Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Unconscious Cerebral Initiative', 'Gravity and Grace (9 extracts)' and 'Law and Authority'

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2 ideas

25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 1. Slavery
If effort is from necessity rather than for a good, it is slavery [Weil]
     Full Idea: To strive from necessity and not for some good - ...that is always slavery.
     From: Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace (9 extracts) [1943], p.180)
     A reaction: It is usual to see the possibility of anarchism as the starting point for political thinking, but I think for Weil the state of slavery has that role.
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 1. Grounds of equality
Only liberty, equality and sympathy can stand up to anti-social people [Kropotkin]
     Full Idea: Liberty, equality and practical human sympathy are the only effective barriers we can oppose to the anti-social instincts of certain among us.
     From: Peter (Pyotr) Kropotkin (Law and Authority [1886], 1 'Anarchism'), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev)
     A reaction: One might state it more succinctly as 'only the social can oppose the anti-social'. The dominance in society of essentially anti-social people seems to have become a major political fact in 2017, in the UK and the USA.