Robert Zaretsky: The subversive Simone Weil
“It has become a ritual among Weil biographers to sum up her life with a series of contradictions. An anarchist who espoused conservative ideals, a pacifist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, a saint who refused baptism, a mystic who was a labor militant, a French Jew who was buried in the Catholic section of an English cemetary, a teacher who dismissed the importance of solving a problem, the most willful of individuals who advocated the extinction of the self: here are but a few paradoxes Weil embodied.”
Simone Weil kuuluu niihin hahmoihin, joita on pakko ihailla ja kauhistella yhtä aikaa. Armottomuus pelottaa, kauhistuttaa, toisaalta väsymätön toiminta asioiden puolesta, joihin uskoo on ihailtavaa. Weilin elämä oli melko omituinen tarina. Tämä kirja ei kuitenkaan ole kirja Weilin elämästä vaan tämän ajatuksista, jotka ovat ajankohtaisia edelleen. Amerikan vaalishow’ta ja republikaanipuolueen rappiota seuratessa tämäkin ajatus osuu ja uppoaa:
“’Now, as then, nothing is more comfortable’, Weil announced, ‘than not having to think’ – or, in what amounts to the same thing, to think collectively, which is the lifeblood of political parties. Few organizations, Weil concluded, are better suited of suffocating all sense of truth and goodness, for few organizations are more adept at exerting ‘a collective pressure upon people’s minds. This pressure is very real; it is not only displayed; it is professed and proclaimed’. Weil’s conclusion is as relevant today as it was in her own day: ‘This should horrify us, but we are already too much accustomed to it.’”
Kaiken kaikkiaan Weil tuntuu ihmiseltä, joka oli sankari haluamattaan. Häntä ajoi jokin sisäinen oman tarkoituksen todeksi elämisen tarve.
“Ideas come and settle in my mind by mistake, then, realizing their mistake, they absolutely insist on coming out. I do not know where they come from, or what they are worth, but, whatever the risk, I do not think I have the right to prevent this operation.”
