Meeting the Armchair Philosophers

You would pity the sculptor tasked with capturing a likeness of Brian Grey. You would tire of trying to imagine how such an artist would go about creating a bust of this great thinker that might be contemplated by future generations in the esteemed hallways of public buildings or dustier, unfrequented rooms in museums. You would not want to consider how to capture this empty pink dome edged with wisps of wiry white hair, or the sagging skin beneath the half-closed eyes, or the sneer that seems never to move or change or react to circumstance. You would believe that replicating this head in cold marble would indeed render it more alive than it seems when on the body of its actual owner.

He’s sitting opposite me now, sneering. I suggested some of his comments seemed to equate to racial profiling, and he’s been sulking for a few minutes, in lieu of rebutting my accusation. I count three airliners taking off before he gathers himself up to continue his self-aggrandising. There is more than enough time to consider the plight of that poor sculptor.

“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” he says.

“This is what you said: ‘I can decern the ethnic background of anyone just by looking at them,’” I remind him.

“And that’s true. There are characteristics that present themselves in an individual’s phenotype that give expression to their genetic heritage. And to someone practised in recognising these characteristics, it becomes easier to recognise that this person is probably descended from East African ancestry, this person perhaps from Northern European stock.”

“I’m fearful that you are peddling racial stereotypes.”

“For goodness sake, we cannot avoid thinking about the genetic determinism that is surely central to the identity of individuals and societies. For the last 150 years we have been studying this in more and more detail. This is a monumental revelation in the history of thought, and now here we are censored if we mention it because it seems to clash with another of our projects since the Enlightenment - liberal individualism.”

“But you have taken any scientist’s cautious interpretations of phenotypes and refracted them into a vaudeville act.”

“Nicholas, I did not come here to debate you.”

Indeed, Grey is here to debate with others at the convention. I am attending as an observer only. Someone to bear witness to their delusions. We sit together in his hotel room at the Happy Inn near Gatwick’s South Terminal. The convention itself is downstairs, where all three conference suites have been booked out for three days. It is while entranced by these lavish surroundings that we will hear some of the greatest minds in the history of unspeakable thought discuss and debate ideas and issues that they feel have been forced underground. Welcome to ConArm 2020 - the International Conference for Practitioners of Armchair Philosophy.

This is the third year of ConArm. It has built on the modest publicity of the first two years, and channels the rising anger of its sole demographic - pink-domed, white-haired, ruddy-faced, late-middle-aged corpulent men. They march impatiently through the characterless spaces of the hotel, huff and puff around unstaffed service areas, mutter profanities while waiting for lifts, and bustle past each other with irritated, exasperated movements. There were eight heart attacks during the event last year. This year medical teams are on standby and blood pressure monitors widely available.

“No. No! NO!” Grey had shouted earlier when I asked him if the conference was just another alt-right awayday, but with plush seating. “There is a long history of free-thinking and freedom of expression that is now under threat. Thoughts, thinking, analysis has all been taken over by specialists. These are the experts we have had enough of. They act like the clergy before the Enlightenment swept them aside, as if they and only they are the true gatekeepers of knowledge and throught. That is not a healthy, democratic environment at all.”

“Our knowledge is so deep it often requires very deep specialisation. Especially in the sciences.”

“Oh, the sciences are an orthodoxy that exist only to prevent thought. It stifles dissent more thoroughily than the Inquisition.”

Nothing enrages Grey like mention of science. Before becoming a public contrarian, he was an undistinguished lecturer in Biological Sciences at Middlesex University. His academic career has been largely pedestrian until a paper he submitted to a life sciences conference in 2014 was picked up on social media and escalated to some scandalous media headlines. His paper suggested that liberal humanism was a betrayal of the potential of the human species, and that we should prioritise the success of the species rather than the freedom of the individual. Hence, measures like government welfare schemes or wealth redistribution should be removed to allow natural selection to operate on the species and “sharpen it up”. At least, this is how it was portrayed on social media. The original paper was a rather plodding iteration of popular misunderstandings of evolutionary theory, not helped by footage of Grey’s delivery of the paper at the conference, which showed a rotund, angry man perspiring and gasping for breath between bullet points, perhaps having had to run to the conference venue after missing the last bus. The furore launched Grey’s career as a controversialist, and he has found it fruitful to style himself as the bane of science ever since.

