Lars Iyer - Wittgenstein Jr

A first snowfall. Winter already!

Ede and I, on the way to class, contemplating the transitoriness of life.

How much time do we have left? How many days until the end of term? Until the end of the academic year? We long for it all to be over. We dread that it will all be over.

A burning desire to bunk off. To hit the road in Ede’s coupé.

How open our lives are, just as Wittgenstein says! Anything might happen! We are lost. Lost in the middle of life. We feel vulnerable — alone and exposed, falling deeper and deeper into Time.

We may have sniffed too much amyl nitrate last night, Ede says. He thought his head would burst . And there were too many Black Zombies …

But it’s more than that, we agree. We’ve begun to think about our lives. To think about our thoughts ! To ask ourselves who we are, and what made us who we are. And our questions resound inside us: Why is there anything at all? Why is there life? Why death? Whose gift was all this? Whose mistake was it all? Whose boon ? Whose oversight? By what law of necessity did it occur? By what blind chance? What’s it all for? Why should it be for anything?

Wittgenstein would approve, Ede says. We’re acquiring depth …

• • •

Chakrabarti, walking ahead of us, babbling to Wittgenstein. Of all people! For fuck’s sake!

Chakrabarti wears a padded coat, all the way down to his feet, like a duvet … And his grin . His goonish grin …

What’s Chakrabarti doing in Cambridge anyway? What’s he doing in our class? Why’s he always padding after us like the fat kid in Hollywood movies? Why, when he has no chance whatsoever of understanding Wittgenstein?

Chakrabarti is out of his depth, we agree. Chakrabarti should have kept to the shallows, splashing about. Chakrabarti should have stayed on the beach, playing with his sand castles.

Chakrabarti signed up for the Cambridge experience —that we’re sure of. Chakrabarti, in the Cambridge sweatshirt, now and forever a Cambridge man .

Chakrabarti lacks any sense of irony … Chakrabarti is without depth, which surprises us — India is the country of spiritual depth! What happened, we wonder? What went so wrong over there, that India could produce a Chakrabarti?

Chakrabarti, grinning back at us. How inane he is! But we have to admit that Chakrabarti makes us feel clever, simply by comparison. Part of an elite. He makes us feel closer to Wittgenstein, in some way. Akin to him.

Growing pressure, growing urgency — Wittgenstein appears to believe that everything will soon fall into place.

He speaks quickly, intimately , presuming we can follow him.

Fewer pauses to think; fewer moments of silence. A pellmell of logical symbols, of logical operators, of unfamiliar words. The blackboard on the mantle shelf written over and wiped clean.

Philosophy is simmering. Logic is being brought to the boil. Thought itself will soon be running over …

The last step is the hardest step, he says. The last step is the most dangerous . The last step requires the greatest courage. It is the step that changes the one who steps.

The end is not like the beginning, he says. The last hours are nothing like the first. Tomorrow is not another day.

He is carrying us with him, he says. Carrying us over the edge of thought’s waterfall. We will tumble into thought’s plunge pool together.

He means to whip up a logical storm, Wittgenstein says. A logical frenzy . He means to shake the snow globe of logic. He means to send it mad. And he means to welcome madness when it comes. He means to let it destroy him. He means to let it destroy the world — what he knows as the world.

The resurrection of thought . That’s what he means to find. The resurrection of the world .

He means to drown everything in the baptismal bath of his Logik , Wittgenstein says. He will baptise everything anew — when the Logik is revealed, we, too, will be revealed. We will know who we are. No: we will be who we are. At the end, the very end, we will put on the Logik , Wittgenstein says. We will wear the Logik as an armour of light …

A walk on the Backs.

The don-watch , that’s what he calls his late-night vigils, Wittgenstein says. When he can’t sleep, he sits by the window, he says, and peers out into the gloom. There are dons out there, he tells himself. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them! There are dons in the gloom, near and far. Flocks of dons! Shoals of dons! Where one banks, the others bank. Where one careens, the others careen. Sometimes, they all fly up at once — a comet, a maelstrom, a boiling mass — and their wings hide the skies …

Yes, there is a real splendour to dons en regalia , he says. A real beauty to dons in their full plumage. The dons, with their chests puffed out … The dons, with their erect carriage … The dons, in their hierarchies, which are intelligible to no one … The dons, carrying out their ceremonial duties, which not even they understand …

The dons have a kind of pack intelligence, he says. A hive intelligence; they think in unison. Sometimes, he’s even suspected that the dons are telepathically connected , so similar do they seem to him in manner and in thought.

The dons are always ready to pounce, he says. Always ready with their greetings. Hello , they say. Nice weather we’re having , they say. How are you? , they say. How are you getting on? , they say. What have you been up to? , they say. Each time: an assault. Each time: a truncheon over the head. Hello. Nice day. Hello. Hello .

And the philosopher-dons are worst of all! he cries.

The dons of ethics — the least virtuous of all. The dons of logic — the least reasonable of all. The dons of epistemology — the least knowledgeable of all. The dons of metaphysics — the least profound of all. The dons of aesthetics — the least cultured of all …

The dons of philosophy: academic-output manufacturers! Impact-seekers! Grant-chasers! Citation-trufflers! Self-googlers! Web-profile updaters! Facebook posters! Tweedy voids!

Do the dons know about his Logik ? he wonders. Have any of us told them?

No, we assure him. None of us has told them.

Do the dons know about him, about what he is teaching?

No, we tell him. We have kept our mouths shut.

What would the dons do if they knew? he whispers.

The Logik will solve all the fundamental problems of philosophy, he says.

The Logik will soar above the philosophical storms. It will catch fire by itself. It will burn with its own flame, like a star.

The Logik will know everything, he says. It will have seen everything in advance. The Logik will be lucidity itself. Daylight itself.

The Logik will bring peace , he says. Logical peace.

Snow scenes, as in Brueghel. Students making snowmen. Students throwing snowballs at one another.

Benwell, in the thick of it, throwing snowballs packed with stones.

Ede and I, at a safe distance.

Why does Benwell scowl so? we wonder. And what’s it like to be in a bad temper day and night?

Benwell would throw his stone-balls at us, if we were in range. Benwell would curse and cry and spit at us …

In the old days, Benwell would have been a communist, or something, we agree. He’d have been selling socialist papers in the rain, or getting you to sign a petition. He’d have been manning the Free Palestine stand. Even a few years ago, he’d have been among the occupiers in the Old Buildings, shuffling around in dirty pyjamas …