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The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas
Known as the “patron saint of all outsiders,” Simone Weil (1909–43) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable thinkers, a philosopher who truly lived by her political and ethical ideals. In a short life framed by the two world wars, Weil taught philosophy to lycée students and organized union workers, fought alongside anarchists during the Spanish Civil War and labored alongside workers on assembly lines, joined the Free French movement in London and died in despair because she was not sent to France to help the Resistance.Though Weil published little during her life, after her death, thanks largely to the efforts of Albert Camus, hundreds of pages of her manuscripts were published to critical and popular acclaim. While many seekers have been attracted to Weil’s religious thought, Robert Zaretsky gives us a different Weil, exploring her insights into politics and ethics, and showing us a new side of Weil that balances her contradictions—the rigorous rationalist who also had her own brand of Catholic mysticism; the revolutionary with a soft spot for anarchism yet who believed in the hierarchy of labor; and the humanitarian who emphasized human needs and obligations over human rights. Reflecting on the relationship between thought and action in Weil’s life, The Subversive Simone Weil honors the complexity of Weil’s thought and speaks to why it matters and continues to fascinate readers today.
191 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2021
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About the author
Robert Zaretsky
17 books45 followersRobert Zaretsky is a literary biographer and historian of France. He is Professor of Humanities at the Honors College, University of Houston, and the author of many books, including A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning and Boswell’s Enlightenment. Zaretsky is the history editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a regular columnist for The Forward, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Foreign Policy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
August 27, 2021
I originally came to Weil through her famous essay "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force". Until now that's been my only exposure to her, though a compelling one. Robert Zaretsky's brief treatment of her life and works seemed to be a good primer on the woman today considered a kind of secular saint. And the book's proven to be that, a springboard into her rigid life and towering thought. The two will always need to be considered together because she was one of those rare individuals who practiced what she believed. In fact, in reading Zaretsky one learns that she lived awkwardly in the world, fueled by an idealism so uncompromising that it was, like her ideas of parachuting nurses into the front lines of wartime Europe and of abolishing all political parties, impractical. The biographical details are here and are generally sketched chronologically. Zaretsky stitches the life together with the threads of 5 ideas she concerned herself with: suffering so deep it turns individuals into things, the attention necessary to take possession of our minds, the need for rootedness or belonging, the importance of resistance, and the attainment of goodness as a way of combatting cynicism, cruelty, and callousness. I'm not sure how seriously Weil is studied today. The wary label mystic hangs on her like an odor yet she strongly influenced the thinking of Albert Camus and Iris Murdoch. And Susan Sontag was an advocate. If such respected admirers as those take her seriously, well...then I may use this springboard to dive into her deeper end.
July 12, 2021
In 1963 Susan Sontag published an essay on Simone Weil in the NYRB in which she declared that no more than a ‘handful’ of Weil’s readers ‘really share her ideas’. Like so much of Sontag’s criticism, that judgement was both speciously true and totally wrong. All who seriously practice mystical spirituality, Christian and otherwise, ‘really share her ideas’. I discovered this book in a review in a similar publication, the LRB, by Toril Moi. She finds Weil’s insights of value to the contemporary intellectual only because ‘we [secular intellectuals] are beginning to realise that we too live in extreme times. What sacrifices and what heroism will the climate crisis demand of us?’ I have to admit almost falling out of my chair at the thought of having to switch to driving a Tesla as the equivalent to being dragged off to Ravensbruck. Similarly, Zaretsky’s comparison of Weil’s situation during the Second World War with ours living under Donald Trump is as out of all proportion: like confusing the Covid pandemic with the Black Death.
The ‘five ideas’ with which Zaretsky organizes the chapters of his book are: affliction, attention, resistance, finding roots, and what he calls ‘the good, the bad, and the godly’. Basically these correspond to Weil’s attempts to share the misery (malheur) of the laboring classes, her educational philosophy, political action, vision of postwar society (which she developed whilst working for the Free French), and finally her ethical and moral and theological vision. If I may declare my personal values, I’ll state that only the last category comprises a valuable legacy. Unless one believes in and practices mystical spirituality, Weil must ultimately remain a merely a manipulator of paradoxical notions of no practical significance, as General de Gaulle put it in response to one of her schemes, ‘elle est folle’ - the woman’s nuts!
Au fond, all of Weill’s contributions to ethics and morality have a solidly orthodox Christian Trinitarian basis (which the theologically illiterate confuse with ‘gnosticism’). God created our physical universe by withdrawing the divine presence (to use a field hockey term, ‘creating space’) and closes that infinite distance through the Incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus, which enables God to be present in us human creatures as well as the rest of creation. Weil’s seeming contradictions belong to the staple language of mysticism, where we can only express truths beyond our understanding in oxymoronic metaphors. Reading Sontag or Moi or Zaretsky on Simone Weil is like reading a book on opera by someone who knows all plots and the names and dates of the composers but has never heard an operatic performance.
Perhaps Weil’s seemingly self-inflicted death makes sense according the values of her beloved Greek tragedians: unfair, cruel, excessive and yet inevitable and right. Somehow the thought of that fiery spirit who overwhelmed her frail body to perish of voluntary starvation trying to subsist on the diet of a concentration camp inmate out of sheer empathy surviving the Second World War seems to contradict her very essence. It’s hard to imagine her in postwar Paris sitting at a table at the Flore drinking pastis with Jean-Paul Sartre and Juliette Greco. And yet she would have been only in her mid-fifties at the time of the Second Vatican Council, which might have overcome many of Weil’s objections to the institutional Church and its dogmas. I could see her along with Yves Congar and Karl Rahner acclaimed as a Catholic theologian. Indeed, it was Rahner who once declared that in the 21st century, the only real Christians will be mystics.
The ‘five ideas’ with which Zaretsky organizes the chapters of his book are: affliction, attention, resistance, finding roots, and what he calls ‘the good, the bad, and the godly’. Basically these correspond to Weil’s attempts to share the misery (malheur) of the laboring classes, her educational philosophy, political action, vision of postwar society (which she developed whilst working for the Free French), and finally her ethical and moral and theological vision. If I may declare my personal values, I’ll state that only the last category comprises a valuable legacy. Unless one believes in and practices mystical spirituality, Weil must ultimately remain a merely a manipulator of paradoxical notions of no practical significance, as General de Gaulle put it in response to one of her schemes, ‘elle est folle’ - the woman’s nuts!
Au fond, all of Weill’s contributions to ethics and morality have a solidly orthodox Christian Trinitarian basis (which the theologically illiterate confuse with ‘gnosticism’). God created our physical universe by withdrawing the divine presence (to use a field hockey term, ‘creating space’) and closes that infinite distance through the Incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus, which enables God to be present in us human creatures as well as the rest of creation. Weil’s seeming contradictions belong to the staple language of mysticism, where we can only express truths beyond our understanding in oxymoronic metaphors. Reading Sontag or Moi or Zaretsky on Simone Weil is like reading a book on opera by someone who knows all plots and the names and dates of the composers but has never heard an operatic performance.
