Work in Progress

Can I come with you into death? Can you lead me all the way to death? Is there a way out, through death? I want out, philosophy. I don’t want to be part of this …

 

Will we die here? Are we going to die here? In this … sarcophagus. The whole place is a suicide pod. The whole place is designed to make us want to kill ourselves.

 

It’s fitting. It’s appropriate. For those of us who didn’t want to be part of the human optimisation project. This is how they’ll thin us out. By making it unbearable. But of course, it already is unbearable …

 

I don’t want to live in this world. What we’ve done is disgusting. This campus is disgusting. This tower, reaching up into the void. And the void is laughing at us.

 

Who’s going to help us? Who will extend a hand? Pull us out of this? What do we pray to? Who is there to pray to? Who is there to kneel before?

 

This is a death zone, I know that. Death for the likes of us zone. This is a suicide zone. A drive us to suicide zone.

We couldn’t disturb them, Cicero’s European philosophy professors. They couldn’t see who we were. In our full significance. They didn’t recognise the barbarians. The inhabitants of the ruins. The ones who come after the destruction.

They couldn’t see what we were. What we embodied. We didn’t terrify them, Cicero’s professors. They couldn’t grasp the conditions that created us. Why our kind become necessary at a certain point.

They couldn’t discern that nature of the catastrophe – that there even was a catastrophe.

Not even our doomedness revealed itself to them. Not even our desperation, which was largely concealed, it is true, by our drunkenness. And even the meaning of our drunkenness was impossible for them to grasp.

So of course they were polite. Of course they were generous. They weren’t alert for signs. For omens. They didn’t know their own lies – the lies they couldn’t help but tell as soon as they opened their mouths. They couldn’t taste the poison. They were oblivious. Trusting. They thought everything was fundamentally okay.

And the humanities – what did they know of them? The coming destruction of the humanities. The imminent demolition of the humanities. None of that was apparent to them.

That the humanities had been devoured from within. That they had already been hollowed. Already cavitated. And that we were part of their hollowing.

The synths in Bladerunner think of themselves as angels. They quote Blake. Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc.

What’s that supposed to mean?

They’re fallen angels – that’s how they see themselves.

Who are the real angels? Do they believe in angels?

 

I thought synths weren’t supposed to feel anything.

The four year life-span is a failsafe to stop the synths experiencing emotions. If they lived any longer, they’d develop, like, emotional lives.

What sort of emotions might they feel?

 

Your memories could be fake. Your philosophy – maybe it was implanted in you .

How? By who?

 

See the real plan is to replace humans altogether. That’s why the synths look so much like us.

 

Did you ever do one of those tests on yourself?

You might be the first of a new kind – the philosophical synth.

So might you.

 

You’re the synth culmination of Organisational Management.

I’m not in the business. I am the business.

Perfect nihilism: that was always the goal. A perfect acceptance of nihilist. Of the limits of the world. An acceptance that there’s no meaning here. That meaning cannot come from here. That nothing earthly can save us.

And that’s a sign of hope?

It means you give up hope – for this realm. Give up the idea that hope can arise – in this realm. Only then can you live against the world.

 

Once you cry out … once you question … from the heart of you. From your viscera. Once you’ve reached perfect despair. An entire despair. Once you know that there’s no future for you in this world … Once hope is a memory …

 

To know the world as what it is. Perfectly cursed. Perfectly damned. A perfect void …

 

The extremity of hatred. And the extremity of love. The extremity of despair. Emotion carried at the highest pitch.

Until everything inessential is burnt up. Everything wrong. Everything that does not bring the world to destruction.

 

Cicero thought she’d found her perfect nihilist, that’s the thing. That you’d seen through the world entirely …

The poison runs so deep in us. The poison is us. We speak fluent poison. The lies run deeper than we do ourselves. We have to transmute it. Convert it inside us.

 

It’s made us into something interesting, the poison. That’s what Cicero would say.

Fuck Cicero.

 

Something’s being prepared inside us. We’re being made into something.

 

We have to learn to transmute the poison inside us. To change it.

 

It’s like a conversion. We’re being converted. To what?

 

We have to be converted. Which means we have to convert the poison. To turn it. Inside us. Turn ourselves. From interesting to … whatever. What does whatever mean?

 

How do we change the lies? Convert the lies? What can they be made into?

This is my life, philosopher. Do you like my life?

 

Do you think you could crack, like a piece of crockery?

 

How can you put an end to all this, philosopher? Put an end to everything. How can you get this stuff to STOP?

 

Are we going to save each other? Is that possible? Are we going to help one another? Are you going to help me?

Help you what – die?

 

Who’s doing it to us?: that’s what I want to know. And what are they doing? What, exactly? What is it? What’s happening? In all its dimensions? What is it that they want?

