On the Abolition of All Political Parties

by Simone Weil, Simon Leys (Translator), Czesław Miłosz (Contributor)

A brilliant woman who was a study in fiercely maintained contradictions, a star student who went to work on a factory line, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who insisted on refusing baptism, Simone Weil is one of the most intransigent and taxing of spiritual masters, always willing to push her thinking—and us—one step beyond the apparently reasonable in pursuit of the one truth, the one good. She asks hard questions and avoids easy answers. In this essay—now in English for the first time—she challenges the foundation of the modern liberal political order, making an argument that will have particular resonance in present-day America. Examining the dynamic of power and propaganda caused by party spirit, the increasing disregard for truth in favor of opinion, and the consequent corruption of education, journalism, and art, Weil proposes that politics can only begin where the party spirit comes to an end.

This volume also reprints an admiring portrait of Weil by the Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz and an essay about Weil’s friendship with Albert Camus by the translator Simon Leys.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Essays, History, France, 20th Century

73 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Simone Weil was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist. Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. 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 that Weil was "a moral genius in the orbit of ethics, a genius of immense revolutionary range".

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The End of Democracy

After watching the Clinton-Trump election on television, I felt a compulsion to do something, anything, that might dull the emotional pain caused by the Trumpian irrationality and mendacity. I found succour of a sort, if little solace, in Simone Weil's 1943 essay, On the Abolition of Political Parties. On the one hand, the piece is prescient as a prediction of the party-political phenomenon of Trump and its causes. On the other, unfortunately, it offers no real alternative to party organisation in a democracy. But perhaps the warning it provides, coupled with the confirmation of her hypothesis in almost every action of Trump and his supporters, may prevent a future descent into irrecoverable chaos.

Weil takes her inspiration not from the usual ancient Classical Greek and Roman cultures but from the unlikeliest of sources for someone who is ultimately critical of mob rule, namely the French Revolution. For her,

"The true spirit of 1789 consists in thinking not that a thing is just because such is the people’s will, but that in certain conditions, the will of the people is more likely than any other will to conform to justice."

What impedes this spirit is the attempt to corrupt the free will and reasoning ability of individuals.

The signal of such corruption is ‘passion’, that is emotional stimulus which stops reason and eliminates free will. For Weil, political parties are vehicles of collective passion whose function is to instil conformity through social pressure. The goal of political parties, that is of their members as well as their leaders, is growth in their own power without limit. Political parties kill conscience and promote mendacity, thus destroying the most fundamental connection with reality: Truth.

“The truth which we desire but have no prior knowledge of... is a perfection which no mind can conceive of – God, truth, justice – [words] silently evoked with desire, have the power to lift up the soul and flood it with light. It is when we desire truth with an empty soul and without attempting to guess its content that we receive the light."

Political parties blind us to this light.

One is tempted to discount Weil’s desperately negative view until one remembers that Nazism, McCarthyism, and now Trumpism are all products of party-political democracies. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can Happen Here can and does happen here. Weil has an educational message for those in Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly Britain and the United States. She notes that the continental European political system not only demonises rival parties but as a matter of course threatens party rivals with prison and even extinction.

Anglo-Saxon politics, Weil notes, hadn’t yet reached this level, preserving a fundamental civility that was real but, as she saw it, temporary. Because of factional dissatisfaction and frustration which are necessary consequences of democratic politics, the natural trajectory of democracy is toward the continental model. Donald Trump’s threat to prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton is a fulfilment of Weil’s prediction. As is the stubborn refusal of Trump’s Republican supporters - particularly religious evangelicals - to even recognise the possibility of immorality on the part of their chosen leader. Their consciences appear frozen and inoperable.

Weil in fact implicitly anticipates this last point as well. She traces the origin of such obstinate mendacity to the Catholic Church’s attempt over many centuries to control the spread of sects and threatening (to it) divisions which followed the French Revolution. Parties act like mini versions of a secular Church. Unity is maintained through the generation of collective passion, a drug which should be banned like other harmful substances.

Which provokes a thought that seems to be incipient in much of the wonder at Trump’s ability to attract and maintain such a stalwart following. Trump has in fact created a secular Church, with himself as self-designated pope. “There is no us without you” is the prayer of his congregation. Let us hope that like all such religions, Trumpism fragments into its own sectarian bits before it does any more harm to democracy.

[Brodolomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tri eseja iz poznog opusa Crvene Device, pisana u Londonu na rubu samouništenja. Nisu centralni u njenom stvaralaštvu, ali su reprezentativni. Njihov izbor je grupisan oko dovođenja u sumnju temelja modernog liberalnog političkog sistema, i to sa argumentacijom koja je delom anarhistička a delom srednjovekovni religijski fanatizam. Vej(l)ova je Platon sa jednom čizmom u Marksu, drugom čizmom u Hristu. Rezultat? Luda i apsurdna ljubav prema čoveku, što je baš uznemirujuće, posebno jer čovečanstvo nije ni najmanje zaslužilo da ga bilo ko toliko voli.

Ono što važi generalno za esejistiku Simone Vej(l) važi i ovde. Stil teži ogoljenosti. U njemu gotovo da nema efekta, čulne egzaltiranosti, pronalaženja formalnih inovacija, bilo kakvog kaćiperstva. Ako i poseže za metaforizacijom, Simona gotovo upotrebljava samo varijacije tri metafore, zasnovane na pojmovima graviticije, fotosinteze i gladi. Za nju, pisanje/svaranje teksta nije pokazivanje piščeve ličnosti, već povlačenje i pražnjenje teksta od sebe. Takav odnos prema stilu korespondira njenoj ideji da Božje stvaranje sveta nije bilo demonstracija njegove moći, već, sasvim suprotno, njegova abdikcija, povlačenje, pražnjenje sveta od sebe. A kada se tome doda da je Vejlova u životu sprovodila odricanje i uništavanje sebe, onda govorimo o fascinatnom jedinstvu forme i sadržaja dela i života pisca. Bog u svet, iz kojeg se povukao stvarajući ga, može da uđe ponovo samo kao prosjak (Hrist), Simona kao veliki fiozof praznivši tekst od sebe u njega se vraća kroz metafore gladi kao luđakinja koja naredne godine umire od gašenja srca usled voljnog neuzimanja hrane kao moralnog čina u svetu u kome ima i previše gladnih.

Naslovni esej je jedini od tri koji je, uslovno, lišen mističarskog naboja. Preporuka za sve one koji, kad izađu na izbore, imaju osećaj, dok gledaju listu partija, da su unapred prevarani. Vejlova podseća da je republikanski ideal demokratije potekao iz Rusoovog pojma opšte volje. Ruso je pošao od dva argumenta. Prva je da razum izdvaja i bira pravdu i nevinu korisnost, i da je svaki zločin motivsan strašću. Druga da je razum istovetan kod svih ljudi, dok se strasti najčešće razlikuju. Iz toga proističe da ako, o nekom opštem problemu, svako razmišlja sam i izražava svoje mišljenje, i ako su ta mišljenja uporede jedno s drugim, ona će se verovatno podudarati u onom delu koje je pravedno i razborito sa svakim drugim, a razlikovaće se u delu koje je nepravedno i pogrešno. Prosto iznošenje ova dva uslova već pokazuje da mi nikada nismo upoznali bilo šta što bi i izdaleka nalikovalo da demokratiju. U onome što imenujemo ovim imenom, pojedinac nikad nema priliku ni sredstva za iskazivanje bilo kojeg problema iz života: a sve ono što izmiče individualnim interesima prepušteno je kolektivnim strastima, koje su sistematski i zvanično ohrabrivane. Umesto toga imamo partije koje imaju tri svojstva:
1. Politička partija je mašina za fabrikovanje kolektivne strasti.
2. Politička partija je organizacija izgrađena tako da vrši kolektivni pritisak na misao svakog pojedinca.
3. Prvi cilj svake, i prema svemu sudeći jedini cilj, političke partije jeste njen rast i to neograničen.

Vejlova ističe da se lepra političkih partija i prostog zauzimanja strana za ili protiv, umesto obaveze mišljenja, širi na sve od školstva do umetnosti. Naravno, svi izlazi iz toga su, kao i sve kod Simone Vejl, dirljivo idealistični (čitaj: precenjuje čovekovu prirodu i njegove mogućnosti).

