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Single Idea 23812

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power ]

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.

Gist of Idea

Force is what turns man into a thing, and ultimately into a corpse

Source

Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.183)

Book Ref

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

The 110 ideas from Simone Weil

23814 Every human yearns for an unattainable transcendent good [Weil]
23815 We cannot equally respect what is unequal, so equal respect needs a shared ground [Weil]
23816 Attention to a transcendent reality motivates a duty to foster the good of humanity [Weil]
23817 We need both equality (to attend to human needs) and hierarchy (as a scale of responsibilities) [Weil]
23819 Deliberate public lying should be punished [Weil]
23818 We have liberty in the space between nature and accepted authority [Weil]
23821 Crime should be punished, to bring the perpetrator freely back to morality [Weil]
23822 We all need to partipate in public tasks, and take some initiative [Weil]
23823 Life needs risks to avoid sickly boredom [Weil]
23820 People need personal and collective property, and a social class lacking property is shameful [Weil]
23824 Where human needs are satisfied we find happiness, friendship and beauty [Weil]
23873 Dividing history books into separate chapters is disastrous [Weil]
23834 Friendship is partly universal - the love of a person is like the ideal of loving everyone [Weil]
23889 Among the Greeks Aristotle is the only philosopher in the modern style [Weil]
23892 The only legitimate proof of God by order derives from beauty [Weil]
23807 The collective is the one and only object of false idolatry [Weil]
23808 There are two goods - the absolute good we want, and the reachable opposite of evil [Weil]
23809 Our only social duty is to try to limit evil [Weil]
23810 Charity is the only love, and you can feel that for a country (a place with traditions), but not a nation [Weil]
23811 If effort is from necessity rather than for a good, it is slavery [Weil]
23825 We seek truth only because it is good [Weil]
23826 Beauty, goodness and truth are only achieved by applying full attention [Weil]
23831 The essence of power is illusory prestige [Weil]
23830 A group is only dangerous if it endorses an abstract entity [Weil]
23833 The good is a nothingness, and yet real [Weil]
23765 The soul is the intrinsic value of a human [Weil]
23747 What is sacred is not a person, but the whole physical human being [Weil]
23748 The sacred in every human is their expectation of good rather than evil [Weil]
23749 The problem of the collective is not suppression of persons, but persons erasing themselves [Weil]
23750 It is not more money which the wretched members of society need [Weil]
23751 Rights are asserted contentiously, and need the backing of force [Weil]
23752 Giving centrality to rights stifles all impulses of charity [Weil]
23753 People absurdly claim an equal share of things which are essentially privileged [Weil]
23754 The only choice is between supernatural good, or evil [Weil]
23755 Genius and love of truth are always accompanied by great humility [Weil]
23756 The mind is imprisoned and limited by language, restricting our awareness of wider thoughts [Weil]
23758 Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil]
23757 The spirit of justice needs the full attention of truth, and that attention is love [Weil]
23761 Justice (concerning harm) is distinct from rights (concerning inequality) [Weil]
23759 Everything which originates in love is beautiful [Weil]
23760 All we need are the unity of justice, truth and beauty [Weil]
23762 Evil is transmitted by comforts and pleasures, but mostly by doing harm to people [Weil]
23763 Punishment aims at the good for men who don't desire it [Weil]
23764 The only thing in society worse than crime is repressive justice [Weil]
23812 Force is what turns man into a thing, and ultimately into a corpse [Weil]
23813 Only people who understand force, and don't respect it, are capable of justice [Weil]
23901 Relationships depend on equality, so unequal treatment kills them [Weil]
23902 I attach little importance to immortality, which is an undecidable fact, and irrelevant to us [Weil]
23903 When we admire a work, we see ourselves as its creator [Weil]
23904 The cruelty of the Old Testament put me off Christianity [Weil]
23871 No central authority can initiate decentralisation [Weil]
23870 Decentralisation is only possible by co-operation between strong and weak - which is absurd [Weil]
23861 Marx showed that capitalist oppression, because of competition, is unstoppable [Weil]
23863 Only individual people of good will can achieve social progress [Weil]
23864 Inequality could easily be mitigated, if it were not for the struggle for power [Weil]
23865 Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil]
23866 In oppressive societies the scope of actual control is extended by a religion of power [Weil]
23867 After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil]
23868 The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery [Weil]
23869 In the least evil societies people can think, control community life, and be autonomous [Weil]
23898 Those who say immorality is not an aesthetic criterion must show that all criteria are aesthetic [Weil]
23877 Most people won't question an idea's truth if they depend on it [Weil]
23878 Weakness of will is the inadequacy of the original impetus to carry through the action [Weil]
23879 In a violent moral disagreement, it can't be that both sides are just following social morality [Weil]
23880 When war was a profession, customary morality justified any act of war [Weil]
23843 Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil]
23841 By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil]
23836 Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil]
23837 Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil]
23835 People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil]
23839 A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil]
23842 Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil]
23838 The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil]
23840 A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil]
23848 The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil]
23850 The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil]
23849 Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil]
23847 Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil]
23845 The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil]
23846 Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil]
23844 The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil]
23854 Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil]
23853 Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil]
23851 Education is essentially motivation [Weil]
23852 To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil]
23855 Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil]
23896 We see our character as a restricting limit, but also as an unshakable support [Weil]
23894 The concept of character is at the centre of morality [Weil]
23893 We don't see character in a single moment, but only over a period of time [Weil]
23895 We modify our character by placing ourselves in situations, or by attending to what seems trivial [Weil]
23881 All thought about values is philosophical, and thought about anything else is not philosophy [Weil]
23883 Minds essentially and always strive towards value [Weil]
23882 Ends, unlike means, cannot be defined, which is why people tend to pursue means [Weil]
23884 Truth is a value of thought [Weil]
23885 Philosophy aims to change the soul, not to accumulate knowledge [Weil]
23886 Systems are not unique to each philosopher. The platonist tradition is old and continuous [Weil]
23887 Art (like philosophy) establishes a relation between world and self, and between oneself and others [Weil]
23888 Knowledge is beyond question, as an unavoidable component of thinking [Weil]
23832 We both desire what is beautiful, and want it to remain as it is [Weil]
23857 People in power always try to increase their power [Weil]
23858 War is perpetuated by its continual preparations [Weil]
23859 True democracy is the subordination of society to the individual [Weil]
23856 Spontaneous movements are powerless against organised repression [Weil]
23860 Even if a drowning man is doomed, he should keep swimming to the last [Weil]
23827 Modern wars are fought in the name of empty words which are given capital letters [Weil]
23828 National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil]
23829 National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil]
23899 The secret of art is that beauty is a just blend of unity and its opposite [Weil]
23900 Chance is compatible with necessity, and the two occur together [Weil]
23897 Once money is the main aim, society needs everyone to think wealth is possible [Weil]