Giving Attention to "The Meta-Crisis" of Affliction
Giving Attention to "The Meta-Crisis" of Affliction
Inspired by Lorenzo Barberis Canonico. Sections II.2A and II.2B of II.1 ("Coming to Terms with Childhood"). The Game Theoretic Significance of Simone Weil
Belonging Again (Part I) discussed the topic of Absolute Knowers, Deleuzian Individuals, and Nietzschean Children, all phrases and terms meant to refer to the same kind of subject who can live according to values which are not socially supported, lack “givens,” and yet still have authority over the subject. They are created by the subject, and thus run the risk of being arbitrary, and yet manage to prove empowering. The question of Belonging Again was if “created givens” could being and orient the average person, and on this dilemma the question of “character” was explored. Here, we will focus the life and thinking of Simone Weil, who I believe provides and important piece of the puzzle, though this will also lead into considering Nietzsche. We will consider Weil’s life in the context of “The Meta-Crisis,” and suggest that we should focus on neurodivergence to address it.
Lorenzo Barberis Canonico works and thinks to defend neurodivergence, and brilliantly argues that society is almost doomed to fall into Nash Equilibria situations from which we will struggle to recover if we do not incorporate neurodivergence into our “collective intelligence.” The details of this argument are explored in “O.G. Rose Conversation Episode #10,” but basically where those of the Rationalist Community may look to address “The Meta-Crisis” through “evolving consciousness” or “improving rationality,” Lorenzo places the emphasis on “making space for neurodivergence,” as seen in Asperger’s, Autism, Downs Syndrome, and the like. Lorenzo explores numerous social problems in which “greater rationality” only made the problem worse, and suggests that if we are to avoid these “Rational Impasses,” it will not prove sufficient to employ a “collective consciousness” that is only in the business of greater rationality (this could lead to the terrors of “autonomous rationality” discussed throughout O.G. Rose). If the “collective consciousness” does not Incorporate neurodivergent, there are numerous Game Theory problems we will not be able to escape, which is to say the social order will devolve. For more, please see Lorenzo’s excellent TedTalk, “Diversity: The Key to Collective Intelligence in the Age of AI, ” and also see our conversation about “Conspiracies and Pandora’s Rationality” (Ep #37) for how neurodivergence could also help us avoid “internally consistent systems” from which we cannot escape (it is perhaps only with neurodivergence that we might address the problem regarding how “the map is indestructible”).
Perhaps rationality can advance to such a point that it becomes “practically neurodivergent,” as perhaps something similar applies to “evolving personality” and consciousness. I don’t know, but I much prefer emphasizing the language of neurodivergence over rationality, consciousness, and personality. I am skeptical of all language we are comfortable with, and I fear that when we tell people to “be rational” or “evolve their consciousness,” people nod and are excited, but if you tell them to “work to be more neurodivergent,” they will likely stare back, uncertain. I also like language that suggests those often outcast by society are who we need to be more like: we as a society are often cold to those who are not like us, and the neurodivergent have suffered.
It’s not possible for those who aren’t born neurodivergent to ever fully be neurodivergent, and so that too is humbling. Furthermore, the Shaman Class which Alexander Bard discusses seems neurodivergent, and there is an emphasis in Liberal thought to incorporate diversity into society today. I am not proposing an idea in this paper which isn’t present at all in the works of others, but I am suggesting that the language of neurodivergence is closer to “The Absolute Knower” than is the language of “greater rationality” or “advancing consciousness.” Sure, this can lead to something like neurodivergence, but I think the emphasis matters. Also, I think it is good to place our model as those often rejected by society, and who we can perhaps never be fully like due to our birth, while if the goal is “evolving consciousness,” we have all the tools we need. The language of “rationality” and “consciousness” might become egocentric, tribal, and even elitist.
