Simone Weil

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Not to be confused with Simone Veil, a French politician.
Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy

Simone Weil
Name Simone Weil
Birth

February 3, 1909
Paris, France

Death

August 24, 1943 (aged 34)

Ashford, Kent, England.

School/tradition Christian philosophy

Main interests Metaphysics, Cosmology, Cosmogeny
Influences Plato, The New Testament, Bhagavad Gita, Karl Marx
Influenced

Pope Paul VI, Iris Murdoch, Albert Camus, Francis Ford

Coppola, Mario Puzo

Simone Weil (IPA: [simn vj]; February 3, 1909 August 24, 1943), who
occasionally used the anagrammatic pen name Emile Novis, was a French philosopher,
Christian mystic, and social activist.

Contents
[hide]

1 Life
2 Intellectual life
3 Political activism
4 Encounter with mysticism
5 Last years
6 Philosophy
o 6.1 Lectures on Philosophy
o 6.2 Mystical theology in Gravity and Grace
6.2.1 Absence
6.2.2 Affliction
6.2.3 Metaxu: "Every separation is a link."
6.2.4 Beauty
o 6.3 Work in The Need for Roots
6.3.1 Obligations versus rights
6.3.1.1 Why is spirituality necessary for politics?
6.3.1.2 Can we guarantee obligations?
6.3.2 The Spiritual Needs of the Soul
6.3.2.1 Order
6.3.2.2 Liberty
6.3.2.3 Obedience
6.3.2.4 Responsibility
6.3.2.5 Equality
6.3.2.6 Hierarchism
6.3.2.7 Honour
6.3.2.8 Punishment
6.3.2.9 Freedom of opinion
6.3.2.10 Truth
6.3.3 Uprootedness
6.3.3.1 Causes of uprootedness
7 Bibliography
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading

11 External links

[edit] Life

Weil was born in Paris in 1909 in an agnostic household of Jewish ancestry. She grew up
in comfortable circumstances, as her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was the
mathematician Andr Weil. She suffered throughout her life from severe headaches,
sinusitis, and poor physical coordination, and spared no scrutiny to these in her
philosophical writings. Her brilliance, ascetic lifestyle, introversion, and eccentricity
limited her ability to mix with others, but not to teach and participate in political
movements of her time. She wrote extensively with both insight and breadth about
political movements of which she was a part and later about spiritual mysticism. Weil
biographer Gabriella Fiori writes Simone Weil was "a moral genius in the orbit of ethics,
a genius of immense revolutionary range." [1]

[edit] Intellectual life

Weil was a brilliant and precocious student, and was proficient in ancient Greek by the
age of 12. She later learned Sanskrit after discovering the Bhagavad Gita.
In her teens she studied at the Lycee Henri IV under the tutelage of her admired teacher
mile Chartier, more commonly known as "Alain". [2] In 1928, Weil finished first in the
entrance examination for the cole Normale Suprieure; Simone de Beauvoir, her more
long-lived and famous peer, finished second.[3] During these years Weil attracted much
attention with her radical opinions. She was called the "Red virgin." [4] and even "The
Martian" by her admired mentor. [5]
At the cole Normale Suprieure she studied philosophy, receiving her Agrgation
diploma in 1931. [6] Weil taught philosophy at a secondary school for girls in Le Puy and
teaching was her primary employment during her short life.
Most of the writing for which she is known was published posthumously.

[edit] Political activism

Weil often took actions out of sympathy with the working class. In 1915, when she was
only six years old, she refused sugar in solidarity with the troops entrenched along the
Western Front. In 1919, at 10 years of age, she declared herself a Bolshevik. In her late
teens, she became involved in the worker's movement. She wrote political tracts, marched
in demonstrations, and advocated worker's rights. At this time, she was a Marxist,
pacifist, and trade unionist. While teaching in Le Puy, she became involved in local
political activity, supporting the unemployed and striking workers despite criticism by
some who were better off. She also wrote about social and economic issues, including
Oppression and Liberty and numerous short articles for trade union journals. This work
critiqued popular Marxist thought, and gave a pessimistic account of the limits of both
capitalism and socialism.
She participated in the French general strike of 1933, called to protest unemployment and
wage cuts. The following year she took a 12-month leave of absence from her teaching
position to work incognito as a laborer in two factories, one owned by Renault, believing

that this experience would allow her to connect with the working class. Her poor health
and inadequate physical strength forced her to quit after some months. In 1935 she
resumed teaching, and donated most of her income to political causes and charitable
endeavors.
In 1936, despite her pacifism, she fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side.
She identified herself as an anarchist [7] and joined the Sbastien Faure Century, the
French-speaking section of the anarchist militia. However, her clumsiness repeatedly put
her comrades at risk. After burning herself over a cooking fire, she left Spain to
recuperate in Assisi. She continued to write essays on labor and management issues, as
well as war and peace.

[edit] Encounter with mysticism

While in Assisi in the spring of 1937, she experienced a religious ecstasy in the same
church in which Saint Francis of Assisi had prayed, which led her to pray for the first
time in her life. She had another, more powerful revelation a year later, and from 1938
on, her writings became more mystical and spiritual, while retaining their focus on social
and political issues. She was attracted to Roman Catholicism, but declined to be baptized,
until the very end of her life; she explained this refusal in letters published in Waiting for
God. During World War II, she lived for a time in Marseille, receiving spiritual direction
from a Dominican friar. Around this time she met the French Catholic author Gustave
Thibon, who later edited some of her work.
Weil did not limit her curiosity to Christianity. She was keenly interested in other
traditions especially the Greek and Egyptian mysteries, Hinduism (especially the
Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita), and Mahayana Buddhism. She believed that all
these and others were valid paths to God.[citation needed] She was, nevertheless, opposed to
religious syncretism, claiming that it effaced the particularity of the individual traditions:
Each religion is alone true, that is to say, that at the moment we are thinking of it we must
bring as much attention to bear on it as if there were nothing else...A "synthesis" of
religion implies a lower quality of attention.

[edit] Last years

In 1942, she travelled first to the USA, then to London, where she joined the French
Resistance. The punishing work regime she assumed soon took a heavy toll; in 1943 she
was diagnosed with tuberculosis and instructed to rest and eat well. However, she refused
special treatment because of her long-standing political idealism and activism, and her
detachment from material things. Instead, she limited her food intake to what she
believed residents of the parts of France occupied by the Germans ate. She most likely ate
even less, as she refused food on most occasions.[citation needed] Her condition quickly
deteriorated, and she was moved to a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent, England.

After a lifetime of battling illness and frailty, Weil died in August of 1943 from cardiac
failure at the age of 34. The coroner's report said that "the deceased did kill and slay
herself by refusing to eat whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed." [8]
In 1943 the term anorexia nervosa was not well known and the condition not always
recognised, though it would appear that it may have been a factor in the death of Simone
Weil.[9][citation needed]

[edit] Philosophy
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Weil's philosophy can be roughly divided between her secular thinking and her spiritual
thinking. This is a rough division, however, because her thinking often moved back and
forth between these areas, and sometimes exhibited a wholistic approach that scoffed at
such boundaries. Weil wrote as if the world was the stage for both spirituality and
politics; she at once enjoyed an intensely personal spiritual drive, while her social
philosophy emphasizes the relationships between individuals and groups. This
intersection of thought developed in her an interest in healing social rifts of the masses
and providing for the physical and psychological needs of humanity.

[edit] Lectures on Philosophy

Lectures on Philosophy, is a compilation of lectures composed for Weil's lyce students.
Focussed on the materialist philosophical project, she deals with truth not logically or
scientifically but psychologically or phenomenologically. The Lectures discuss the
conditions necessary for an experience of truth or reality to emerge for the human
subject; or for an object, or concept etc.; to emerge as real within human experience.
[citation needed]
However, she does not advocate for a general theory of human "truth-production",[10] As
distinguished from the writings of James, The Lectures describe the problem of truth as
deeply personal, to be approached through introspection. Weil combines her background
with idealist philosophy with an appreciation of the limits of foundationalism and
produced writings such as the following:
Any proof of the syllogism would be absurd. The syllogism is, to put it briefly, nothing
but a rule of language to avoid contradiction: at bottom the principle of non-contradiction
is a principle of grammar.
Simone Weil , LP, p. 78

and
We are forced to accept the postulates and axioms precisely because we are unable to
give an account of them. What one can do is try to explain why they seem obvious to us.
Simone Weil
and
One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open
to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It
is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the
reality of the external world. Most people hardly ever realize this, because it is rare that
the very same man thinks and puts his thought into action...
Simone Weil , LP, p. 72-3
The Lectures go on to explore further the disjunction between planning and execution,
which is brought about by the division of labor between designer (e.g.architect) and
worker (e.g. bricklayer) a division which leads to many societal difficulties and draws
on Weil's encounters with the philosophy of Marx.[original research?]
Putting thought into action is further described in this way:
What marks off the "self" is method; it has no other source than ourselves: it is when we
really employ method that we really begin to exist. As long as one employs method only
on symbols one remains within the limits of a sort of game. In action that has method
about it, we ourselves act, since it is we ourselves who found the method; we really act
because what is unforeseen presents itself to us.
Simone Weil , ibid.
For Weil, both self and world are constituted only through informed action upon the
world.

[edit] Mystical theology in Gravity and Grace

Some have suggested that she should be regarded as a modern-day Marcionite, due to her
virtually wholesale rejection of the Old Testament and her overall distaste for the Judaism
which was technically hers by birth;[attribution needed] others have identified her as a gnostic for
similar reasons, as well as for her mystical theologization of geometry and Platonist
philosophy.[attribution needed] However, it has been pointed out[attribution needed] that this analysis
falls apart when it comes to the creation of the world, for Weil does not regard the world
as a debased creation of a demiurge, but as a direct expression of God's love--despite the
fact that she also recognizes it as a place of evil, affliction, and the brutal mixture of

chance and necessity. This juxtaposition leads her to produce an unusual form of
Christian theodicy.
It is difficult to speak conclusively of Weil's theology, since it exists only in the form of
scattered aphorisms in her notebooks, and in a handful of letters. Neither of these formats
provides a very direct path to understanding or evaluating her beliefs, nevertheless, it is
possible to make certain generalizations.[original research?]
[edit] Absence
Absence is the key image for her metaphysics, cosmology, cosmogeny, and theodicy. She
believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation--in other words, because God is
conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where
God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part.
This is, for Weil, an original kenosis preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's
incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to
original sin as such, but because to be created at all we had to be precisely what God is
not, i.e., we had to be the opposite of what is holy.
Further information: Apophatic theology
This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her theodicy, for if creation is conceived this
way (as necessarily containing evil within itself), then there is no problem of the entrance
of evil into a perfect world. Nor does this constitute a delimitation of God's omnipotence,
if it is not that God could not create a perfect world, but that the act which we refer
towards by saying "create" in its very essence implies the impossibility of perfection.
However, this notion of the necessity of evil does not mean that we are simply, originally,
and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil tells us that "Evil is the form which God's
mercy takes in this world."[cite this quote] Weil believed that evil, and its consequence,
affliction, served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God--"The extreme
affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals
it."[cite this quote]
More specifically, affliction drives us to what Weil referred to as "decreation"--which is
not death, but rather closer to "extinction" (nirvana) in the Buddhist tradition--the willed
dissolution of the subjective ego in attaining realization of the true nature of the universe.
[verification needed]

[edit] Affliction
Weil's concept of affliction ("malheur") goes beyond simple suffering, though it certainly
includes it. Only some souls are capable of truly experiencing affliction; these are
precisely those souls which are least deserving of it--that are most prone or open to
spiritual realization. Affliction was a sort of suffering plus, which inclusively transcended

both the body and mind; they were physical and mental anguish that went beyond to
scourge the very soul.
War and oppression were the most intense cases of affliction; to experience it she turned
to the life of a factory worker, while to understand it she turned to Homer's Iliad.
Affliction was associated both with necessity and with chance--it was fraught with
necessity because it was hardwired into existence itself, and thus imposed itself upon the
sufferer with the full force of the inescapable, but it was also subject to chance inasmuch
as chance, too, is an inescapable part of the nature of existence. The element of chance
was essential to the unjust character of affliction; in other words, my affliction should not
usually--let alone always--follow from my sin, as per traditional Christian theodicy, but
should be visited upon me for no special reason.
The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment...is the only man for whom
affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not
deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his
hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried
deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God.
Simone Weil , Gravity and Grace
[edit] Metaxu: "Every separation is a link."
The concept of metaxu, which Weil borrowed from Plato, is that which both separates
and connects. (e.g., as a wall separates two prisoners but can be used to tap messages)
This idea of connecting distance was of the first importance for Weil's understanding of
the created realm. The world as a whole, along with any of its components, including our
physical bodies, are to be regarded as serving the same function for us in relation to God
that a blind man's stick serves for him in relation to the world about him. They do not
afford direct insight, but can be used experimentally to bring the mind into practical
contact with reality. This metaphor allows any absence to be interpreted as a presence,
and is a further component in Weil's theodicy.
[edit] Beauty
For Weil, "The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible." For
Weil, the beauty which is inherent in the form of the world (this inherency is proven, for
her, in geometry, and expressed in all good art) is the proof that the world points to
something beyond itself; it establishes the essentially telic character of all that exists.
Beauty also served a soteriological function for Weil: "Beauty captivates the flesh in
order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul." It constitutes, then, another way in
which the divine reality behind the world invades our lives. Where affliction conquers us
with brute force, beauty sneaks in and topples the empire of the self from within.

[edit] Work in The Need for Roots

Written during WWII, Simone Weils book The Need for Roots was written right before
her death. She was in London working for the French Resistance and trying to convince
De Gaulle to form a contingent of nurses to serve at the front lines.
The Need for Roots has an ambitious plan. It sets out to address the past and to set out a
road map for the future of France after WWII. She painstakingly analyzes the spiritual
and ethical milieu that led up to Frances defeat by the German army, and then addresses
these issues with the prospect of eventual French victory.
What marks her work is the concreteness of her plans and analysis. This means that she
does not clothe her plan in theoretical language, but puts it a concrete form for Weil,
the concreteness of the plan would assure its implementation.
[edit] Obligations versus rights
There are several key themes in the work. The first is the precedence that obligation has
over rights. For Weil, unless a person understands that they have certain obligations in
life, towards themselves, towards others, and towards society, the notion of right will
have no power or value.
At the same time, obligations have a transcendental origin. They come from a realm that
imposes an imperative this must is a light from the other world which shines on this
world and provides it with direction and order. For Weil, this is a spiritual concept this
means that it transcends the world of competing interests and power games. It opens up a
world where justice is possibility and a promise and provides the foundation upon which
any purely selfish and relative means find their true perspective.
Obligation has its analogy to the Thou Shalt not of the Ten Commandments. It is the
feeling of sacredness with regard to the holy. It is that which stops us from transgressing
certain boundaries of ethical or spiritual behavior. It is that which, if profaned, inspires in
us feelings and torments of guilt, and has its home in the conscience.
For Weil, there is one obligation that supersedes all others. This is the obligation to
respect and love the Other. It is recognizable in the feelings and emotions associated with
harming something so essential to being human that if we violate it, we violate a holy
shrine. This something in a human being is what makes them who they are and what they
are.
For Weil, without this supernatural world, we are left to a human world where power and
force hold sway. The struggle for power is the motor of human history, she believes. It is
the human condition. It is the source of human suffering and injustice. In her analysis,
there is no human answer to this struggle for power, nor is it possible to stop the struggle
with any form of ideology, such as Marxism or capitalism or any other form of humanmade political system.

The world of spirit, for Weil, confronts this struggle for power. Spirituality is not a way
out, an unearthly and utopian dream instead, she believes that there are techniques that
enable humans to become spiritual. These techniques are the ones that the great mystics
of every religious tradition has recognized and practiced. For her, the mystical practices
of Saint Francis of Assisi or Saint John of the Cross are especially telling. For Weil, they
are manuals for dealing with the pain and suffering of concrete life while maintaining a
link to the transcendent world of God.
Obligations, therefore, provide a link to the spiritual realities that give life meaning and
sustain the oppressed and sufferer with its healing power. But obligation is also that
power that calls to each of us from the face of another. For Weil, this aspect of the other is
that which is inviolable in each and every human being. As she states in one of her
essays, it is that part of each of us that expects the good to be done to us. It is that which
cries out for justice when it is violated.
Rights, on the other hand, are those relative ends which we strive for. They are not eternal
in the way that obligations are, and instead rely on obligations to have legitimacy. That is,
unless we have an obligation to respect the human in people, rights can not have any
legitimacy.
[edit] Why is spirituality necessary for politics?
Another aspect of this question is the awareness that Weil brings to social and political
problems of why spirituality is necessary. It might be a truism that true change in a
society cannot occur unless there is a subjective change as well. There is an example of
this in alcohol or drug treatment programs. Unless the person wants to change, all the
counseling and the support groups will not make a person change.
For Weil, on the social level, this is true of societies as well. In her analysis of history and
revolutions, she showed that every revolution ultimately replaced one form of oppression
with another. For her, this showed that the reality of history is struggle for power. This is
why she believed that for true change, a spiritual awakening must occur in individual
conscience.
Take an example: why, with all the money thrown at poverty in the US, is there still
poverty? For Weil, the answer to this question is that the programs and money were
directed at the wrong problems. Because they were programs by those who had for those
who did not have, the misrelation in power continued in many ways, the rich instituted
programs that would continue to benefit them and maintain their hold on power.
Perhaps this in and of itself justifies the notion that living with the poor and oppressed
changes ones consciousness. Of course, a simple or superficial identification with the
poor will not be an authentic experience. But a continued and extended opening up of
oneself to the pain and suffering of the poor and oppressed putting oneself into their
condition and seeking that condition would seem to work a change in the spirit.

Perhaps this is why Weil commends the mystical practices of the saints this rigorous
and methodical emptying of oneself does not come easily it is too easy to believe that
one is there while still holding on to the escape route in the back of ones mind. It
demands something like a spiritual practice to seek out all those ways we have of
deluding ourselves and lying to ourselves. Weil never says that it is simply a matter of
living with the poor there is a constant reminder in her writings that this experience
must permeate ones entire spirit and being. In her words, one must become a slave to
understand what a slave endures.
[edit] Can we guarantee obligations?
How does a social organization guarantee that the obligations that individual members
owe to each other are carried out? How does a social organization nurture and help bring
to birth this awareness of ones obligations to others?
These are some of the problems that Weil realizes she must answer if she is to provide a
realistic and workable solution to the problem of injustice in the world. As mentioned
earlier, change must come from inside for people to really change. But how do you make
someone change? The answer is that you do not, instead you must provide a social
structure that meets certain needs and anchors them in a fertile and nurturing soil. Thus
the metaphor of rootedness in her work.
Based on her analysis of obligation, Weil therefore posits that there are certain spiritual
needs of the human soul. Without these, a human society will die and its dying will crush
and destroy human souls. For her, every socio-cultural entity deserves respect. It is the
sum of all human aspirations and wisdom. The flowering of human souls past, present,
and future depends in many ways on a socio-cultural entity to thrive and grow.
She uses the analogy of a garden. This is not hyperbole in a very real way, Weil
believes, the human soul is like a plant that thrives or dies, depending on the type of
environment in which it grows. Like a plant that responds to good soil, sunshine and
nutrients, the human soul responds to a nurturing social structure, the light of the spirit,
and the elements of the state. For Weil, the nutrients of the soul, what she calls its food,
when present in a society reflect overall health for both the individual soul and the
society.
It is important to note Weils emphasis at the start on the individual. All elements of a
socio-cultural entity begin and end with the individual. Now, the individual has both
material and spiritual aspects. Weil does not buy into the notion that man is only a soul or
only a body. Both aspects of a human have needs and these needs must be met or the
individual is in jeopardy of dying.
Even though Weil talks about societies and nations, she is emphatic in her denunciation
of the notion that society or the nation is the most important entity in the spiritual life of
an individual. She does not believe that collectivities have rights which somehow
outweigh those of the individual, nor does she believe that these can solve problems in