Perhaps Weil’s seemingly self-inflicted death makes sense according the values of her beloved Greek tragedians: unfair, cruel, excessive and yet inevitable and right. Somehow the thought of that fiery spirit who overwhelmed her frail body to perish of voluntary starvation trying to subsist on the diet of a concentration camp inmate out of sheer empathy surviving the Second World War seems to contradict her very essence. It’s hard to imagine her in postwar Paris sitting at a table at the Flore drinking pastis with Jean-Paul Sartre and Juliette Greco. And yet she would have been only in her mid-fifties at the time of the Second Vatican Council, which might have overcome many of Weil’s objections to the institutional Church and its dogmas. I could see her along with Yves Congar and Karl Rahner acclaimed as a Catholic theologian. Indeed, it was Rahner who once declared that in the 21st century, the only real Christians will be mystics.
July 2, 2022
I admire intellectuals such as Simone Weil who lived during the early 20th century, because they felt a duty to publicly respond to the great events of those times: World War One, World War Two, fascism, psychology, communism, the holocaust, electrification, mechanization, industrialization, imperialism, colonization, globalization, etc.
I also admire philosophers, such as Simone Weil, because many have an instinct to share the fate of their fellow human beings by making themselves vulnerable to the uncertainties of life. Rather than acquire wealth or power, they prefer to work as bus drivers, laborers, farmers, and teachers.
This book examines Weil’s life as five themes:
1. The force of affliction - Weil became a manual laborer in factories and farms. Her insight was that modern labor makes us slaves incapable of thought. Over time, the force of affliction makes us ask, why?
2. Paying attention - Weil became a school teacher. She teaches her students that meaning is found in the world based on the nexus of things to which we pay attention. She encourages them to enter a state of mind where they wait to realize the truth, based on what they notice in the world. This is Weil's antidote to ideological thinking.
3. The varieties of resistance - Weil always adopted a stance of resistance and would even risk her life. Some of her activities were to join a brigade to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and join the Resistance during Nazi occupation of France. She was also one of the first women to attend the Lycee Henri IV. Weil taught that resistance means to know your principles, to live by them and not be moved off of them. For Weil, this form of resistance is synonymous with the ideal of duty.
4. Finding roots - The persistence of people is due to the persistence of their culture. Uprootedness causes despair. In seeking rootedness for ourselves, we must avoid nationalism, because it leads to colonialist policies that seek to uproot other cultures and inflicts despair on other peoples.
5. Religion and the good - I didn’t understand this chapter. It’s about Weil’s view of God, and what is good.
I also admire philosophers, such as Simone Weil, because many have an instinct to share the fate of their fellow human beings by making themselves vulnerable to the uncertainties of life. Rather than acquire wealth or power, they prefer to work as bus drivers, laborers, farmers, and teachers.
This book examines Weil’s life as five themes:
1. The force of affliction - Weil became a manual laborer in factories and farms. Her insight was that modern labor makes us slaves incapable of thought. Over time, the force of affliction makes us ask, why?
2. Paying attention - Weil became a school teacher. She teaches her students that meaning is found in the world based on the nexus of things to which we pay attention. She encourages them to enter a state of mind where they wait to realize the truth, based on what they notice in the world. This is Weil's antidote to ideological thinking.
3. The varieties of resistance - Weil always adopted a stance of resistance and would even risk her life. Some of her activities were to join a brigade to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and join the Resistance during Nazi occupation of France. She was also one of the first women to attend the Lycee Henri IV. Weil taught that resistance means to know your principles, to live by them and not be moved off of them. For Weil, this form of resistance is synonymous with the ideal of duty.
4. Finding roots - The persistence of people is due to the persistence of their culture. Uprootedness causes despair. In seeking rootedness for ourselves, we must avoid nationalism, because it leads to colonialist policies that seek to uproot other cultures and inflicts despair on other peoples.
5. Religion and the good - I didn’t understand this chapter. It’s about Weil’s view of God, and what is good.
January 26, 2024
not a fan. barely scratches weil’s work and doesn’t even provide a rudimentary summation of her ideas. gets lost in retelling the political climate of her time rather than providing substantial critiques of her work. also makes bizarre comparisons to modern day politics without diving into them. very superficial
the philosophise this! podcast gives a better introduction to weil.
the philosophise this! podcast gives a better introduction to weil.
March 12, 2021
"Reading [Weil] is always a revelation and a reproach." ~ Zaretsky
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Gets a sterling 5 🌟 In the end, it truly interrupted my life, pushing aside other reads and personal projects.
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For me, Weil is always a fresh splash of water in the form of a 10' wave. She washes over my doubts and disinclinations with her own specific reminder that there is more to do, more I can do, and should do less of what I actually do. She's an impossible role model that I turn to every chance I get. Indeed, Zaretsky's framing of Weil targeted someone like me who resists, yet must also survive.
.
Gets a sterling 5 🌟 In the end, it truly interrupted my life, pushing aside other reads and personal projects.
.
For me, Weil is always a fresh splash of water in the form of a 10' wave. She washes over my doubts and disinclinations with her own specific reminder that there is more to do, more I can do, and should do less of what I actually do. She's an impossible role model that I turn to every chance I get. Indeed, Zaretsky's framing of Weil targeted someone like me who resists, yet must also survive.
January 29, 2022
A very well done boil down of Weil's thought--inevitably that simplifies some of the interconnections and alternate phrasings--combined with a cogent biographical sketch. Zaretsky identifies the five key ideas as affliction, attention, resistance, rootedness, and goodness. (Jacqueline Rose in a valuable New York Review of Books essay advocates for "Justice" as a key addition.). Weil's not easy to approach--my choice for the book to start with is a compilation Gravity and Grace--so it's good to have Zaretsky's sharp eye selecting quotations to mix through.
August 31, 2025
Simone Weil is a necessary figure of inspiration for the person seeking moral guidance in the 21st century. The theme of attention is all the more prescient in the age of its commodification. Seeking rootedness in ever more transient lives. Working on behalf for and with the other. Pursuing the good life. Though we cannot and should not necessarily follow in her exact footsteps, she’s whacked a path for the moral person to follow, though one may spur from her exact trail.
February 13, 2022
The French mystical writer, Simone Weil, believed that there exists, in the moral and spiritual life of the individual, a force exactly equivalent to the Laws of Physics in science. “La grâce est-ce que le mouvement descendant à la deuxième puissance”. This is her most subversive thought. The tragedy of life is that the necessary is impossible. Forgiveness: the contemplation of a wrong against oneself, knowing it to be wrong, but seeking no redress - nor even seeking the consolation of treating it as a spiritual exercise - is beyond human capability. But it is this Cross which opens a void into which Grace can flow. Immortality is the emptying of The Self before the destruction of the body.
Appreciation of Weil’s writings has moved from ignorance to reverence with great rapidity. (Only a tiny fraction were published in her lifetime). So a scholarly, critical review of her work is overdue. Unfortunately, this book is not it.
Rather than critical Zaretsky is, for the most part, merely snide. Otherwise, frivolous. All of Weil’s well-known eccentricities are repeated, but Zaretsky seems genuinely shocked when he confronts the more challenging aspects of her self-abnegation. The final chapter - which should have dealt with Weil’s theology - is almost entirely worthless. No attempt is made to engage with his subject in anything but a dismissive mode and more time is spent on Iris Murdoch than Weil herself.
