display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
8 ideas
| 23857 | People in power always try to increase their power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every human group that exercises power does so …in such a way as to increase that power. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Prospects: Proletarian Revolution? [1933], p.15) | |
| A reaction: Not so true in smaller institutions, but at the centre of power you can control how power is distributed, so the temptation is too much. |
| 23866 | In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Every oppressive society is cemented by a religion of power, which falsifies all social relations by enabling the powerful to command over and above what they are able to impose. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.69) | |
| A reaction: A rather acute and accurate observation, I think. Flashy cars, grand uniforms, lots of medals, rituals of deference….. Sometimes I like the order and security this brings, but Simone Weil could quickly change my view. |
| 23812 | Force is what turns man into a thing, and ultimately into a corpse [Weil] |
| Full Idea: To define 'force' - it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.183) | |
| A reaction: She celebrates The Iliad as the great examination of force in human affairs. I have felt that sense of reduction to a thing whenever anyone above me in the hierarchy has arbitrarily exerted their power over me. |
| 23831 | The essence of power is illusory prestige [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Prestige, which is an illusion, is the very essence of power. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace (9 extracts) [1943], p.255) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to maintain illusory prestige if there is no actual power behind it. |
| 23839 | A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil] |
| Full Idea: Wherever a man is placed for life at the head of a social organism, he ought to be a symbol and not a ruler, as is the case with the King of England. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Obedience') | |
| A reaction: Nice to hear a radical French thinker endorsing an ancient British tradition! She may not be endorsing a lifelong head of state. Lifelong rulers are the main agents of totalitarianism. |
| 23871 | No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is quite patently impossible for decentralisation to be initiated by the central authority. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.113) | |
| A reaction: This is contradicted by the creation of regional parliaments and mayors, but we see nothing beyond that. A state could crumble into small parts if there were'lots of autonomous regional groups. Easier for weird minorities to take control. |
| 23856 | Spontaneous movements are powerless against organised repression [Weil] |
| Full Idea: A spontaneous movement is fundamentally impotent when it comes to fighting against organised forces of repression. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Prospects: Proletarian Revolution? [1933], p.2) | |
| A reaction: Her example is the Paris Commune of 1870. Hence revolution requires prior penetration of the corridors of power. Hence the phenomenon of 'entryism' of more radical people into reformist parties. |
| 23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is no real break in continuity after a bloody struggle for regime change; for the victory just sanctions forces that before the struggle were the decisive factor in community life, patterns which were replacing those of the declining regime. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [from Marx] I assume she has in mind the French Revolution, and perhaps the Russian Revolution, though in the latter the new bourgeois leaders also got swept away. So revolutions are not nearly as dramatic as they appear to be. |