“Let us imagine how much science will actually be disproved in 100 years’ time. Let us do that thought experiment, if we dare. Thought experiments, the practice of which powered the insights of Einstein or Kekule, now the indulgence of the scientific heretic. The scientific method depends on the ability to disprove any of its laws. We need to understand Popper’s idea of falsification if we want to understand the validity of the scientific method. All that stands today could be disproved at any moment, that is the principle of the scientific method. Even if we are optimisitic, perhaps only 50% of scientific fact as it exists today will be considered true in 100 years’ time. And so we have a duty to perform thought experiments, to counter the assumptions of scientific othodoxy. We need new theories.”

“I’m always suspicious of men with theories,” I quip.

“Everyone has a theory. Your very perception is a theory. It is a method of interpreting reality, even though you are largely unaware of it.”

“Yes, in quite the same way that some don’t allow reality to interrupt their beliefs and opinions, so those with a theory will do anything to defend it.”

“I’m the least dogmatic mind you’ll find.”

“Then your theory must be incomprehensbly flexible. Perhaps it changes its form depending on the matters you are objecting to. ”

“I did not come to debate you!”

“In theory, you didn’t. Your practice suggests otherwise.”

“For goodness sake! It’s just cleverness with you, isn’t it?” Grey rises from his chair, his face an itchy mottled red. He huffs and puffs and paces to the window to disperse angry energy.

“I merely wanted to know why you think your theory is not racist.”

“Balls. Balls! Balls!”

“And then you disappeared down an epistemological rabbit hole.”

“You’re infuriating!”

The skin around Grey’s eyes appears to inflate into a crimson mist. Veins pound at tremendous pressure. He clenches his fists as he paces.

“You must agree that your act relies on accustations of racism in order to attract the controversy you’re seeking.”

“Absolutely preposterous!” Eyes staring and almost yellowing in the midst of the flushed red face. One imagines feeling the radiated heat of such rage.

Grey’s stage act is about as far as its possible to stray from the rational approach and aspirational intelligence of a TED talk. It begins with a tasteless display of racial stereotyping. Photographic slides depicting individuals of various ethnic origins appear on a large screen while Grey explains the ideas behind phenotypic expressions of genetic heritage. He then makes the claim that he can discern these phenotypic traits in members of the audience, and begins an interactive section of the show where he approaches individuals in the auditorium and claims to be able to assess their genetic constitution just from a cursory examination of their appearance. Often he places his hand on their heads in the equally misguided manner of an evangelical healer. It is a disturbing combination of mysticism and amateur DNA test. The saddest thing about the entire performance is that there is very little ethnic diversity in the audience. A lot of fairly angry rotund white men sit tutting or shaking their heads. Occasionally a scarlet-faced older white male applauds. Most seem to be impatiently awaiting the culmination of the act or frowning their disapproval at others, who are awkwardly trying to move between the rows of seats for urgent comfort breaks. Occasionally a suspected heart-attack means the show must be halted.

The freakshow vibe is, of course, all carefully calibrated. The Practitioners of Armchair Philosohpy take pride in their reactionary, deliberately unfashionable and often unspeakable opinions and debates. The philospohy on offer here would be no consolation to Boethius or de Botton. The stage set at their conferences is usually a pair of leather armchairs angled in towards each other to suggest the comfort of a dusty drawing room in Victorian times, where privileged white males would have retreated to tamp their pipes and discuss the problems of empire and natives. They sometimes wear tweed and more often than not fashion their moustaches into the ornate facial furniture of a dandy.