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a horrible introduction to Simone Weil. I'm giving four stars to her actually doing her own thing, not the ninety-six actually seventy-one actually thirty-one pages that isn't fanboys or fanboys of fanboys. I don't regret requesting that the university buy (me) a copy, but I will if the edition proves such a turnoff and/or distraction to potential Weil enthusists that they chase after the much name-dropped Milosz and Camus instead. They both won Nobel Prizes, people. These are not the nonconformists you're looking for.

When the country is in the grip of a collective passion, it becomes unanimous in crime.

So. Politics. And morals. And labels. The collective power versus the individual freedom. Weil seems to be a thinker who gave little shit about excuses for oppression and actually put her money where her mouth is, a combo that unsurprisingly resulted in a short lifespan if not a similarly stunted bibliography and, of course, my interest. I wasn't expecting the rationalist hand-waving that attempts to transform thought into a series of vacuumed assumptions in the name of mathematical "logic" and "truth", but Weil's actions speak louder than the words which eventually, fortunately, followed the former. Of what follows, this is the statement I wish to poke at most:

Whenever a circle of ideas and debate would be tempted to crystallise and create a formal membership, the attempt should be repressed by law and punished.

I as an individual fall within the jurisdiction of various circles of ideas and debate that have crystallized under a patriarchal, heteronormative, and ableist society. In reaction to this social effort to control those who are not men, straight, or neurotypical, I have sought out others with similar experiences, naturally gravitating towards groups that offered a confirmation of my reality backed by numerous members. The phrase above is very stirring and all, but parsed with such broad choices in vocabulary that condemnation falls upon the KKK and the LGBT community alike. I have my own issues with the latter's biphobia in an organization supposedly for social justice, but who is this "law", and what is the punishment. Weil's admiration for the Ancient Greeks, Plato in particular, does not reassure.

What I wanted to find out from Weil was her dividing line between communal support and political party, personal validation and ideological indoctrination, taking a stand after years of dialectical self-reflexivity and seeing things only in black and white. What I found was a very small piece of her thought process and vague hinting at the whole of it in the words of this edition's two ending essays. Was Weil truly invested in contesting oppression at all times, or did she, like so many other thinkers, reduce the oppression of others to rhetorical flairs in order to enhance her philosophical toolkit? I'll have to read Simone Weil on Colonialism: An Ethic of the Other to begin to find out.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Game changing book. I went to the dentist the other day for a hygiene check and he said that at the end it would feel as though my teeth had shifted. My brain had shifted similarly after having read parts of this. I can’t believe I had never heard of her before and not read anything by her prior to this book. She died in 1943 in Ashford England In a sanatorium apparently from malnutrition as she had starved herself as she was eating the same rations as her French country folk had been allotted by the Germans. She talks with the cutting directness of a Nietzsche but with a thousand times more simpler use of words. She talks simply about the skank that we see happening around us pretty much globally. No I’m not saying that the totalitarian situation or communist example is much better but I do know that if had been watching division 4 football matches with division 4 football players all my life that wouldn’t stop me from thinking that a division one standard could exist. Republic, democrat, tory, labour, left, right; they are the magician’s legerdemain which distract us from other possible modes we could construct and live in. Would you like a medium or large café latte sir? .. Umm no just make it a small one. The best bits were as follows:
• “We pretend that our present system is democratic, yet the people never have the chance nor the means to express their views on any problem of public life. Any issue that does not pertain to particular interests is abandoned to collective passions, which are systematically and officially inflamed.”
• “Collective thinking cannot rise above the factual realm. It is an animal form of thinking”
• If they try to react against party control, this very impulse to react is itself unrelated to the truth and as such should be suspect.”
• “Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result – except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences – nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth.”
• “If one were to entrust the organisation of public life to the devil, he could not invent a cleverer device.”
• “Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.”
• KEY POINT: “She was not more dialectical than many who practise the dialectical art by changing it into an art of compromises and who buy the unity of opposites too cheaply. “

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been interested in the figure of Simone Weil for a long time (one of my beloved poets Rosario Castellanos mentioned her a lot, and she was becoming more involved in her thought by the end of her life) Her biography involves spirituality, as much as philosophy, political thought, humanism and mysticism. But this is the first book I have actually read of hers. And I feel it is a good place to start, since she is speaking of simple truths, that to me describe the person she is, the one I only imagine her to be.

