Wittgenstein Jr (15 page)

EDE: Have you seen their motivational phrases?
(Reading from the Kirwins’ Facebook page:)
I can therefore I am. You are never too old to set another goal. If you can dream it, you can do it. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Either you run the day or the day runs you. Winners never quit and quitters never win. The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. To begin, begin
.

Ede says we should post some de
motivational
phrases on our Facebook pages.
I can’t therefore I am. To be is to be condemned. The universe is a mistake. Hope is a kind of delirium. We don’t live even once. Dead days outnumber live ones. The use of philosophy is to sadden. Existence has never answered our questions. Death is the least of our problems
.

Wittgenstein’s class. Thursday, three o’clock.

Silence. The hum of the computer. The cranking of an unbled radiator.

A poem on the board:

There must be no more fundamental work in logic, Wittgenstein says. Logic must not be put on a proper footing. It is not a question of
helping logic to its feet
.

Logic must be
left to stumble
, he says.

Logic must suffer a
blow to the head
, he says. We must strike off the head of logic. No: we must strike off our
own
heads, if we are to do logic.

A form of life
: that’s what he’s looking for, he says. A context in which his life would
make sense
.

Simply to stand with your feet upon the earth. Just to open your eyes. Just to be here—
here
. To be
of
God.
With
God. And no longer asking,
Why?

A rose has no why
. Ordinary life has no why. Isn’t that what
he’s in search of: ordinary life, where the things themselves are right in front of us?

Our problem is that we want him to say something complicated, Wittgenstein says. But all he’s concerned with is the obvious, the ordinary. All he’s interested in is showing us what we already know.

DOYLE: But if we already know it, why is it so hard to understand?

WITTGENSTEIN: Because something stands between us and what we know. Because the obvious has become difficult to access. The obvious is not obvious
for us
, that’s the trouble.

Friendly faces, Wittgenstein says, looking round the room at us. Faces to watch him as he tries to think. As he
fails
to think.

Once, love was the rule, and each one drew his neighbour upward
, he quotes. Our faces, our very presence, draw him upward, he says. And perhaps, in his own way, he will draw
us
upward. Perhaps our presence will bring him the calm he needs, he says. Our presence, all of us around him, like a host of angels.

We are too
young
to hear him, he says. Too
innocent
. But he loves our youth, he says. He needs our innocence.

He must find
our
level, he says. He must put himself in
our
place, for his sake, if not for ours.

Pascal said that the true philosopher
makes light
of philosophy. He must try to learn from our lightness, Wittgenstein says. He must descend into our valleys.

Why is Chiron, the teacher of Achilles, presented as a centaur?, Wittgenstein asks—because the student must feel that the teacher is at a distance. A distance created by the presence of thought.

The teacher must be
higher
than the student, he says. A pause. No, that’s not it. The teacher must bring the student into relationship with what is higher. Another pause. No, that is not it, either. And then: the teacher must suffer from his own lack of height, all the while consoling the student for
his
lack of height.

• • •

Socrates began thinking at whatever point his interlocutors were starting from. He accompanied them, travelled with them, until they came to their moment of crisis, when they were overwhelmed by discouragement and wanted to break off the discussion. And then—by what miracle?—Socrates would take his interlocutors’ doubt and discouragement upon himself. And then—another miracle!—Socrates would
transfigure
this doubt, and
affirm
this confusion, until doubt and confusion became the
positive outcome
of philosophy.

Aporia
, that’s the word, Wittgenstein says, writing it on the blackboard. Literally—no passage, no way forward.
There exists a point of arrival, but no path
, he says, quoting. But perhaps there is no point of arrival, either.

A walk on the Backs.

We speak of the legendary
night-climbs
of Cambridge. Of St John’s College Main Gate (easy—Doyle has climbed it on a drunken night out, he says). Of the Wren Library (very pretty, Alexander Kirwin says—he’s climbed it twice). Of New Court Tower (he’s stood on its peak before dawn, Benedict Kirwin says). And we speak of the famous Senate House leap, with its deadly plunge (Mulberry
wants
to plunge, he says).

Wittgenstein smiles. He likes listening to our nonsense, he says. He glories in our inanity! In the poverty of our prattle! It is like a balm to him. It is possible to
bathe
in nonsense, he says. To be
refreshed
by it.

We are his assistants, he says. His helpers. No, that’s not it. For we do not really help him—we are more likely to get in his way. We are obstacles on his path. But we are
necessary
obstacles—obstacles placed there by God. Obstacles to remind him of lightness. Obstacles to show him that his way is too heavy—too arid, when it should be lightness itself; too dull, when it should flash and laugh and dazzle.

The path to thought lies also through laughter and forgetting: that is what we recall him to—that there must also be a
giddiness
of thought; that God Himself laughs; that God wants
us
to laugh … Christ’s Pieces, after class. On the benches, Wittgenstein among us.

Guthrie performing Doyle’s new show, based on the life of the
real
Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein’s visit to Bertrand Russell’s Cambridge rooms (Guthrie expertly playing both men: Russell, languorous, relaxed, the English don, at ease in the world; Wittgenstein, frenetic, feverish, the Austrian intellectual, pacing the floor).

