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brice_mo's review
5.0
I came to Simone Weil through her religious writing, and I was delighted to see that her gift for an almost prophetic level of insight extends to politics.
For anybody who feels disenchanted by the political climate in which we live, this is a wonderfully encouraging essay. Weil argues that the system feels corrupt because it is corrupt, and the artifice that seems to plague political discourse is irredeemable.
That might sound hopeless, but I take it as a call to rethink our understanding of how we occupy cultural spaces—if politics are inherently predatory, how do we effect systemic cultural change?
We play a new game.
For people who may feel like they are on the margins of their group identity, whether that is political or religious, Weil offers the hope that they may be uniquely gifted to speak into their cultures and subcultures.
Good stuff.
For anybody who feels disenchanted by the political climate in which we live, this is a wonderfully encouraging essay. Weil argues that the system feels corrupt because it is corrupt, and the artifice that seems to plague political discourse is irredeemable.
That might sound hopeless, but I take it as a call to rethink our understanding of how we occupy cultural spaces—if politics are inherently predatory, how do we effect systemic cultural change?
We play a new game.
For people who may feel like they are on the margins of their group identity, whether that is political or religious, Weil offers the hope that they may be uniquely gifted to speak into their cultures and subcultures.
Good stuff.
miramadsen's review
4.0
føles meget passende at læse netop nu..
spændende overvejelser, dog umiddelbart modstander af det objektive sandhedsbegreb, der benyttes til at legitimere ‘sandhedstotalitarisme’
spændende overvejelser, dog umiddelbart modstander af det objektive sandhedsbegreb, der benyttes til at legitimere ‘sandhedstotalitarisme’
meganwittman's review
5.0
This book smacks.
“Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The purpose of propaganda is not to impart light [truth], but to persuade.”
“Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The purpose of propaganda is not to impart light [truth], but to persuade.”
hiboluha's review against another edition
5.0
From her spiritual writings to her political critiques, Simone Weil does not disappoint. This short essay on the critique of political parties shows that their mere existence is a problem to truth and thinking in every way. The presence of political parties should only be permissible if they are good. However, unlike politicians usually claim, democracy and a republic rule aren’t good themselves, but a way to achieve good. However, do people want to achieve good or is comfort a more desirable goal? Her 34 page writing on this very matter is jaw dropping, in the midst of intense controversy of the 2 party system in the United States. As Weil puts it, the thinking of political parties is becoming “intelectual leprosy” and, while the solution may not be so apparent, we must start the abolition of political parties.
blackoxford's review
5.0
The End of Democracy
After watching the Clinton-Trump election on television, I felt a compulsion to do something, anything, that might dull the emotional pain caused by the Trumpian irrationality and mendacity. I found succour of a sort, if little solace, in Simone Weil's 1943 essay, On the Abolition of Political Parties. On the one hand, the piece is prescient as a prediction of the party-political phenomenon of Trump and its causes. On the other, unfortunately, it offers no real alternative to party organisation in a democracy. But perhaps the warning it provides, coupled with the confirmation of her hypothesis in almost every action of Trump and his supporters, may prevent a future descent into irrecoverable chaos.
Weil takes her inspiration not from the usual ancient Classical Greek and Roman cultures but from the unlikeliest of sources for someone who is ultimately critical of mob rule, namely the French Revolution. For her,
The signal of such corruption is ‘passion’, that is emotional stimulus which stops reason and eliminates free will. For Weil, political parties are vehicles of collective passion whose function is to instil conformity through social pressure. The goal of political parties, that is of their members as well as their leaders, is growth in their own power without limit. Political parties kill conscience and promote mendacity, thus destroying the most fundamental connection with reality: Truth.
One is tempted to discount Weil’s desperately negative view until one remembers that Nazism, McCarthyism, and now Trumpism are all products of party-political democracies. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can Happen Here can and does happen here. Weil has an educational message for those in Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly Britain and the United States. She notes that the continental European political system not only demonises rival parties but as a matter of course threatens party rivals with prison and even extinction.
Anglo-Saxon politics, Weil notes, hadn’t yet reached this level, preserving a fundamental civility that was real but, as she saw it, temporary. Because of factional dissatisfaction and frustration which are necessary consequences of democratic politics, the natural trajectory of democracy is toward the continental model. Donald Trump’s threat to prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton is a fulfilment of Weil’s prediction. As is the stubborn refusal of Trump’s Republican supporters - particularly religious evangelicals - to even recognise the possibility of immorality on the part of their chosen leader. Their consciences appear frozen and inoperable.
