Work in Progress

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.

We’re idea-stealers, that’s all! Panners for philosophical gold in European waters. Gathers of European pollen from the finest European flowers. Fishers of ideas in the European pond.

Ideas we barely understand! That we barely even grasp! Ideas that we have to dumb down. Simplify. Rip out of their context. Reframe. Make stupid …

Ideas that we have to domesticate – to transplant to Anglophone soil. That we have to make grow here. Simplified! Contextualised! Reframed! Remade! To be presented in our journal articles and conference presentations.

Explainers: that’s what we are. Makers-clear. Renderers-up of difficult things. Cutters-and-dryers. Servers-up of difficult things!

We know the division of labour: the Europeans think, and we introduce their ideas. Europe is the element of ideas, and the Anglophone world the element of introductions to ideas. Europe is where ideas swim in the wild, and the Anglosphere is the place where ideas are caught – snared. Domesticated.

We’re supposed to be idea-seizers. Idea opportunists. Dutiful worker ants. Drones. Making ideas usable in the Anglophone humanities. Ready to be put to work, by other humanities disciplines. Read for the discerning educationalist or art historian or music theorist …

We’re supposed to be in the deciphering department. In the explanations game. Rendering explicit: that’s supposed to be our job. Translating obscure European ideas into clear English prose. Transforming the fire from heaven into packageable ideas – into gaudy paperbacks in collect-‘em-all series.

Whole careers can be made from a few crumbs from the European table –but  not our careers. Great books to be written – for prestigious presses; where you can make your name as an [insert European name here]-ian; as a specialist in the thought of [insert up coming name here] – but not our books.

Plan well, and you could be ahead of the curve – but we’re behind it, and behind every curve. You could be the go-to person about this thinker-on-the-rise or that – but no one would ever come to us. Think strategically, and you could be ready with a raft of articles on this up-and-coming thinker or that one – but we’re hopeless at tactics. We can’t do strategy.

You could be hunters-down of other crumbs from the French philosophical table. Stuff that’s been missed from the ‘50s or ‘60s. Thinkers Deleuze mentioned in passed. Ready to be translated! Introduced! But we were incapable of that.

We were never epigone of this thinker or that. Never ready to the Deleuzian thing or the Badiouan thing. And doing something else when that gets tiresome.

We had no hotline to the Parisian experimentium. To the Parisian ideas incubator. Paris: we’ve never even been there. We can’t even conceive of Paris. We don’t speak French, let alone Parisian. We can read a but of French, sure. A bit of German. We know the letters of ancient Greece. But Paris would be quite impossible for us. We’d explode if we ever went near Paris – My God!

Could we say that we resisted it all – that we wanted to be more than covers bands, doing our own crap version of European ideas? That we aspired to more than being the backers of the right European horses? Could we say we had too much integrity to play pass the European philosophy parcel?

 

It was as though we were not yet philosophers – that’s what Cicero said. As though we were not even philosophers. Philosophy, in us, was the ache, the desire for philosophy. Philosophy, in our cases, was the full knowledge that philosophy of any kind was impossible.

Philosophy, for us, was the perpetual as-not … You never philosophise as a philosopher: that’s what we knew …

 

Our idiocy. Our experience of idiocy. As it belonged to philosophy. As it was the most intimate part of philosophy. As the core of philosophy. Wasn’t that what was most important?

Knowing ourselves as having no ideas of our own, of having nothing to say, and no means by which to say anything. As being never able to philosophise. We could never pass ourselves off as philosophers. Let alone as philosophier-introducers to European ideas. We could never play the part of philosophical master – as in command of the oeuvres of others. As explainers. As contextualisers.

The completeness of our stupidity: that’s what we expressed in our best moments. In our drunken laments. In our ceaseless complaints about our inability. Stupidity without apology: that’s what we became. The happiness of idiocy: even though we were also as miserable as sin.

Perfect idiots. Beautiful idiots. Beautiful in our idiocy and because of it. Dwelling in idiocy. In a whole ethos of idiocy – a way of perceiving and engaging with the world, with ourselves, with others …

Perhaps it takes a non-idiot to understand it, Cicero said. A non idiot standing outside it. Who’s not part of it. Who doesn’t dwell within it. The point is to affirm idiocy. Not to see it as a deficiency. Not to see ourselves as lacking anything. But we were incapable of that.

You have to know how to read idiocy, Cicero said. There’s a whole idiocy’s hermeneutics. And that was her role: to show the meaning of our idiocy.

Which is why she’d given us jobs. Why she’d raised us to these heights …

Cicero knew we’d disappoint ourselves – of course. She knew we’d come to realise that we couldn’t change who we were. That there was no way out of our condition. No escape. From what we were and continued to be.

Despite our summer nights! Despite our music friends! Despite their joyful example!

Our summer friends. Our summer reliables, who’d meet us at the back of our building on their bikes. With whom we’d cycle off, for summer sun-downers. For the Free Trade in the evening, the summer still bright above us.

Our summer peloton, along the Quayside. Along the Tyne. Until we carried our bikes up the steps to the Free Trade. To drink with our music friends around a table. To bring out beers on a tray for our friends.

And repairing to a music friend’s house for dinner after a few golden beers. For bottles of white wine with crème de cassis. For cured meats. For stews. And tequila – sipping tequila. Bottles of Jose Cuervo Reposado, for sipping.

And back to our offices, every morning. Working in our offices, every morning. And Cicero, observing it all. Cicero, admiring our summer tans. Smiling at our summer tales. Knowing that all that sun and drink had done nothing to lift our work.

How long would our summer optimism last? For the whole of summer? The first summer, yes. And for our second summer, too. But by our third summer? When we reread our work in our third summer?

 

Cicero knew our tragic hearts. She looked at us, smiling, indulgent. Even as she knew our summer optimism could not last.

Did we ever read our writing back? Did we ever reread what we’d written in our summer trances? Did we really think that summer had saved us, lifted us? Did we really think a summer spell had been cast? That would make us not as we were? That would transform our creaturely condition? Our prose styles? The content of our prose?