There is much overlap with the stylings of the demographic that calls itself hipster, of course, although with a forty year age gap. Both are expressions of conservatism and fear of the future, both are primarily affectations of men, and perhaps indicate anxiety about men’s status in the modern world. But whereas the hipster fashion tribe is a product of grotesque narcissism, and is merely a reflection of consumer spending patterns without even an ironic hint of an intellectual underpinning, the Armchair Philosophy movement is deeply committed to ideas and their discussion. And the less fashionable, more controversial, and frankly, more Victorian these ideas, the better.

If, in a thought experiment of our own, we were to be generous to the movement and give them a fair hearing, we might even agree that their adherence to principles of free speech and unlimited thought experiments is to be applauded. There seem to be few in the public arena who have not abandoned principles in favour of opportunity, or are brave enough to admit that perhaps some of the ideas that have fallen out of fashion may have had worth. But perhaps the core of their mission is to create an environment where they are free to express ideas and opinions to which they are deeply wedded, but have fallen from favour in mainstream culture because they are so repugnant. Sometimes it might just be the case that it is very difficult to agree with someone, whatever their point of view, when they are red in the face, jabbing their fingers, letting loose flecks of spittle and not letting you fit in a single word.

“Unfortunately, we are products of biology. While it would be great if we were all created equal, that every one of us had the same potential, that each of us was just an identical unit of humanity poised to express that potential, unfortunately, we are not. The rules of biology control much of our lives. No one can go beyond them. If we are to fully understand those rules, we must admit this, and not use the ideology of liberal individualism to censor them.”

“You’re asserting then that science cannot help but be racist?” I fix his eyes as I challenge him. I study the cataracts inside the venous yellow bulging orbs.

“You are such a fey, effete, clever fop that …”

His reposte is interrupted by an urgent knock at the door of his room. His associate rises to answer. Outside is an excited individual, speaking fast and hesitantly.

“What the hell is it?” demands Grey. He is pacing anxiously.

“Lacey is going to debunk you,” says the associate.

“Say again.”

“Lacey is just starting. He is going to debunk you.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He’s going to,” shouts a voice from the travel hotel corridor.

Grey is visibly paler, perhaps coral. He is agitated and damp.

“Are you sure?”

“He’s already started.”

Grey takes this as a starting pistol, and moves his ample self across the room to the door. Already short of breath, he begins an agitated stride along the corridor in search of the lift. His imponderably overfilled trouser pockets clap around his legs like untethered saddlebags. One would guess he is on a mission.

To be debunked is just about the most serious test of an Armchair Philosopher’s status. In general, most of the activity at the convention falls into the class of polemic. These are broadsides against established opinion or overlong rants at accepted wisdom. There will be despair at elites and their disdain for the masses. There will be a lot of handwringing about experts and the specialisation of fields of knowledge. These approaches can be grouped together as generalised attacks on multiple imaginary foes. A philosopher will take to the stage for sometimes hours at a time and be possessed by a strange anger that perhaps has its root cause in a specific individual amongst the imaginary foe. The anger grows and the face becomes redder, the front row splashed with hot spittle. Quite often they are ended by a paramedic before any conclusion is reached.

Then we have the class of activity we might loosely term debate, which takes place in the leather armchairs. These are usually rehearsed back-and-forths that emulate the tiresome conversations of pub bores. Ruddy faces will bemoan the state of the world at each other in increasingly maudlin and self-indulgent anecdotes and attempts at reasoned discourse. Despair at elites and their disdain for the masses. Handwringing about experts and specialised knowledge.

But the rarest and most spectacular display we can expect at this gathering is a debunking. This is a no-hold-barred ad hominem attempted assassination. A philosopher will completely focus on a colleague or singular foe and then ruthlessly attack the ideas and opinions he believes he holds. Usually caused by some personal slight, perhaps an omission from a bibliography or jealousy over the popularity of another’s rant, these shows can become moments of incandescant anger. Armchair philosphy exists in something like a free floating thought bubble, exempt from all scientific evidence and factual data. The ideas and facts debated within this bubble are reliant for their epistemological foundations solely on the support they have from peers. Vehemence is the only measure of truth. There is no other measure of an idea’s worth, certainly not one that can be objectively verified. So when one of these supporters turns and begins an attack on the promotor of an idea, it can cause entire networks of thought and belief to collapse. The phenomenon has its closest analogue in challenges to leadership in hierarchical primate societies.

