After Simone Weil's death, countless people began to marvel at this strange woman after studying her posthumous works and life. Susan Sontag has an article commenting on Weil in Against Interpretation. There are several paragraphs:
Similarly, writers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, René—and Simone Weil—now have prestige over us because of their morbid temperament. Their pathology is their reliability, something that brings persuasiveness. ”
"I don't believe how many of the thousands of readers her (Weil's) posthumous writings and papers have won actually share her thoughts. Nor is there any need to share—there is no need to share Simone Weil's extremely painful, unrestrained love for Catholicism, to gain acceptance of her Gnostic theology of God's absence, or to embrace her ideal of renouncing the flesh, or to endorse her utterly unjust hatred of Roman civilization and the Jews. ...... We read these writers with such sharp originality because of their personal prestige, because of their exemplary seriousness, because of their apparent will to dedicate themselves to their truth, and because of their 'opinions'. ”
The French literary critic Joseph Chiagli, in his book The French Thought of the Twentieth Century, praised her as "the purest and most glorious genius of our time." The Nobel Prize in Literature winner and French writer Camus also praised her as "the only great spirit of our time." "Western political and social thought has never produced more penetrating and prophetic ideas than this one." "
Her compassionate thoughts and reflections on modernization opened up a whole new era, making her worthy of the titles of "hero" and "great thinker".
Next, we attach an interview with Yugra, the author of Simone Wey's Commentary, in the Square of Culture, to get a glimpse of Simone's thoughts.
Culture Square: How does Simone Weil's Biography differ from other Vivi biographies?
Pala Eugra: There are some biographies of Vivi that cover her entire life in great detail. My book is a commentary, a "critical, intellectual biography," tracing her thoughts and philosophies in greater detail and their relevance to her life. Unlike other commentaries, I have tried to show that Weil's thought contains more truth than many people have imagined, and that even her most controversial ideas, such as human suffering, Judaism, and the close relationship between Christianity and Plato, are full of wisdom. I propose that Weil's greatness is far beyond people's imagination, even beyond the imagination of those who support her. She was actually a philosophical genius on the same level as Wittgenstein and Augustine. I delved into the relationship between her ideas and other great philosophers, especially with Wittgenstein and Plato, and with Marx. In addition, I propose that, as a religious figure, her greatness is comparable to that of the Bible, and not inferior to the great people of the Bible. Some laughed at her "peculiar life", "peculiar thoughts" and "peculiar dress", but people also laughed at Socrates, Jesus and Joan of Arc.
"Place de La Culture": John Hermann said that The meeting between Viy and Beauvoir at the Sorbonne University "should have been very speculative", and Beauvoir and Sartre also admired it, so what is Vivi's attitude towards Beauvoir?
Pala Eugra: De Beauvoir and Sartre were obviously concerned about Viy, and her life and thoughts seemed to them to pose a threat to them in a sense (in her own existence). In contrast, I found no evidence that Viy was also concerned about them. When Viy met with Beauvoir at the Sorbonne University, according to Beauvoir herself, she regarded Beauvoir as a typical bourgeois intellectual, which made Beauvoir always angry.
"Culture Square": Why is Simone Viyi not famous for Beauvoir? Is this also the case in the West?
Parra Eugra: Yes, de Beauvoir is much more famous in the West than Simone Viy. I reckon this is because De Beauvoir was one of the founders of feminism, and possibly because of her relationship with Sartre and existentialism. For example, her philosophy, like Sartre's, regards human beings as the center of everything, which we are happy to make us feel important. Wei Yi, on the other hand, is not "modern" either. She indulged in ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato, and combined her Platonism with the radical ideas of her own Christianity. In addition, her morality is very strict and very ascetic. She believed that the center of the universe was God, not humanity. All of this is very detached from modernity, and it is all self-elimination. Pride has always been a more popular theme than humility. Even Weil's interpretation of Christianity emphasizes Christ's weaknesses and inadequacies rather than his strength. As Vivi herself said, it is difficult to respect weaknesses.
"Cultural Square": In August 1935, Vivi experienced spiritual baptism in a small village by the sea in Portugal and realized that "Christianity is essentially a slave religion", do you think this awakening of the soul is the beginning of her faith?