Weil in fact implicitly anticipates this last point as well. She traces the origin of such obstinate mendacity to the Catholic Church’s attempt over many centuries to control the spread of sects and threatening (to it) divisions which followed the French Revolution. Parties act like mini versions of a secular Church. Unity is maintained through the generation of collective passion, a drug which should be banned like other harmful substances.
Which provokes a thought that seems to be incipient in much of the wonder at Trump’s ability to attract and maintain such a stalwart following. Trump has in fact created a secular Church, with himself as self-designated pope. “There is no us without you” is the prayer of his congregation. Let us hope that like all such religions, Trumpism fragments into its own sectarian bits before it does any more harm to democracy.
After watching the Clinton-Trump election on television, I felt a compulsion to do something, anything, that might dull the emotional pain caused by the Trumpian irrationality and mendacity. I found succour of a sort, if little solace, in Simone Weil's 1943 essay, On the Abolition of Political Parties. On the one hand, the piece is prescient as a prediction of the party-political phenomenon of Trump and its causes. On the other, unfortunately, it offers no real alternative to party organisation in a democracy. But perhaps the warning it provides, coupled with the confirmation of her hypothesis in almost every action of Trump and his supporters, may prevent a future descent into irrecoverable chaos.
Weil takes her inspiration not from the usual ancient Classical Greek and Roman cultures but from the unlikeliest of sources for someone who is ultimately critical of mob rule, namely the French Revolution. For her,
"The true spirit of 1789 consists in thinking not that a thing is just because such is the people’s will, but that in certain conditions, the will of the people is more likely than any other will to conform to justice."What impedes this spirit is the attempt to corrupt the free will and reasoning ability of individuals.
The signal of such corruption is ‘passion’, that is emotional stimulus which stops reason and eliminates free will. For Weil, political parties are vehicles of collective passion whose function is to instil conformity through social pressure. The goal of political parties, that is of their members as well as their leaders, is growth in their own power without limit. Political parties kill conscience and promote mendacity, thus destroying the most fundamental connection with reality: Truth.
“The truth which we desire but have no prior knowledge of... is a perfection which no mind can conceive of – God, truth, justice – [words] silently evoked with desire, have the power to lift up the soul and flood it with light. It is when we desire truth with an empty soul and without attempting to guess its content that we receive the light."Political parties blind us to this light.
One is tempted to discount Weil’s desperately negative view until one remembers that Nazism, McCarthyism, and now Trumpism are all products of party-political democracies. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can Happen Here can and does happen here. Weil has an educational message for those in Anglo-Saxon countries, particularly Britain and the United States. She notes that the continental European political system not only demonises rival parties but as a matter of course threatens party rivals with prison and even extinction.
Anglo-Saxon politics, Weil notes, hadn’t yet reached this level, preserving a fundamental civility that was real but, as she saw it, temporary. Because of factional dissatisfaction and frustration which are necessary consequences of democratic politics, the natural trajectory of democracy is toward the continental model. Donald Trump’s threat to prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton is a fulfilment of Weil’s prediction. As is the stubborn refusal of Trump’s Republican supporters - particularly religious evangelicals - to even recognise the possibility of immorality on the part of their chosen leader. Their consciences appear frozen and inoperable.
Weil in fact implicitly anticipates this last point as well. She traces the origin of such obstinate mendacity to the Catholic Church’s attempt over many centuries to control the spread of sects and threatening (to it) divisions which followed the French Revolution. Parties act like mini versions of a secular Church. Unity is maintained through the generation of collective passion, a drug which should be banned like other harmful substances.
Which provokes a thought that seems to be incipient in much of the wonder at Trump’s ability to attract and maintain such a stalwart following. Trump has in fact created a secular Church, with himself as self-designated pope. “There is no us without you” is the prayer of his congregation. Let us hope that like all such religions, Trumpism fragments into its own sectarian bits before it does any more harm to democracy.
tsharris's review
3.0
Idiosyncratic thinking about political parties that doesn't quite seem to capture what contemporary parliamentary parties are like. Emphasis on private virtue leaves little room for a discussion of how society should be governed and what role parties can play in that process.