What she defends here is what the title says, that she believes that political parties are basically machines that try to artificially make their members have the same opinions on every subject.
They forget the pursuit of truth and goodness, and they turn it into a pursuit of more people joining that party, and forgetting their differences, and even forgetting to think for themselves.
"Nothing is more confortable than not having to think". So the mass becomes one, and the sense of the good and truth is forgotten for whatever the party promotes. Of course this was written when totalitarianism was taking everything with it, when so many people died in the hands of the nazis. I do find it food for thought to read this in what is supposed to be a very different moment in history. I think it leaves me with the question of, how much do we give up of our opinions to agree with the "group" we wish to become a part of. What I find here, is how necessary it is to respect what our deep self dictates for us, and even if this is a utopian way of thinking (the disappearance of political parties does not seem like a possibility in this day and age, when democracy is managed in groups and not as individuals).
What she proposes here seems to me maybe impossible in practice, but I can't help loving the questions she rises. She seems like an anarchist, in the sense that she believes in the individual more than the mass, and I guess the way I feel this could be practiced is in questioning everything, and not just agreeing with whatever the people we decide to believe in choose to express their views. Another thing she mentions which I will be thinking about for sometime, is of how in the practice of discussion we are educated to think only in terms of for or against, and that reduces our thought to the simplest form, without elaborating our opinion in freedom and expressing it in its entirety. This is a point for education in general, which I know will be making its rounds in my head for a while.
"Nearly everywhere- often even when dealing with purely technical problems-instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is and intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking."
Of course she also defends the possibility that everyone can have their own opinion, and we must respect that. In practice, that sometimes seems impossible, with the way people speak in social media in present times.
I believe that imagining possibilities is a great way toward questions, towards questioning what we ourselves think. And even if Weil seems like a utopian, I think she does bring questions which can help us think of reality of the present times with a clear eye.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

March 2020 update- Simone Weil was right.

[Eadweard · Rating 3 out of 5]

" Democracy, majority rule, are not good in them selves. They are merely means towards goodness, and their effectiveness is uncertain. "
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" When a country is moved by a collective passion, the likelihood is that any individual will be closer to justice and reason than is the general will -or rather, the caricature of the general will. "
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" 1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.

2. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its indi vidual members.

3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit. "
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" Just imagine: if a member of the party (elected member of parliament, candidate or simple activist were to make a public commitment, 'Whenever I shall have to examine any political or social issue, I swear I will absolutely forget that I am the member of a certain political group; my sole concern will be to ascertain what should be done in order to best serve the public interest and justice.'

Such words would not be welcome. His comrades and even many other people would accuse him of betrayal. Even the least hostile would say, 'Why then did he join a political party? - "
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" When a country has political parties, sooner or later it becomes impossible to intervene effectively in public affairs without joining a party and playing the game. Whoever is concerned for public affairs will wish his concern to bear fruit. Those who care about the public interest must either forget their concern and turn to other things, or submit to the grind of the par ties. In the latter case, they shall experience worries that will soon supersede their original concern for the public interest.

Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result -except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences -nothing is decided, nothing is exe cuted, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth. "
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" The institutions that regulate the public life of a country always influence the general mentality -such is the prestige of power. People have progressively developed the habit of thinking, in all domains, only in terms of being 'in favour of' or 'against' any opinion, and afterwards they seek arguments to support one of these two options. This is an exact transposition of the party spirit.

Just as within political parties, there are some demo cratically minded people who accept a plurality of par ties, similarly, in the realm of opinion, there are broad-minded people willing to acknowledge the value of opinions with which they disagree. They have com pletely lost the concept of true and false.

Others, having taken a position in favour of a certain opinion, refuse to examine any dissenting view. This is a transposition of the totalitarian spirit."

