The last thinker of Essex Postgraduate legend will come on the last day, which the Germans call the youngest day, W. says. He'll come in the last hour of the last day, wreathed in clouds, in the last minute, and every thinking eye shall see him. He'll come in the last second, and all the enemies of thought will wail because of him.
And he will set down the book the carries with him, that is known as the Book of Life. And he'll unlock its seven seals, one by one, the Book, and stand back as, with each seal, a miracle is wrought, an alteration of the world as it is.
And when he opens the first seal? A white horse will go out, with a white rider, dazzling with light, and raze the universities of the southeast. And when he opens the second? A red horse will go out, with a red rider, dripping with blood, and raze the universities of the southwest. And the third? A black horse will ride out, with its black rider, cloaked in the night, and raze the universities of the northwest. And the fourth? A pale horse will ride out, with a pale rider, clothed in winding sheets, and raze the universities of the northeast.
And when he opens the fifth? Those expelled from their jobs, those sacked from righteous departments, will have white robes given unto them. Postgraduates who never finished their studies, who broke themselves against the texts of Heidegger and Levinas and Deleuze: they too shall receive white robes. Undergraduate geniuses, brighter than a thousand suns, who never received funding for postgraduate study: they too shall wear robes of white. Thinkers outside the university, who lived their entire lives in dreadful jobs, thinkers of unimaginable integrity, unimaginable determination: they too will be white-robed. Thinkers too mad to think, institutionalised thinkers, alcoholic thinkers of the gutter, who were never given a chance: they, too, will be lifted up and clothed in white.
And the sixth? There will come a great thought-quake, a shaking of books. The sun of thought will become as black as a sackcloth of ash, and the moon of thought as red as blood. And the false stars of thought – the careerists and pontificators; the popularisers and dumbers-down; the depoliticisers and despiritualisers will fall unto earth. And the false heaven of thinking, full of Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy, of Philosophy in 60 Minutes guides, of Critical Thinkers series, of Guides to the Perplexed will be rolled up like a scroll …
And the enemies of thought will hide themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains, and will say unto those mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of the last thinker, for the great day of his wrath is come …
And the seventh? When the seventh seal of thought is opened? No one knows what will happen then, W. says. No one can imagine it. Every enemy of thought shall seek death: that's what been prophesised, and they shall not find it. Every enemy of thought shall desire to die, and have death flee from them.
There will be great disasters: the trees will be burnt up, and all the green grass burnt up. Great mountains burning with fire will be case into the sea, and the sea will become blood. Flesh and blood will rain from the sky, and bodiless voices cry out in the night.
The Leviathan will wake. The Behemoth. And the Beast will reign in Babylon, the regnerated city. And the remnant who will survive, the 144,000 who will have the last thinker's name written on their foreheads, will ready themselves for the last battle, for the Armageddon when Babylon is smashed and the Beast vanquished.
And then? A new City will appear in heaven. A new dispensation. The University of New Jerusalem: that's what they'll call it. The University where all are students, and all teachers. The University without courses or curricula, where each learns from the lips of the other. The University of Speech, where each addresses to the other and is thereby awoken. The University in Flight, where what matters is to move with thought, to dance and sing with it, and not to remain still. The University of the Periphery, which will be at the edges of everywhere, and wherever you turn.
Lars Iyer's Blog 