Work in Progress

Haven’t we spent our whole lives backed into a corner? Haven’t we got thoroughly used to it, our corner? Weren’t we always trying simply to survive in our corner? Wasn’t that good enough for us: trying to survive, in our corner?

 

The world made us like this. This is who we are.

The lies made us like this. And knowing, somehow, that the lies were lies.

The poison made us like this. And knowing, too, that we’d been poisoned.

 

We’re growing sicker. We’re getting worse. How is it possible to get worse?

Is there any limit to this? To our sickness?

 

Our sicknesses. Our illnesses. Of the head. Our mordancy. That we express! That we teach! That we transmit to others!

 

We haven’t quite been educated out of the truth. Our of the lies. Out of our processing.

We haven’t been completely corrupted. We’re not completely corrupted.

 

Why were we let through? Who slipped up? Who wasn’t watching? What have we been brought here to do?

 

Our hearts still beat. We’re still alive, somehow. Still living. How is that possible? How can you feel like this and live?

It’s not right, is it? Have we ever had a single glad thought? A single happy moment?

 

Dancing in our chains. Look at us. We think we’re happy. With everything wrong with us. Everything that could be wrong with us, wrong with us.

 

Our excuse for living. Our excuse-lives. Which we don’t deserve!

 

Our life is made of our disgust. Our living is nothing other than hatred. Our misery!

 

What do we do with our lives? What use are our lives? Where are they leading? Where are they taking us?

 

Our instincts: hatred. Our desires: desires to hate. Our life blood: hatred. Our speech: hate speech. Our fundamental mood: horror. Depression. Anxiety. Our feeling: confinement.

We’re important somehow. We’re indicative. We need to be studied, we studiers. We need to be thought about, we thinkers. We need to be examined, prodded. To work out what we’re about. We’re too good to go to waste.

 

Something about us. Something desperate. And wretched. But with a specific quality of desperateness. Of wretchedness. We’re damned in such an interesting way.

 

Degrading. Rotting, spiritually. Descending. Falling. The only movement of which we were capable.

 

Each of us, a war. Each, at war with ourselves! With philosophy! And in love with philosophy – all of philosophy – at the same time.

 

Kinds of cancer: that’s what we were. Each of us was a different cancer. Each of our personalities, a cancerous personality.

We were each a disease – a bright disease, a different disease, but a disease nonetheless. An aberration! A sport! Some mutation!

 

And wasn’t she a case, too, we asked Cicero?

Sure, she said. But it takes an interesting case to recognise an interesting case.

 

Wasn’t Cicero a case, and an exquisite case? Wasn’t she blooming, in her own way? Hadn’t she discovered her own peculiar madness?

Should we be watching her? Examining her? Prodding her? Taking down notes of her table talk? Her pub talk? Her bored-at-meetings talk?

Shouldn’t she be studied? Scrutinized? Pondered at length? Wasn’t there something indicative about her, too?

 

It’s Cicero and us together. The wasp and the orchid, right? A double becoming. Sending each other in interesting directions. Because it was her, because it was us …

Friendship! Is that what it was? Frenemy-ship!

The exquisiteness of our fucked-upness. The way we’re fucked up. It should be savoured, Cicero said. Enjoyed. Like a very particular bouquet. A complex taste on the palate.

Cicero savoured our torturedness. Our chasms, as well as our heights. Our depressions. Our hatreds. It was all to be enjoyed. Tasted. As though we produced a very particular kind of adrenocrome. As though she could crack our skulls open and drink from our brains …

We were rich with affects. And Cicero was an affect-harvester.

 

Nothing content about us. Always rattled. Either manic or depressive. Either wildly up or hyperbolically down. And at each other. Attacking each other. Rats in a sack.

 

Her own pet snakes. Her private vipers’ nest. Gnawing at everything, like rats. Even at each other, like rats. Even at ourselves, like rats.

 

The will to power, as a department. Everyone at war with everyone. And at war with ourselves. Clambering over each other. And over ourselves. Tearing each other apart. And tearing ourselves apart.

Unsparing … cruel, even. And cruel to ourselves. Unsparing of ourselves.

*We need a life-support system to survive. Of the entire academy. Of the humanities. Of the university. Without it, who would we be?