Parra Eugra: This was not the beginning of her faith in Christianity. But it can be said that she has always been a spiritual Christian, but she herself did not realize it, because she had always regarded herself as an equal to the slave (and de Beauvoir was one of the founders of feminism, pursuing to be "her own master"), and because Christianity (which she saw clearly for the first time at the moment) was the religion of slaves. In addition, she was deeply struck by the bleak beauty of the songs sung by Portuguese women at that time. In her heart, Christianity, sadness and beauty merge into one, and for the rest of their lives. I think that in Vivi's heart, true beauty is always with sadness. For Weil, christianity in the church, especially Catholicism, is celebrating Christ, and is focusing on the glorious resurrection to contrast the sorrow and loneliness of the cross, which ignores the true meaning of the Gospels and forgets that Christ was chosen to be with the outcasts, slaves, and oppressed.
Cultural Square: Why do you think that the general statement that "Weil dramatically shifted from radical political life to Christian mysticism in the second half of her life" is so outrageous?
Parra Yugra: Like I say in the book, I don't think Weil's shift toward Christian mysticism is a sharp turn away from politics. She was constantly sympathetic to the trampled, the poor and the exploited, and she had always believed that social, labor, or political institutions of all kinds did not have a deep understanding of the basic human suffering in suffering. She has always been skeptical of the easily available "dualism": capitalists versus workers, governments versus citizens, everyone's homeland to "enemies", men to women, etc., these dualisms, in Weiyi's view, are all "on the same level". Weil argues that one must strive to reach a "higher level" in order to grasp the core of the human condition, which is to understand the ultimate cause of human suffering. For example, she quotes Christ as saying that we must "love our enemies." Loving friends and hating enemies is easy, but in the end it doesn't solve anything. You have to leave the notions of "mine to you" and "friend to enemy." But Christ was clearly a religious figure, so it is understandable that Weil would find the source of wisdom in Christianity. This root is more profound about the human condition than for social politicians like Marx (Weil admired Marx). Wei Yi believes that Marx still adopts traditional dualistic thinking. But although Wei Yi eventually turned in a new direction, she never gave up focusing on labor.
"Culture Square": Some people say that Wei Yi has never been married, which is a potential escape from wifehood in the depths of consciousness, because wifehood represents attachment and closure, how do you think about this statement?
Parra Eugra: I believe that the problem is not in marriage, but in the more general problem of romantic relationships. Wei Yi, deep down, does not believe in her own cuteness, especially for her own body is always awkward. As far as we know, she has never been in a romantic relationship. (She never kissed or shook hands with anyone except her mother) This kind of relationship can bring her great unpleasantness.
"Culture Square": Why is Wei Yi dieting? Is she performing the Eucharist ceremony through the consummation of the body? Is it her way of manifesting philosophy in form?
Parra Eugra: I don't think Wey is deliberately choosing to consume her body as a form of communion by dieting. But according to her philosophy, symbolically, to work for Christ, or for one's fellow citizens, one is to "make one's own body for Christ's food" and become "the food of God." In Viy's case, for some complex psychological reasons, and because of her desperate and fanatical devotion to her work, her lifestyle paid neither attention to food nor rest, and the unexpected result was that she intended to dedicate her life to the service of the public, and in fact her own flesh suffered a lot, much like a Catholic communion, which eventually led to her death.
"Cultural Square": Please summarize the Weiyi in your eyes in one paragraph.
Parra Eugra: I think Simone Weil is one of the greatest spirited figures in history. Both truth and beauty in her life and in her philosophy provide an example for those who pursue the noblest of life.
[Attached] Other biographical information about the martyr Simone Weyi
Like Wittstangen, Wei Yi belongs to the kind of great thinkers of the most maverick, the most difficult to approach, and the most misunderstood. Camus and
T.S. Eliot admired her, and Susan Sontag said of Wey: "Some people have a life to be an example, some people who do not; some of those who can be role models always invite us to imitate them, and others keep us at a distance, and contain a certain disgust, pity, and respect." Roughly speaking, this is the difference between a hero and a saint. ”
Weil was a legendary French philosopher and mystic who, in her short life, she platonically reconstructed Christian doctrine, building a bridge between human suffering and the perfection of God.
Weil's philosophical proposition that "a complete human civilization should be centered on manual labor, and that manual labor should have the highest value in this civilization" led her to work in factories several times. Weil believed that no religion was easy to form political totalitarianism and admitted that she was a devout Christian, but she refused to be baptized, refused to participate in religious sacraments, and stayed outside the church and religious community. But she embraced faith with her heart and practiced her faith by doing the most laborious work at the bottom of society.
