come to you.

Fuck off.

It’ll make you feel so much better.

I don’t want to feel better.

 

The building’s got all the life-support mechanisms. It’s built to withstand ever kind of disaster.

Comforting.

Even zombies. I don’t know why they always include zombies.

 

It’s like guided meditation, apparently. Let it guide you.

No!

 

It’s sort of sentient. It speaks, sometimes. I’ve heard it speak.

What does it say?

 

People cry uncontrollably – senior organisational managers. Curled up into a ball.

 

You can get totally addicted to it. Like an opium trance.

 

So what do you experience in the Imaginarium?

Falling. Endless falling. But that I like. Faster and faster. But I fall upwards, philosopher. What do you think of that?

 

It's supposed to be the English countryside. Drawing on the English imaginary. At the heart of the campus.

 

All these fake worlds.

 

The Pulse is supposed to show you who you are.

So who am I?

 

Absolute lies. But beautiful lies. Necessary lies.

We’re going to need it in the future. When they close up the countryside.

Is that what they’re going to do?

 

This is the future, isn’t it? Lying, dreaming in a place like this.

It’s disgusting. You’ve conquered the sky. The outside world. Now you’re going to conquer the inside world, too. Our dreams.

 

Just lie down, philosopher.

I don’t want to meditate. I don’t want to be lulled. I don’t want … illusions.

Not even beautiful illusions?

 

I want to see something pretty. Instead of all the steel and glass. I want to see something living. Are you alive, philosopher? Am I alive? Or is it only circuits and wires beneath the skin?

 

It’s a virtual platform … thing. A VR environment. You can conjure up all kinds of stuff.

 

Give in … it’s pretty. It’s better than the endless Newcastle winter, right?

 

Where the falsehood is at its greatest. Where it’s at its most terrible.

 

All these false worlds.

All these fabulous pseudo worlds.

 

And a fine yellow sun.

Shall I tell you a secret? You’ll have to lean in, philosopher.

Ok.

I’ll whisper it: I feel … dead.

Dead? Like, bored to death?

Not dead – but … like I’m dying. What if I said that I’m terminally ill?

Are you terminally ill?

Do I appear terminally ill to you? I could be terminally ill. But I’m not. I’m not terminally ill … I’d like to be terminally ill, maybe. It might give some meaning to my life. The idea of the end being close … That things wouldn’t just go on forever … Because they're in serious danger of going on forever …

We’re safe in the hold of Organisational Management.

 

Organisational Management will carry us, like Jonah in the whale. Organisational Management will shelter us. Keep us from the worst.

 

In the world’s darkness, Organisational Management will keep the humanities’ light burning.

 

There’s a philosophical crypt inside Organisational Management.

Once upon a time, the humanities had the kudos, The respect. Business studies was some Johnny-come-lately subject. With a total inferiority complex. And Organisational Management …, well. Organisational Management didn’t even exist.

And now, the humanities all but going-a-begging to Organisational Management to save them. So we’re allowed to be a little sniffy.

How are your student applications going? Up? Down? Whereas our numbers are going up and up. UK students. International. It’s enough to make one positively smug.

But we’re generous, philosopher. We’re inviting you in. On your terms. We’ve got a whole office suite ready – a whole floor of the building.

They’re going to break philosophy. Like a wild horse.

We’re already broken, idiot.

 

They want to be resisted. To be played with. It gives them a frisson. They like the idea of challenges to their power. It perks them up. Makes Organisational Management feel young again. Positively kittenish. Philosophy’s a chew toy, basically.

 

Organisational Management has run out of meaning. Happens to every subject area. Eventually, you just come face to face with the void. Organisational Management nihilism: that’s the problem. Organisational Management acadie. When you just lie back and stares at the sky.

 

Organisational Management wants a project. They want the non manageable Other, that threatens misrule and chaos. And that’s what they want.

I don’t see anything.

Keep on looking. Wait. Your eyes will adjust. That’s the oldest might in the universe. The oldest and the farthest away. Deep space, right. Which is also deep time. Sublime, right? It’s supposed to promote ego-death. Making even the loftiest Organisational Manager feel small and insignificant.

Management isn’t just about control and organisation. It’s about coping. About muddling through. And it’s not just about managing others. It’s about managing ourselves.

 

To manage means not only to handle, to control, but to cope. It’s not only about hierarchical order and symbolic violence.

 

Perhaps we should stop thinking in terms of problems and solutions. We can’t solve our problems with the same kinds of thinking we used to create them – that’s what Einstein said. Problem / solution thinking is itself part of the problem. We have to leave behind mainstream management consciousness.

 

There are three hundred thousand students on management and administration programmes. Far more than any other subject area.

 

Traditional, hierarchical structures are giving way to distributed practices, apparently. Organised nodally.

 

It’s not about maximum growth, competitiveness and productivity anymore. It’s not only a matter efficacy, cost-effectiveness and instrumentality.

Care about others – that’s the thing. Collective stewardship. Frameworks of cooperation. Common horizons! The collaborative commons! Global solidarity! It’s all part of the new managerial toolkit.

 

This is not your dad’s Organisational Management. It’s not about some massive global authority to control everything and everyone, oh no.

It’s about building a heterotopia. Clearing a common ground on which to rebuild society.

 

Solidarity is the watchworld. Not suppressing or deny differences, but valuing each contribution to the whole.

 

It’s not all about Weberian bureaucracy anymore. It’s not about repressing personal idiosyncrasies. About eliminating beliefs, predilections, affections, mannerisms, eccentricities. It’s not about smooth and unswerving goal pursuit. It’s not about uniformity. About instrumentally rational performance.

 

The model of manager as gardener. Inviting, not structuring. Letting grow, not motivating. Inspiring, not planning. Caring, not controlling.

 

Management Kairos. Seizing the right moment.

 

Reading: Organization is an attempt to order the intrinsic flux of human action, to channel it towards certain ends, to give it a particular shape, through generalizing and institutionalizing particular meanings and rules. At the same time, organization is a pattern that is constituted, shaped, emerging from change.

 

Velocity management. Speeding up operations to the level of instantaneity. Perfect coordination – that’s the clue. It’ll allow decision making at lightning speed.

If Hell is close to us, what about paradise?

 

Angels and devils, battling. At war. It’s Biblical – literally. Like that painting by … whoever it is.

 

I’d like to be a pawn in a divine game – wouldn’t you? In some celestial battle of angels and devils.

Our fatalism.

The world is lost, we know that. We know it’s all played out, the world. We know what it can be, what it can’t be. We’re reconciled to it – we’ve accepted it. Actually, we don’t want to hope. It’d be too much to hope – we actually want things to remain the same. We want the usual horror. Safe horror.

 

The world’s just doing what the world does. It’s the old fatality, dressed up differently.