Readers new to Simone Weil should take care to avoid Zaretsky. Rather, try Weil herself. “Gravity and Grace” is epigrammatic but clear and accessible. Even in the original, Weil’s French is mostly GCSE level. Gustave Thibon is criticised by Zaretsky for editing “Gravity and Grace” to reflect his own views but, even if this were true (and it probably isn’t), he would still be the more reliable interpreter.
Appreciation of Weil’s writings has moved from ignorance to reverence with great rapidity. (Only a tiny fraction were published in her lifetime). So a scholarly, critical review of her work is overdue. Unfortunately, this book is not it.
Rather than critical Zaretsky is, for the most part, merely snide. Otherwise, frivolous. All of Weil’s well-known eccentricities are repeated, but Zaretsky seems genuinely shocked when he confronts the more challenging aspects of her self-abnegation. The final chapter - which should have dealt with Weil’s theology - is almost entirely worthless. No attempt is made to engage with his subject in anything but a dismissive mode and more time is spent on Iris Murdoch than Weil herself.
Readers new to Simone Weil should take care to avoid Zaretsky. Rather, try Weil herself. “Gravity and Grace” is epigrammatic but clear and accessible. Even in the original, Weil’s French is mostly GCSE level. Gustave Thibon is criticised by Zaretsky for editing “Gravity and Grace” to reflect his own views but, even if this were true (and it probably isn’t), he would still be the more reliable interpreter.
November 27, 2023
I would recommend this book for anyone seeking a primer in advance of seriously reading her works. Serious readers of Weil won't gain much. Generally, Zaretsky does a fine job at presenting her key ideas coherently, and his analysis is pretty good. However, he's also one of the book's greatest problems. The author rather annoyingly introduces himself into the book on multiple occasions. This wasn't always an issue, as certain anecdotes are useful. The epilogue, for instance, was succinct, timely, and well-written.
The main reason why I wouldn't give the book a higher rating is the writing quality. While I don't entirely judge Zaretsky for this, the format demands readers jump from place to place in Weil's life. Readers often redundantly go over information that was already discussed, and many such redundancies could have been omitted. In this way, it wasn't a very crisp text. Zaretsky's digressions were another problem. For instance, the intermittent jabs at Donald Trump just came off as juvenile and unscholarly, and I don't even like the 45th president. The best example of problematic digressions occurs in chapter 5, where the author's discussion of Murdoch detracts from discussing Weil's mysticism. Zaretsky seems to seek a more secular approach here, but I think readers would have been better served by a direct engagement with her beliefs. Only then should he have introduced Murdoch's Platonic interpretation of "the Good."
Overall, it's a fine primer with occasional annoying anecdotes. Experienced readers would be better off with other texts, or simply reading Weil herself.
The main reason why I wouldn't give the book a higher rating is the writing quality. While I don't entirely judge Zaretsky for this, the format demands readers jump from place to place in Weil's life. Readers often redundantly go over information that was already discussed, and many such redundancies could have been omitted. In this way, it wasn't a very crisp text. Zaretsky's digressions were another problem. For instance, the intermittent jabs at Donald Trump just came off as juvenile and unscholarly, and I don't even like the 45th president. The best example of problematic digressions occurs in chapter 5, where the author's discussion of Murdoch detracts from discussing Weil's mysticism. Zaretsky seems to seek a more secular approach here, but I think readers would have been better served by a direct engagement with her beliefs. Only then should he have introduced Murdoch's Platonic interpretation of "the Good."
Overall, it's a fine primer with occasional annoying anecdotes. Experienced readers would be better off with other texts, or simply reading Weil herself.
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January 11, 2022Simone Weil, who unfortunately died willfully at age 34, strikes me as an admirable, roving genius, certainly well above my orbit. Brilliance and an early death are ingredients for admiration. In Professor Zaretsky’s admiring work, he identifies and examines five themes that characterize Simone Weil’s writing: affliction, attention, rootedness, resistance and goodness. He then wanders about dwelling on the likes of Marcus Aurelius, King Lear, William James, Jean Anouilh, Camus, Homer, Iris Murdoch and Susan Sontag; I imagined the student who cleverly redefines an essay question to provide an impressive, though packaged, answer. I also thought of that scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen brings in Marshall McLuhan to set the record straight with a cinema line loudmouth who happens to teach “TV, Media and Culture” at Columbia University. Where is Ms. Weil when we need her to make a cameo? I suggest that to understand Simone Weil, we should read Simone Weil, rather than Professor Zaretsky’s direct and indirect reflections on Simone Weil, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, William James, Jean Anouilh, Albert Camus, Homer, Iris Murdoch and Susan Sontag. I was downright annoyed.
April 11, 2025
what a great first look into the life of an incredible person. her pursuit of knowledge and goodness was insatiable and she lived her life to better understand humanity. while I and many may not believe in all her ideas, her convictions to them and her refusal to compromise are inspiring and enviable. I look forward to reading some of her work.
May 6, 2021
I hope, for Weil's sake, that this book does not do her justice. Perhaps it is intended for those who have already read her work, as the author seems loath to address her work and her words directly, largely opting instead for biographical example and for the discussion of other thinkers with similar ideas.
Most infuriating is how desperate the author is to forgive himself for not living up to the high standards Weil set for herself, constantly reminding the reader that Weil was naive and her ideals inhuman. Can he really claim to share Weil's ideas if, as he says himself, he cannot bear to look a homeless person in the eye or give them money directly, and must instead retreat to impersonal donations to charitable organizations?
Most infuriating is how desperate the author is to forgive himself for not living up to the high standards Weil set for herself, constantly reminding the reader that Weil was naive and her ideals inhuman. Can he really claim to share Weil's ideas if, as he says himself, he cannot bear to look a homeless person in the eye or give them money directly, and must instead retreat to impersonal donations to charitable organizations?
November 2, 2025
Kudos to Robert Zaretsky for introducing me to the life and ideas of Simone Weil, a truly fascinating mid-20th-century figure of whom I had otherwise known nothing!
Weil was unquestionably a very strange person and an unconventional thinker; many of her actions can only be classed as bizarre. And thank goodness for that! After all, it’s the eccentrics, often the outright screwballs who are willing to challenge the conventional, the ordinary—what Weil characterized as “collectivity”, the convergence of the political, social, cultural and economic forces that dictate our lives; institutions that reinforce thoughtlessness, comfortable beliefs, the acceptance of finding ourselves powerless.
Largely because her ideas were so boldly contrary to prevailing forces, and because she refused to compromise, very little that she attempted to do was successful in her time; when she died in 1943 at only age 34, her passing gained scant notice, and her accumulated writings received limited publication in marginal journals; but Zaretsky’s concise account reveals a philosopher of vast intellect, along with extraordinary courage and determination. There are so many cogent and praiseworthy ideas here that I hardly know which to quote.
”A revolution, as the word literally implies, invariably comes full circle, ending where it began. Though language and law, titles and tradition might change, oppression remains constant.”
Weil espoused resistance in many forms to oppose the forces of oppression, rather than the futility of revolution. And she attacked all sectors of the political spectrum, whether left, right or whatever.
Addressing the forces that afflict society and the individual, she saw the plight of ordinary workers as being ”buried alive, effectively transformed into things by the combined forces of mechanization, industrialization and bureaucratization.”
