The Conceptual Engineers

Cantos for the Future of Thought

The Conceptual Engineers – a poem by Joelle Taylor commissioned for Edinburgh Futures Conversations, The Future of Education: Utopia

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(i)             The Year of Hesitation

Good morning children. Good morning, everybody.

In the Year of Hesitation
when we knew but could not let go
when the only thing left to sell was ourselves
& nature was the space
between tower blocks
before the climate changed us
when the turn of the engine
was the turn of the sky
(the truth is
we drowned before we drowned)
& the next thing we knew
we were Crowd Funding
the End of the World
Instagramming apocalypse
renting air, drip fed light
subscribing to sleep patterns
Such clever dumb.
Such magnificent failure.
Our pockets eating our hands
Our houses haunting us
The world shrunk
to the size of a flipped coin
Infinite growth
in a finite environment          
education was
the waiting room
between alive & useful
a field growing inward
each thought farm
harvested by the mills
the crop sewn to feed
the thin lips of the economy
the machinery of learning
chewing, digesting
& soon our children
were older than us
their hearts brass cogs
we watched them
lining up neatly
smiling like watchmakers.

(ii)             An Industrial Education

// we glanced over our shoulders / toward the factories of thinking / & the children stored in rows / soft boxes on conveyor belts / ready to be wrapped / labelled / posted into the open mouths of utility / every child quantum, measured / a component part / & suddenly we were Mammon / we were bad money & bad breath / we were black grass & ghost oceans / we were noise / queuing politely for overstuffed cemeteries / every poem a bullet / every equation we set / coming to the same number / later we thought / how strange / our grandparents / went to a place to learn / not realising / learning itself / is a place.

(ii)             The Great Unlearning

// In the First Year of the Great Unlearning / children sat in clinical rows / unblinking, awaiting the examination / a pulling back of hospital curtains / to expose the mind / its awe & stasis / their pencils raised / like horses approaching a high hedge / our needs infinite / our world / a full stop floating in the black / the unlearning came quick / we asked the children / & they said all we know is /  that when singing bellies do not learn / it  is Applied Mathematics / when the walk home follows you / that is Ancient History / when language escapes / that is Contemporary Literature / they said /  had we thought to reverse engineer the child?

We traced the journey
of an unopened face
back to an empty plate
which lead back to
an empty pocket
which lead back to
an empty office
which leas back to
an empty application
an empty school desk
an empty plate
this full stop

(iii)             Tower Blocks of Babel

Without money / we were all wealthy / we migrated from the nucleus / to single cells multiplying at laptops / across the city / each tower block / a USB stick plugged into the circuitry of the streets / every window a digital monitor/ we are anywhere / everyone has the perfect view / but it keeps changing / parents argue with children / who wrestle with the controls / programme the sky to snow / to rupture cartoons / each of our devices holding hands across the tower blocks / watched over by the Teacher / who adapts as we learn / who questions & reneges / sets lessons according to our levels / who synchronises & monitors / translates & confronts /  until education stops teaching / & begins to learn from us.

the school sleeps / following the circadian patterns / of those about to grow / to push their green faces through pages / replanting the books / until a forest of thinking blossoms / each of their fruit / a child remembering their hands / astonished at their faces / how when one breathes in / the other breathes out.

(iv)             The Editors

(Enter stage left / pursued by bear / & an eagle) / After fine tuning the air / & tightening the seas / after Life became a popular app / & the day came with a drop-down menu / we turned our attention to ourselves / what small turns of the screw / could shine a dull child / into a brightness? / what small seeds / might reap the strongest thoughts? / this is / they said / true democracy / though some of us could not afford / the bigger thoughts / in the better parts of philosophies / & soon / the untuned were left to babble / the world returned to Yes & No / there was need for revolution / (we were booked that day) / as technology sparked / so did we.

(iv)             The Conceptual Engineers

The conceptual engineers / gather in flocks / scattered across the globe / blue veined light / pulsating suns / they consider each idea / make it whole / smooth to the touch / & we meet it / out here in the metaverse / There is no need for books / now that we are them / each child / a shelf in a vast library / the archive of the body / our DNA encoded / our understandings innate / there is no need to attend university / now that everywhere is one.

i.