First song: ‘Am I an Idiot, Or Just a Philosopher?’ Sample lyric:

Wittgenstein’s period as a soldier, hating his fellow soldiers, and possessed by the most terrible despairs (Guthrie’s face an expressive miracle), but filled, too, with a new mysticism, a new religiosity (Guthrie’s face luminous, God-touched) …

Second song: ‘Absolutely Safe.’ Rousing chorus:

Wittgenstein’s break with philosophy—his period in the Austrian countryside, teaching peasant children, inspiring
peasant children, but being over-severe with lazy peasant children. Wittgenstein, boxing their ears, spanking their backsides (Guthrie masterfully playing both Wittgenstein-the-teacher and the lazy pupils) …

Third song: ‘No One Understands Me.’

Wittgenstein’s
architectural
period, designing and managing the building of a house for his sister. His extreme rigour, his eye for the smallest detail. And the uninhabitable home he constructed in the Bauhaus style, all severity, all sharp corners. (Guthrie’s face an image of intensity, of focus, of exasperation … Guthrie playing both Wittgenstein-the-architect, and his put-upon project manager, bursting into tears with stress …)

Fourth song: ‘Sharp Angles.’

Wittgenstein’s return to Cambridge, not in triumph, but in humility. Philosophy, for him, now no longer a mapping of depth, but a topography of the surface (Guthrie, shoulders rounded, eyes to the floor).

Fifth song: ‘Ordinary Life.’

How Wittgenstein works! How he writes! (Guthrie miming the philosopher sitting at his desk, copying his remarks into an enormous ledger.) Wittgenstein, taking solitary Cambridge-hating walks (Guthrie, stomping, scowling). Wittgenstein, estranged from his colleagues (Guthrie, wagging his fingers, looking vexed). Wittgenstein, full of apocalyptic thoughts about the end of the world (Guthrie, hand to brow, shaking his head) …

Wittgenstein, diagnosed with cancer. Wittgenstein, dying. Wittgenstein, speaking his last words (Guthrie, in swan-song brilliance).

Sixth song: ‘A Wonderful Life.’ As moving as Susan Boyle singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ As Paul Potts doing ‘Nessun Dorma.’

Laughter, from Guthrie’s fans. Even Wittgenstein smiles.

After philosophy
, lightness will be the highest virtue, Wittgenstein says. Blitheness will be sought after above all things.

Divination
: that’s what he sees in our idiocy, he says.
Prophecy
. We are fragments of the future.

When the end of philosophy comes, we will weep, without knowing why we weep, he says. We will laugh, without knowing why we laugh. And as we weep, we will laugh. And as we laugh, we will weep …

Mulberry and Doyle are modelling their relationship on George Michael and Kenny—free to fuck whoever they want; free to surf Grindr and cruise.

But Doyle’s heart is not in it, he says—he just isn’t promiscuous. Besides, he’s too busy with the theatre. There are other things in life besides sex. But Mulberry …

DOYLE (rolling his eyes): Well, you know what
he’s
like.

Last night, Mulberry smoked crack on the roof of his house, Doyle says. Up on the roof, the ridge tiles between his thighs, laughing like a maniac, he declaimed a poem about a
coffin full of shit
 … Mulberry’s obsessed with death, Doyle says. Even his laughter is tinged with death; even his laughing mouth is a pit of death …

Nihilism
: that’s Mulberry’s disease, Doyle says. A sense that nothing’s really worth the candle. That the meaning of the world is vanishing. That all that is left are parodies of parodies of parodies. The blackest of black laughter. A laughter that laughs at itself, and laughs at itself laughing … That all his laughter is laughter before a mirror …

I’ve been possessed
, Mulberry told Doyle last night.
I am legion. There’s a horde of demons inside me, mocking me
, he said.
Laughing at me
.

Doyle reminded Mulberry of Wittgenstein’s words.
We must not think about our thinking. We must not philosophise about philosophy. To know our dividedness, to state it, is to be divided yet further
. And when Mulberry climbed onto the roof, Doyle shouted up to him that we must not laugh at our laughter. But Mulberry was too high to hear.

E-mails from the Careers Service. Posters and flyers everywhere, advertising the employers’ fair. Recruitment agents, from the big City banks, from consultancies and law firms.

Brochures in our pigeonholes:
Your future starts now
(image: graduates throwing mortar boards in the air).
The career of your life starts here
(besuited trainees laughing with other trainees).
What if the next big thing is you?
(Godzilla-like graduate striding about).
Individuality rocks
(long-haired graduate playing a Flying V guitar).
Be more than just your job
(graduate sledding in the Arctic behind a team of huskies).
Grow further
(graduates in snorkels and flippers, exploring a coral reef).
Scale new heights
(free-climbing graduate, halfway up a cliff).
Apply if you want to go faster
(graduates on a down-plunging roller coaster).
Think big
(graduates in crampons crossing a ravine).
Are you extreme?
(parascending graduate, soaring into the sky).
We’ll take you further than you imagine
(graduates slashing their way through the jungle).

We pass the time before class, translating the brochures.
Never manage to launch
(graduate back in childhood bedroom).
Earn nothing like the living wage
(graduate eating discount sandwich from
Boots
)
. Never settle anywhere or at anything
(graduate with backpack, trudging city streets).
Join the intern nation
(graduate at the photocopier) …

The failure to launch. To leave your house. To leave your room. To leave your bed. To open your eyes in the morning. How easily it could happen! One mistimed bout of depression and that would be it—the rest of your life, in your parents’ house, on soul-rotting medication.

We are nymphs, yet to shed our bodies. Yet to ascend fine-winged into life. But how easy it would be to slip and fall. How easy, to end up half-employed, underemployed, unemployed …

We feel as though the future were rummaging through us. Who knows what the future will find?

Wittgenstein, mystical today.

The
kairos
is coming, he says. The
end
is coming.