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

"One recognizes that the partisan spirit makes people blind, makes them deaf to justice, pushes even decent men cruelly to persecute innocent targets. One recognizes it, and yet nobody suggests getting rid of the organizations [i.e., political parties] that generate such evils." (28)

This essay by Simone Weil, written shortly before her death in 1943, simply and very literally argues for the abolition of all political parties. In characteristic style, Weil cuts through the noise and nonsense of political partisanship. Having never had any affinity with political parties myself, the essay strongly resonated with me. What are the chances that one political party hits the truth on every one of its positions? Highly, highly unlikely. Why, then, would anyone want to join a political party or think that any such party is somehow the embodiment of truth or righteousness?

I have a lot more to say about this, but I'm writing a longer piece for my Substack, so I'll post it there later. Do have a look, if you're interested.

This edition also includes a nice little essay by Czesław Miłosz on the life and thought of Weil—The Importance of Simone Weil (1960)—as well as a short piece by translator Simon Leys on Miłosz's discovery of Weil thanks to the latter's friendship with Albert Camus.

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping Weil’s conclusion would end up being something about how politics is one of life’s most abbreviated categories of existence and how it should thus be avoided, etc. but she’s quite a bit smarter (and more practical) than I. She makes a lot assumptions (and takes a lot for granted, argumentatively) but she’s probably right anyways so I’ll let it slide 😎 Milosz’s little bio/essay is pretty cool too.

[Michael Arnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the title essay, Weil analyzes political parties and the party spirit. She concludes that all political parties, no matter how noble their intentions or how fully they claim to represent the public good at their inception, ultimately "aspire toward totalitarianism", that is, complete control and requiring complete and unthinking loyalty from their members. Its sole purpose becomes its own indefinite perpetuation; it becomes about itself: "Once the growth of the party becomes a criterion of goodness, it follows inevitably that the party will exert a collective pressure on the people's minds. This pressure is very real; it is openly displayed; it is professed and proclaimed. It should horrify us, but we are already too much accustomed to it." And it is not just in politics that the party spirit has taken hold: it is palpable in the arts and sciences and, of course, religious denominations, where it has its origins.

I read the book twice. It's a slim 70 pages, with the title essay occupying less than 40. The rest of the volume contains an essay on Weil by the poet Czeslaw Milosz, and another essay on Weil AND Milosz by Simon Leys, who passed away just a couple months ago (the same day as Robin Williams, I believe) and who translated Weil's essay. I have been wanting to read Weil for years now and this felt like a good introduction to her life and work. I also adore Milosz and Leys, and having all three in this volume was like listening in on a brilliant conversation.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing I needed to know about this was that Ensor's 'Christ's Entry into Brussels' was on the cover. It helped that I'm curious about Weil, and that NYRB put it out, and that sometimes I just want a book I can finish in an hour or two. And the title helped a lot. But really I just needed the cover.

Weil's argument is quite clear, and seems pretty accurate: partisanship distorts thought, whereas disinterested thought helps politics. The relevance to our present political rhetoric is pretty clear. Consider, "Nearly everywhere - often even when dealing with purely technical problems - instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind." Now consider the political 'debates' about [insert any contentious political issue here.]

The essay is padded out with another essay by Milosz, which I found very puzzling at times and insightful at others; and one by Simon Leys, which was unnecessary.

A beautiful little artifact, anyway, and a stimulating after-lunch read.

[Gholamali Keshani · Rating 5 out of 5]

"برچیدن همه‌ ی احزاب سیاسی"


خوانده ام و
ترجمه هم کرده ام.
می توانید متن فایل اش را از من بگیرید.
هنوز در حال تکمیل پیوست های اش هستم.
فقط بعد از چاپِ ترجمه ای دیگر که دوستی گرامی انجام داده اند ، ترجمه ام را منتشر خواهم کرد.

متنی است بی نظیر،‌
بی نظیر
بی نظیر!

www.ghkeshani.com

[Camino · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
Que sí: lo que hacen los partidos políticos no es representar los intereses del pueblo, sino hacer propaganda, y lo que buscan no es la justicia social sino el poder, y en consecuencia el pensamiento de la población sólo se ve polarizado en vez de estimulado en la crítica... Esa parte estupenda. Pero para muchas otras cosas parte de planteamientos de Rousseau, que en mi opinión 1. Es insoportable y 2. No tiene razón. Y además hay unas cuantas afirmaciones que me chirrían un montón (esa defensa ciega de la ley al hablar del castigo qué es, Simone??? Los partidos son intrínsecamente totalitaristas, el mandato de la mayoría es inmoral...pero la ley es "imparcial y justa porque todo el mundo la ha comprendido"?? No suena muy bien, amiga)

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weil sets out the defining characteristics of a political party:
1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.
2. A political party is an organization designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.
3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.