 

We’re lost in someone’s dream. Not our dream. We’re lost in what someone wants for us. Someone wicked.

 

This isn’t our world, is it? This isn’t even our dream. This isn’t our sleep.

This isn’t who we are. These aren’t our lies. These aren’t our lives. Someone dreamt this all up. We don’t belong here. To this. This isn’t our world. We’re not part of this.

 

On the threshold of … what? On the edge of … what? Are we asking the same things? About the same things? Are we caught up in the same question? Does the same thing ask itself through us both? Does it want the same thing in us?

 

These are the kind of things that I say to myself. Like, privately. I speak out loud to myself sometimes. Questions, questions. Or maybe they’re prayers …

 

Do you think I’m disturbed? What have I been disturbed by? What happened to me? Did it happen to you? Am I fucked up, or just philosophical? Are you fucked up, too?

 

Solitude, philosopher. How alone are you? Can you share what you think? With your colleagues? Can you share what you feel? Do they feel it too? Do they feel what you do?

 

Do you feel what I feel? Do you feel it? Do you know it?

Something bigger than us. Something greater than us. Something horrible.

That’s poisoning us. And lying to us. And lying through us.

 

And who’s going to save us from all this? And what’s going to save us?

 

Do you feel the evil? That word: evil. Are we allowed to call things evil anymore? But some things are evil, aren’t they?

 

How do we fight it? How do we resist? How do we escape this?

We don’t escape.

 

Are we damned, philosopher? What does that word mean: damned? Who would use a word like that: damned? Only a mad person. Or a religious person. All the real words have to come from religion now. They’re the only words that will suffice.

 

So evil – so, so evil. I sense it. I know it’s real. They have plans for us – terrible plans. They’ll destroy us. Worse.

What could be worse?

 

All this is an abomination. None of this should be. God knows that, doesn’t he?

So he should put us out of our misery, philosopher. Destroy  us all. And not just because we’re going to absorb the humanities, or whatever.

 

Why is there evil? Why is there anything? Who does the screaming belong to? Who makes the sound of screaming?

 

I’m tired of dying. Why are we always dying?

The postgraduate messiah will be the most stupid postgraduate who ever existed. But it will be a sublime stupidity. It will be a great stupidity.

The postgraduate messiah will be the most magnificent idiot. Vast. And swallowing up all so-called intelligence. Every clever thought.

The postgraduate messiah will be the one who should not existed. Who’s so twisted. So convoluted. So complexly folded. Whose hatreds are so various. Whose stupidities are manifold …

The postgraduate messiah will transmute all poison. Convert it within.

The postgraduate messiah will have explored every corner of death. Every part of the shadow of dying. Will have died a thousand times and been reborn from death.

The postgraduate messiah will be unable to lie. Unable to say a single false thing. With just one word on his lips: God.

 

Everything will be wrong about the postgraduate messiah.

The postgraduate messiah will be an even greater abomination than the Organisational Management campus.

 

I imagine the postgraduate messiah like Shakti, or something. Tongue sticking out. Riding a fucking tiger. Wielding some mace made of out of bones. Commanding some army of the undead.

What’s this tour for, anyway? To shock and awe me? Am I supposed to be amazed? Appalled?

I just wanted to be alone with the sulky philosopher. I want your philosophical take on these things. Actually, I want to see it through your eyes. I want to see myself in a philosophical mirror.

And what do you see?

 

You want me to tell you I hate it. You want me to hate it. For you.

What are you: a psychologist?

 

It’s so total. It’s so all. Like it will never fall down. It’ll last forever. This Kingdom will never fall.

Do you want it to fall? It’s barely even been built.

 

You’re not suited to this place, either. You want to approve of it, but you can’t. It’s driving you mad, too. It is, isn’t it?

 

I just like it silent and empty and dark. The lights flickering on and off as we walk the corridors …

 

I like feeling my footsteps … echo. I like to hear the echoes. With all this space around me. It’s the only way I can clear my head.

 

There’s a gym in there. Everyone’s so jacked nowadays. And they talk all the time about ice fucking baths. And how much they slept last night.

Do you do pull ups, philosopher? There’s an informal pull up competition among the senior Organisational Management team.

 

This is the future, philosopher. This is how we’re all going to live. And work.  

 

Offices for two hundred organisational managers. Imagine what two hundred organisational managers might be capable of. Like, the collective brain. All of them, working towards the great Solutions. To the great Problems. There’ll nothing they can’t solve.

 

In project teams. With project leaders. Fighting against groupthink at every turn. And reaching out across the university. Bringing experts over to the Organisational Management campus. Assembling inter- and multi-disciplinary teams. You can be involved, too – you philosophers. You can make a contribution.

 

And putting in for great tranches of funding. Sublime amounts of money.

 

This is a period of great Organisational Management optimism. I can tell.

