Free Wittgenstein Jr by Lars Iyer

what?
    We should start a new religion, we agree, with Guthrie as our mock king, our Lord of Misrule, at the head of the feast. We should crown Guthrie as our Bacchus, our Pan …
    A final toast to Guthrie and his third nipple, as the day begins around us. Doors slam and showers steam. Students’ footsteps on the stairs. Students pouring into the courtyard, heading to lectures.
    Jesus Green, after class.
    Wittgenstein is certain that he is in
immediate physical danger
in Cambridge, he says. That he will be stabbed by a poisoned umbrella tip, like a spy. That he will be bitten by a mad dog. A mad
Labrador
. He is certain that a gust of wind will blow him into the River Cam. He is certain that he will be
driven to suicide
by the dons.
    His brother warned him that it was only a matter of time before the dons expelled him from Cambridge. The only question was how long he could work unnoticed. Because if they found out what he was working on—
really
working on—they’d get rid of him in an instant.
    His brother told him to see himself as an
illicit
thinker, Wittgenstein says. As a secret scholar. There was his ostensible work, concerned with
metatheoretic reasoning
and
idempotence
, on which he would no doubt publish a few articles, which he would discuss at a few learned symposia, Wittgenstein says. And then there was his
real
work, of which he must tell no one, his brother advised. Work only for after hours, when everyone is asleep. There was the work he’d told the Cambridge dons he’d come to the university to do; and there was his
real
work, of which he should say nothing to the dons …
    If the dons only knew of their secret work!, his brother said. If they only knew where their
fundamental work in philosophical logic
was leading them! If they only knew that their logical project could only mean the
destruction
of Oxford, of Cambridge, of the dons, of it all!
    • • •
    We stop by the duck pond.
    His brother warned him about the dons, Wittgenstein says.
Don’t trust them!
, his brother said.
Keep an eye on them!
    The dons of Cambridge would be his warders, his brother said. His prison guards. (Just as the dons of Oxford were
his
warders,
his
prison guards.) Oh, they’d seem very gentle; they’d seem to be the easiest-going people he could find. They’d be full of
soft skills
, the dons of Cambridge (just like the dons of Oxford). They’d be full of
words of kindness
. But that would be when they were at their most deadly, his brother warned: when they were speaking
words of kindness
.
    He shouldn’t be fooled by a smiling don, his brother told him. He shouldn’t allow himself to be
lulled
by a don.
Charmed
by one. He should never get too
close
to a don, his brother said. Never allow himself to be
befriended
. He shouldn’t
take tea
with a don, or join a don at the high table, his brother said. There should be no after-dinner drinks with a don. No
evening constitutionals
.
    He should
isolate
himself, his brother said. He should become an
island
. Turn up for events to which he was required to turn up; speak when he was expected to speak, and leave it at that. Render unto Caesar the things of Caesar, and keep his soul for his work.
    His brother spoke of the
danger
of the dons, Wittgenstein says. Of the
threat
of the dons. Dons were more dangerous than they seemed, his brother said. Dons could
go for the throat
, his brother was sure of that.
    His brother had heard of scenes of savagery among the dons. Scenes of
violence
. Whole packs of dons would go out to hunt, in the guest lectures and seminar series of Oxford. Donpacks, out to bring back meat to feast upon.
    He’d seen them in his mind’s eye, his brother said: great dons, like lions, chewing on bones; lesser dons, like hyenas, sucking on the bones left by other dons; still lesser dons, like birds of prey, flapping round the corpse …
    Of course, dons could be
gentle
, too, his brother acknowledged. Dons could be tender, even
kind
. When they first