We’re the kind who couldn’t survive anywhere else. We’re totally dependent. Totally pathetic. We’ve adapted to the tiniest of niches. We’d stand no chance whatsoever if we were made to live out there, beyond the university.

We’re a product of the humanities. We’re what the humanities have made. What the humanities have done. Which is a terrible indictment of the humanities.

 

In any sane society, we would have just gone under. We’d have thrown ourselves off some bridge. At best!

We’re maladapted. Maladjusted. We’re pure dysfunction.

We need support. Benefits. We’re that type. We were lucky. We were scooped up. Brought inside. But we didn’t deserve to be.

There are probably humanities casualties like us all over the country. The world! We were exposed to too much. Shown things.

We fell in love what we shouldn’t have. With what wasn’t for us.

We weren’t supposed to read those books. Watch those films. See that art. Listen to that music. It wasn’t for us. It should have been locked away. Hidden. Or we should have been locked away.

If it wasn’t for this – if it wasn’t for the humanities, we wouldn’t know who else to be. What else to do.

Throw us out of this, and … what?

Maladapted. Useless for anything else …

 

Wanting our eyes to rest on the finest paintings. Wanting to listen to the finest music – to classical music.

Elite tastes! But we’re not elite! We’re far from elite! We’re grubbers. Rats. Crawlers on the earth. And we can’t help but hate ourselves for what we love. For what we want.

 

We wandered too far out. We weren’t like the others. Like them.

Taste – is that what we have? We don’t trust our own taste. Is it only a desire for cultural capital? To make set ourselves apart. To lift ourselves from our class origins?

We didn’t expect much from life, did we? We never thought it would turn out well. That we’d actually be functioning citizens. That we’d ever actually have some kinda job, let alone an academic one. That we’d even be alive. That we’d actually reach our thirties. Fuck. I’m shocked just to be alive.

 

What’s wrong with us? What isn’t wrong with us?

Runts of every litter. The type that should not have survived. Who shouldn’t have been allowed to grow to adulthood. Who shouldn’t have been allowed out into the world. Who work against everything that’s good and right and intelligent.

 

Our half madness. Our lack of proportion. Our dubious hold on sanity. Our general dazedness. Our vagueness. Our near-perpetual drunkenness.

She gives good cheekbone.

 

We need to spike their guns.

 

Probably a tumour’s eating me inside out.

 

I’m being sparky. I’m being impish.

 

A broken robot. That’s what you are.

 

Saying mwah.

 

Your angst is giving me angst.

 

Is that, like, nice laughing?

 

We’ll go full fucking beast.

 

What’s our play? What’s philosophy’s play? What’s a play? It’s business speak.

Is that what we’re doing now?

 

Our Marcus Aurelius bust.

What would Marcus Aurelius say to all this?

 

We have to act on the world. We have to make things happen. See I know how to speak business.

 

It’s all about the philosophy succession.

 

A self regarding popinjay.

 

Are you going to plant a flag, Shiva?

 

We’re suicide bombers, really. That’s our worldview.

 

What’s our angle?

 

So this is the command pod.

 

Cancer of the career.

 

Meep meep motherfucker. That’s Roadrunner.

 

She wants to play captain my captain.

 

It’s all upside from here.

 

Courtesy pastries.

 

Minion wrangler.

 

It’s just sea-mist. Vapour. It blows away.

 

Scuttle the fleet.

 

Do you wanna spitball?

 

She wanted to be the Big Beast.

 

Six moves ahead.

 

I think we need philosophy medals.

 

You’ll end up editing Mind.

 

I’ll put a pin in that one.

 

We have to, like, eradicate hope. They can’t do anything to you if you have no hope.

 

Let’s take stock. Where are we?

 

Just shopping in the marketplace of ideas.

 

We want a clean kill.

 

Von Boring.

 

Chicken licken bullshit.

 

Nut-nut. Fuck-fuck.

 

X, rubber necking.

 

What’s the opposite of backslapping?

 

I don’t think we’ve dragged each other own sufficiently. It’s what we know how to do.

 

Is this mission control?

 

Bad fucking juju.

 

My senses are heightened. The air smells sweeter. Like you’re catch of the day.

 

Testy.

 

It’s like a 5D catastrophe.