By the time we arrive on the ground floor, and begin a hurried journey through the hotel foyer to the conference suite, Grey is looking profoundly ill. He’s not moving easily, and grabs at chair backs and door handles to support himself. He is panting. His face is dripping wet and re-reddening.

It is difficult to move through the foyer to the conference area now, for such a crowd appears to have gathered to witness the debunking. The heat and sound generated by excited and unfit large men trying to push past each other is unforgettable.

Grey slumps into a chair in the bland corridor, a great pile of wet clothing and wheezing. It seems he has admitted defeat in the attempt to be present at his own roasting. I offer him my bottle of iced tea but he angrily bats it away.

“He’s already started,” says a bystander.

“What’s he saying?” manages Grey.

“He’s misquoting Husserl,” observes another bystander.

“What’s he saying?”

---

It had been easier to move around the ground floor of the hotel when I arrived earlier. There were still frustrated men in blazers trying to find hotel staff, or trying to find plug sockets for chargers for mobile phones they can’t work out, or trying to find where they had mislaid wallets and keys. They seemed unable to see each other until in one of the conference suites, blustering past each other in corridors or avoiding eye contact near the reception desk.

I’d sauntered around one of the conference suites that had been put aside as a attempt at a “festival of ideas”. A kind of illicit speakeasy of unsayable speechcrimes, perhaps, or a freakshow of unwanted thoughts. There are small exhibition stands arranged around the periphery of the characterless space, some with placards across their fronts with rhetorical slogans ranging from the banal earnestness of “Question Everything” to the determined offensiveness of “You Never Really Know A Negro”. We’re invited to sit and debate within these booths. There are more armchairs provided for this purpose, neatly paired in each stand.

I’m invited to sit in an armchair to discuss whether we should tolerate victims. Victimhood is one of our society’s most esteemed statuses. There is none holier than the victim. It is because pity has become a commodity like everything else in a culture saturated in capitalist ideas that it is now possible to gain status by earning pity.

“Every slight or modest offence endured through social interaction is abuse now, isn’t it? To be pitied,” declares the grumpy red face in the armchair next to me. There are broken veins and a sorrowful expression. “It’s a badge of honour, isn’t it, to be abused? So much we hear from the underclasses. It is their only currency. But abuse doesn’t just happen in squalid highrises. The English boarding school system favoured by the upper classes is systematised abuse. But here abuse is seen as formative, rather than a trophy of victimhood.”

“Perhaps society is now less accempting of abuses of power,” I counter.

“Ridiculous. A nation that celebrates victimhood is a nation that is deeply ashamed of itself. Its value system has collapsed. Instead of celebrating achievement we pity victimhood. What a state of affairs.”

Around us the sound of short-tempered men arguing and taking offence. In each of the booths a small group of scarlet-faced, plump white males is reaching the ends of their tethers amid frustrated wild gesturing. There is periodic marching off in angered silence, tongues held and lips chewed. Exhasperated pleas. Communication often seems to be impossible. You might observe that each of the philosphers is trying to shout an opinion across the others, and nobody is listening to anyone. Older, white-haired men, certain of themselves. Are they left behind by mainstream opinion, or are they instead the real powerbase, political advisors, thinktank idealogues, writers, columnists, contrarians and angry academics? The crowd parts suddenly as another heart attack is suspected. The medics need little prompting.

