Work in Progress

Organisational Management’s changing lanes.

 

They have the whip-hand.

 

They want our philosophical chops.

 

They’re feeling us out. The Xmas party is, like, a vibe hang.

 

Either way, we’re going to have to sing for our supper.

 

They’re going to cut Philosophy close to the bone.  They’re going under the philosophical hood.

 

Buckle up.

 

We need to present them with a coherent plan. With a united front.

We don’t have a coherent plan. Or a united front.

 

Our blood’s in the water.

 

Are we going to land the plane?

Is this business talk?

 

We’re basically highly interchangeable modular parts.

 

They want us to be new gen organisational managers.

 

Has Organisational Management been looking at the numbers?

Is there money to be made?

It’s not about the money. Organisational Management’s bigger than money.

 

What’s our brand? What’s our USP?

European philosophy, idiot.

 

I’m spitballing here. This is improv.

 

They need new blood. Fire-breathers. To, like, kick Organisational Management around.

 

They want a strategic refocus.

 

It’s a bear hug. A hostile takeover.

Ooh Mr business.

 

Tired of the Organisational Management cornholing. Aren’t you?

 

We’re going to have to get business-y. Wear business suits and that sort of thing. Wear pantsuits. Ready for a pantsuit, Io?

What actually is a pantsuit? And business shoes, or whatever. And saying things like, open your kimono. Come on, you’ve seen Succession.

 

We need to get our ducks in a row. Or new ducks. Or something.

 

They’ll CRUSH us. They’ll FUCK us. Effortlessly. With a twitch of their wings.

 

They eat people like us for breakfast. Very cunning business minds.

 

This is their wheelhouse.

 

Is there a kill list? Are they going to let some of us go.? Replace us with some of their own people? Do they want to bring in some hot young analytic philosophers? Or maybe they’ll be just build their own.

 

We’re a parts shop. They’re selling us for parts. What parts? Aesthetics? Metaphysic? Do they want to go long on logic? Does the market like the history of philosophy.

 

They’ll destroy everything we built.

That Cicero built. We didn’t built anything.

Cicero built Philosophy out of us.

 

It’s a prestige thing for Organisational Management. They want a really old school subject area on board.

 

They don’t care whether we’re European or analytic philosophy. Just a long as we bring the students in.

We don’t actually bring any students in.

Or raise our position in the league tables.

We’re actually falling down the league tables.

Don’t tell them that! They don’t know that!

 

We’ve not been raised by business wolves. We’re soft. We’re delicate.

 

The Organisational Management move is sublime. There was no battle. It was just total takeover. Like god, saying Let there be light. No struggle. No chaoskampf. They declared it was so., and it was so. The new reality. And face it: they’re in charge of reality. We’re nothing in all this.

 

We’re rolling deep.

 

This is business reality. This is the business imaginary. This is how business imagines itself. What it thinks the world is like. And should be like.

 

We’ve got to go hard. To pull out the strap-on. Get lubed up.

 

Fucked by the great Organisational Management strap-on.

 

They’ve nailed us to the Organisational Management mast. They’re collecting philosopher’s skulls. To drink out of them.

 

Are we going to have to make a presentation on visions and values, or whatever? This is our first real meeting with them all.

It’s informal. It’s a meet and greet.

 

What if they have ideas for philosophy?

Of course they’ll have ideas for philosophy. Organisational Management ideas.

For philosophy?

Of course.

 

We’re just minding shop. Until they bring their own philosophers in.

Organisational Management philosophers?

Analytic philosophers. The next best thing.

 

Are our ducks in a row? What ducks? We have no ducks.

The figurative ducks. Is that how they speak in business studies?

 

Here we are, the dream team. Nearly the full seven. With our PGs. Taking the battle to them.

What battle?

Taking the attitude.

What attitude?

 

Anyway, this is just foreplay. The full move doesn’t take place until next academic year. We’ve got the winter, the spring, the autumn. This is the on ramp. It’s a long on-ramp. There has to be a synchronisation. But they want to see a full strategic plan by Easter. This is just the beginning.

 

How do the organisational managers dress? What’s an organisational manager look? Casual Fridays?

 

Is it power dressing? Shoulder-pads? Or was that just the ‘80s.

 

Let’s do a breakout chat, just the three of us.

 

We’re huddling on that.

