Post by Michael on Oct 19, 2023 17:45:11 GMT
Has any one got any thought on Simone Weil. I am currently reading her and she certainly has a few goods observations, but her bio is full of the usual red flags.
I will use the thread to post some quotes that may at least make you smile. I may even get round to flagging up those red flags.
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.
Liberty is the power of choice within the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and the authority accepted as legitimate. The latitude should be sufficiently wide for liberty to be more than a fiction, but it should include only what is innocent and should never be wide enough to permit certain kinds of crime.
It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.
To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled — that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.
The good is the only source of the sacred. There is nothing sacred except the good and what pertains to it.
The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavour, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.
If a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate.
Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.
The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realisation that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God
God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves.
Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.
Attention.... directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.
We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. Man cannot discover them by his own powers, and if he sets out to seek for them he will find in their place counterfeits of which he will be unable to discern falsity.
The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the "chosen people".
I will use the thread to post some quotes that may at least make you smile. I may even get round to flagging up those red flags.
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.
Liberty is the power of choice within the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and the authority accepted as legitimate. The latitude should be sufficiently wide for liberty to be more than a fiction, but it should include only what is innocent and should never be wide enough to permit certain kinds of crime.
It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.
To believe that the desire for good is always fulfilled — that is faith, and whoever has it is not an atheist.
The good is the only source of the sacred. There is nothing sacred except the good and what pertains to it.
The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavour, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.
If a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate.
Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.
The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realisation that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God
God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves.
Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.
Attention.... directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.
We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. Man cannot discover them by his own powers, and if he sets out to seek for them he will find in their place counterfeits of which he will be unable to discern falsity.
The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the "chosen people".