It’s Wednesday / so it’s History / which is of course / Biology / we meet in the firmament / in the space between body & idea / as the neural implant / counts down in thick ghost font / until we are there / here / thigh deep in thick trenches / wading through some war that keeps repeating / like a bad diet / our skin rearing at politicians’ speeches / our hearts cauterising / we enact orders we don’t understand / feel our blood  / anthem / become night / the implant now a small emperor / arguing with an empty room / now the chattering of the ballot box / the shrug of borders / & now we are signing the Treaty of Versailles / the Magna Carta / the Balfour Declaration / & look / our pens point skyward / become rockets / as we spiral to the moon / collecting carbon samples / strange music packed in tight boxes / & now we are light hitting a surface / now we are prism / now we are everywhere.

ii.

Maxine has discovered / that though animals cannot see borders / humans could / they delineated cities / moats around ideas / lines around bodies / but the biggest wall / was the one that no one could see /   surrounding islands & continents / a sudden in the air / the birds dropping like ratings / a ship stubs itself / a plane ricochets into argument / but the walls did not stop there / they were inside people too / & soon / no one could get a visa.

iii.

Christopher is learning / how we used to build things that could not breath / how we burned our lungs / in vast bonfires / tried to sell the smoke / we were police uncovering a corpse / & arresting the flies / he switches his eyes / to wide angle / witnesses the calcification of the countryside / into fragile grey teeth / that stretch their necks / to bite at the sun / grey teeth / that eat their inhabitants / Christopher trembles / imagine that / he thinks / imagine all the families / carefully / placed on top of each other / mothers on mothers on mothers / listening to hearts tick along the corridors / that constrict like throats / like futures / Christopher leans back / flicks off his eyes & wonders / how could they believe / that selling the air / would help them breathe?

iv.

Ang is learning debate / that disagreements used to be won or lost / rather than solved / her eyebrows rise like empires / as she considers the past / as if it is something large approaching / she blinks & finds herself / standing at the moment when everything fell / when money returned to paper / & water became currency / & land ran out of land / the moment we wondered / what we were wondering for / & who set the exams / when the revolution came / most of us were busy / turning parking lots into fields / apologising to the oceans / Ang notes the slow fade from supermarket queue / to sustainability / the clink of coins / sounding more and more like the rattling of chains / from wildfire thinking to creative cooperation / & though wars continue /  they are ideological / taking place in an exhale / sudden & quiet things / it is difficult to hate a thing you understand / & without the concept of winning / wars have distilled to what they always were / opposing thoughts / two people reaching for the same glass of water.

(vi) the question

Our bodies  grow outward from neural chips / our augmented memory shivering / our collective uncurling / we touch air / & it becomes / geography, language, meaning / the past has never been more present / & now we know everything / we award marks not to who has the correct answer / but to how we found it / how each child cogs / is a part of the whole / the sum / & now we know that the tree is the monkey is the fruit / we have begun to ask questions / we do not know the answers to / & the children throw them in the air / like red balloons / kicking the curiosity toward each other / keeping it afloat / afraid of what the ground knows / & then we join them / a vast white room / trembling with red balloons / blood vessels / in the body of our work / inside each balloon / is something  we almost know / we can see their faces pressed to the skin / leaning our ears against the membrane / we hear their susurrant / education was never the answer / it was the question / not so much teaching / as unlearning / not so much road / as map / We have found that the children score higher / when we do not score them / Education / is the opening of a window / Understanding / is jumping out.

(vii) stone circles

Centuries later
we found the huddle of tower blocks
sulking in the sadlands
like teenagers
asking strangers for cigarettes
& marvelled at their ritual purpose
How far the concrete had travelled
How it poured itself here
Just here
& at that time too
How many bodies were used
In its construction
If the towers pointed to
A celestial body
with grey fingers
what might live there
what it might want
& now
the tower blocks
stand with their backs
against each other
staring up at the cursor
of the sun.