 

Come on, group-hug.

 

Their demolition derby.

 

We’re the philosophical B-roll, and the organisational managers are the new master race.

 

Without Cicero – who are we? What are we?

They want to see who we are without Cicero.

Who actually are we without Cicero?

They want to meet the team.

The ‘team’. God help us – are we a team? A gang? A crew?

We were always Cicero’s crew.

We’re still Cicero’s crew?

 

Are you ready, space cowboys?

 

Philosophy’s going to be a premium product. An extra – and what an extra! To Organisational Management studies.

 

We’re base-jumping into the unknown,

 

They have some notes. About our teaching. About our modules.

Some notes!?

 

You’ll just suck the biggest dick in the room.

 

Carpe the diem, people.

 

Can you see them snaking around?

 

It’s a fait accompli. They went over our heads. Like, infinitely over. We’re irrelevant. This isn’t some negotiation. Why are they even inviting us?

To play nice.

 

Things are getting peppery.

 

It’s a big tent, apparently. The Organisational Management big tent. All the humanities in it tent.

 

We reek of loserdom to them. We stink of it: loserdom.

 

Do you think they’ll have a kill list – is that what this is about? Who will stay and who will go?

 

We young philosophical Turks. Who wouldn’t want to keep us?

We picked the wrong horse – the humanities horse. Which is being turned into glue.

It picked us. It lifted us onto its back, and we rode along.

 

No one does self loathing like us. Like European philosophers. The whole of European philosophy to express it.

 

European philosophy role play. European philosophy dress up.

 

The humanities blob, right? They want to flush us away. The humanities bolus. All our shit European philosophy journals. Our shit publishers of European philosophy senescence.

 

There’s no way we would have survived out there in the world. Not for a moment. We’re on the humanities life support. Our kind can’t survive out there. We’re in the humanities’ hospital. The humanities refuge.

Our kind shouldn’t survive. It’s evolution, right? We’re the weakest. The stupidest. The least well adapted. We can’t survive in a business reality. We’re ornamental, that’s all. And not even that ornamental.

 

Walser, Kafka, Benjamin. Like holy names to us.

 

Now, European philosophy power! We’re like those monks in Southwest Ireland. Preserving the knowledge. Keeping the flame burning. Snuffling out the flame. Dousing the flame. It’s in the past now, European philosophy. Pissing on the flame.

 

European philosophy – driven into the most lowly unis. By the rigged system. BY analytic philosophy hegemony. What chance did we have?

This isn’t the humanities anymore, Toto. This isn’t our campus anymore. Some whirlwind just wept us up and deposited us here. We’re off to see the wizard.

They’re reeling us in. Across the entire Organisational Management campus. Attuning us to the Organisational Management Stimmung.

 

How big is this campus, anyway?

Where are the scooters – can’t we ride scooters?

I thought they were building a monorail?

Can we book an uber?

 

It’s an eco campus.

Powered by windmills?

By ground energy.

 

Is this campus even real? Is any of this even real. It’s like a stage-set. It doesn’t convinced. Because it isn’t inhabited yet.

 

I’m totally numb. Is frost-bite happening? Are they going to amputate my fingers? Will I ever play piano again?

In the meantime, the Organisational Management campus. Where we’re the resistance.

Where we’ve been brought to be the resistance. It’s the campus’s gift to itself: us – as resistance. To see what we might do. How we might surprise them. We’re exactly where they want us.

And perhaps where God wants us.

God is a swear-word, that’s all. As in: God, what kind of civilisation would build a campus like this? As in, God, every tower here is dipped in poison. As in, God, it really does feel like the last night of the world.

 

All we can do is gather up all the futility – all these failed days – and offer it up, I say. Everything botched. All the blind alleys. All the mediocre stuff. The futility. And fatelessness. That’s how it’d make sense: as a funeral pyre.

 

The world’s never been as barren, I say. As hollow. Listen to us. Everything we say just … echoes. With no one to hear.

Except each other, Sophia says.

And God, Io says.

And maybe God, I say. This is just the Organisational Management world now, isn’t it? We’ll never leave this campus, even if we leave this campus. Everything that will happen will happen here.

Then we have to pray for the campus to be transformed, Io says.

Our voices, I say. Our pleading. Our desire to be saved, but believing that there’s no salvation.