“Why do we tolerate intolerance?” I am asked by a large man in a scholastic gown and an ornate waxed moustache. He seems too young to be attending the conference, perhaps only in his forties. “By tolerating these worldviews, letting them take root in our society, we are like an ineffective immune system. The only way to counter the intolerance is with intolerance of our own. We must stop being so accepting. This is the root of a growing problem. Trying to accept everything. This is why all progressive thought has collapsed. We are afraid to stand for anything in case it should offend someone. We are hollow men. We can say nothing. We must tolerate everything because we do not wish to offend the intolerant. A pitiful state of affairs.” The young man seems irritated rather than angry.

I’m accustomed to the younger delegates being more frequently smug than angry. They carry themselves in a stiff walk of impervious self-satisfaction, smirking at life in general and immediately letting free a manufactured laugh if you ask them anything at all. They’re more media-savvy and you’ll have seen them popping up on news reports or late night chat like opinionated vermin.

“You are wrong!” shouts a forlorn young woman at the scholar. I’m a little shocked, as I hadn’t noticed her until this minute. It seems she is with a contingent of moralists who attend the event with the sole ambition of making themselves miserable. The tattered leftovers of leftism. They’re not angry or articulating any any worldview; they just want to state their dismay at the opinions being aerated and appear sad.

“Take a seat and debate with me,” offers the scholar.

“I won’t lower myself to discussion with such a hateful person,” she replies.

“Please, I am ready to talk and defend my opinions.”

“These opinions should never be uttered, let alone defended.”

“Of course, censorship. It will all just hang in the air unspoken.”

The miserabilist scoffs and drifts away, as if caught on a breeze as insubstantial as her mastery of rhetoric.

---

Now it seems that most attendees have stormed out of the smaller stands and are packed into the corridor, trying to access the main debate. I endure the wrath of several delegates as I push past to sneak a look at the debunking taking place in the main room. David Lacey is standing in the centre of the stage with the confidence and swagger of a man who doesn’t care if he’s wrong. The smirk lets us know he is savouring the attention of the delegates clotting the throughways of the budget venue. The heavy keys in his blazer pocket jingle as he raises and lowers his arm to accentuate his spoken thoughts. This isn’t even the headline act; this is just an angry assassination.

David Lacey has never allowed me to interview him. He fields all requests through the PR team he now requires since his mainstream media appearances. Known primarily from his appearances on British TV’s The Chase, where he has assumed the identity The Gammon, he has also recently started a column in the Daily Mail under the byline The Fastest Temper In Britain. There are few things that do not find an immediate and testy response from the minor celebrity, including my solicitations for an interview.

Lacey was a craft and design teacher in Bedford at the beginning of his career, but then left the profession to pursue the idea of becoming an inventor. He started a number of businesses that tried to sell contraptions to help all forms of problems from constipated dogs to nervous swimmers. Instead of commercial success, he became embroiled in the administration of local business organisations and eventually thought he would make an exceptional figure in politics. Rejected at the ballot box, he still managed to find a path to positions of influence in local government. His outbursts on local television news reports captured the increasingly angry and intolerant attention of the public, and his incensed opinion was being sought on any subject that required an angry red talking head.

“Grey would have us know the mind of god. He still persists with this belief that there is a reality detached from perception. He tires himself with his determination to be scientific and to stand back and say there we are, there is reality. It exists there, with no one to perceive it. It is outside of us all and exists in it own right. We all know this is an entirely discredited idea. Objectivity. We know there is no such thing. Worse. We know that this is a way of trying to avoid meaning and avoid values.”

I look back at Grey in his chair in the bland corridor. He is crowded by the proud girths of the stomachs and buttocks that surround him. He doesn’t look too well, and is aggressively mopping at his brow with a sleeve. He is panting like a man who has run for his life.

“The man is a nostalgist. A tourist in the only place he dare visit, that he returns to year after year because he needs the comfort of familiarity. Let me tell you something about objectivity. It doesn’t exist. Why? There can be nothing without perception. Nothing can exist without being perceived - the uncollapsed wave function tells us this. Before perception, it pre-exists in all possible pre-states of being. And upon perception, takes its form. Now, are you going to tell me that objectively, that is, in the view from nowhere, the so-called scientific understanding, reality exists in all possible forms. The idea is preposterous. Until it is perceived, it is pure possibility. So now you are telling me that this science that I hear so much about from our friend Mr Grey is just the study of possibility. The study of possibility. Like a punter with his Racing Post.”

