Lesen

»So Jacob was right and Adam was right, or maybe nobody was right, but all that mattered was that something was happening and that the academics of the university would have another thing to talk about, another item on an endless list of trivia, events that meant nothing in and of themselves and so had to be loaded with meaning artificially, it was us who had to give them meaning and we did it joyfully, because events like these in all their listing eternity enabled us to avert our eyes from the real disasters unfolding in front of us and the disasters surrounding us, the slow decline of the city and the world around it, which was accompanied by a growing unhappiness that scarcely anyone dared to point out or name, because she wasn’t wrong that we hated ourselves and the city, although it was a hatred that was manifested for the most part as lethargy, an absolute lethargy, and so really Jacob and Adam deserved our gratitude, our wholehearted enthusiasm, and if the past was anything to go on then they would receive it; if we were lucky there would be a scandal; if we were lucky that scandal would drag on and on; if we were lucky the newspapers would find out about it and publish articles about it and then strangers could analyse it and find within it a universality that might help them understand their own lives and oppressions: all the other battles that had until now occupied their attention might, at last, start to acquire a meaningful clarity; there would be a way of making sense of it all, an interpretation that would hold across exempla; together, we might argue our way towards a collective truth; together we might build a tower, the most perfect tower that the world had ever seen, a shining tower that would resist all attempts to undermine it because even though it was a tower of discourse it rested on the most secure of foundations, foundations of experience, shared experience; and if the tower was covered in mirrors then all the better because at least then everybody might see themselves reflected, even if they couldn’t see inside.«

– Missouri Williams: The Vivisectors. – London : 4th Estate, 2026. – ISBN 978-0-00-872528-0
– Page 42