Speak for yourself, Io says.

Our desire to live, even though life is impossible in this world, I say. In what they’ve done to this world. And that’s the best of us: our desire.

Your prayer, Io says.

The impossibility of prayer, I say. Atheists’ prayer. Which is only self-hatred. Which is only the hatred for the conditions for all this. For our existence.

Our atheists’ world, I say. The atheism of air, of water, of the earth. The air hates being the air. The air’s just wandering lost in air. Just like water’s flowing lost in water. Just like water weeps tears in water. Just as we hate being ourselves, we who are without God.

 

And I know that there’s further to go – further down the spiral, I say. That we haven’t reach bottom yet. I know we’ll shake the bars of this world – demand the meaning of meaning. Cry out. But we’ll hear nothing. And no one will hear us.

Except each other, Sophia says. It’s company, isn’t it?

Company in misery, I say.

 

We think the same things, Sophia says. We use the same words. The same things occupy us …

You mean we’re at the bottom of the same pit, I say. That our blood slops with the same poison. That we’re made to tell the same lies.

We need angels! Angels to save us! Angels of Newcastle, like the angels of Berlin in Wings of Desire! Angels in black-and-white footballs shirts, who just watch over everyone. Who witness our lives, our joys, our sufferings, and comfort us without our knowing it. Who put an arm around us when we need it …

Newcastle angels – sure, Driss says.

What about St Cuthbert? Eric Burdon? Io asks. The guys who wrote Fog on the Tyne …

Lindesfarne aren’t dead, I say.

Is Gazza dead? Driss asks.

He wouldn’t be an angel, I say.

A drunken angel, maybe, Driss says. Are there drunken angels?

Angels can’t be drunk, Io says. They don’t have bodies.

Just like demons, Furio says. Like the Nephilim! Always looking for bodies to inhabit.

Can there ever be good possessions? I ask. Could an angel possess you?

I don’t think it’d be called possession, Io says

I’d like to be possessed by an angel, I say. And do only good. I’d like to be the instrument of something very good.

To do the will of God, Io says.

But what is it: the will of God? I ask.

To get out of this campus as soon as possible, Furio says.

Unless God wants us here, Io says.

To do his work? I ask.

Io, shrugging. I don’t know.

I’d like to die as an angel, I say. Emptied of all things – all sin. And all my twistedness untwisted. All my hatred transmuted into love. All my life, gathered up, offered up. Cured, right? Just an aching soul, crying upwards to be extinguished. And then … extinguished. Fucking beautiful.

Is that God’s work: a mercy kill? Furio asks.

I don’t think God means for us to die – not just yet, Io says.

Are you really making a snow angel, Driss? Io asks.

It’s supposed to be a snow devil, Driss says.

You’ve given it wings! Sophia says.

Sure – bat wings, Driss says.

Dante’s Satan, right? Io says. Satan, frozen in Hell, totally immobile. Encased in frozen waters. And just his wings beating the frozen air in vain. Stirring up cold winds.

Did Satan actually fall to earth in Newcastle?: that’s the question, I say.

He fell to the centre of the Earth, according to Dante, Io says. Because that’s where the heaviest things fall. And Hell is the crevasse that opens as he plunges.

So Hell really might be beneath Newcastle …, I say.

Which is why they’re sending down that bore, Driss says.

What bore? Sophia asks.

They’re drilling down in search of geothermal energy, Furio says. They’re planning to plug this campus directly into Hell, basically.

This place isn’t supposed to depend on the grid, Driss says. Supposed to function all by itself. Keep switched on in any state of emergency.

Energy Satanism – who’d have thought it? I say.

Faith Zone, Sophia says. This is going to be good.

It’s like a crap version of the Millennium Dome …, Furio says.

It’s an interfaith temple, apparently, Driss says. Reading: Designed to accommodate the needs of all faiths. Where people from all religious traditions can feel comfortable, safe and respected. Promoting genuine interfaith dialogue and shared practice.

Very accommodating, Driss says. There are symbols representing seven world religions, apparently.

It lacks grandeur, don’t you think? Sophia says.

It’s downright tawdry, I say.

Driss, reading a plaque. Welcoming the gift of diversity. Promoting inter-religious peace. Building cultures of peace and justice. Manifesting love and justice among all life on Earth …

Sounds very nice, Furio says.