Snorting and some coughing from the crowd.

“No, let us forget objectivity. We going to have to admit that perception is a central part of the true methods of the sciences. That subjectivity, and the context of that subjectivity, should be included in every truth we attempt to define or law we intend to prove. And this isn’t just because reality isn’t there - or is just potential — without an observer, it is because the importance of the work of science is with the observer. There can be no meaning without perception. There can be no value without perception. Objectivity is an illusion and a way of avoiding meaning and value.”

A few more people are trying to press their way into the conference suite. I’m beginning to feel nauseous because the bitter stench of instant coffee seems to be seeping from every pore in the room. I’m pressed against worn patches on polyester suits or wet shirtsleeves. I am only centimeters from eczma patches on inflamed crimson skin or whisps of grey hair, dandruff and flaking scalp. On stage, Lacey has worked himself up into a state of agitation that seems to be straining every living tissue in his body. It is a matter of conjecture whether the sclera of his eyes or the arterial walls of his carotid blood vessels will rupture first.

“And this is why I think we should disregard everything our former friend Mr Grey has to say on the subject. I think he has bought in too far. He’s sold his soul. There are two words that will cut him down like a tree that has grown into a strange shape and can no longer support itself. You know what those two words are? Meaning. Value. He doesn’t want anything to do with them. And more. He’s scared of them. These are things that are more valuable than mere truth. They cut to the core of the whole of reality and the whole of life. But not for Mr Grey. Too scared to even consider them. These are deep heavy concepts that root the human to the universe, that go to the heart of the existence of everything. But not for Mr Grey. Too scared. And you know how he avoids them? He hides behind the determinsim that belief in objectivity grants you. The outside forces that control reality. We can’t argue with gravity. We can’t argue with our genes. We can’t argue with the evolution of the brain and the instincts we’re told are hardwired. If we are trusting enough to follow him down this rabbit hole, we’ll be told there is no such thing as free will. We’ll be told there is very little in our lives that is not the result of one of these inescapable forces. We are left as puppets on the winds of contingency.”

There is little to do but muse on his metaphor while he pauses. It is a style typical of many of the delegates and the scene in general, scraps of images and learning from here and there copied and pasted in with quotes from light reading and pop science until a collage of half-baked ideas coagulates. Lacey is proud of his autodidactism and will usually preface talks and sometimes comments with the fact. Perhaps it gives the delegates the edgy cool of outsider status, fearing to take their thoughts to places that those with formal schooling dare not to tread. It is likely that their passion (read: anger) perhaps stems from their closer and more emotional involvement with the subject of their study. More likely the patchwork of self-directed thinking and idea generation, underwritten by the barest effort at research, creates this anarchic hothouse of chatter and spleen with no more intellectual value than a roomful of men shouting frustrations.

Lacey leans on the podium like a man who has just finished moving heavy furniture in a small hot room. There is tension in these moments, as one is never quite sure if they are for rhetorical effect or imminent medical emergency.

“We have a responsibility to defend our humanity. We have a responsibility to stand up to those who try to disenfranchise us with appeals to evolutionary psychology or There Is No Alternative free market economics. Or the technocratic imperative that means we must endure whatever deskilling, dehumanising forces that those who sell computers and mechanisation say we must obey. All of this has its root in the same pool of ideas as Mr Grey’s thinking. Objectivity. Another way of saying That’s Just The Way It Is. I say no. I say we reject that style of thinking and instead return to the core mission of philosophy. To raise the question of meaning. To ask about value. To use the brain as a toolbox to guide our societies rather than to acquiesce to forces beyond our control, to fall helpless in the arms of fate.”

The crowd around me are restless rather than enthused. They’ve heard most of this before. They’re here for the debunking really, although now I can sense disquiet about comfort breaks and cramp. They’re just wondering if he’s actually finished, or whether he’s really going to lay in some personal insults. I’m not alone in knowing the real reason for the debunking. The animosity between Lacey and Grey has developed in the last few weeks after an incident at a carvery restaurant where they were meeting to discuss their great synthesis project to build a bridge between positivism and phenomenology. The project had been rumoured for many years amongst the amateur philosophy community. Many were expecting a breakthrough in the epistemology of science. Instead, there were some misunderstandings over how they were going to split the bill, which led to insults from Grey about Lacey’s wife’s appetite, some very angry shouting and then Lacey and his wife having to walk back to their hotel along a busy ringroad. The proceedings were thoroughly minuted in a Tripadvisor review of the restaurant.

“Of course, our friend Mr Grey would rather not take any responsibility for his actions. Everything is inevitable, isn’t it? Objectively we have no control over how events turn out, so we need no longer take any offence or assign blame. The coward’s refuge is objectivity.”

I look back along the corridor to where Grey has collapsed in his chair. One of the hotel staff is now attending to him, offering an arm for him to steady himself on his feet. The red face I has gone grey. His pride won’t let him take the arm.

Suddenly everyone in the corridor is animated. They push each other to the side of the throughway, creating a large space around the reception area and main entrance. At first it appears that the delegates are trying to make room for the hotel staff to help Grey move out of his seat or allow a paramedic team to find him. But the crowd is parting because of the arrival of an extraordinarily large figure. The colossus walks slowly from the main doors, aware that he is capturing nearly everyone’s attention. He stops, and drops his baggage, slowly turning his head to bask in the wonder he is generating in the delegates. The attendence of Marvin V Nielsen had been speculated upon, but was not expected. Now here he stands, a gargantuan likeness of Orson Welles in a raincoat the size of an eight man tent. Once he has the attention of everyone in the building, he smiles a conceited smile and speaks.

“Gentlemen. I have come to make a report to the academy.” The voice booms, reverberating around his ego, vibrating the walls of the tent. Then a further smirk while he awaits further appreciation. There are faint gasps and some muted cheers.

“I have strange news from another star,” the colossus continues, now widely grinning. It seems he is not short of clichés.

Then a shout from the crowd. “What’s he doing here?”

There is laughter, most of all from Nielsen himself, who has taken on the friendly demeanor of Santa Claus in a weatherproof tarpaulin.

“Gentlemen. My appearance is unscheduled. I am staging an intervention.”

Several of the delegates suddenly break away from the crowd in a seemingly rehearsed manouvre. They stamp and crash around in angry attempts to locate exits or lifts or stairs, crimson-faced and muttering “bloody ridiculous” throughout their frustrated wheezing.

“Gentlemen. I have taken it on myself to fly over and close down this event in person. It is time that we closed up our humble shop. We must put away our thoughts and hold our tongues. We must concede defeat.”

“Excuse me, this is still my slot. Thank you,” shouts Lacey angrily from his podium. No one is looking at him, barely anyone hears him. They are rapt by the calm manner of Nielsen, who now strides forward with the utter repose of a Hollywood lead, benevolence streaming from his patronising smile, his arm outstretched towards Lacey.

“My good man. I admire the determination in your voice.”

“Excuse me. I am still speaking. You weren’t booked because you didn’t reply to the email.” Lacey’s face ascends through pickled beetroot to brightest incarnadine.

“Can I request that you stop your debate. It is over. All over. We must cease immediately.” The giant tent moves slowly down the corridor towards the main conference suite, trailing behind Nielsen like the train of an all weather grey polycotton wedding dress. It’s apparent that he’s trying to be consiliatory, but Lacey is having none of it.

“Can’t we have him removed?”

The rest of Lacey’s audience is bewitched by the appearance of Nielsen. They are staring in open-mouthed disbelief. This adulation seems to be further increasing his overconfidence as he takes up a position in the doorway of the conference room, stealing the audience within it and ensuring everyone in the venue can see him.

