• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Ep. 251: Simone Weil’s Ideal Society

September 7, 2020 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/partiallyexaminedlife/PEL_ep_251_8-3-20.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:48 — 64.9MB)

On "Theoretical Picture of a Free Society" (1934).

What's the ideal living situation for us all, given the peculiarities of human nature? Nine years before Weil laid out her list of human needs, as covered in our last episode, she wrote a work that she hoped to be her magnum opus, Reflections Concerning the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression. This included the "Analysis of Oppression" essay covered in our ep. 225, which described how very difficult it is for us to actually be free given how the world makes demands of us by making us work for food and shelter, and then these demands transmute themselves directly into our oppression by other people exert power over us and likewise force us to work and struggle. Immediately following that essay is this one, which purportedly gives us a picture of Weil's solution.

In this essay, Weil sees society as a necessary evil, so the issue is not one of establishing a utopia, but of constructing a society that does as little damage as possible. Freedom, for Weil, is the ability to picture goals and concretely put them into practice. Freedom demands understanding: Understanding of these goals, understanding of the steps needed to achieve the goals, and understanding that what you're now doing at this moment constitutes one of those steps. This is very purposely designed on Descartes's rules for direction of the mind (our ep. 229), where we only really understand something if we can see all the steps of the argument (like steps of a mathematical proof). The idea (common among philosophers from Aristotle to Kant to Dennett) is that yes, everything is determined in the great causal chain, but insofar as we act out of reason and not blind desire, we can call ourselves free. For Weil, reason here means conscious understanding, which allows us to identify the goals and actions as ours.

There's an interesting dynamic here, though. Routine work is dull; it's not intellectually stimulating in the way that Weil wants. But yet all work becomes routine, even very intellectual work that takes place at a high level of abstraction. Planning innovative ways of getting things done can itself become a dull routine. Since there's no way of avoiding this, Weil actually places a high value on raw, physical labor, which we should surrender to as the Stoic surrenders to the inevitability of death. She may be in the realm here of the attitude described in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (our ep. 50), where the key is not just attain to choose work that doesn't deaden you, but to adopt an attitude that enlivens you whatever the work is.

So again, the human task is to try to make peace with necessary evils and choose the least evil among them, to adopt a sort of active Stoic attitude that both adapts the environment to the organism and the organism to the environment. What best engages our faculties is to have social groups be small and working together, so that everyone can have an active role in decision-making and execution of plans. The typical society is on Weil's account horribly tyrannical over both mind and body, so there's still lots of room for revolutionary action to try to improve this before we reach the point of Stoic surrender.

Buy Oppression and Liberty or try this online version.

End song: "Libreville" by Bill Bruford's Earthworks. Mark interviewed Bill for Nakedly Examined Music #25.

Image by Solomon Grundy.

Get this episode ad-free with a PEL Citizenship, which also gets you access to our PEL Nightcaps and future Part Two episodes.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: human nature, philosophy of work, philosophy podcast, political philosophy, Simone Weil

Comments

  1. Chris Eyre says

    September 8, 2020 at 1:40 pm

    Thanks for this episode, which has been very timely, as I have a discussion on freedom scheduled for Monday next.

    One question – I was unable to get the episode ad-free, as the “free stuff for members” tab seems to have disappeared (and yes, I’m signed in, and I can see the nightcaps in a new section). I may just be being obtuse in navigating a new set of tabs, but would appreciate help.

    Oh – correction to that. I can see the nightcaps, but get redirected to the subscriber screen if I click on them…

    Reply
  2. Evan Hadkins says

    September 9, 2020 at 2:25 am

    Meredith Belbin studied executive teams. For the creative person to improve team function, only one is needed (more don’t lead to more improvement), and they need to be listened to (esp. by any leaders).

    Reply
  3. Conner Fields says

    September 10, 2020 at 11:10 pm

    Have you ever covered Godwin, Proudhon, or Bakunin?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Oct. 2020: Consuming and Producing says:
    October 8, 2020 at 2:45 pm

    […] Examined Life “Ep. 251: Simone Weil’s Ideal Society” and “Ep. 250: Simone Weil on Human […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Larry Young on Ep. 310: Wittgenstein On World-Pictures (Part One)
  • Wes Alwan on PEL Nightcap April 2022
  • Wes Alwan on Ep. 305: Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” (Part Three for Supporters)
  • Wes Alwan on Ep. 305: Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” (Part Three for Supporters)
  • Wes Alwan on Ep. 306: Dworkin and the Dobbs Decision (Part Three for Supporters)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in