The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas

The meaning of “collectivity” tends to shift from one text to the next, as does the word itself; at times, Weil applies the label of “blind social mechanism.” But the fundamental conception remains constant, pointing to the convergence of the political, social, cultural, and economic forces that dictate our lives.

As long as one “leaves alone” the question of God, as Weil had done through most of her life, the presence of affliction in our lives is harrowing, but not especially puzzling. It is the unavoidable consequence of a world governed by forces largely beyond our comprehension, not to mention our control. When we add God to this mix, however, we transf

In short, the way in which we read the world turns on our particular location—moral, social, political, and economic—within the world. And the world, of course, is what humankind makes of it.

Normally, when we pay attention to someone or something, we undertake what Weil calls a “muscular effort”: our eyes lock on another’s eyes, our expressions reflect the proper response, and our bodies shift in relation to the object to which we are paying attention. This kind of attention flourishes in therapists’ offices, business schools, and fune

Weil called for the abolition of all political parties. She argued that parties, regardless of their ideological coloration, share three basic traits. They are dedicated to nurturing collective passions, designed to exercise collective pressure upon the minds of their members, and devoted to their collective self-preservation.

The doctor’s reply—“Yes, but it is no reason for giving up the struggle”—at first sounds pat. But instead, it sounds the depths of human purposefulness: the demand, in the face of political or ideological absurdity, for justice and dignity.

In effect, the foreman judged Weil’s status not just as a worker, but also as a human being.

The suspension of our thought, Weil declares, leaves us “detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object.”17 To attend means not to seek, but to wait; not to concentrate, but instead to dilate our minds.

Weil instead asserts that values and sensations are coterminous. As Peter Winch notes, “our concepts, which give the world its shape, are unintelligible except as concepts exercised by beings whose common life exhibits certain aspirations and values.”8 This interpretation—one where the epistemological is the ethical—seems to pull the rug out from u