Thus defined, a political party will then by its nature seek to pursue its own dominance eventually becoming totalitarian. She notes that party members are compelled to act in the best interest of the party rather than of the citizens in general. They vote for the party rather than for the good.

Surely we’re seeing this to some extent today. I’m not sure however whether her third point is by necessity always true. A party may form to work toward a specific goal (for instance, abolishing political parties!) and then disband upon successfully accomplishing its aim (or failing to). Another way to attenuate the totalitarian nature of parties would be to ensure that there are multiple parties competing for the favor of the populace. The two-party system now seems akin to the Coke/Pepsi stand-off. They are each content to share domination of the market as long as they remain for practical purposes the only two.

There’s also the question of whether it would even be possible to eliminate parties in a representative government. Would they always arise spontaneously?

In addition to the title essay, this little book includes an essay about Weil by Czeslaw Milosz, and an essay about Weil, Milosz, and Camus by Simon Leys.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

In short: parties compel people to treat politics like team sports and are therefore antithetical to the pursuit of truth and justice. This also applies more broadly to ideologies and religions. A short but well argued and worthwhile essay. Also included are interesting pieces by Czesław Miłosz (on Simone Weil) and Simon Leys (on Czesław Miłosz.)

[Mariona · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Se ha llegado a no pensar casi en absoluto en ningún asunto si no es tomando posición “a favor” o “en contra” de una opinión. Después se buscan argumentos, según el caso, sea a favor, sea en contra. Es exactamente la transposición de la adhesión a un partido.»

«Casi en todas partes la operación de tomar partido, de tomar posición a favor o en contra, ha substituido a la obligación de pensar.»

Para darle vueltas… 👏🏾👏🏾

[Mira Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

føles meget passende at læse netop nu..

spændende overvejelser, dog umiddelbart modstander af det objektive sandhedsbegreb, der benyttes til at legitimere ‘sandhedstotalitarisme’

[Lars Meijer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weil analyseert met zichtbaar gemak over het ontstaan en de uitwerking van of/of denken in de politiek. De tekst is geschreven in 1943, maar heeft niets aan kracht en inzicht verloren.

(Kers op de taart: een prachtig nawoord van Czeslaw Milosz.)

[Morgan Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief essay, but a perfect one. Weil begins from transcendentals and then works towards the eminently practical, herself doing well to avoid causing too much division in the issue of nonpartisanism. Very useful and good.

[Christina Ek · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025 begins with a heady essay by Simone Weil, philosopher, writer, activist, brave human being- her observations and tenets make sense to my 21st century, cynical brain. I, however, still (optimistically, and stupidly?), cling to the Hope that there is a benevolent alternative to anarchy in the search for truth.
Surprised to learn of her later (anti-Church) Catholicism in the Milosz essay.
** Read with #NYRBWomen25 (bsky)

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simone Weil, beaucoup trop forte.
Ça fait réfléchir (pour de vrai).
Ses solutions sont cependant pour le moins déconcertantes (ou j'ai raté un passage, peut-être ?)
À relire

[David Ranney · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a country is in the grip of a collective passion, it becomes unanimous in crime. If it becomes prey to two, or four, or five, or ten collective passions, it is divided among several criminal gangs. Divergent passions do not neutralise one another, as would be the case with a cluster of individual passions. There are too few of them, and each is too strong for any neutralisation to take place. Competition exasperates them; they clash with infernal noise, and amid such din the fragile voice of justice and truth are drowned.

and

Political parties are a marvellous mechanism which, on the national scale, ensures that not a single mind can attend to the effort of perceiving, in public affairs, what is good, what is just, what is true. As a result -- except for a very small number of fortuitous coincidences -- nothing is decided, nothing is executed, but measures that run contrary to the public interest, to justice and to truth.

and

Nearly everywhere -- often even when dealing with purely technical problems -- instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy, it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking.
This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.

