Lars Iyer - Dogma

That’s when I will come into my own, the last of the great lineage of Brahmin priests, W. says. That’s when I will wear my great grin, as the living abortion of that line, its desecration. That’s when I’ll perform my cosmic dance, like a strutting, overfed chicken …

And then? What comes next? The great flood, W. says. Water and darkness. And then, after many thousands of years, the last avatar of Vishnu — what was his name? Kalkin, I remind him. Kalkin will appear, ready to restore the world, W. says. He’ll ride a white horse and wield a fiery sword. And he’ll perform the sacrifice that destroys the world and lets a new one rise up in its place. And so the whole cycle will begin again.

The Hindu always thinks in cycles, W. says. — ‘You’re a cyclical people’. This is where he is furthest from the Hindu, he says. He, as a Jew and a Catholic, is essentially linear . The meaning of the end times — our end times — is entirely different for him, W. says.

What does the apocalypse mean for the Hindu? W. wonders. Not judgement, and not redemption. For the Hindu, with his endless cycles, the apocalypse can be only the prelude to a new beginning.

Can the Hindu really— really —understand the horror of the apocalypse? W. wonders. Can he really— really —understand the glory of redemption?’

It’s what he’s long suspected, W. says. We both see horror all around us. We both see chaos and degradation, greed and conflict. But it doesn’t touch me, not really. Even our age, the worst of all, will see the birth of another of God’s avatars, I have that consolation.

He’s alone, W. says. Alone with his despair. But he has the Messiah! I tell him. Ah, but the Messiah is very different from Kalkin, W. says. — ‘Besides, messianism is best understood in terms of time , not some idiot on a horse’. He’ll explain that to me another day, he says.

Whitley Bay, walking between the boarded up sea-front buildings. Something has finished here, we agree. Something is over. But at least they haven’t begun the regeneration yet. They’re going to turn it into a cultural quarter . Imagine that! A cultural quarter , where there was once the funfair and the golden sands.

It was the same in the city. W. was unimpressed by the regeneration of the quayside, with its so-called public art . Public art is invariably a form of marketing for property development, he says. It’s inevitably the forerunner of gentrification.

W. is an enemy of art. We ought to fine artists rather than subsidise them, he says. They ought to be subject to systematic purges. He’s never doubted we need some kind of Cultural Revolution.

The real art of the city is industrial , of course, W. says. Spiller’s Wharf. The High Bridge. The four storeys of the flax mill in the Ouseburn Valley …

W. likes to imagine the people of the city, the old working class, coming to reclaim the quayside. What need did anchor-smiths and salt-panners have for a cultural quarter ? Why can’t the descendants of the keelmen, of the rope-makers and wagon-drivers, come and retake the new ghettoes for the rich ? In his imagination, W. says, a great army of Geordies storm along the river, smashing the public art and tearing down the new buildings.

A search and rescue helicopter hovers over the sea. Someone must have gone missing. Someone must have disappeared. As we draw closer, we see an ambulance on the beach, and bodysuited lifeguards running into the water, with floats.

We gather with other spectators along the railings of the promenade. A second helicopter has joined the search, following the edge of the shore where the sand gives way to rock. The currents must be very strong, we surmise. You never know where a body might wash up. A teenage boy, head in hands, sits on the steps of the ambulance with a towel around his shoulders.

The whirling blades of the helicopter leave a shadowy impression on the sea. Beneath it, the lifeguards spread out over a few hundred meters, paddling out on their floats. Sometimes they dive and then reappear. Much higher up, rising at an angle, the second helicopter surveys the whole area. Maybe it has special equipment, a kind of sonar, we speculate.

Two men run onto the beach and take off their clothes. They’re drunk. They splash out into the sea, nude, laughing and shouting, the helicopters hovering above them. But when they turn and see the long line of spectators, they become suddenly embarrassed. Shamed, they wade back to the beach, hands cupped over their genitals.

W., doleful as we head back to the station. How much time do we have left? he wonders. A decade? A century? The trouble is, you can’t tell, he says. The conditions for the disaster are here, they’re omnipresent, but when will it actually come?

He reads book after book on the destruction of the world. Book after book on the apocalypse. He reads about the futures market. He reads about storm-surges and dry-belts. Then he reads my books, W. says, shaking his head. — ‘Your books! My God!’ The conditions for the end are here, W. says, but not the end itself, not yet …

W. is greatly susceptible to changes in weather, he says on the phone. He can feel them coming days in advance, he says of the Westerlies that bombard his city. He knows there’s a low front out over the Atlantic, ready to hit the foot of England with rain and grey clouds and humidity, and another low front behind that. How’s he going to get any work done — any serious work?

It’s alright for me, he says. I’m in the east of the country, for a start, which means that the weather doesn’t linger in the same way. Oh it’s much colder, he knows that — he always brings a warm jacket when he stays with me — but it’s fresher too; it’s good for the mind, good for thought.

But W. can’t think, he says. He knows the Westerlies are coming. He knows low pressure’s going to dominate the weather for weeks, if not months. Sometimes whole seasons are dominated by Westerlies, which costs him an immense amount in lost time and missed work.

He’s still up early every morning, of course. He’s still at his desk at dawn. Four AM; five AM — he’s ready for work; he opens his books; he takes notes as the sky brightens over Stonehouse roofs. He’s there at the inception, at the beginning of everything, even before the pigeons start cooing like maniacs on his window-ledge.

He’s up before anyone else, he knows that, but there’s still no chance of thinking. Not a thought has come to him in recent months; not one. He’s stalled, W. says. There’s been an interregnum. But when wasn’t he stalled? When wasn’t it impossible for him to think? No matter how early he gets up, he misses his appointment with thought ; no matter how he tries to surprise it by being there before everyone else.

W.’s reading a book of Latin philosophical phrases. — ‘Ah, here’s something that applies to you: Barba non facit philosophum . A beard does not make a philosopher’. Then he tests me: What does eo ipso mean? What’s the difference between modus tollens and modus ponens ? — ‘ Tabula rasa : I know you know that. And conatus —even you must know that’.

‘You don’t actually know anything, do you?’, W. says. ‘You’ve got no body of knowledge ’. W. has ancient Hebrew, of course, and he can play classical guitar. And there are whole oeuvres with which he is familiar. He’s read his way through Husserl, for example. He’s not entirely bewildered by Leibniz.

Socrates knew he knew nothing: that was his wisdom, and the beginning of all wisdom, W. says. But there’s a difference between knowing nothing and knowing nothing , he says. There’s a difference between knowing you know nothing only to sally forth from your ignorance, and wallowing in your ignorance like a hippo in a swamp.