She over-dieted, early on as a political gesture by refusing to eat and became a pattern she followed throughout her life. For her, eating is both an enemy and a weapon. She said, "I can obey the present regime in respects that do not involve the realm of consciousness; if I obey political and ideological instructions, I will defile my soul." But in the matter of rationing, obeying its instructions, I am starving to death at best, and this is not a sin. So she sees consumption beyond the amount of food in France prescribed by the ration ticket as a "privilege" that cannot be enjoyed even as a seriously ill person. Eventually, Weil died of tuberculosis in London in 1943 at the age of 34.
From 1931 to 1934, Wei Yi worked as a philosophy teacher in several secondary schools in other provinces. In order to have a tangible experience of the suffering of the world, in 1935 she went to Alstom, Renault and other factories to do heavy manual labor like a real worker.
She was deeply friendly with the magazine Proletarian Revolution, with which she collaborated in 1932. This magazine allows her to properly express human suffering and to express her basic views and feelings about the situation of the working people. She was transferred to Auxerre in October 1932 and to Rohan in 1933. At this time, she decided to take a year off in order to experience the life of the workers wholeheartedly, which she wanted to do in the summer in the Jura Mountains, when she was doing farm work. She got a job at the Renault factory and rented a room near the factory. Despite her headache and frail health, she would never allow her living conditions to be any different from those of a workshop worker.
In 1935, when her vacation was over, she returned to her old profession, teaching at the Girls' Secondary School in Bourges until she left in the summer of 1936. In early August of the same year, she went to barceló's department. She had to judge for herself the struggle between the "reds" and the "Francoites.". For several weeks, she suffered with the Republican army on the front lines of Katalucia and felt the real catastrophe of war from the depths of her heart. Later, she returned to France.
At the end of June 1942, she arrived in New York and was entrusted with a mission by the French Provisional Government, so she left for England on 10 November. She was in charge of studying ordinances in London, where she drafted plans to write a memorandum on the mutual rights and duties of States and individuals. She was so determined to share the ordeal of the people still living in mainland France, so much so that she refused the food supply that the doctors had specially prescribed because of her excessive fatigue, and she received food strictly according to the food rations of her compatriots in the enemy-occupied areas of the country.
Attached is an excerpt from the book "Three Female Philosophers of the Dark Ages":
Even in the deepest meditations, there should be no interruption in connection with the world. I even think that the more "attracted" man is to God, the more he should "transcend himself" in this sense, that is, to dedicate himself to the world and bring God's life to the world.
To be a revolutionary one should first love life, which is one aspect of Simone Wey's praise of Rosa Luxemburg. In her commentary on Rosa Luxemburg's Epistles in Prison, she noticed at a glance that there was this counterintuitive situation in these letters [written to The wife of Liebknecht (who himself was in prison, from different prisons where he had spent during the war years]: Rosa Luxemburg was always talking about flowers, birds, nature—in short, always talking about the joy of life, about the desire to live, not about the longing for death. As a result, she felt that Rosa rarely resembled a Christian: "She was utterly unbelieving in God. The book's collection of letters reveals the Stoic view of life between the lines. ”
"In all cases without conscience, people should obey the existing regime; if I obey the ideological and political orders of the Vichy government, it will defile my soul, and by obeying its decrees on food rationing, I will at most starve to death, and starvation is not a sin."
Simone Wey argues that God's retreat is itself "love," and that this renunciation for the creation of beings different from His within temporal limits is his "expression of fraternity." Thus, in response to God's renunciation of His unlimited power, we should make a promise, a gesture of obedience to necessity, and should not try to explore the purposefulness of the world. "The most strident words of the Gospel: 'My God, why have you abandoned me?' It is the kind of love that is "incredibly perfect, beyond any comprehension." It was this cry of Christ Himself in his crucifixion. To this cry, "There is no answer... The world has no purposefulness", and it cannot be expected to give any comfort. For human beings, reality is nothing but "dealing with necessity," and therefore the only reward we really owe to God who can no longer give us anything (because He has given us too much, too much is the only reward we can give to Him, is to accept this necessity, to accept the misfortunes that may occur.