A Man of the End

So the end of philosophy really has come, W. says. The philosophical apocalypse really is here. What has it shown? What’s been revealed? Lars lecturing. Lars publishing. Lars who actually has a job. If that isn’t a sign of the eschaton, what is?, W. says.

I actually think I earned my job, that’s the irony, W. says. I actually think I beat all the other postgraduates to full time employment because of my own merits.

‘What do you think they saw in you, your interviewers?’, W. asks. ‘Why do you think they gave you the job?’ Oh, he knows I struggled to find work. He knows that it took me years and years. I had a long period of whoring for work, just as W. had a long period of whoring for work. I had a long period of teaching an hour here, an hour there, of taking fractional posts in faraway places, just as he had long period of teaching an hour here, an hour there, of taking fractional posts in faraway places. I lived exclusively on discount sandwiches, just as he once lived exclusively on discount sandwiches. I drank only the cheapest vodka, just as he drank only the cheapest vodka. I worked, I worked night and day, just as he worked night and day. How I published! How he published! I spoke up at conferences! He spoke up at conferences! I tried to get my name known! He tried to get his name known. But I was a little more desperate than him, wasn’t I?, W. says. A little more keen.

W. got his job at his church college, where he taught no more than one hour a week, and I got my job at a northern university, where I taught no less than fifteen hours a week. W. worked with the warmest and gentlest of colleagues, who were genuinely interested in intellectual inquiry, and I worked with the most savage and difficult of colleagues, who had absolute contempt for intellectual inquiry. Administrative tasks at his college were equally shared out, W. says; everyone did his or her bit. Administrative tasks at my university were given to me, and only to me. W. was left to his own devices for research. He was given time – oceans of time! He was given lengthy sabbaticals of a year or more! I was denied any time for research. I was given no time – no time whatsoever; no sabbaticals, no research days. W. rose each morning and read and wrote all day. I rose each morning, and taught and administered all day. W. found it all very amusing.

I was a workhorse:  was that what the job search committee saw at the University of Northumbria? I would do anything whatsoever to keep my job: was that it? I was a man of desperation, that’s quite true, W. says. A man who feared unemployment above all other things: ytes, yes. But that wasn’t the only reason why they gave me a job, W. says.

It was because I was a man of the end that they employed me, W. says. Because I was a kind of wild man of thought, a man who’d emerged from the philosophical jungle. Not for my interviewers a candidate from a real university, like Oxford or Cambridge. Nor for them a properly scholarly applicant, a researcher fluent in several modern languages, and familiar with several ancient ones. Not for them a man of the archive, who had studied in the great libraries of Europe. Not for them a man of broad learning, a man of civilisation, a gentleman educated in the best independent schools of our country.

My interviewers knew things were at an end, whether consciously or unconsciously, W. says. My search committee knew the philosophical end times were here. So consciously or unconsciously, they decided to make a joke appointment, an appointment that laughs at the very idea of an appointment. They decided to create a parody of a lecturer, a position that satirisises the very idea of a lectureship. It was like Caligula appointing his horse as senator, W. says. It was like Cal, in 2000AD, appointing his goldfish as Chief Judge.