and of themselves related to injustice. They are merely the means to attaining justice, not
the ends.
[edit] The Spiritual Needs of the Soul
The soul needs food just as the body needs food, according to Weil. This food comes in
the form of meeting the obligations that encourage the soul to grow and mature. These
needs include the following.
[edit] Order

The need for order reflects Weils overall belief that the universe follows a rigid course of
cause and effect. This order, however, relates to the ability of all members of a society to
keep the obligations that they must observe for a free and just society to exist. This order
is a balancing of obligations and needs. Without this balance, the society becomes sick
and ultimately may die.
Unlike things in the natural world, however, where there are opposites and extremes one
must maintain a mean, the true nature of order allows all spiritual needs to be met and
satisfied. With natural needs and desires, there are polar opposites, but with spiritual
needs, they all need to be present for true freedom and justice to exist.
[edit] Liberty

Liberty relates to the ability and freedom to make choices. The need for individual choice
is weighed against the rules of society, thereby limiting our choices. Liberty and choice
relate to maturity mature individuals grow up understanding their own liberty depends
on the liberty of others and the ability of society to control the negative actions of others.
The rules that are imposed should accord with conscience. And though the realm of
action may be restricted, for people of goodwill and conscience, they are second nature
and accord well with the liberty of all members of a society.
[edit] Obedience

Obedience comes about through the free consent of all members of the society that are
affected. There is obedience to rules and to those who enforce the rules and exercise
authority over others. When these are obeyed through a free and open consent, there is
not servility but obedience. Consent is the heart of obedience since obedience out of
fear of punishment or hope of reward breeds servility. She notes that in her own time,
men are starved for obedience yet there are those [read Hitler] who have exploited that
fact and enslaved men instead.
[edit] Responsibility

For Weil, responsibility is what each person needs to feel useful and indispensable in
their social life. Many people want to know the worth of their work, therefore they want
to know what the big picture is relating to the work that they do. People also want to

know what the interconnections are between his own actions, those of his or her fellow
citizens, and those of the society as a whole. In other words, people need to know the part
that they play in every great or small undertaking. Closely related to responsibility is the
need for initiative that is the possibility to show ones leadership.
[edit] Equality

This notion relates to the respect that each individual deserves simply as a human being.
There are no reasons why someone should not deserve this respect. Society where
opportunities depend on natural talents and expertise will produce some inequalities.
Society must ensure that these inequalities do not impinge on this need for equality. One
way to obviate this is to provide stiffer penalties for those in positions of authority and
power than for those without this status.
[edit] Hierarchism

Veneration of superiors as symbols, of what? that realm situated above all men and
whose expression in this world is made up of the obligations owed by each man to his
fellowmen. The superiors should acknowledge this as the source of their authority, not
their personal powers. The effect of true hierarchism is to bring each one to fit himself
morally into the place he occupies.
[edit] Honour

This has to do with the respect due to each human being as part of his social environment.
It is recognition of his role in and activities as part of a greater social purpose this
links individuals to a past and to the actions of those who went before him or her.
Oppression rubs out true honor and the traditions and past accomplishments of men and
women are extinguished. They lose their social prestige. Conquering rubs out these
traditions and this memory, thereby desecrating the memory of those who have gone
before and denying members of the conquered society and relationship to the heroism
and traditions of their past. Instead, they are made to honor and venerate the heroes and
heroines of the conquering nation.
Modern societies have a warped sense of honor while they honor certain types of
heroes such as aviators, millionaires, and others like them. But the heroism of miners and
others are left unacknowledged.
[edit] Punishment

There are two types of punishment: disciplinary and penal. Disciplinary punishment puts
people back on track after making a mistake, much as we do for children. Failings against
which it would be too exhausting to fight if there were no social support.
Penal punishment welds a man back into society again after he or she makes commits a
crime of their own accord. This is best done with consent on his part the only way of

showing respect for somebody who has placed himself outside the law is to reinstate him
inside the law by subjecting him to the punishment ordained by the law.
But punishment as fear is wrong. Punishment must be an honor. It must not only wipe
out the stigma of the crime, but must be regarded as a supplementary form of education,
compelling a higher devotion to the public good. The severity of the punishment must be
in keeping with the kind of obligation which has been violated, and not with the interests
of public security.
This last comment shows Weils concern that crimes committed by those with more
public authority and power should be punished more severely in many cases than those
committing lesser crimes.
[edit] Freedom of opinion

