St Anselm’s Senior Common Room
The Senior Common Room had entered one of its reflective moods. Rain tapped softly at the windows; the fire had adopted a reserved expression; and Mr Blottisham was gazing into the middle distance with the intense concentration of a man approaching a philosophical breakthrough or an administrative error.
Professor Quillibrace sat reading.
Miss Elowen Stray was making notes.
Blottisham suddenly sat upright.
"Good heavens."
Quillibrace lowered his book a fraction.
"Have we mislaid Europe again?"
"No, no." Blottisham waved impatiently. "I've solved power."
A silence followed.
Even the fire looked wary.
Quillibrace closed his book slowly.
"Do continue."
Blottisham leaned forward.
"It's perfectly obvious. The problem with power is that nobody sees it properly."
"I see."
"Power hides itself. One reveals it. One exposes the machinery. Then everyone suddenly notices what's happening and—"
He spread his hands triumphantly.
"—that's that."
Quillibrace stared.
Miss Stray tilted her head.
"'That's that' in what sense?"
"In the sense that once everyone sees power, they become free of it."
Quillibrace looked at him with deep concern.
"My dear Blottisham."
"Yes?"
"You appear to have designed enlightenment as a burglar alarm."
Blottisham blinked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You imagine power crouching in darkness somewhere like a nervous intruder. One switches on the light and it flees through a side window."
"Well yes."
"But power is not hidden furniture."
Blottisham frowned.
"I wasn't suggesting power was furniture."
"No, but you are treating it as an object one discovers."
Quillibrace folded his hands.
"If our earlier discussions have established anything, it is that power does not sit inside worlds as a thing awaiting detection."
"It doesn't?"
"No."
"What does it do then?"
"It helps constitute the conditions under which worlds become intelligible in the first place."
Blottisham stared.
"That sounded important."
"It was."
"And I have understood almost none of it."
Miss Stray smiled.
"I think the question is whether seeing power places us outside it."
"Exactly!" said Blottisham. "That's my point. One steps outside the system and finally sees the whole thing objectively."
Quillibrace regarded him.
"From where?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"...outside."
"Outside what?"
"The system."
"Where is this outside located?"
Blottisham frowned.
"Beyond it."
Quillibrace nodded patiently.
"Beyond it in the way France is beyond Belgium?"
"No."
"In the way the moon is beyond Earth?"
"No."
"In the way soup is beyond sandwiches?"
Blottisham's face tightened.
"I feel the examples are becoming hostile."
"The difficulty," said Quillibrace gently, "is that relational systems have no external viewing platform."
Blottisham looked suspicious.
"None?"
"None."
"So one cannot stand outside power and observe it?"
"No more than one can leave language entirely in order to examine language neutrally."
Blottisham considered this.
"Oh dear."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"So visibility itself becomes a relational event?"
"Precisely."
Quillibrace nodded approvingly.
"When power becomes visible, we have not escaped constraint architectures."
"We've altered them?"
"Yes."
He leaned back.
"We have shifted attentional patterns, interpretive structures, and categories of intelligibility."
Blottisham frowned.
"So revealing power changes the world without escaping it."
"Exactly."
Blottisham looked troubled.
"That seems unfair."
"In what sense?"
"I had hoped for a dramatic moment."
"A dramatic moment?"
"Yes. A tremendous unveiling."
He stood and spread his arms.
"'At last!' one cries. 'I SEE THE TRUTH!'"
Quillibrace watched him.
"And then?"
Blottisham paused.
"...liberation occurs?"
Quillibrace shook his head sadly.
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"What occurs?"
Quillibrace turned a page in his book.
"Confusion, mostly."
Blottisham sat down heavily.
Miss Stray laughed softly.
"Because seeing structure destabilises what previously felt natural?"
"Indeed."
Quillibrace looked towards the window.
"When worlds function smoothly, categories feel inevitable."
He gestured lightly.
"Reality appears innocent."
"Innocent?"
"Unconstructed."
Blottisham stared.
"And then critique arrives?"
"And then one notices that what seemed natural was maintained."
"Maintained how?"
"Through institutions, narratives, infrastructures, procedures, and distributed constraint systems."
Blottisham looked increasingly uneasy.
"So critique removes innocence."
"Usually."
"And then reality becomes strange."
"Frequently."
"And one no longer inhabits a comfortable world of obvious meanings."
"Not always."
Blottisham slumped back.
"I dislike this series of developments."
Quillibrace nodded sympathetically.
"It is a common reaction."
Miss Stray looked up from her notebook.
"But critique still matters."
"Very much so."
Quillibrace smiled.
"It expands possibility."
"It reveals contingency."
"It makes alternatives thinkable."
"But—"
She paused.
"It never becomes a final position."
"Exactly."
Blottisham looked suddenly alarmed.
"Wait."
He pointed accusingly.
"Are you telling me critique itself becomes part of power?"
Quillibrace stared.
"My dear Blottisham."
"Yes?"
"What precisely did you think we had been discussing for the last six weeks?"
A silence followed.
Blottisham looked slowly around the room.
At the books.
At the fire.
At Miss Stray's notes.
At Quillibrace.
Then a terrible expression crossed his face.
"Oh no."
Quillibrace sighed.
"Oh yes."
Blottisham rose in horror.
"The Common Room!"
"Mm?"
"The discussions!"
"Mm."
"The tea!"
"Quite possibly the tea."
Blottisham looked genuinely shaken.
"Good God."
Quillibrace reopened his book.
"Mr Blottisham has finally discovered the unsettling implication."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Which is?"
Quillibrace turned a page.
"One never escapes the field."
Blottisham sat down slowly.
A long silence followed.
Finally he looked into the fire.
"...I suddenly understand why Kafka always seemed slightly worried."
The fire, perhaps recognising a professional colleague, gave a small crack of agreement.