Weil called for the abolition of all political parties. She argued that all of them, 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 are devoted to their collective self-preservation. These traits, in turn, make it nigh impossible for the individual members to think and act as individuals.
She characterized the mass communications channels of her day (radio, tabloids, popular magazines) as ”cocaine” that distorts and degrades the individual’s ability to think for themselves, attend to the world and to others. She laments that ”nearly everywhere, citizens no longer think, but instead they take sides, for or against. Her contemporaries had swapped the activity of the mind and the acknowledgement of complexity for the inanity of prejudice and the insistence upon simplicity.”
That is surely a view that would be even more relevant to our world of today, dominated by pernicious feedback loops of political parties and cable TV “news!”
Absorbing and thought-provoking; I will have lots of follow-up reading to do!
Weil was unquestionably a very strange person and an unconventional thinker; many of her actions can only be classed as bizarre. And thank goodness for that! After all, it’s the eccentrics, often the outright screwballs who are willing to challenge the conventional, the ordinary—what Weil characterized as “collectivity”, the convergence of the political, social, cultural and economic forces that dictate our lives; institutions that reinforce thoughtlessness, comfortable beliefs, the acceptance of finding ourselves powerless.
Largely because her ideas were so boldly contrary to prevailing forces, and because she refused to compromise, very little that she attempted to do was successful in her time; when she died in 1943 at only age 34, her passing gained scant notice, and her accumulated writings received limited publication in marginal journals; but Zaretsky’s concise account reveals a philosopher of vast intellect, along with extraordinary courage and determination. There are so many cogent and praiseworthy ideas here that I hardly know which to quote.
”A revolution, as the word literally implies, invariably comes full circle, ending where it began. Though language and law, titles and tradition might change, oppression remains constant.”
Weil espoused resistance in many forms to oppose the forces of oppression, rather than the futility of revolution. And she attacked all sectors of the political spectrum, whether left, right or whatever.
Addressing the forces that afflict society and the individual, she saw the plight of ordinary workers as being ”buried alive, effectively transformed into things by the combined forces of mechanization, industrialization and bureaucratization.”
Weil called for the abolition of all political parties. She argued that all of them, 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 are devoted to their collective self-preservation. These traits, in turn, make it nigh impossible for the individual members to think and act as individuals.
She characterized the mass communications channels of her day (radio, tabloids, popular magazines) as ”cocaine” that distorts and degrades the individual’s ability to think for themselves, attend to the world and to others. She laments that ”nearly everywhere, citizens no longer think, but instead they take sides, for or against. Her contemporaries had swapped the activity of the mind and the acknowledgement of complexity for the inanity of prejudice and the insistence upon simplicity.”
That is surely a view that would be even more relevant to our world of today, dominated by pernicious feedback loops of political parties and cable TV “news!”
Absorbing and thought-provoking; I will have lots of follow-up reading to do!
April 15, 2021
Timely
A thoughtful exploration of Weil's theological and moral commitments that should inspire hope and anguish in all readers. I was most struck by the reminder that in our daily interactions we prefer the antagonism of for and against when we should embrace nuance in the name of yet to be revealed and partly hidden truths.
A thoughtful exploration of Weil's theological and moral commitments that should inspire hope and anguish in all readers. I was most struck by the reminder that in our daily interactions we prefer the antagonism of for and against when we should embrace nuance in the name of yet to be revealed and partly hidden truths.
February 18, 2023
Es una buena opción si no tienes ni idea de simone weil (como yo) y combina tanto pinceladas de su vida como de su pensamiento. Encontré muy interesante el capítulo dedicado a la atención y el de las raíces, pero también vi algunas contradicciones que me alejaron un poco de la autora, de todas formas leeré algún libro de ella para poder hacerme una opinión más apropiada. Si tengo que nombrar algo malo del libro es que a veces se pasaba demasiado tiempo hablando de otros autores, lo que hace que el lector pueda mezclar ideas ajenas con las de simone weil.
En general diría que es un buen libro para acercarse al pensamiento de la autora
En general diría que es un buen libro para acercarse al pensamiento de la autora
January 14, 2024
Exemplary investigation of one of my most beloved thinkers. Zaretsky presents Weil in a manner which captures the tremendous intellect and determination she demonstrated throughout her life. Really, really enjoyed.
June 26, 2022
Great, very short, introductory biography to Simone Weil’s thought.
January 7, 2024
It was a dense read and more about her life and less about her philosophy than I expected — although some would argue those are one in the same
September 4, 2024
Brings Weil to life--alongside her intelligence, passion and tenacity.
November 25, 2025
Неидеальный эмпат, который всю жизнь метался в поисках смысла и справедливости.
Взгляды Симоны, как и моё к ней отношение, неоднозначны. Рада что автор книги подмечает и указывает на это.
Смесь раздражения и восхищения не оставит равнодушным.
В наш век, где активность не выходит за рамки интернета, и все сложнее видеть за аккаунтом живого человека, идеи Вейль актуальны как никогда.
Взгляды Симоны, как и моё к ней отношение, неоднозначны. Рада что автор книги подмечает и указывает на это.
Смесь раздражения и восхищения не оставит равнодушным.
В наш век, где активность не выходит за рамки интернета, и все сложнее видеть за аккаунтом живого человека, идеи Вейль актуальны как никогда.
October 3, 2023
parachuting nurses onto the battlefield was her second best idea, next to decreation. what a ledge !!
July 8, 2022
Robert Zaretsky has written a fine introduction to the infinitely demanding and rich philosophy of Simone Weil. The book doesn’t add much value for those who’ve read Weil, and indeed Weil is a rare philosopher with whom one struggles not with comprehension but implication. She is caustic, not obscure.
I found Zaretsky’s wrestling with implementing Weil’s imperatives in everyday life a nice break from the explicatory bulk of the text. Then again, the relationship of force to moral cowardice explored in these more personal passages are more meaningfully developed elsewhere - as in Wallace Shawn’s writings.
All in all, this is a competent book, but why not just read Weil? Maybe her ideas are attractive to you but her texts in and of themselves are too bitter or thick without mixing in some softer ingredients.
I found Zaretsky’s wrestling with implementing Weil’s imperatives in everyday life a nice break from the explicatory bulk of the text. Then again, the relationship of force to moral cowardice explored in these more personal passages are more meaningfully developed elsewhere - as in Wallace Shawn’s writings.
All in all, this is a competent book, but why not just read Weil? Maybe her ideas are attractive to you but her texts in and of themselves are too bitter or thick without mixing in some softer ingredients.
February 25, 2022
I’d heard the name Simone Weil for years but knew nothing about her. This short book is an excellent introduction to her life and philosophy. Weil is considered, by many, a secular saint. She was attracted to Catholic teachings (despite being Jewish) and had mystical experiences, but could never approve of the authority of the Church. She believed in the nobility of human suffering, and the need to resist material, selfish, and destructive forces (in her case, the Nazis and Capitalism). She sacrificed her health to work next to and identify better with those less fortunate. She was a difficult, uncompromising, and stubborn woman who tried to stay absolutely true to what she believed, damn the consequences.
