Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Gravity and Grace (9 extracts)' and 'On the General Idea of Proof Theory'

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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 / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.