The big thing to note here is her emphasis on the individual. Only individuals have
opinions. This is important, because she opposes this idea to the idea that associations or
corporations have opinions as well. This is seen in some countries, particularly the United
States of America, where companies and political parties are said to have the right of
freedom of speech.
Weil also asserts that individuals should be responsible for their words. They should not
be simply allowed to express any shocking opinion, unless they are willing either to
admit that they dont stand behind their words or that they do; in the most egregious
situations, individuals could be penalized for making outrageous statements that spurred
others to perform immoral acts.
[edit] Truth

For Weil, truth is one of the most important needs of the soul. She says that all people
should be nurtured in truth and be protected from sources of untruth, such as newspapers,
false media accounts, and propaganda. Her main focus seems to be on the laborers again.
She notes that a laborer who spends 8 hours a day working must not be expected to be
able to have to distinguish between what is true and false in the papers or other media.
They must expect that what they see, hear, or read is invariably true. To ensure truth in
the media, she suggests setting up special courts to which those who believe that
someone is spreading falsehoods can be brought and judged. For Weil, the dissemination
of lies and falsehoods is a crime as dangerous as any other, if not worse than others
because it attacks the human souls most sacred need protection against suggestion
and falsehood.
[edit] Uprootedness
Obviously, the concept of uprootedness and the need for roots is basic to Weils entire
book. Why this metaphor? Is it a metaphor? In some passages, she seems to speak quite
literally as though humans and their social environments are plants and gardens that
can be grown and planted through effort.

As the title of the book suggests, there is a need for roots that is, humans need roots to
grow. Roots provide the stability and nourishment of a plant. The deeper they go, the
more the plant can withstand bad weather and shocks to its system and the more
extensive its root system the more nourishment it can receive to grow and remain healthy.
So lets become clear about what the soil is and what the plant here is. The soil, for Weil,
is the social structure that humans create to protect themselves from harm, catastrophes
such as starvation, protection from animals, from the elements, and finally protection
from each other. The roots are from the plant that symbolizes us humans.
Just as plants need good roots and soil to root in, they also need sun. For Weil, the sun to
humans is the world of the spirit. It provides light so the nutrients can work properly, just
as photosynthesis creates energy from the nutrients using the energy of the sun.
Now, lets explain the logic of this metaphor. The plants in the soil, are human beings.
The soil is the social and cultural structures that human beings have built up over the
millennia. In most cases, they are evolving and in time we see more recent shoots sprout
and grow from older plants. The laws governing the growth of these plants are similar to
the laws that govern nature. They are just as rigid, just ineluctable as the law of gravity.
The laws that govern the actions of humans in society mirror the laws of the natural
world. That is, just as we find a struggle for existence and survival in nature, so also we
find a similar struggle within human social structures. This, for Weil is the struggle for
power.
In outline, this struggle is unique to human beings. It rests on the necessity of wrestling
from the natural world a place that humans can survive in a human environment which
humans have created. At a certain level of human social organization, humans are at
peace with other. They have little strife among themselves the main battle is to find
food and shelter and weather the natural elements. We can see examples of this in some
tribes in the Amazon.
As societies become more structured and humans begin to develop technical skills and
more control of their natural environment, a division of labor occurs That is, the work
that is needed to build cities, grow food for larger populations, pave roads, carry out
religious rites--this division of labor means that you must have those who give orders and
those who follow orders. This arrangement of worker and manager is necessary for any
extended and complex social activity. To conceive, plan, and carry out any great project,
there must be those who give orders and those who take orders.
The struggle for power is not, Weil asserts, between the workers and the managers, as
Marx and others had theorized. The struggle is between those who have the power. They
fight and vie with each other for more and more power, more and more control of the
undertakings and the direction that a society will take, as well as all the material and
psychological rewards that come from power.