I do not know if Simone Weil was neurodivergent, but she “practically” was in her radical uniqueness and sainthood. The same might be said of Nietzsche, but regardless the point is that Lorenzo’s work suggests that we should not be so focused on “evolving our consciousness” to overcome “The Meta-Crisis” and should instead look to make space for “the neurodivergent.” This means we need to learn how to be “open to the other,” and this means we need to learn how to live like Simone Weil. We need to develop the power of Attention she proposed, and we need to be deeply part of the world we live in (it’s “common life,” to allude to Hume). In my view, Simone Weil is far closer to being “The Absolute Knower” and imperceptible “Deleuzian Individual” we need to become like than say some intellectual genius, and I think the thought of Nietzsche against “Bestow Centrism” also suggest neurodivergence. I will associate Nietzsche’s Childhood with neurodivergence as well.
Please note: I don’t mean to say at all that people today discussing “The Meaning Crisis” or “Meta-Crisis” are supporting a life of intellectualism which is uninvolved in the work (Dr. Vervaeke, for example, clearing opposes such a life in favor of “serious play,” deep embodiment, and the like). However, I’m not sure if emphasizing embodiment is the same as emphasizing neurodivergence, as I’m not sure if emphasizing phenomenology is the same as emphasizing Simone Weil. Though please note I in my work emphasizing embodiment and phenomenology, so this is not a critique of others; rather, my point is that reading Simone Weil always feels like a “wake up.” She aligns with the Child in that she certainly made her Christianity her own after a very long road from the religion of her family through Marxism and the like: even if she embedded herself in a tradition, it was her tradition. And ultimately the author of The Need for Roots had to embed herself in a tradition (it would be a logical contradiction otherwise), but please note how she refused to be baptized and formally join the Church. She kept herself an outside; she believed but did not let this belief bring her comfort. In this way, Weil can be associated with Nietzsche.
What is needed to address the problems of Belonging Again is for us to try to incorporate more “otherness” and “neurodivergence” (A/B) into ourselves, but at the same time I realize that neurodivergence refers to a group of people who are biologically and neurologically born a certain way, so I am concerned that saying we need to “become more neurodivergent” might sound like a kind of appropriation. To avoid this, from this point on, I am going to refer to “practical neurodivergence” as “mentidivergence” (I also considered “animdivergence,” seeing as “anim” means “spirit” and/or “mind”). For those not genetically neurodivergent, we cannot technically be neurodivergent, but I do think we can implement something like it, which I will call “mentidivergence” (at least here). We can say that mentidivergence seeks to share an image and likeness with neurodivergence, while aware that this cannot be perfectly achieved, and hence the neurodivergent can never be replaced. We will always need to be open to “the other.”
I
I will touch on Weil’s life to suggest why it is not easy to say she is just “more rational” or entails an “evolved personality” (even if these describe her somehow), that rather the term “neurodivergent” seems more appropriate, and hence why “Absolute Knowing” might be closer to “neurodivergence” than other ways by which we could describe it. I do not know if Weil was neurodivergent, so I will refer to her as “mentidivergent” (though please note I might be misrepresenting her). Albert Camus considered Simone Weil ‘[t]he only great spirit of our time,’ while Flannery O’Connor thought ‘Weil’s is the most comical life I have ever read about, [but also] the most truly tragic and terrible.’¹ Many consider her a saint, but many also consider her life wasted due to foolish and even prideful ideals: when Simone was suffering from tuberculosis, she refused to eat more food than those suffering during the war, and in 1943 died because of ‘cardiac failure due to the degeneration through starvation and not through pulmonary tuberculosis’ (though please note this account is sometimes disputed).² To resist the German, she proposed parachuting nurses straight into conflict, which was suicidal, yet she proposed the idea precisely because it was suicidal and the Allies needed “higher ideals” to fight for and have a chance against the Nazis; to know what it was like to be a member of the working class, she gave up all academic and teaching posts to work in a factory; and so on — the life and thinking of Simone Weil cannot be readily categorized, and it certainly cannot be encountered with catching our Attention. She lived what she believed, perhaps to a fault, but perhaps only because the world couldn’t handle her. Her faults might really be the world’s.