March 5, 2022
A concise and illuminating discussion of Simone Weil's life and writings framed by 5 major themes in her writing and ethics (affliction, paying attention, resistance, rootedness, morality and God). A fascinating, complicated intellectual and restless spirit. Also, in her sweeping generalizations of the lives of the poor and rural laborers, a lesson in not letting your own mental models blind you to the capabilities and unique gifts of individuals.
January 17, 2024
Affliction, attention, rootedness, resistance and goodness. Five major ideas that center the examination of philosophy, essayist, and 20th century mystic Zaretsky. Writer Robert Zarestsky explores Weil's life through her history, and the intellectual writers of that influenced or followed (Camus, Murdoch). Although we don't explore in depth her famous essays such as "The Need for Roots" or "Human Personality", we do explore the core ideas and their manifestation in Weil's very active and outspoken life.
Just as Weil was never without an opinion, her readers are never without an opinion of her. My encounters with Weil have been through podcasts. Stephen West's zeal for her engagement (https://www.philosophizethis.org/blog...) and series of podcast was a great primer. As was David Runciman's haunting podcast "Human Personality" (https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-vi...). Her bracing take down of human rights and indictment of democracies during wartime, may maker her a thought leader at home in our times that in the time she lived.
Zarestky captures the spirited way in which Weil lived. She appears to have almost lived 9 lives, investing herself into anarcho-syndicate causes, manual labor, warfare, and cloistered life. Her development of ideas and life story can seem at times irrational, contradictory, hypocritical or even unwise. Stories about her manual labor and proselytizing about the sacredness of manual labor reveal some of naivety and arrogance. Other stories about her spiritual revelations and undogmatic conversion reveal inner turmoil of a religious and political kind.
But having heard more of her work, I have a deeper appreciation for her uneasy categorization. Zarestky shares the story of Weil having her students do an outward meditation. Her students would think not of answers or what's right, but questions. Audaciously, Weil confronted the past, finding insights into Biblical stories and Homeric Odysseys, as well as the time she lived, finding through her words or something in battles against facism or Stanist communism, or the colonial powers such her occupied country France.
I wish there was a deeper analysis of her essays or lectures here. Having recently read “Human Personality”, I was struck by her directness and boldness of ideas. There is the sense in reading her that we are directing ourselves toward an unknown territory. As Runcimans stated, there is a type of religious sacredness at the heart of this vision Maybe it’s the multitude of ideas she had, or the various philosophical schools she could claim influence form, but she seems so difficult to pin down, and at times understand.
It would be a wonder to know how Weil would respond to our world today. Her ideas on “rootedness”, feel eerily prescient. Whether it's the loneliness epidemic, the Trump resurgence or the post-pandemic fear, we live at a time where questions of our relationship to each other are central. The spiritual ennui and cynicism inflicting our culture may demand the type of response to suffering that is a few clicks from our phone.
Having experienced war in Spain, and encountering the icy war machine of Nazi Germany, would she be rousing support against the authoritarian countries of Russia or Iran? Her utter disdain for colonization may have her leading anti-American rallies or pro-Palestianian ones. Perhaps she would be in abbey or isolation, writing and contending with the forces attending to our time. As her work implies, moving toward human obligations instead of human rights indeed may be the great call toward the unending cruelty of our collective ignorance.
Overall a good read. Approaching her work through the 5 virtues listed is unconventional and appropriate for the unconventional Weil. Maybe it’s a limitations of the book or Weil’s indecipherability, but i’m left wanting to understand so much more.
Just as Weil was never without an opinion, her readers are never without an opinion of her. My encounters with Weil have been through podcasts. Stephen West's zeal for her engagement (https://www.philosophizethis.org/blog...) and series of podcast was a great primer. As was David Runciman's haunting podcast "Human Personality" (https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-vi...). Her bracing take down of human rights and indictment of democracies during wartime, may maker her a thought leader at home in our times that in the time she lived.
Zarestky captures the spirited way in which Weil lived. She appears to have almost lived 9 lives, investing herself into anarcho-syndicate causes, manual labor, warfare, and cloistered life. Her development of ideas and life story can seem at times irrational, contradictory, hypocritical or even unwise. Stories about her manual labor and proselytizing about the sacredness of manual labor reveal some of naivety and arrogance. Other stories about her spiritual revelations and undogmatic conversion reveal inner turmoil of a religious and political kind.
But having heard more of her work, I have a deeper appreciation for her uneasy categorization. Zarestky shares the story of Weil having her students do an outward meditation. Her students would think not of answers or what's right, but questions. Audaciously, Weil confronted the past, finding insights into Biblical stories and Homeric Odysseys, as well as the time she lived, finding through her words or something in battles against facism or Stanist communism, or the colonial powers such her occupied country France.
I wish there was a deeper analysis of her essays or lectures here. Having recently read “Human Personality”, I was struck by her directness and boldness of ideas. There is the sense in reading her that we are directing ourselves toward an unknown territory. As Runcimans stated, there is a type of religious sacredness at the heart of this vision Maybe it’s the multitude of ideas she had, or the various philosophical schools she could claim influence form, but she seems so difficult to pin down, and at times understand.
It would be a wonder to know how Weil would respond to our world today. Her ideas on “rootedness”, feel eerily prescient. Whether it's the loneliness epidemic, the Trump resurgence or the post-pandemic fear, we live at a time where questions of our relationship to each other are central. The spiritual ennui and cynicism inflicting our culture may demand the type of response to suffering that is a few clicks from our phone.
Having experienced war in Spain, and encountering the icy war machine of Nazi Germany, would she be rousing support against the authoritarian countries of Russia or Iran? Her utter disdain for colonization may have her leading anti-American rallies or pro-Palestianian ones. Perhaps she would be in abbey or isolation, writing and contending with the forces attending to our time. As her work implies, moving toward human obligations instead of human rights indeed may be the great call toward the unending cruelty of our collective ignorance.
Overall a good read. Approaching her work through the 5 virtues listed is unconventional and appropriate for the unconventional Weil. Maybe it’s a limitations of the book or Weil’s indecipherability, but i’m left wanting to understand so much more.
January 27, 2022
In giving us a biography of Simone Weil's philosophy, Robert Zaretsky focuses on five ideas -- affliction, attention, resistance, rootedness and the Good and God. Other reviews have taken issue with his omission of Justice from these five. In a letter of response to the New York Review of Books, Zaretsky accurately points out that he discusses Weil's view of justice at length. The reason for my agreement with his choices was Weil's evolution on what constitutes justice. Describing herself as a "bolshevik" in high school, Zaretsky underscores her evolution from such sympathies in these words: "Like Orwell and Camus, Weil was an isolated voice on the left who denounced communism with the same vehemence as she did fascism." She saw Stalinism as, not a Marxist clock out of order, but a different mechanism onto itself.
Part of Simone Weil's charisma is the above independence.
Zaretsky's chapter on rootedness is, imho, his best. "Duty towards the human being -- that alone is eternal," he quotes Weil. Instead of prioritizing "rights," Weil instead focuses on our obligations toward each other as part of our rootedness in the human community.