For Weil, this struggle is inevitable. There is no way to get around it, since human beings
must continue for their survival to provide for themselves and to maintenance the
social structure that is the main instrument of their continued existence. Weil sounds a
very pessimistic note on this state of affairs at the end of one of her essays, she notes
that we are born slaves.
This pessimism is only brightened for Weil by the illumination provided by the spiritual
reality that she came more and more to experience in her life. It is the spiritual world,
with its revelation of obligations and ethical insights that enables societies to soften and
re-route the immense pain and suffering caused by the struggle for power. Through the
power of the spiritual, human beings can see that their final destiny does not merely end
on earth, and that perhaps there will be a final reckoning for the actions that one has
performed in this life in a life after death. She found this concept in many religions, from
Mesoamerica to Egypt to Greece to China to Druid England.
Societies embed these spiritual insights and beliefs into their practices, rituals, and
symbols. The spiritual insights of past generations are stored in memory and passed down
from generation to generation. The customs, traditions, sacred writings and religion of a
society are the embodiment of this spiritual treasury. As generation follows generation,
individuals in the present can communicate with the past and the past communicate with
the present through this accumulated spiritual wealth. In this way, a medium of continuity
across time and space is created and the wisdom of the past can inform and perhaps direct
the activities and behavior of the present as individuals plan and move into the future.
We have already seen what spiritual needs the individual has to have to remain free and
just. A society that meets and provides these needs is a spiritually rooted one. This society
will provide the material and spiritual needs of each member of the society. Weil finds
these societies as part of the natural development of human life on earth. They are
ordained by God as the creator and source of life. They are precious and should be
honored and venerated for their beauty, but above for their ability to sustain human life in
its material needs, if not more so with their spiritual journeys and desires.
Once a society begins to lose the ability to provide and meet these needs, it starts to die.
Once individuals begin to lose their contact with the soil that nourishes and the sun that
illuminates each persons days, they decay from the inside out. Like a tree that has a
sickness, the pith and meat of the tree soften and eventually cannot support the weight of
the plant and it topples.
Why or how does this happen? The answer to this question is complex. But for now, we
can say that for Weil, most societies do not die natural deaths. They are killed by
conquerors and invaders who uproot civilizations, not only not leaving buildings and
temples standing but also destroying those spiritual roots that had perhaps sustained the
civilization for hundreds if not thousands of years.
This is an immense crime in Weils eyes. Through her study of history she had come to
love the wonder and beauty of several civilizations. That they were no longer existent,

beat into dust by empires, hurt her sense of spiritual balance. Yet, her moral outrage
emanated more from a deep despair for she knew that as beautiful as art, architecture,
poetry, and religion are, they are nothing compared to the beauty of a human being.
Above the death of every civilization she heard a mournful dirge of immense pain and
affliction which was the combined voices of each individual who had been hacked,
burned, raped, and sodomized whose human dignity and beauty had been profaned by
the merciless and bloody boot of empire and desire for power.
It was this affliction which was caused by a human being treating another human like a
piece of garbage which she ultimately saw as her own spiritual vocation in life. But above
that, it was the vision of a world wherein humans have the responsibility and mission to
alleviate as much of this affliction as possible to create just and free societies where
the cries of the orphans and the widows would be heard that drove her to use all of her
spiritual and intellectual and physical resources to bring to birth a manifesto that would
lay out the blueprint for rebirth and regeneration. This rebirth would serve as the basis for
the rise of a civilization to equal those great ones of history
In one of her essays, Weil says that the oppressed cannot voice their affliction, cannot cry
out due to the weight of the pain they suffer. Her work her words and her life--is an
attempt to give voice to this affliction. This aspect of her work puts it on the level of the
ancient Jewish prophets, those men and women who stood up against injustice in the
name of God and gave voice to the widows and the orphans, those who are crushed
beneath the unending struggle for power.
Note the eccentricity of several of the prophets: Ezekiel is said to have used dung to bake
his bread, Isaiah to have lain on his side for months at a time. And then we recall Hosea,
whom God told to marry a prostitute who continued to leave him, get impregnated, and
yet God would tell him to take her back numerous times. With this in mind, perhaps
we can make room for a frail, sickly, young French Jew, who spent her lifes fire fighting
for workers, the despised, the marginalized, and died by starving herself because she
could not forget that men, women and children in her homeland were dying for want of
food.
[edit] Causes of uprootedness

So the question becomes what causes uprootedness in the modern world. In her analysis
of uprootedness, she begins with the alienation of the workers from their work and
societies, goes on to discuss farmers, and finally takes on nations as a whole. As she
confronts each situation, her analysis is clothed in mundane and non-sexy particulars. Yet,
her analysis has the ring of authenticity because it combines not only the brilliance of
intellectual analytical skills but also the emotional experience of having lived with the
workers and seen and understood what their needs material and spiritual were.
For Weil, there are several main causes for uprootedness. We have already mentioned
invasions; she also mentions money and education. These can cause uprootedness by
undermining the foundation of why we act and what motivates us to act. Instead of
obligations being fundamental to a society. For example, with money it is the desire to

make money (or the tendency to see all things important as coming from or in terms of
money) that causes uprootedness to take place.
Education can cause uprootedness by severing the culture of the elite from the rest of the
people. Weil notes the effects of Renaissance, for example, in dissociating the people
from their folk culture and having the cultures of antiquity, especially of Rome imposed
by the intelligentsia onto the masses of individuals. For Weil, the Renaissance brought to
birth the cult of technical science, which brings with it pragmatism and specialization,
and severs the mind and soul from any relationship with the world of spirit. Her example
of this is the child in school who can parrot the fact that the sun revolves around the earth
but no longer looks to heaven for inspiration or reverence or awe.
Uprootedness is a disease that causes further uprootedness wherever it goes. Her
examples of those who are uprooted include foreign invaders, French colonialists,
America (because it is the land of immigrants), British marauders, and the Spanish.
Uprootedness can have several outcomes, but the most dangerous is a kind of spiritual
lethargy which resembles slavery and a form of activity that spawns and feeds on further
uprooting others.