We cannot discuss Simone Weil without discussing her mystical experiences (which suggests that a profound Alterology, to use language from (Re)constructing “A Is A,” informed her thinking). This creates a break between “the true” and “the rational,” and indeed grasping this division goes a long way to making a person more mentidivergent. ‘[H]er role as a mystic was so unintended, one for which she had not in any sense prepared,’ and we might say she experienced a break between “the true” and “the rational.”³ In this, we see thinking which is free of the mistake of “autonomous rationality,” as the neurodivergent are often, and further suggests mentidivergence is how her mystical encounters became evidence to her of a distinction between ‘the visible Church and the invisible congregation of saints [which] are never one.’⁴
Weil believed that it was ‘easier for a non-Christian to become a Christian, than for a ‘Christian’ to become one,’ which sounds as if she supports an individual lifestyle which avoids socialization and is able to think outside the consensus (like Michael Burry according to Lorenzo).⁵ She famously refused baptism and formally joining the Church, and arguably ‘she was [not] even troubled by the question of formally becoming a Christian,’ which seems impossible unless she indeed simply didn’t have a mind like the rest of us (she enjoyed and dwelt in “shadow work”).⁶ She was concerned by ‘the Church patriotism [which] exist[ed] in Catholic circles,’ and believed that the Church had to be ‘a social structure,’ but that meant ‘it belong[ed] to the Prince of this world.’⁷ She did not believe it was ‘the will of God [for her] to enter the Church at present,’ and she was clearly worried about “the temptation” of the warmth and belonging she would find in the Church.⁸ ‘Undoubtedly there is real intoxication in being a member of the Mystical Body of Christ,’ she wrote, suggesting an awareness of Arendt’s “banality of evil,” and Weil did not see herself as able to resist that intoxication, thus keeping her outside the Church.⁹ And yet she respected and cherished the Church, suggesting a Nietzschean Child who was rooted, a notion only further suggested in her writing:
‘The children of God should not have any other country here below but the universe itself, with the totality of all the reasoning creatures it ever has contained, contains, or ever will contain. This is the native city to which we own our love.’¹⁰
She sounds like Zarathustra, yes? Amid his animals, loving the earth…‘[I]t is supernatural to die for something weak,’ Weil tells us, which is to say that it is easy to die for a great political movement supported by the masses, but dying for the animals of Zarathustra?¹¹ This is weak, and thus requires incredible power to die for it. Dying for the irrelevant takes a saint. It takes someone mentidivergent.
Omitted Sections
Weil believed that ‘the greatest of virtues [was] to uproot oneself for the sake of one’s neighbors and of God,’ and yet she also wrote The Need for Roots—how can we square this?36 It is a paradox, but it suggests how Weil seems to have found a middle way between Christianity and Deleuze: we need roots and tradition or we wither like a plant, which means we cannot be “autonomous children” (to allude to Nietzsche), and yet at the same time we are to treat that tradition as something which we are outside of and never fully included in. We acknowledge its role and necessity, and yet we also acknowledge our inability to be part of it. We believe in Conservatism (for example), and yet we do not live Conservatively. Is this possible for everyone without Conservatism or Christianity becoming an empty and dead? This is a question Weil seems to have wrestled with, and how I’ve come to think about it is by seeing an honoring of tradition, history, and “roots” precisely in Mystical Experience (which in my work can be associated with “lack,” the Apophatic, Beauty, Alterology, and “The Absolute Choice”). Mysticism can have the role of validating a tradition, and yet at the same time it proves that “The Absolute” is infinitely greater than that very tradition. Something similar might apply to “The Creative Act” engaged in by Nietzsche’s Children—to create suggests that the world here is worth creating in and with—but I’m not sure. Mainly, the point is that there is something about Mysticism that actually works to validate a tradition which seeks to realize and honor that Mysticism, and thus in Weil aligning herself with Christian Mysticism, she also aligned herself with the Church she never formally joined. This enabled her to find “the middle way” she seems to have sought.