 

There are all these breakout rooms. For encounters. Unexpected meetings. We want there to be surprising conversations.

I want to kill myself.

 

How can philosophy types do anything?

Making sure that there’s no uniformity of thought on their project. Making sure each team is a little off centre, off balance. We need mavericks. Brilliants. Are you a brilliant, philosopher?

 

No dark corners. No slack. Nothing unproductive. So much optimisation.

 

The human optimisation project. That’s based here.

Sounds exciting.

Don’t be sarcastic.

 

It’s a people place. People are the thing. The resource.

 

How many suicides do you get? You’ll have to spread nets between the Organisational Management campus buildings to prevent people from jumping.

You can’t open the windows wide enough to get out. They’ve seen to that.

 

An all algae based restaurant. How exciting.

 

This building recognises me. It knows who I am. Gives me access to everything. It doesn’t know you, yet.

 

It’s like being on a generation starship. It’s like it’s being readied to blast off into space. Looking for some habitable planet to organise and manage.

 

It’s so safe. The building wants us all to live forever. Well, I say ‘live’.

 

Do you find it unbearable, philosopher? Sometimes I find it unbearable. But I should like it, shouldn’t I?

 

You can’t throw yourself out of these windows. They don’t open wide enough. All you can do is batter yourself against them like flies.

They probably watch us battering against the windows like flies. They’d probably like that.

 

It’s a suicide machine, that’s what it is. It’s a culling device for the likes of us.

Am I included in your ‘us’?

What’s this tour for, anyway? To shock and awe me? Am I supposed to be amazed? Appalled?

I just wanted to be alone with the sulky philosopher. I want your philosophical take on these things. Actually, I want to see it through your eyes. I want to see myself in a philosophical mirror.

And what do you see?

 

You want me to tell you I hate it. You want me to hate it. For you.

What are you: a psychologist?

 

It’s so total. It’s so all. Like it will never fall down. It’ll last forever. This Kingdom will never fall.

Do you want it to fall? It’s barely even been built.

What’s the meaning of meaning, philosopher? Is that the kind of thing a philosopher asks? What’s it All About?

 

You can’t just talk about he World. Or about Meaning.

Why not?

 

You haven’t exhausted everything, philosopher. You haven’t experienced everything. You don’t know everything.

 

Sitting in your armchair, talking about the world. What do you know about the world? What could you know? Have you travelled, philosopher? Have you been places? Seen things? Have you been to the Southern hemisphere. Have you been to Africa? Or South America?

I’ll bet you have. I’ll bet you’re all about holidays.

 

The great meaninglessness? Is that what you so courageously face?

Have you seen through it all, philosopher? Do you know what’s real and not real? Have you worked it all out for the rest of us? Are you going to tell us what is and isn’t meaningful? Very handy, philosopher. Very kind of you to spoil our fun.

 

Like some adolescent in a perpetual sulk.

 

You’ve made a great judgement about it all – about everything. The whole world. At the age of thirty-whatever. You’ve decided what’s meaningful and what isn’t.

 

Would you be so gloomy if you visited Hawaii? Or got a puppy? You need to watch some baby animals video. Ever see a baby peacock. Cute. Cutely meaningful.

 

You’ve seen into the heart of all things. You know what’s Real. And True. And what the world Is.

 

I think you’re just mildly depressed. Do you think you see into the heart of things when you’re depressed? If you were some jolly optimist, you might see things differently.

 

We need lessons in how to live. How do you live? Is that what you teach your students: how to live? How fucking presumptuous! Your students must be such fuck ups.

Not like yours.

Ours come from all over the world. To study somewhere great.

There are five hundred times more Organisational Management students than there are philosophy students. What do you think of that?

God help us.

 

Philosophy: fucking up the world, one student at a time. Sure, we’ve been corrupting the young since ancient Athens. That’s what Socrates was killed for.

Well, I’m a fuck up, too, philosopher.

 

Are you glad you’re bringing us into the Organisational Management family?

I think you have a bad attitude.

So do you.

 

You teach them how to despise the world. How to cultivate their fucked-up-ness.

 

Legitimising all their adolescent bullshit. Making them think that being fucked up is part of the nature of being, or whatever.

 

Don’t think that I’m magnetised by your darkness, philosopher. Don’t think you’re drawing me into your abyss. I actually have an abyss of my own. I have my own … despair. I’ll bet your despair isn’t even despair.

 

You just want to dwell in some perpetual bad mood.

 

What do you want – an affair? An adventure? To make like interesting again … An episode … A diversion from all the Organisational Management boredom. You want some Meaning. An injection of meaning into Organisational Management nihilism.

Is that what we are: nihilists? That’s a very lofty name.

You drained all the meaning out of the world. And now you want meaning again. It’s the same as the way they take all the goodness out of bread. And reinject it. But it’s not the same.