[edit] Bibliography

La Pesanteur et la Grace (1947) Gravity and Grace English translation 1952,

Routledge Kegan Paul 2002 edition: ISBN 0-415-29001-5, Bison Books 1997
edition: ISBN 0-8032-9800-5. This was the first compendium of her work,
compiled posthumously by her friend Gustave Thibon.
L'Enracinement (1949) The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties
Towards Mankind English translation 1952, Routledge 2001 edition: ISBN 0415-27102-9
Attente de Dieu (1950) Waiting for God English translation 1951, Harper
Perennial, ISBN 0-06-095970-3
Lettre un religieux (1951) Letter to a Priest English translation 1954, Penguin
2003 edition: ISBN 0-14-200267-4
Oppression et Libert (1955) Oppression and Liberty English translation 1958,
Routledge Kegan Paul 2001 edition: ISBN 0-415-25407-8
The Notebooks of Simone Weil (1984) Routledge paperback: ISBN 0-7100-85222, 2004 hardcover: ISBN 0-415-32771-7

[edit] See also

Edith Stein
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[edit] References
1. ^ The Lonely Pilgrimage of Simon Weil, The Washington Post. [1]

2. ^ Hellman, John (1982). Simone Weil: An Introduction to her Thought. Wilrid

Laurier University Press.
3. ^ http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/weil.htm
4. ^ Books and Writers
5. ^ Alain, "Journal" (unpublished). Cited in Petrement, Weil, 1:6
6. ^ Agrgation list by year
7. ^ McLellan, David (1990). Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone
Weil. Poseidon Press. , p121
8. ^ McLellan, David (1990). Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone
Weil. Poseidon Press. , Inquest verdict quoted on p266
9. ^ Bourcillier, Patricia (2007). Androgynie & Anorexie ou le dsir de devenir une
seule chair. Flying Publisher.
10. ^ justified by empirical observation.<ref>citation to James
needed</li></ol></ref>

[edit] Further reading

Bell, Richard H. (1998) Simone Weil. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN
Robert Coles (1989) Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage. Addison-Wesley. ISBNX. 2001 ed., Skylight Paths Publishing: ISBN
Davies, Grahame (2007) Everything Must Change. Seren. ISBN-X. ISBN 9781854-1145518
Dietz, Mary. (1988). Between the Human and the Divine: The Political Thought
of Simone Weil.Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN
Doering, E. Jane, ed. (2004) The Christian Platonism Of Simone Weil. University
of Notre Dame Press. ISBN
Fiori, Gabriella (1989) Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography. translated by
Joseph R. Berrigan. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-82031-1022
Fiori, Gabriella (1991) Simone Weil. Una donna assoluta, La Tartaruga;
Saggistica. ISBN 8-87738-07-56
Fiori, Gabriella (1993) Simone Weil. Une Femme Absolue Diffuseur-SODIS.
ISBN 2-866451-481
Finch, Henry Leroy (1999) Simone Weil and the Intellect of Grace. Continuum
International Publishing. ISBN
Gray, Francine Du Plessix (2001) Simone Weil. Viking Press. ISBN
McLellan, David (1990) Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone Weil.
New York: Poseidon Press. ISBN-X
Morgan, Vance G. (2005) "Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science,
Mathematics, and Love". University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0-268-03486-9
Petrement, Simone (1976) Simone Weil: A Life. New York: Schocken Books. 1988
edition: ISBN
Plant, Stephen (2007) 'Simone Weil: a Brief Introduction', Orbis, ISBN 978-157075-753-2
Plant, Stephen (2007) 'The SPCK Introduction to Simone Weil', SPCK, ISBN
978-0-281-05938-6

Radzins, Inese Astra (2006) Thinking Nothing: Simone Weil's Cosmology.

ProQuest/UMI, ISBN
Rexroth, Kenneth (1957) Simone Weil
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/simone-weil.htm
Rhees, Rush (2000) Discussions of Simone Weil. State University of New York
Press. ISBN
Veto, Miklos (1994) The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil, Joan Dargan,
trans. State University of New York Press. ISBN
Winch, Peter (1989) Simone Weil: 'The Just Balance' . Cambridge University
Press. ISBN

[edit] External links

"Simone Weil: A saint for our time?" - from The New Criterion by Jillian Becker
The American Weil Society - American branch of Association pour l'tude de la
pense de Simone Weil
Simone Weil's Home Page - An unofficial page dedicated to Simone Weil
[2] - An unofficial page dedicated to Simone Weil
Letter of Simone Weil to Dodat Roch
Simone Weil, an article in The New York Review of Books by Susan Sontag.
Center for Global Justice, Simone Weil on Labor
simoneweil.net biographical notes, photos & bilingual quotes that illustrate key
concepts, including force, necessity, attention and "le malheur"