Why do I think we're going to be caught out?, says W. Haven't I told him that: no one cares anymore; no one's on the look out. There's no one could regard us as interlopers; there was no guard on the door. It's like Rome after it was sacked by the Barbarians, says W. They've come and gone, the Barbarians, the wreckers of civilisation. There is no guard; there's nothing to protect. We're inside – yes. But that's only a sign that there is no longer a distinction between inside and outside.
In the end, we have to understand that we got away with nothing; our stupidity is in plain view. It doesn't matter; it's irrelevant to everyone. No one's worried about our credentials, because there no credentials. There's only luck, and opportunism. Luck – that we were there, then; that we were young at the right time - and the opportunism that allowed us to seize upon what advantages we had. Were we lucky? Of course. And stupid? Yes – and especially me, W. says. And no one minds, W. says. No one notices.
It's not as if we're a threat. We hold out our hands so we can be handcuffed, but no one wants to arrest us. We pack our suitcases and leave them by the door in the hope that the secret police will come, but no one batters down our door. No one's going to shoot us, W. says, more's the pity. No one's going to put us up against the wall. We're not going to executed as traitors. We're not going to be sued for our seditious writings. We're not going to Siberia for twenty years. We're not going to live out our lives as dissidents in exile.
He sees it, W. says, like an enormous fact. A great fact, like the wide sky, that says, it doesn't matter. Over the Bodelian, it says: it's all over. Over the college quadrangles, it says: it's finished. You're too late. Over the gowned academics, it says: it is all as nothing.
Lars Iyer's Blog 