United Religions: that’s who’s behind it, Driss says. It’s a bridge-building organisation, not a religion, apparently.

They want a one world religion, clearly, Furio says. Just like the United Nations wants a one world government …

It’s Babel all over again, Io says.

Driss, reading: Embodying the principles and practices of the great faiths. Deepening mutual understanding and trust. Giving and receiving hospitality. Creating cultures of peace, justice and healing. Promoting a new global spirituality. Nothing to object to, eh? Nothing to frighten the horses …

Ooh – there’s a hymn, Driss says: Through the long night we have come. / The sun is bright, the wars are done. / We will unite. We will be one. A new faith has begun. Now that really is half-arsed. Is that the best they can do? I mean, faith in what? What is there left to have in faith in, on the Organisational Management campus?

Organisational Management syncretism: that’s all we need, Furio says. Organisational Management doing religion …

Babel 2.0, like I said, Io says. We’re actually supposed to be divided – there are supposed to be all these different nations. It’s supposed to limit our pride.

This shitshow is a sign of pride …, I say. My God …

Do they really think they can speak of faith? Furio says. Are they that stupid?

Diabolical mockery, Driss says. Deliberate Satanism.

It’s not even that Satanic, I say.

This whole campus is lost, Io says. It’s pushed God away. It’s left the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God … Nothing remains of God but the void: that’s what this campus says …

That’s what Cicero said, too, I say. God and the world are antagonistic. God isn’t revealed through the world – but against it. And that only happens with complete disenchantment … When we know the world as illuminated by nothing – by no meaning, no direction …

Contraries again, Sophia says.

Organisational Management is an essentially nihilistic project, I say. It’s a nihilism factory. Which means it’s serving God, in its own way.

By making the world really, really shit, you mean? Furio says.

From a certain perspective, the meaningless of the world is itself meaningful, that’s what Cicero told us, I say. It actually means something. When the world becomes purely functional, the conditions of meaning must come from outside.

So the Faith Zone is about worshipping the void? Sophia asks.

It’s about worshipping the opposite of all this, Driss says.

Organisational Management isn’t worshipping anything – that’s the point, Io says.  

Organisational Management is afraid, Helmut says. It’s been sucking all the meaning out of the world, the better to organise everything. The better to manage it. But it knows that it will perish by the world it’s making. That there’s a midnight hour coming, when it’ll have to stare into the void.

That’s good, Helmut – you’re good, Furio says. It was worth breaking your vow to say that.

Faith zone is, like, faithlessness zone, Io says. The heart of their fucking darkness. Doesn’t this campus know its own evil? Doesn’t it understand its own hubris? Doesn’t it understand the dimensions of its sin? That it’s already damned, and utterly so?

This whole campus is lost, Io says. It’s pushed God away. It’s left the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God. It can only be destroyed – don’t you see?

Destroyed? Is that Christian? Sophia asks.

Something terrible’s going to happen here, I know it, Io says. Something vast – vaster than this campus. Something good – that will appear evil. Something merciful – that will appear merciless. The wrath of God … The fury of God … The Justice of God …

The midnight hour’s close, I say. That’s why they want Philosophy to hold their hand …

Some help we’ll be, Driss says. We’ll just push them into the void. Which is what they deserve.

Trees strangled by sliver rings. Tees throttled by silver collars. The earth covered over by patterned paving stones.

 

An artificial environment. For Artificial Intelligence.

Which is why out natural stupidity has to count for something.

How’s that going to save the world?

Do you think they turned on the Northern Lights just for us? Do they turn on different skies for different people? Is there different weather?

The storm of light. The flashing of light. The screaming of light. Screaming for nothing. Meaning nothing. Flaunting itself. Brazen. Blazing.

What message is it sending? What does nothingness want to say?

I actually think I’ve reached a new level of self-disgust, Driss says.

I didn’t think there were more levels, I say.

Nothing hates itself like a human being, Furio says. We’re the uniquely fucked-up species.

We’re just lost in the coils of evil, Driss says. Lost in the coiling, the writhing. Lost in the agitation of sin. And we don’t even mind, that’s the thing. Or not enough to do something about it. We should just let Organisational Management destroy us …

We’ll destroy ourselves, thank you very much, Furio says. We’ll do it in our own way. In our own time. With our own style. And we’ll do it with panache.