Having come to Weil as a neophyte, I was surprised to read not only of her conversion to Catholicism (she was brought up in a secular Jewish household), but to read that that conversion was based on two mystical experiences. "Weil observed," writes Zaretsky, "that her own suffering (she was afflicted by migraines), or malheur, resonated with the suffering, framed by Christian faith...." Visiting a chapel in Assisi, "she felt something 'stronger than I was' that forced her to her knees. A brilliant moral philosopher, Weil insisted that her conversion was based "upon the seamless movement between Greek thought and Christian faith." Yet, true to herself, Weil refused baptism and refused to submit to Catholic doctrine: "... she refused to separate herself from the fate of unbelievers. Anathema sit, the churches sentence of banishment against heretics, filled Weil with horror," Zaretsky emphasizes.
Besides Camus, the other moral philosopher Zaretsky brings into Weil's ideas are those of Iris Murdock. Zaretsky considers their ideas connected and quotes Murdock to illustrate. I found the connection Zaretsky makes fortuitous, and thus his decision to do so a distraction.
Zaretsky's short book inspired me to purchase Weil's biography written by her friend, Simone Petrement. Here, I expect Petrement will flesh out how Weil's physical fraility resulted in her inability to fulfill her aspirations. From her experience in Spain with the Repbulicans to her plan (presented to de Gaulle) to parachute nurses dressed in white into combat to fight alonside allied soldiers, Weil's tenacious idealism broke against the rocks of reality, including her own physical limits. Over time, this took its toll on Simone Weil's health as well as her morale
Weil also wrote against political parties. If a politicican announced that they would pursue completely what was best for the country and the world, Weil wrote, they would be exiled from their party. Yet this is what Weil advocated -- principled office holders who viewed duty to human beings as transcending party interests. How we could use her voice today.
Simone Weil above all was an absolute idealist. She placed huge obligations on herself to adhere to principle. In Middlesex hospital, dying of tuberculosis, Weil refused to eat more than the rations alloted to her fellow French during the war. She refused treatment for her illness. Tragically, she died at the age of thirty four.
I'm afriad I must agree with some of the other reviews that Zaretsky's digression into the moral issues he feels at encountering panhandler's coming off the expressway near his home and work jolted me out of the book's narration. Weil addressed issues of metaphysical significance during a time of the worst evil in history. Reading how Zaretsky addressed a panhandler at his expressway exit detracted from his narration of Weil's ideas. And thus the book.
Part of Simone Weil's charisma is the above independence.
Zaretsky's chapter on rootedness is, imho, his best. "Duty towards the human being -- that alone is eternal," he quotes Weil. Instead of prioritizing "rights," Weil instead focuses on our obligations toward each other as part of our rootedness in the human community.
Having come to Weil as a neophyte, I was surprised to read not only of her conversion to Catholicism (she was brought up in a secular Jewish household), but to read that that conversion was based on two mystical experiences. "Weil observed," writes Zaretsky, "that her own suffering (she was afflicted by migraines), or malheur, resonated with the suffering, framed by Christian faith...." Visiting a chapel in Assisi, "she felt something 'stronger than I was' that forced her to her knees. A brilliant moral philosopher, Weil insisted that her conversion was based "upon the seamless movement between Greek thought and Christian faith." Yet, true to herself, Weil refused baptism and refused to submit to Catholic doctrine: "... she refused to separate herself from the fate of unbelievers. Anathema sit, the churches sentence of banishment against heretics, filled Weil with horror," Zaretsky emphasizes.
Besides Camus, the other moral philosopher Zaretsky brings into Weil's ideas are those of Iris Murdock. Zaretsky considers their ideas connected and quotes Murdock to illustrate. I found the connection Zaretsky makes fortuitous, and thus his decision to do so a distraction.
Zaretsky's short book inspired me to purchase Weil's biography written by her friend, Simone Petrement. Here, I expect Petrement will flesh out how Weil's physical fraility resulted in her inability to fulfill her aspirations. From her experience in Spain with the Repbulicans to her plan (presented to de Gaulle) to parachute nurses dressed in white into combat to fight alonside allied soldiers, Weil's tenacious idealism broke against the rocks of reality, including her own physical limits. Over time, this took its toll on Simone Weil's health as well as her morale
Weil also wrote against political parties. If a politicican announced that they would pursue completely what was best for the country and the world, Weil wrote, they would be exiled from their party. Yet this is what Weil advocated -- principled office holders who viewed duty to human beings as transcending party interests. How we could use her voice today.
Simone Weil above all was an absolute idealist. She placed huge obligations on herself to adhere to principle. In Middlesex hospital, dying of tuberculosis, Weil refused to eat more than the rations alloted to her fellow French during the war. She refused treatment for her illness. Tragically, she died at the age of thirty four.
I'm afriad I must agree with some of the other reviews that Zaretsky's digression into the moral issues he feels at encountering panhandler's coming off the expressway near his home and work jolted me out of the book's narration. Weil addressed issues of metaphysical significance during a time of the worst evil in history. Reading how Zaretsky addressed a panhandler at his expressway exit detracted from his narration of Weil's ideas. And thus the book.
April 12, 2025
Sometimes, when reading different books simultaneously, they come to acquaint themselves with each other in my mind, even become friends. In this case, the experience of reading Small Things Like These along with The Subversive Simone Weil, aligned in my comprehension with what might almost be called synchronicity.
Simone sits down for tea, no not tea, more likely a couple swallows of water in a nondescript clay cup - with Bill Furlong, the fictional character in Claire Keegan’s story, who will have a bottle of stout. Zaretsky, the author of Weil’s bio, invited Camus and Murdoch to the table, who sit quietly beside her - but as they stumble through introductions and brief, suppressed smiles exchanged, the main connection establishes between Simone and Bill.
Zaretsky has brilliantly highlighted Weil’s key tenets of thinking within the context of her life and history. One chapter in particular called The Good, the Bad, and the Godly - makes for great conversation between her and Bill Furlong in my mind’s cafe.
Bill is a simple man, but he possesses a heart unfettered by personal fantasy and haunted by childhood trauma. This creates in him a perfect balance of character to prepare him for the dilemma that Keegan drives him toward with her eloquent, vivid prose. He will arrive at a moment where he must see the world clearly, and act accordingly.
Though I’m certain he won’t boast of this decision(the key climax of Small Things Like These) to these lofty intellectuals who have joined him at the table, I like to imagine they know of it - and with Weil as the central philosophical prism, they’d reflect upon it not only with approval but to reveal its sheer light and power.
Weil was someone who sought truth and goodness at a particularly challenging time and place in history. She sought them with tenacity and self-destructive devotion. We are lucky that she wrote so much along the way. Zaretsky adds to our catalogue with a volume revealing her as a person convicted and frail and determined after sincerity to the point of inspiring her contemporaries and many of us still today. Keegan spins a yarn about a man who is simple, but able to meet a key moment in his life facing a visceral complicity to wrongness and chooses the good act in spite of personal risk.
Bill smiles faintly, glances around the crowded cafe with a certain discomfort and wonders how soon he can leave to get back to his family without seeming impolite to these famous European philosophers. They prattle on with each other, stumbling to involve him, but ultimately seeing in him an embodiment of hope. He sets down his empty bottle, thanks them for their kindness, and with a remark about “coal I’ve got to deliver” and a certain degree of meekness, he stands to leave.
Even with all this distraction and evil that have come to pollute our world since their lives in the early 20th century, Weil and her contemporaries smile as they watch him leave - there will always be people who see, and act with simple, doubt dispelling goodness.