 

Would you call us, merry?

We know Europe’s dead – we know it. We’ve already died Europe’s death, that’s the thing. We understand it.

Perhaps Europe died in England first. Having never really arrived here.

 

All this European thought was already dead. It was born dead in England. It wasn’t allowed here – not in philosophy, anyway.

Then how did it reach us?

Other channels. Other subject areas. The whole Theory sweetshop racket. All these pretty ideas ranksacked from everywhere …

 

Those few poor benighted European souls who’d somehow found their way here to the UK.

Yeah, because they couldn’t make it in Europe.

These lost, bewildered philosophy lecturers in obscure former polys. At the bottom of every league table. Wandering how did they ended up there. What had gone so terribly wrong. What they must have done wrong in a previous philosophical life. Poor fuckers.

 

The European philosophy life cycle. Do your apprenticeship. Learn your trade. Become some European philosopher tribute act …  

 

This is the time when they’ve let the idiots into the museum of philosophy. When we running wild. Smashing all the things.

 

I volunteer the whole of the humanities for the suicide pod. Better death than dishonour, right?

 

They’re using European philosophy to feed, like, self-teaching AI.

European philosophy would wreck self-teaching AI.

Helmut, headphones on.

He’s listening to Heidegger lectures.

He doesn’t understand German.

 

Heidegger had a very high voice, apparently. Sounds like a castrati, apparently. (Mouthing at Helmut:) LIKE A CASTRATI, MOTHERFUCKER!

 

We need a light to guide us. We need a star of Bethlehem.

And, as if by magic …

Helmut! You’re back!

 

A mini Heidegger. A pet Heidegger. Heidegger with all the Heidegger taken out.

 

Before you’d taken your Heideggerian vows.

Before you’d landed on planet seriousness.

 

Was there really an ontoerotic draft of Being and Time?

Heidegger cut all the sex bits.

Too bad.

 

There were sex bits, weren’t there, Helmut?

No sex bits.

It was the ontoeroteric draft. And eroteric is like, what?

Not erotic.

Too bad.

Maybe we should fake one: an ontoerotic draft. Just add dirty things into Being and Time. Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Except we’d be adding filth.

Genius move! The making of us!

Cicero always told us to write Europorn, do you remember?

Why didn’t she write it?

She said it was for the young. And that she couldn’t remember sex.

 

You’re still in mourning for the lost sense that you might be a genius. Which means that you somehow still have the hope that you might be a genius.

You’re in your mid thirties, Helmut – you’ve given it long enough! Fact it, Helmut – it’s not going to happen!

Embrace your stupidity. Put on your dunce’s cap.

We’ve been through it, the whole mourning your possible genius thing. We’ll help you through it.

 

We need entertainment – even Heideggerian entertainment. What did Heidegger do for kicks?

Volleyball, I heard. Him and Gadamer.

Or was it badminton? That’s a more Heideggerian sport.

Had badminton been invented then?

It has ancient roots.

 

Seriousness is not for us, Helmut. We haven’t earnt it. We don’t deserve it.

 

And it wasn’t just Division 1 Being and Time stuff that interested you, like those fucking Yanks. Late Heidegger: that’s your thing. Deep Heidegger where he goes all mystical.  

 

What was Cicero’s view of Heidegger?

Not Jewish enough. She referred Rosenzweig.

 

Helmut’s doing tragic grandeur. Tragedy’s not for us, motherfucker. Even our tragedy is comedy.

 

Helmut, headphones on. Take off your cans.

He can’t hear you. He’s listening to Schubert, or something.

Schubert won’t help him. Or any of us.

 

You have a tragic future. Double tragic. Tragic because it’s comic.

 

Trying to Heidegger it. To Heidegger your way through life. Doing your Heidegger thing. But you can’t.

 

Face it, we’re only taking the piss because we’ve got nothing better to do. Nothing better to say. Because we’ve got empty heads – even emptier than yours.

 

Helmut’s never gotten over having to study Heidegger at Scunthorpe University. I‘m sure Scunthorpe have never got over it either.

 

You hate yourself a) because you’re not Heidegger, b) because you’ll never be Heidegger.

 

Lighten up, glum-glum. You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?

 

Heidegger's only good for laughs now.

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?