For the past few weeks I’ve been slowly reading reading Simone Weil’s ‘The Need For Roots’. My initial purpose in reading the book was to gain a better idea of the differences between rights and obligations, as well as, a curiosity about what Weil’s conception of roots would be. And while Weil does have a little to say on the differences between rights and obligations, it isn’t much, and it’s scattered throughout the book which covers a much wider range of material. This book is a mixture of historical analysis of France before and up to WWII. Which at times, can sound a bit like Hannah Arendt’s works. As well as, a mixture of her own ideas, some enlightening and some truly awful.
Her idealized version of Europe is heavily focused on Marxism and Christianity. At times to the point where she backtracks on specific freedoms she wishes were present such as ownership of the means of production, a home, and land for every ‘man’ except those who have disgraced themselves. Those men can lose their machines, business, home, and land at a moments notice. She does not mention what the women are allowed to do and for the most part outside of marriage, it seems Weil’s philosophy doesn’t have much of a place for them. Weil conceives of a world that revolves around the worker, but also a world where rights can be stripped from workers at a moments notice. Her ideas are dated, flawed, and steeped in the historical time and biases in which she lived. Though, she has her moments of intense clarity that shed light not only on WWII and France but on the faint echoes of the past that have made themselves known today in our modern political sphere. And while her analysis of what roots people need isn’t applicable today. It prompts us to question what ‘roots’ we do think are relevant.
Weil’s book is worth reading, but it must be read with a critical lens. Paying attention to the threads of fascism, what her concept of a future Europe would look like, and by recognizing that we are in many cases rootless still. How do we break free from the confines of past ideologies? How do we form roots that allow us to thrive? How do we create a world or even a piece of it that is free of hierarchy, sexism, racism, capitalism, fascism, and all other forms of separation and control? One thing is clear, in order to do it, we have to build it together.