Simone sits down for tea, no not tea, more likely a couple swallows of water in a nondescript clay cup - with Bill Furlong, the fictional character in Claire Keegan’s story, who will have a bottle of stout. Zaretsky, the author of Weil’s bio, invited Camus and Murdoch to the table, who sit quietly beside her - but as they stumble through introductions and brief, suppressed smiles exchanged, the main connection establishes between Simone and Bill.
Zaretsky has brilliantly highlighted Weil’s key tenets of thinking within the context of her life and history. One chapter in particular called The Good, the Bad, and the Godly - makes for great conversation between her and Bill Furlong in my mind’s cafe.
Bill is a simple man, but he possesses a heart unfettered by personal fantasy and haunted by childhood trauma. This creates in him a perfect balance of character to prepare him for the dilemma that Keegan drives him toward with her eloquent, vivid prose. He will arrive at a moment where he must see the world clearly, and act accordingly.
Though I’m certain he won’t boast of this decision(the key climax of Small Things Like These) to these lofty intellectuals who have joined him at the table, I like to imagine they know of it - and with Weil as the central philosophical prism, they’d reflect upon it not only with approval but to reveal its sheer light and power.
Weil was someone who sought truth and goodness at a particularly challenging time and place in history. She sought them with tenacity and self-destructive devotion. We are lucky that she wrote so much along the way. Zaretsky adds to our catalogue with a volume revealing her as a person convicted and frail and determined after sincerity to the point of inspiring her contemporaries and many of us still today. Keegan spins a yarn about a man who is simple, but able to meet a key moment in his life facing a visceral complicity to wrongness and chooses the good act in spite of personal risk.
Bill smiles faintly, glances around the crowded cafe with a certain discomfort and wonders how soon he can leave to get back to his family without seeming impolite to these famous European philosophers. They prattle on with each other, stumbling to involve him, but ultimately seeing in him an embodiment of hope. He sets down his empty bottle, thanks them for their kindness, and with a remark about “coal I’ve got to deliver” and a certain degree of meekness, he stands to leave.
Even with all this distraction and evil that have come to pollute our world since their lives in the early 20th century, Weil and her contemporaries smile as they watch him leave - there will always be people who see, and act with simple, doubt dispelling goodness.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2025
Kdo filosofii a životní příběh Weil už tak trochu zná, tak se zde moc nového nedozví, ale zároveň člověk, který Weil nezná, podle mě nebude schopen si z textu odnést nějaký pevnější rámec její filosofie kvůli té zvláštní kombinaci vysoce specifických informací a volnomyšlenkářského stylu psaní, které zde Zaretsky aplikuje. Co průměrně vzdělanému čtenářstvu zbude, bude možná nějaký dojem o osobnostních rysech Weil – jako jsou urputnost, vášeň či neústupnost – které zde autor neustále akcentuje. Mnohdy mi přijde, že kniha je spíš o Zaretskem a o tom, co si o Weil myslí, než o ní samotné. Což je homorné vzhledem k tomu, že je zde celá kapitola o jáství a egoismu, které nám často brání spatřovat skutečnost tak, jaká opravdu je.
Přítomnost autorova ega ostatně sám Zaretsky nepřímo komentuje v části o pozornosti a utrpení. Weil pozornost člověka považuje za tu nejvzácnější a nejčistší formu velkorysosti – je to ten nejvyšší dar, který druhému můžeme nabídnout. Problémem nicméně je, že často se na ostatní díváme skrz názorový filtr, který nám podobu druhého člověka zakřivuje – a čím víc je daný člověk odlišný, tím méně ho dokážeme spatřovat bez našeho názorového soudu. Zaretsky píše: Jen zřídka, pokud vůbec, dokážu přemýšlet o čemkoli nebo komkoli jiném, aniž bych zároveň nemyslel na sebe.
Tenhle poznatek se pak volně přelívá do naprosto fenomenální části knihy, kterou je závěrečná kapitola, The Good, the Bad, and the Godly, ve které se mj. stáváme svědky dialogu (facilitovaného Zaretskym) mezi Simone Weil a Iris Murdoch. Tahle část je za mě důvodem, proč přetrpět zbytek knihy.
Pozornost pro Weil nebyla pouze nejvyšším darem druhým, ale také jednou z nejdůležitějších cest k Bohu (Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as a prayer. // Complete attention is like unconciousness.) Murdoch na Weil navazuje, z jejího pojetí ale vyjímá tu teologickou rovinu a pozornost formuluje jako morální ctnost, která nám umožňuje spatřit druhého pravdivě. Obě zdůrazňují potřebu vyprázdnění/odstupu od Já (Weil décréation, Murdoch unselfing), abychom se mohli přiblížit skutečnosti a jednat v jejím světle.
Za mě je to neskutečně atraktivní pojetí, nicméně – jak se to ve filosofii asi mnohdy stává – je zde asi zanedbaná sociální rovina, protože si vybavuju rozhovor s Alicí Koubovou, ve kterém říkala, že aby se člověk mohl vzdát ega (odstoupit od sebe sama), nejdřív nějaké musí mít. Nejdřív si musí nějaké vybudovat skrz vztahovost a důvěru ve svět. A napadá mě, jestli tahle touha odstoupit od Já, která provází některý jedince (a která ostatně Weil vzala život v jejích 34 letech), není manifestem toho, když nám naše Já překáží, když je ho na nás moc. (Schopenhauer a jeho výbuchy zla na ulici, jeho touhy po asketismu.) Těžké rozřešit to napětí mezi člověkem jakožto reciproční bytostí s osobností a touhou po vlastní individuaci – a člověkem jakožto bytosti schopné sama sebe překračovat, konat ze sebe pro druhé.
Přítomnost autorova ega ostatně sám Zaretsky nepřímo komentuje v části o pozornosti a utrpení. Weil pozornost člověka považuje za tu nejvzácnější a nejčistší formu velkorysosti – je to ten nejvyšší dar, který druhému můžeme nabídnout. Problémem nicméně je, že často se na ostatní díváme skrz názorový filtr, který nám podobu druhého člověka zakřivuje – a čím víc je daný člověk odlišný, tím méně ho dokážeme spatřovat bez našeho názorového soudu. Zaretsky píše: Jen zřídka, pokud vůbec, dokážu přemýšlet o čemkoli nebo komkoli jiném, aniž bych zároveň nemyslel na sebe.
Tenhle poznatek se pak volně přelívá do naprosto fenomenální části knihy, kterou je závěrečná kapitola, The Good, the Bad, and the Godly, ve které se mj. stáváme svědky dialogu (facilitovaného Zaretskym) mezi Simone Weil a Iris Murdoch. Tahle část je za mě důvodem, proč přetrpět zbytek knihy.
Pozornost pro Weil nebyla pouze nejvyšším darem druhým, ale také jednou z nejdůležitějších cest k Bohu (Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as a prayer. // Complete attention is like unconciousness.) Murdoch na Weil navazuje, z jejího pojetí ale vyjímá tu teologickou rovinu a pozornost formuluje jako morální ctnost, která nám umožňuje spatřit druhého pravdivě. Obě zdůrazňují potřebu vyprázdnění/odstupu od Já (Weil décréation, Murdoch unselfing), abychom se mohli přiblížit skutečnosti a jednat v jejím světle.
Za mě je to neskutečně atraktivní pojetí, nicméně – jak se to ve filosofii asi mnohdy stává – je zde asi zanedbaná sociální rovina, protože si vybavuju rozhovor s Alicí Koubovou, ve kterém říkala, že aby se člověk mohl vzdát ega (odstoupit od sebe sama), nejdřív nějaké musí mít. Nejdřív si musí nějaké vybudovat skrz vztahovost a důvěru ve svět. A napadá mě, jestli tahle touha odstoupit od Já, která provází některý jedince (a která ostatně Weil vzala život v jejích 34 letech), není manifestem toho, když nám naše Já překáží, když je ho na nás moc. (Schopenhauer a jeho výbuchy zla na ulici, jeho touhy po asketismu.) Těžké rozřešit to napětí mezi člověkem jakožto reciproční bytostí s osobností a touhou po vlastní individuaci – a člověkem jakožto bytosti schopné sama sebe překračovat, konat ze sebe pro druhé.
April 17, 2024
With The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, the author has given (us) mystical wonderers a great feast. I don't want to get in trouble, but I'm tempted to give a rating of "8-Stars."
Probably around 1996, shortly after my bout with cancer, I ran across the name of Simone Weil for the first time. It took me a little while to figure out she was a she (not a he) and to figure out how to pronounce her last name. In the three decades since, I've grown in my interest towards her for any (many) number of reasons: our mutual interest in inner sculpting, our tendency to be somewhat "maladroit" in common, everyday affairs, and our fixation on the "second great commandment."
I don't know how much Tolstoy influenced her (if at all), but many of her ideas parallel his later-life injunctions: the import of not lying, the necessity of not closing one's eyes to the suffering of others, and the preeminence of feeding starving human beings (cf H.E.L.P.--one of the entries in my e-book, Burrow).
Zaretsky didn't delve into Weil's sex life, which is maybe appropriate (even if the topic can have a pretty substantive effect on how some people's lives and ideas progress). He did provide strong descriptions of Weil's thoughts on "seeing" the Kingdom of Good (or God), her reluctance to convert to the Catholic Church, and her seriousness (by turning away from childish things at age 25). She decided, as have I, that "a life worth living" is a life filled with solving life's problems generally and concretely (and not only the problems in one's own life).
Robert Zaretsky is a liberal arts professor at the University of Houston and has authored a few books on Camus, including Victories Never Last (2022). If you like The Subversive Simone Weil, some other relevant titles would include No Compromise (1989), Heaven Is Under Our Feet (1991), Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, The Republic (Plato), and What Then Must We Do? (Tolstoy).
Probably around 1996, shortly after my bout with cancer, I ran across the name of Simone Weil for the first time. It took me a little while to figure out she was a she (not a he) and to figure out how to pronounce her last name. In the three decades since, I've grown in my interest towards her for any (many) number of reasons: our mutual interest in inner sculpting, our tendency to be somewhat "maladroit" in common, everyday affairs, and our fixation on the "second great commandment."
I don't know how much Tolstoy influenced her (if at all), but many of her ideas parallel his later-life injunctions: the import of not lying, the necessity of not closing one's eyes to the suffering of others, and the preeminence of feeding starving human beings (cf H.E.L.P.--one of the entries in my e-book, Burrow).
Zaretsky didn't delve into Weil's sex life, which is maybe appropriate (even if the topic can have a pretty substantive effect on how some people's lives and ideas progress). He did provide strong descriptions of Weil's thoughts on "seeing" the Kingdom of Good (or God), her reluctance to convert to the Catholic Church, and her seriousness (by turning away from childish things at age 25). She decided, as have I, that "a life worth living" is a life filled with solving life's problems generally and concretely (and not only the problems in one's own life).
Robert Zaretsky is a liberal arts professor at the University of Houston and has authored a few books on Camus, including Victories Never Last (2022). If you like The Subversive Simone Weil, some other relevant titles would include No Compromise (1989), Heaven Is Under Our Feet (1991), Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, The Republic (Plato), and What Then Must We Do? (Tolstoy).
July 13, 2022
Este es mi primer acercamiento a Simone Weil, su vida y su obra. Da pinceladas amplias de los temas que movían sus ideales éticos y políticos y los liga con pasajes de su vida que ayudan a entender porqué su interés.
Una de las ideas que desarrolla es la de "le malheur" (la desdicha), que me pareció sumamente actual. La forma en que nuestro estar en el mundo, a partir de la relación con el trabajo, no solo nos esclaviza, sino que nos impide vivir y luchar contra las causas que generan nuestra misma desdicha.
Sus ideas sobre la resistencia, la revolución y las alternativas para transformar el mundo me gustaría profundizarlas y entenderlas mejor, no para estar de acuerdo con ella, sino para poder cuestionar de una mejor forma mi propia manera de vivirlas y pensarlas. Me parece que es un poco pesimista en este tema, aunque reconoce que la dificultad para modificar las cosas no es razón para dejar de intentarlo, como una obligación ética.
Las otras ideas que se desarrollan son la atención, las raíces y sobre el bien y el mal.
Es una figura imponente, aunque no siempre despertó mi simpatía. A seguir conociéndola.
" La época actual es una en la que todo lo que habitualmente parecía una razón para vivir se desvanece, una en la que, a riesgo de hundirnos en el desconcierto o la inconciencia, debemos ponerlo todo en cuestión. Que el triunfo de los movimientos autoritarios y nacionalistas haya arruinado en gran parte la esperanza que la gente honrada tenía en la democracia y el pacifismo es solo una parte del mal que sufrimos. (...) Vivimos una época desprovista de futuro. En la espera de lo que vendrá no hay esperanza, sino angustia.
Simone Weil
Una de las ideas que desarrolla es la de "le malheur" (la desdicha), que me pareció sumamente actual. La forma en que nuestro estar en el mundo, a partir de la relación con el trabajo, no solo nos esclaviza, sino que nos impide vivir y luchar contra las causas que generan nuestra misma desdicha.
Sus ideas sobre la resistencia, la revolución y las alternativas para transformar el mundo me gustaría profundizarlas y entenderlas mejor, no para estar de acuerdo con ella, sino para poder cuestionar de una mejor forma mi propia manera de vivirlas y pensarlas. Me parece que es un poco pesimista en este tema, aunque reconoce que la dificultad para modificar las cosas no es razón para dejar de intentarlo, como una obligación ética.
Las otras ideas que se desarrollan son la atención, las raíces y sobre el bien y el mal.
Es una figura imponente, aunque no siempre despertó mi simpatía. A seguir conociéndola.
" La época actual es una en la que todo lo que habitualmente parecía una razón para vivir se desvanece, una en la que, a riesgo de hundirnos en el desconcierto o la inconciencia, debemos ponerlo todo en cuestión. Que el triunfo de los movimientos autoritarios y nacionalistas haya arruinado en gran parte la esperanza que la gente honrada tenía en la democracia y el pacifismo es solo una parte del mal que sufrimos. (...) Vivimos una época desprovista de futuro. En la espera de lo que vendrá no hay esperanza, sino angustia.
Simone Weil
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