Has anyone here read her? I picked up a collection of her essays today and she is rather interesting. She reads much like a mystical version of Kierkegaard with a lot of aphorisms and short essays on mystical love, socialist-based ethics, and Platonic beauty. To those who aren't familiar wit her, she was a Jew born to a rich Parisian family; after involvement in some socialist movements, she converted to Catholicism after a vision and lived a austere life of fasting and prayer until she died in her 30s from Tuberculosis.
I certainly don't think she is a typical orthodox Catholic and her interpretation of the faith is an intensely sentimental (Simone de Simone de Beauvoir went to the same school as she did and said how she would cry at whenever discussion of famines would occur) & individualistic one, however, I still do think she has value to read.
Some quotes others said about her: >Simone Weil, I maintain this now, is the only great spirit of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing. ~ Albert Camus >By saying Simone Weil's life was both comic and terrible I am not trying to reduce it, but mean to be paying her the highest tribute I can, short of calling her a saint, which I don't believe she was. Possibly I have a higher opinion of the comic and terrible than you do. To my way of thinking it includes her great courage and to call her anything less would be to see here as merely ordinary. Of course, I can only say, as you point out, this is what I see, not, this is what she is — which only God knows. Flannery O'Connor >In her political thinking she appears as a strong critic of both Right and Left; at the same time or truly a lover of order and hierarchy than even most of those who call themselves Conservative, and more truly a lover of the people than most of those who call themselves Socialist. T. S. Eliot
Just by these few quotes, I think she is severely underappreciated on this board.
I just read a collection of her essays to start off. Would this be a good thing to read next?
Parker Sanchez
Why do you think she fell out of favor amongst posters?
Carson Miller
Yes.
Ryder Ramirez
I read "The Need for Roots" a while back and was pretty disappointed by it. Highly sentimentalist and chimerical text. Don't even remember much of it i was so bored. In the first chapter she tried to present a bunch of dialectics that should be balanced for a good society like Freedom and Order and Equality and Hierarchy. Through the entire thing i was wondering "Well that's great Simone, pretty sure that's what everybody has been trying to do since the dawn of ages, but how are you going to do it Simone ?" "Through beauty and love and justice and Gregorian chants !" Her theory of roots just reminded me of a more emotional version of Alienation by Marx with some spiritual elements. Sometimes it felt like reading the utopian diary of a very emotional school girl. I might just be stupid and insensitive though.
Ayden White
I do agree that the essay collection I read was also very sentimental. I think that there is something to be said for it, given how nigh-misanthropic some modern philosophy can be. It seems as if she is some sort of reactionary of emotion if such a term can even be used. My biggest problem with her (and maybe it's just the translation), is that her thoughts are all over the place at times. They are interesting, but in some of the essays, each paragraph is a totally separate thought without connection to the previous ones. Also, some of her aphorisms aren't even complete sentences and are more like modernist poetry. Not really my style but I am still intrigued by her so I will likely read one more of her books.
Nathaniel Jenkins
I read this when I was revisiting Christianity recently and thought it was beautiful but somewhat philosophically flimsy...
Well, she was kind of a flavor of the month author. I think a lot of people discovered her as Yea Forums was still transforming into a more religious board. As far as I know she's still held in high regard on Yea Forums but just isn't discussed because the novelty has worn off.
Daniel Hill
i read an anthology of her works and instead of taking her seriously like a male philosopher i just saw everything as adorable attempts at poetry and fantasized about having sex with her. this is partiarchy
Anthony Collins
>so It points to ulterior motives or insincerity given its importance and easy of attaining.
It doesn’t nullify her work but it is worth bearing in mind just as it would be for a book on Islam by a Muslim who refuses to make the shahada
Nicholas Diaz
It does sound like you're saying it nullifies her work. I've read her writings, and her explanation for why she never felt called to undergo a baptism, and it just rings hollow. What do I care what hoops she has or hasn't jumped through if she demonstrates a wisdom far beyond most of those who actually did? Credentialism has no place in a Church.
Joshua Rivera
Yea Forums likes Simone Weil.
Josiah Kelly
If you don’t take me at my word when I outright say that I don’t believe it nullifies her work I’m not sure what else I can say
You should care only if the claims of her being a Christian and specifically a catholic are important to you.baptism is not just a hoop it’s one of the most foundational and important sacraments in Christianity, which when offered to her was explicitly rejected.
She can be very wise but such a core rejection of the scripture and sacred tradition which is of defininging importance to the catholic faith demonstrates a rejection of the Faith rather than just an unorthodox approach to it
Ayden Nguyen
Again, this means nothing to me when she has more intelligent and insightful things to say about your Faith on the other side of the glass than most do on your side.
Lincoln Hughes
That’s perfectly fine, I’m not here to argue who is intelligent and insightful or not or even whether she is more or less so than great catholic figures and saints my only point is that’s it’s not particulary correct to consider her a catholic. I get that it’s not important to you but it’s something that might be important to others
Cameron Turner
It's important to people who have 0 inclination to actually engage with her thought, and just want to cherrypick and play Authentic Catholic bingo. It's tiresome and exactly the kind of rhetoric I see getting thrown around whenever Catholics are confronted with those among them who are of a decidedly more mystical bent. Aw geez, she didn't receive your institution's rubber stamp of approval, whatever will you do? It's just insipid. What are you people actually doing? Do you want to be part of a treehouse club or understand God?