All of these biographical sketches come together in my opinion to describe someone who is more mentidivergent (we also know she suffered ‘migraine headaches of an unbearable intensity,’ ones she came to later think of as ‘a special gift,’ which suggests possibilities of a mind which did not functionally normally, both to her benefit and torment).37 For Lorenzo, the power of neurodivergence rests in its ability to avoid situations that the rest of us, “stuck in rationality,” seem unable to escape. This is a Nash Equilibrium, and this Game Theory problem brings to mind what Simone Weil calls “Affliction” (the opposite of Attention, which I will capitalize to help make that connection), as we will describe. Weil’s notion of Affliction arose from her time working at a factory, and it is when she also concluded that Marxism and the notion of an “inevitable revolution” were mistaken (long before the Frankfurt School started considering Freud to explain why the Marxist revolution didn’t manifest). Weil came to understand ‘the hidden nature of oppression itself,’ which we could align with “the hidden ways rationality leads to suboptimal results” in Nash Equilibria (which I will associate later with Discourse).38 She experienced and felt how the working class were forced into conditions which they could not survive or tolerate unless they turned off their minds: it became rational not to think. But if people didn’t think, they couldn’t escape their situation (through Rhetoric, as we’ll discuss): though it is not Christian language Weil uses, it is as if they were “totally depraved” which is to say they were utterly enclosed and hermetically sealed in their situation and themselves. ‘Oppression proceeds exclusively from objective conditions,’ Weil wrote, which is to say that our situations influence how we think, and furthermore can influence us not to think, which is to say it becomes rational to shut off our minds.39 An oppressive situation arises to a Nash Equilibrium (arguably for the owners as well, who are spiritually devolved by the condition), and all this is what Weil is referring to when she speaks of Affliction (which is basically a simile for “Rational Impasse,” which is into what Discourse leads us).
Funny enough, as a note inspired by a point Alex Ebert made in “The Net (69),” the feeling of escaping Affliction is what can feel “afflicting’ in the sense that now we have to think and deal with tension, while in Affliction (A/A) we feel secure and like things are “given” (in this way, a “Rational Impasse” is hard to escape because it feels comfortable). “The feeling of affliction” can hence keep us in Affliction, which is to say that if we start trying to make a “house” become a “home” outside of “shadow work” (as we’ll later discuss), we can start to feel unsure what we should do, like our neighbors think we are strange, like we are in over our heads—all feelings of affliction and tension. For Ebert, a danger with the word “Affliction” is that it might bring with it a moral judgment, and indeed this is a reason why terms like “Discourse” and “Rhetoric” can be better (as we’ll later mostly use), but at the same time we are alluding to Simone Weil and her understanding of the “enclosure” which the working class can fall under. In her honor, we will use the terms.
‘However tied and bound a primitive man was to routine and blind gropings,’ Weil wrote, ‘he could at least try to think things out, to combine and innovate at his own risk, a liberty which is absolutely denied to a worker engaged in a production line.’40 Our situations deny us the ability to think, just like how a Nash Equilibrium denies us the ability to reason our way out of a suboptimal result. Weil’s work on “force” also connects with her thinking about Affliction, which is most brilliantly highlighted in her considerations of The Iliad. ‘The true hero, the true subject, the centre of the Iliad is force,’ and ‘[t]o define force—it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing.’41 History is a long story of “force” and the objectification of people by others, but people also submit themselves to “force” and can reduce themselves into “things.” Sociological “givens” can hold back “forces,” but they themselves can also cause objectification and dangerous “thoughtlessness,” exactly like what Weil witnessed in factories as a cause of Affliction. There is no easy out.
‘It would seem that man is born a slave, and that servitude is his natural condition,’ Weil wrote (bringing to mind Plato’s Cave), which I would argue is the case because it is natural for humanity to fall into Nash Equilibria (situations in which rationality leads us into Affliction), to create societies which entail “givens” that bring about “thoughtlessness” (as dangerously necessary for the society to work), and the like.42 We end up in Affliction for good reason, and that is the problem: “bad reason” leads us into Affliction, but so does “good reason,” all of which suggests how rationality and the neurotypical are “naturally” unequipped to avoid Affliction and Nash Equilibria. To be normal is to be primed for Affliction, which can be described by the following reflection of Weil:
‘If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.’43
To realize that we are in a Nash Equilibria and prone to fall into them is painful, as it is painful to realize that our best efforts to improve the world end up “capturing” us (Deleuze). Bringing Heidegger to mind, Weil lamented how ‘human beings come increasingly through technical progress to dominate nature, [yet] remain incapable of dominating forces of control.’44 In fact, there almost seems to be an inverse relationship between “overcoming nature” and “ending up Afflicted.” The more rational we become, the more irrational the world seems. Why? Well, if “rationality” and “irrationality” exists in a dichotomy, perhaps more of one invites more of the other, perhaps, but it’s also because everything “autonomous” becomes problematic (to lose Hegel’s dialectic is to lose something important).
