What is marvellous, I said to H., is that they really do wear tweed. What’s wonderful is that they confirm every stereotype – tweed and elbow patches, I said, eyeglasses on a string and probably a pipe in their pocket. Nothing is hidden, I said to H., they wear tweed and are happy wearing tweed. It’s an instinct to them, I said to H., second nature. They wear tweed and hunt in packs, I said, in great tweedy packs. They have tweedy conferences and publish in tweedy journals.
If you get one on their own, a bit panicked, I said, because the others have left them behind, they are pleasant enough, I said. There’s nothing better when you run into one at a provincial university, I said, alone and blinking, half-dazed, working as though in purgatory, I said. Swallowing hard and saying to himself: just for a few years, I’ll get back. Whose contacts have not worked for them so they could find their way back, I said.
Perhaps it’s because they’ve gone wrong somewhere, I said. Imagine it: a tweed gone wrong, running amock, I said. A tweed who cannot hear the homing signal, I said, or have taken a wrong turn, I said. Who have been caught in the net of this or that provincial university, I said, ashamed and alone, their herding instinct thwarted, I said. Tweeds who receive messages from other tweeds to say, never mind, it will be okay, there’s a post opening up at X.
I like them very much, I said to H. Especially when they try to get to grips with what they call postmodernism, I said. Occasionally they visit me, I said. I’ll get one in my office, I said. And they test me, I said. They ask me about this or that, I said. What am I into? The history of philosophy? Is that what I’m into? They look round my office I said, half-panicked. They think they might have taken a wrong turn, I said.
Then, ‘the problem with postmodernism is …’ and they tell me. I like being told, I said. I like it very much. I like the tweedy types telling me what’s what, I said. Sorting me out, I said. Putting me right, I said. They’re like the smart young missionaries from the Mormons, I said, or like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of course they don’t do door to door visits, I said, but when you get one alone, when one inadvertently strays into your path, they get panicked I said, and flap about.
The best thing is when the tweeds take you as one of their own. It’s true I’ve known a lot of tweeds, I said. I’ve lived with them and worked with them, I said. For along enough for the tweedy mask to slip, I said, to see little scared faces like hunted animals I said. To see little apoplectic faces full of rage and dislike for Derrida and Heidegger, I said. We invited this Deleuzian to speak, says the tweed, and it was drivel! awful! We invited this fellow to speak on Heidegger, says the tweed, and I couldn’t understand a word! It was awful!, said the tweed. I treasure these moments, I said. I’ve tried to read Levinas, says the tweed, and I couldn’t really make the fellow out.
Thankfully there are still conferences, I said, where they can assemble in great flocks, I said. Thankfully once or twice a year the tweed can travel home, to meet other tweeds, I said. It’s a marvellous sight, I said, dozens of tweedy types, I said, hundreds of them. Flocked together. No doubt there are friendships among the tweeds, I said, just as there are said to be friendships among sheep and cows.
But what is marvellous is the way they all move together, I said. It’s quite beautiful, hundreds of tweeds moving together like a great flock of birds or a shoal of tropical fish. How marvellously they turn in exactly the same way from the threat of danger!, I said. How marvellous they move with exactly the same instinct away from that stuff, the suspicious stuff, Derrida and Heidegger and all that, I said. Their students want to study Derrida and Heidegger and all that stuff, I said, but they know to avoid it. Their supervisors told them a little Merleau-Ponty is okay, I said, the early works, I said, but not the later books. They’ve read a book called Sartre for Analytic Philosophers, I said, and that helped them, it was quite interesting, but tosh really, interesting as literature, I said, but little else.
Yes, it’s very beautiful, the way they all move together and as one, I said. With the same instincts, I said. Each working on a tiny tiny problem, I said, but confident, nevertheless in the greater labour of the whole, I said. each focused on some small and managable problem, I said, but with great faith in the larger ensemble, I said. I like them very much, I said.
Nothing is hidden, I said to H., they cluster in great packs, I said. Oxford, Cambridge, that sort of place. It’s wonderful when they deign to go elsewhere, to travel in great packs to another place. To flock together at a provincial university, I said, to assemble in a great tweedy mass. They take the tweed with them, I said., it protects them. They know others for what they are – they wear tweed or they do not, I said. You are either a tweed wearer or a non tweed wearer, I said, the world divides.
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