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Single Idea 23838

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / c. A unified people ]

Full Idea

Order is the first need of all; it evens stands above all needs properly so-called. To be able to conceive it we must know what the other needs are.

Gist of Idea

The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs

Source

Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Order')

Book Ref

Weil,Simone: 'The Need for Roots' [Routledge 2002], p.12


A Reaction

This may be music to conservative ears, but you should examine Weil's other ideas to see what she has in mind.

Related Idea

Idea 23829 National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil]


The 21 ideas from 'The Need for Roots'

Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display [Weil]
By making money the sole human measure, inequality has become universal [Weil]
Respect is our only obligation, which can only be expressed through deeds, not words [Weil]
People have duties, and only have rights because of the obligations of others to them [Weil]
Obligations only bind individuals, not collectives [Weil]
A lifelong head of society should only be a symbol, not a ruler [Weil]
Party politics in a democracy can't avoid an anti-democratic party [Weil]
The need for order stands above all others, and is understood via the other needs [Weil]
A citizen should be able to understand the whole of society [Weil]
The aesthete's treatment of beauty as amusement is sacreligious; beauty should nourish [Weil]
The soldier-civilian distinction should be abolished; every citizen is committed to a war [Weil]
Religion should quietly suffuse all human life with its light [Weil]
Culture is an instrument for creating an ongoing succession of teachers [Weil]
Socialism tends to make a proletariat of the whole population [Weil]
The capitalists neglect the people and the nation, and even their own interests [Weil]
The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil]
Education is essentially motivation [Weil]
Beauty is the proof of what is good [Weil]
Truth is not a object we love - it is the radiant manifestation of reality [Weil]
To punish people we must ourselves be innocent - but that undermines the desire to punish [Weil]
Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil]