There are so many of you and so few of us. So many, and then so few of us – or is this only how it seems? Does it only seem thus, that there are so many of you compared to us, who are few? Does it appear that way because of your strength and because of our weakness?
How quickly you move, from here to there, and how many of you there are! Hundreds of you come through the doors, this way and that way, and waiting for the lift, and going up and going down the stairs. How many of you there are, and how young you are! How young, how strong compared to us who are weary and have to rest every few steps! Yes, we rest, there is dust in our eyes, but you pass us by, moving quickly, speaking gaily.
There we are, by your feet, resting, doing all we can not to curl up and sleep, doing what we can not to give up, and you pass us by, you do not notice us, the world is one of transition, and you are going to a better place. This world – these rooms , these corridors – are only zones of transition for you who are on the way. And who are we? The ones who are not on the way. The ones who will stay where they are in these rooms and corridors.
What home have we but here? Where else do we belong, in these halls through which so many of you pass? We are the stay-behinds and the left-behinds; we remain while you do not remain. You pass; we do not pass. The way is closed to us, but what way could be open? In truth, it is all open, nothing keeps us from passing out of the gates and into the city; nothing keeps us here but our weariness, we for whom the gates are already unreachable, and the city infinitely far.
You will pass into the city, but we, who prepare you for that passage, will remain here, outside. You will pass, and we will stay. Ah but there are so many of you! How many more of you can there be? Every year, always more. Every year, more of you. And who are we who are supposed to guide you? Who are we who are supposed to teach you? Every year more of you and less of us. Every year we have to make do with less and there are more of you, streaming down the halls and in and out of the doors.
The halls are full of your chatter. You pass, you chat, and we sink down in quiet weariness. What future is there for us, who will never leave these rooms, these corridors? What hope is there for us, who are supposed to provide hope for you? Should we live vicariously through your triumphs, through your strength? Should we congratulate ourselves for the strength of those entrusted to us?
But in the end, we cannot understand it, your strength. In the end, our weakness is not commensurable with your strength; it cannot be measured by the same unit. In the end, it is not merely a deficiency of strength, our weakness, but the withering of the measure of strength. How many there are of you, and how few of us! How strong you are, how clear-skinned and clear eyed! Were we ever young like you? Were we ever young and strong like you?
We are lower than you, lesser than you, and we always were. How can it be otherwise, when you are the sons and daughters of the rulers of the world, of the rulers of the new world? Everything awaits you and nothing awaits us. Everything awaits you, who will leave us behind, and leave these rooms and corridors behind, and nothing awaits us. How is it that we’ve been entrusted with you, you whose strength is that of the new world and the new order?
They bring you, your parents, and they will take you home. You have come here from the city and you will return to the city. Like a great wave each year, you come, and in a great wave you depart. What would these rooms and corridors be without you? What would these halls be without you, you who come from the happier places in the world?
In the end, these three years are the last gap you are permitted in your life. A few years break, a few years holiday, and then back. What does it matter what you do here? What does it matter what you study? I speak, but I speak from old Europe. I speak to you, I hear myself speak and think: what does it matter what I say? What does it matter, when I am already outdated? What matters are competencies and competencies that are transferable. What matters are outcomes of competency and not disciplinary knowledge.
What do they matter, the books of this thinker and that writer? Old Europe is spread before you. Old Europe is made to spread itself before you. Everything can be learnt, everything known. So is Old Europe, its thinkers, its writers, mashed into that paste which can be fed from one to another. So is Old Europe regurgitated for you to swallow.
And what have you swallowed? Only stories of legendary, vanished worlds that sugar the pill of transferable competencies. Old Europe – what was that? The rest of the world – what was that? What matters is now and the eternal now. Brave new world! You will forget them, the stories of old Europe, even as the competencies harden your bones and brighten your eyes. Forget it, old Europe, its stories, its adventures; you belong to the bright now, you in your hundreds and thousands. Yours is the brave new day!
And who are we, exponents of old Europe, of the thinkers and writers of old Europe? A new page is turning; our page is done. A new page, a new chapter, and our chapter is done. For a few years, they will let us remain here, in the borderlands around the city. Yes, for a few more years, like a museum, like living artefacts in the museum, will we be permitted to remain here.
And then? They will record us; everything we have said and written will be recorded and archived. Everything recorded, everything written, and it will be accessible to all. Then we’ll be frozen into an icon on the monitor screen. Then all we have said and written will be instantly accessible to the ones who come in the next wave, and the wave after that.
Strip them down – strip down philosophy to a bare frame! Boil the humanities down to a simmering broth! Spoon it into the mouths of the young! Boil the bones of the big books and make them soft! Dissolve them, the big books, into indifferent mush! All is the same, everything is the same, it is a matter of competencies and a portfolio of competencies. Everything the same, and nothing must stick in the throat. So we chew that you will not choke on old Europe. So we chew that the thinkers and writers reach you as the same indifferent paste.
There is no history. There is no past, it’s been boiled away. Man isst, was man isst. Broth of the humanities: the big bones boiled to mush. Pass us, leave us behind, now we have fed you. How many there are of you and how well fed! You are leaving us for the city. You are going to the city, but there are always more to come, always more on the way and more academic broth to prepare.
What powers of digestion you have! And isn’t that your power, the power of digestion, of the conversion of the thinkers and writers of old Europe into competencies fitted to this brave new world? And doesn’t it occur there, in your bellies, the miraculous conversion? Yes, that is your strength, and that is our weakness, we who can digest nothing, we who can only choke and are choking on the bones of old Europe.
Lars Iyer's Blog 