A Chance, A Promise

A chance, a promise. That's what they were given, the Essex postgraduates. Life was elsewhere ... They lived in the wrong age, and in the wrong country. They were men and women out of time and out of place.

Their ideas weren't British ideas, or at least current British ideas, W. says. Their ideas weren't commercial ideas, ideas that belong to the new reality. Ah, in another country, they thought back then, they would have been taken by the arm and treated with great politeness and interest. In religious or recently religious countries, where they still revere philosophy.

How might they have been treated in Mediterranean countries, the Essex postgraduates wondered, where they pour you wine and sit down with you to discuss ideas over olives and chorizo? Wouldn’t they have found allies and admirers in the countries of Eastern Europe — in political or recently political countries — where you can still discuss Marx over your Weissbiers, where Weil and Kierkegaard are on everyone's minds?

Of course, they all study philosophy at school, in Old Europe, the Essex postgraduates knew that. Everyone knows a little something about philosophy. Everyone has something philosophical to say. It's in their blood. In the air! It's in the aether of Old Europe, they said to each another. It's in the cafés and wine cellars. It's in the city squares and riverside parks. And can't you see it shining out in the faces of children?

Old Europe, Old Europe. But its day was passing, the Essex postgraduates knew that. And so the promise of their day was passing, they who never really knew Old Europe. Their philosophy would die unnoticed: how could it be otherwise? The ideas of Old Europe would not take root here.

They would have to fly off elsewhere, the Essex postgraduates, as dandelion seeds of thought. They would have to take root in South America, perhaps — in Argentina, which is supposed to be a very thoughtful country, a real thinking country; in Columbia, which has philosophy departments like great castles; in Uruguay, which probably already harbours thinker-friends who will take the next great leap of thought.

Or they would have to reach fertile ground in vast China, vast India, or in overcrowded Japan. Somewhere, someplace else, there would have to find the countries of thought. Somewhere beyond Old Europe, itself no longer fertile soil for the ideas of its thinkers ...

Ah, its time had come, Old Europe. It’s time was already overdue. Old Europe had already outlived itself, was already posthumous. But didn't it dream nonetheless? Didn't it send its dreams back from the other side of death? Were they its dreams, Old Europe's, the Essex postgraduates?, W. wonders. Were they the way Old Europe dreamed of coming once more to itself, now and in Essex?

Now and in Essex, now and in Essex. W. has always had a waking dream that our country might become the next country of philosophy. He's always dreamt — and he knows it's ridiculous — that something might begin in our Britain: a day, the chance of a day. That the sunrays from old Europe, from the sun-touched countries of the south, would burst through our northern clouds. That a heavenly fire would illuminate our ancient landscapes and break across our upturned faces ...

Our tears would flow, W. says. Our hearts would melt, our knees buckle. We would fall into the arms of thought. Thought would be as easy as falling. We’d play with ideas as one child with another. We’d speak to each other at last. We’d hear each other speak – at last, at last!

A chance, a promise... How they dreamed in Essex! How ardently they dreamed, the Essex postgraduates! And was it Old Europe that dreamed of itself through them? Was it Old Europe that sought to reach them from the other side of death?