Luke Foster
Not a Catholic and I like Simone Weil but it seems pretty reasonable to be clear about her religious affiliation, especially in a religion where revelation/doctrine/orthodoxy is important. It's not Simone Weil's mysticism that excludes her from Catholicism, but her own deliberate refusal to become part of the Church. Her reasons for doing so are interesting, and I think Catholics should pay attention to them, but it was she herself that set herself "apart" from Catholicism.
Nicholas Cook
But my point is that is immaterial to everyone who wants to engage with her thoughts and not her credentials. I mean you're right it would matter to Catholics, but I'm saying it's not that type of Catholic she was writing for. Her writings on the social make that abundantly clear, but they still insist on dragging down the discourse regardless (maybe because they haven't read her).
Colton Rivera
Oh don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with mysticism, indeed the Catholic Faith has a rich tradition of it and the works by people like St. John of the cross and the anonymous monk who wrote the cloud of unknowing are celebrated.
If you think you can understand God better theough her than through scriptures and the saints and doctors of the church that’s all good you’ve got a better understanding of how you learn than I ever could. Just because I’m more partial to the former path doesn’t make it a vapid tree house club desire, it’s just different
Kevin Diaz
I have nothing against the individuals you cited, they are good men/women and are worthy of respect and reverence, it's just I'm skeptical "the saints and doctors of the Church" would be the one to be criticizing her like this, from what I'm seeing it's just those who still haven't graduated beyond the exoteric
James Ortiz
>she was a Jew Yikes.
Jack Scott
Well I guess that’s where we differ, I do get it that the kind of criticism they would layout would be nowhere near as caustic or antisemetic as you get on Yea Forums but to me it looks like they took the sacraments and membership in the Church extremely seriously and have a big issue with it.
Hudson Rodriguez
She would've become Catholic or Orthodox had she lived longer, she almost took the monkpill.
Kayden Lopez
Godspeed in remaining so pure
Evan Butler
she's an anti-semite
Easton Wood
Because she had legit issues about the church, issues that are also shared by catholics that are not brainlets and have a genuine faith in Christ. One of the issues she exposes in Lettre à un Religieux was actually addressed by Vatican II (recognition of some elementary religious truths among non Judaic traditions). She's actually very respected by a lot of high ranking caths.
I find her works outstanding, both before and after her mystical phase.
Christian Smith
She was anti judaic. Anti semitism is on a racial/ethnical basis.
James Bailey
>One of the issues she exposes in Lettre à un Religieux was actually addressed by Vatican II
This is a bit stupid. Imagine Simone Weil being happy about how pro-Jewish Vatican II council was...
Anthony Garcia
I didn't say she would have been happy with the V2, I only said she had several legit issues with the church that a lot of people within the church has. She wanted to uproot the church from its judaic background most of all, yes. The main reason she didn't get baptized, other than her premature death, was that she felt that the church was too much jewy
Julian Morgan
Well, that's what I mean.
Zachary Cook
Her essay on working the earth and its relation to Christianity is jawdropping. It's nice to find mysticis not divorced from practical cotidian life
Ian King
So she's the kike who pushed through the ecumenism horseshit. No salvation outside the Church. Certainly not for someone who came to it and rejected baptism and the Holy Spirit.
Evan Sullivan
what's it called? The Need for Roots?
Ayden Wilson
> yeah, blame the anti-semitic jewess and not your own fag liberals
if v2 was Weilian, it wouldn't have destroyed the mass (which she loved) and it wouldn't have removed the prayer for the jews...her ecumenicism is thinking paganism is better than the OT
Aiden Sullivan
Guenonposting replaced Weilposting as the local fad
Ian Hall
>So she's the kike who pushed through the ecumenism horseshit No. Her major concern was about the church not dropping its judaic tendencies and background. She could be accused of flirting with gnostic tendencies and syncretism, because she wanted to reject judaism in the most radical way.
Logan Gray
I'm glad you or whoever cropped this picture heeded my advice of hiding her ABHORRENT hands.
No. It was a Spanish from a edition of "Penseés sans ordre concernant l'amour á Dieu" (Disordered reflections on the love of God). It was the second essay on it I think. I couldn't find an English edition
Carson Sanders
from a Spanish* edition
Jonathan Richardson
Yes. I am amazed how she always managed to not fall in a blind intellectualism and to remain with her feet on the ground, in spite of the fact she was actually very erudite. Too pure for this board.
Daniel Anderson
she looks like a slut, can’t pull off the pure simone weil look
Jayden Phillips
they grew up and left the board.
Joseph Lopez
Yeah The Poem of the Force is probably the most lucid Iliad essay I've ever encountered. Marvelous stuff.
Luis Jones
>I think she is severely underappreciated on this board She's Yea Forums approved since the beginning.
Jackson Turner
>Penseés sans ordre concernant l'amour á Dieu
thanks, i'll find it in french
Jackson Anderson
What is her reading order/ recommended translation?
Levi Gomez
I used to post here a lot in the old days and I don't really remember her being discussed much. There were a lot of weird little cults that flared briefly and then subsided. I might have missed that one. Or maybe my memory is just bad. How many Yea Forums oldfags are left? I only come here once every few months now, and I don't have much free time anymore.
