First and Last Notebooks by Simone Weil (January 2017)
Weil was a French philosopher, political activist, and mystic (cheers, Wikipedia). Her writing was not widely known until a couple of decades after her death in 1943 at the age of just thirty-four. However, once her ideas circulated, Weil's reputation grew immensely. She is credited for influencing a number of well-known figures, including Pope Paul VI, Albert Camus, Flannery O'Connor, and the lead writer at True On Average.
This book is a little difficult to describe. A first guess based merely on the title alone would not be far off the mark. It is basically like flipping through someone's notes. It's a collection of sorts, though not the traditional kind often seen in book form (this is not a series of essays, articles, shorter books, etc).
In the introduction chapter, it is speculated that these notes, writings, and meditations form a loose framework for an upcoming book (though upon further thought, I suppose that is not much of a prediction coming from someone writing the introduction to the very book that these notes ended up becoming). Whatever the best way to describe this work is, it does not change the fact that the content reached me in a number of significant ways.
Much of her writing struck me for its similarity to my own recent reading or lines of thought. In suffering, Weil finds immense value- so long as every legitimate attempt to avoid it was made. She notes that individuals who specialize grow dependent on society and muses that collectives are truly superior to the individual except for one key domain: thought.
She even remarks on the nature of the idiot- look for the man who is bringing the oven to the bread that needs baking. I laughed out loud at this, imagining a future Harvard Business Review article describing this newest of 'business bro' catchphrases. (1)
I'm still working out Weil's concerns about charity. She notes that a charitable gesture, handled compassionately, allows one to truly love a neighbor in the way one loves oneself- by feeding the hungry merely because of their hunger. In relating such thoughts, Weil seems to observe those around her ascending to a higher level of being through their giving.
But in other moments, Weil reveals perhaps a more cynical reading of intentions. She points out that, to a hungry man, charity means receiving bread while, for the well-fed, charity means giving bread. And to recall the good one does for another, Weil remarks, puts the helper in debt to the helped. In one passage, Weil bluntly reframes giving without true compassion as pity, not charity.
Perhaps this is driven by her immense feeling of oneness with God. In charity, Weil saw the opportunity for a person to exceed God for only a person can feed the hungry or tend to the sick. But it must be done with compassion, a task Weil thought impossible for those who were not in contact with God. Those not in contact with God simply did not have the means to bear in their own souls another's affliction.
The themes about how people have the ability to act as one with God will stay with me the longest from this collection. In paying attention without distraction, one is imitating the patience and humility of God. And in relinquishing one's free will, a person comes as close possible to equality with God.
Belief, Weil sees, is unstoppable. She sees it in history, citing that Rome dismissed how hard it is for people to entirely forget about God. Her own belief sustains her conviction that good can prevail over evil. Why else, she reasons, would God create the world if evil's triumph was predetermined?
One up: A section describing a list of temptations to consider upon waking and counter throughout the day reminded me of some of the things I currently do. Here is a short, paraphrased list of my favorites from this passage:
*Idleness- never put off what you have decided to do.
*The Inner Life- deal with the difficulties that actually confront you.
*Self-immolation- never give another more than you would demand of yourself.
*Perversity- never respond to evil so as to augment it.
One down: Given that this work (like all of Weil's work) was published posthumously, regular readers may find that the organizing step of bringing notes into a completed book is not up to the level expected for such a well-regarded work. (2)
Long time readers of this space, of course, will know that this does not matter much to me. But even I lost the plot a couple of times in this collection.
Just saying: I'm on the fence about reading more from Weil. If I do choose to further explore her work, I'm almost certain to read either An Anthology or The Need For Roots.
Why those works? They are the only two of her works that have been translated into Arabic. For some reason, it seems relevant that someone went to the trouble to do this with only these two out of her published works. I'm going to play a hunch and say that, perhaps, it says something about the quality or importance of these works.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. How so, boss?
"Isn't making everyone come to the office during this blizzard like moving the oven?"
"Why
not ship the parts direct to the customer with instructions instead of
assembling it at the warehouse? What next, we gonna drag the oven out
here to the cubicles to heat up lunch?
"This new
expense reimbursement policy- why not just give everyone a credit card
to work with? Otherwise we're going to need a whole team to just move
the ovens back and forth, you know what I mean?
2. All of my work published posthumously? Sounds like a low-commitment New Year's resolution for January 1, 2018...
Not that I make New Year's resolutions, of course.
