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Single Idea 23749

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism ]

Full Idea

The chief danger does not lie in the collectivity's tendency to circumscribe the person, but in the person's tendency to immolate himself in the collective.

Gist of Idea

The problem of the collective is not suppression of persons, but persons erasing themselves

Source

Simone Weil (Human Personality [1943], p.78)

Book Ref

Weil,Simone: 'An Anthology' [Penguin 1986], p.78

A Reaction

I'm guessing that in 1943 she had in mind both Nazis and Communists. She seems to articulate a strong form of liberalism in an interesting way. It sounds like a form of Bad Faith.

Related Idea

Idea 23747 What is sacred is not a person, but the whole physical human being [Weil]

The 36 ideas with the same theme [strong control to achieve equality and good lives]:

22536 There could be private land and public crops, or public land and private crops, or both public [Aristotle]
22538 Owning and sharing property communally increases disagreements [Aristotle]
19745 The nature of people is decided by the government and politics of their society [Rousseau]
5273 Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels]
5283 In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels]
5282 If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels]
5288 The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels]
5290 The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels]
5294 To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels]
5302 Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels]
5304 Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels]
5307 Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels]
21995 Must production determine superstructure, or could it be the other way round? [Singer on Marx]
20577 Even decently paid workers still have their produce bought with money stolen from them [Marx]
21996 Freedom only comes when labour is no longer necessary [Marx]
22000 From each according to his ability, to each according to his need [Marx]
22969 People who only have their labour power are the slaves of those permitting them to work [Marx]
22970 Freedom is making the state subordinate to its society [Marx]
21989 Man is dominated by money, which is the essence of his alienation [Marx]
23862 By saying the material dialectic of history aspires to the best, Marx agreed with capitalism [Weil on Marx]
21999 False consciousness results from concealment by the superstructure [Marx, by Singer]
23875 Marx says force is everything, and that the weak will become strong, while remaining the weak [Weil on Marx]
18653 Marx rejected equal rights because they never actually treat people as equals [Marx, by Kymlicka]
23054 Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23047 Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead]
23807 The collective is the one and only object of false idolatry [Weil]
23749 The problem of the collective is not suppression of persons, but persons erasing themselves [Weil]
21240 The truth about events always comes from the oppressed and disadvantaged [Sartre, by Bakewell]
20445 Levinas says Marxism is the replacement of individualist ethics, by solidarity and sociality [Levinas, by Critchley]
21993 Materialist history says we are subject to incomprehensible forces [Singer]
21831 Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan]
9303 The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen]
20099 For communists history is driven by the proletariat [Micklethwait/Wooldridge]
22830 Give by ability and receive by need, rather than a free labour market [Charvet]
23534 Communism failed to unite western workers with the oppressed of the south [Berardi]
23135 Classic Marxists see liberalism as the ideology of the bourgeoisie [Gopnik]