“My dear man. This is a matter of urgency. I would have gotten here sooner if I could.”

“I AM STILL SPEAKING.” Lacey seems to have no option but to shake his head in disbelief.

“Gentlemen. My message is simple. We must retire ourselves from these activities. The world has chosen to look away. It has chosen not to hear us. We argue over details but the bigger picture is that we have lost. We pursue philosophy, thought and intelligence. The world does not want to hear us. It is fixated on image, feeling and spectacle. Whatever we debate here will be of no consequence.”

“This is still my slot. Go and see Alan Bullock if you want to speak.”

“My good friend. The time for speaking is at an end. We’re entered a dark age.”

“It’s time for you to stop speaking, more like. I haven’t finished.”

“My learned friend. Science and philosophy are about to disappear the way Hellenistic thought and philosophy disappeared and was suffocated by Christianity for a millennium and a half. Now it is narcissism and populism that will prevail. Revelation by repeated image is the only thing people hold to be truthful. There is no longer a place for reasoned debate in this world.”

It occurs to me that Nielsen is pulling out the biggest joker card of them all. He’s debunking the entire event and everyone taking part. Debunking the debunkers. It’s a masterful move, an inverted deus ex machina, creating a hopeless situation just as the conference seemed to be gaining momentum.

“Are you all just going to stand there?” Lacey begins banging his fist on the podium. He’s baring his teeth.

Neilsen is almost unheard of in his native USA. This is despite being a prolific blogger and self-styled “opinion leader”. He claims he was once suspected by the FBI of being the Unabomber; the closest he has ever got to academic debate was heckling Stephen Pinker at a book signing where he was refused entry. The problem is that controversy is such a competitive market, and Nielsen is nowhere near an A List contrarian. In his home state of Wisconsin he is considered no more than a marginal crank. He rants angrily on PBS in the early hours, and adds posts to his blog several times a day. His output on Twitter could be classed as a stream of consciousness; there is often no delay between one message and the next. Yet he cannot find traction amongst the demented consumers of angry opinion in America. The problem could be that he often uses reason and argument to form these opinions, methods which have rather fallen from favour in recent years. He doesn’t make ludicrous claims to conspiracy theories or the idiotic allegations of fringe groups, which tends to put him at somewhat of a disadvantage in intellectual sparring with his countrymen.

However, Nielsen has made quite a name for himself amongst the amateur philosophy fraternity in the UK. The homespun, provincial, inconsequential nature of the community seems to find glamour and formidable stature in their American colleague, in the same way that everything American seems more real and robust to the English than the timid squalor of their own island. His ideas are obviously louder and expressed with much more confidence that a British orator could ever strive for. Being American, his anger seems to have worldclass ambitions, a manifest destiny to be heard and engaged with. Its pitiful equivalent on these shores is more akin to the frustration of a regional call centre manger who has justy missed a monthly sales target.

They’re in awe of him now, watching rapt as this half-man half-tent moves along the corridor in a pointless attempt to placate the current speaker. There is messianic intent in his gestures and delibrate actions. Maybe he has misjudged the level of anger at this year’s conference.

“My friend. Concede defeat and batten down for the dark ages. Let’s do no more thinking. The future is just images and relevation. How can we debate when we all have separate knowledge sources that determine our thoughts. We all use different frames of reference. There is no longer common knowledge, just bubbles of narcissistic self-truth. I would like you to tell me where we figure in that arrangement!”

“I AM STILL SPEAKING! YOU ARE A RUDE MAN!”

“My patient friend.”

“Don’t patient friend me. Fucking fuck off.”

I don’t have a clear view of the raised platform in the main conference suite, but I hear the toppling furniture and struggling breath. The crown murmers. Seconds later we can all hear the charging defibrilator and its repeating discharge. As I look around the crowd, many of them are looking to Nielsen for guidance. I notice a paramedic trying to resucitate Grey.

It has been announced that next year is a hiatus year for ConArm.