[Julian Worker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simone Weil was a French intellectual who lived between 1909 and 1943. This essay goes into the reasons why political parties should be removed from politics in order for politics to flourish and become more about the truth rather than opinion.

The problem for me is that this is an intellectual and academic exercise with no practical guidelines on how democracies would function and elections be decided if there were no parties standing. If candidates didn't represent a party then who would form the government? Would it be like Athens and whomever turned up at a certain time on a certain day decided the government policy for a specified period of time?

Academic exercises are fine as long as they are thought through to their logical and reasonable conclusions. This essay only goes halfway towards a solution.

Simone Weil joined the Durruti Column in 1936 as a soldier but had an accident which meant she had to leave Spain soon afterwards. She embraced God and the Roman Catholic Church in 1938 but she believed in God in a similar way to the Cathars in early 13th Century France and for that she is to be admired. She also rallied the Free French around General de Gaulle in 1943 as it appeared to her that they were going to fracture into rival factions along party lines, so perhaps she was in favour of a political strongman uniting everyone? We'll never know unfortunately.

[Bevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This edition is from NYRB Books, with an attractive cover illustration taken from a painting by James Ensor. Simone Weil presented some interesting arguments for doing away with political parties. Surely, this essay would not go over well with current leaders in any of today’s democracies. Nevertheless, one cannot deny the intellectual power and moral force of this remarkable thinker.

[yelenska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ça fait du bien de se sentir comprise lol. Et j'imagine que c'est mieux reçu par quelqu'un qui a milité pour un parti politique. Puis elle a compris que ça ne servait à rien 😆🙏 j'apprécie aussi le fait que ses écrits sont un peu écrites comme des notes spontanées, peu retravaillées. Spontanéité = honnêteté.

[Mahla · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب مقاله‌ای بود که نفرت و انزجار سیمون وی از حزب و حیات حزبی رو نشون می‌داد.
بخش اعظمی از بدبینی سیمون وی نشات گرفته از تجربه مخوف و ناموفق قدرت حزبی در شوروی بود که به‌نظم لازمه مطالعه کتاب با تسلط در این پیش زمینه صورت بگیره.

[Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Foolish or brilliant and both.


People should read this book.

[Scott Bruton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes she is an idealist but she is MY idealist 🥰🥰🥰

[Emily Talbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretentious ramblings I’ve had the displeasure of hearing before

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.
2. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.
3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.

..."We pretend that our present system is democratic, yet the people never have the chance nor the means to express their views on any problem of public life."

"Goodness alone is an end." *See Edit Note*

All right: So I'm an independent. Problem solved. (Actually, on more than one occassion reading this, I thought: "Huh. ACTUAL Independents (or the one I'm thinking of) HAD to have read Weil and been influenced by her.

*Ahem*

Just imagine: if a member of the party (elected member of parliament, candidate or simple activist) were to make a public commitment, 'Whenever I shall have to examine any political or social issue, I swear I will absolutely forget that I am the member of a certain political group; my sole concern will be to ascertain what should be done in order to best serve the public interest and justice.'

Such words would not be welcome. His comrades and even many other people would accuse him of betrayal. Even the least hostile would say, "Why then did he join a political party?' - thus naively confessing that, when joining a political party, one gives up the idea of serving nothing but the public interest and justice. The man would be expelled from his party, or at least denied pre-selection; he would certainly never be elected.

Or perhaps this:

When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination...

Weil's not wrong here, is she? We can think of Candidates who have tried to buck the trend, no? Or in our own lives? (If you don't have stories, I do.)

I read a review that says this is a poor introduction to Weil. And that they were concerned that people would be taken with Camus and Simon Leys, and Czesław Miłosz and kindof ... you know ... pass over Weil herself.

While that wasn't the case for me, I fully intend to read AT LEAST "The Love of God" as well as "Justice and Human Society" by the end of the year, if not then by early next year. How does that sound?

*Edit*

I want to add here that I just read Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov. (Well, I read it in Saunder's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.) The idea of goodness alone as an end is fresh in my mind.