The Map Is Indestructible, the second book of The True Isn’t the Rational, discusses how pride, intuition, autonomous rationality, and the like can result in a “self-enclosure” from which there is no easy way to escape, even though it is “locked from the inside” (to allude to C.S. Lewis). I often discuss the trouble of rationality leading to “an internally consistent system,” which is a way of viewing the world which we will never find “reason to leave,” precisely because the variables always align and coheres in a manner that never forces an “essential contradiction.” Ultimately, we all must live and operate according to “an internally consistent system,” as we must always live and operate in an ideology, so the presence of “an internally consistent system” does not prove or disprove anything. Rather, the problem of having to ascribe to a worldview that entails coherence even if it doesn’t correspond leads us into a consideration of how we “grip” or “hold” the worldview, which means all of us should hold our worldviews with an “open” hand. We have to believe we might be wrong, and yet the worldview will give us no reason in its coherence for us to conclude such. It seems absurd, and yet is necessary.
The Map Is Indestructible also discusses the problems of “(autonomous) intuition” and “pride as self-enclosure,” which is to say intuition can position itself as right without conceptual meditation, which leads to a radical certainty of an insight from which a person cannot easily escape, precisely because they see “no reason to escape.” After all, they have intuited the truth. Similarly, when someone is prideful and “self-enclosed” in a system of “self-reference,” they similarly are stuck inside a certainty from which there is no easy escape. In intuition, thinking is almost viewed as a threat, because to not just “accept” the intuition is almost seen as trying to think and envision God. This is heretical, and act of incredible pride, and in this way intuition can lead to a person practically worshiping an “apophatic God.” In both of these circumstances, uncertainty would be a grace (as Michelle has argued).
What we see in pride and intuition is “a system of relation” which arises with “autonomous nonrationality,” while deconstruction, “Pandora’s Rationality,” and totalitarianism arise with “autonomous rationality.” Considering this, as discussed in The Absolute Choice, we can see why Hegel emphasizes a “dialectic” between rationality and nonrationality which could keep both perpetually destabilized yet generation, for indeed both poise grave threats to us and can lead us into “a hell locked from the inside.” Where Simone Weil calls for “a spiritual revolution,” I think we can see a call for “a return to Hegel” and embrace of “Absolute Knowing,” which acknowledge an essential limit to thought and hence impossibility of “autonomous rationality,” while at the same time making clear the need for “conceptual meditation” and “dialectically working through negativity,” which corrects the errors of “autonomous nonrationality.” We must think, but we can never be done with thinking.
“The Map Is Indestructible” is a phrase I think we can associate with what Simone Weil calls Affliction, which is a state that binds the mind to the point where thinking ceases to occur, at which point a person is stuck. Affliction, intuition, pride, “indestructible maps”—all of these lead to a state of “self-enclosure” and “self-reference” that leaves a person stuck in themselves (A/A, to use language from throughout O.G. Rose), and yet there is nothing which necessitates them to stay so stuck. And yet though they are not “technically stuck,” Affliction (A/A-thinking) arranges it so that we are “practically stuck” (and unfortunately the practical is more real than the technical). There is never a “reason” or “thought” (“B”) In Affliction we would “rationally” never think to step out of Affliction, and yet at any moment we could. This is why it is so insidious: the very easy by which we can leave a “map” makes it all the more “indestructible,” for it doesn’t seem “indestructible” at all. Its weakness can make us believe we are strong.
“The map is indestructible” is a phrase which can be associated with Weil’s Affliction, and for Weil this problem meant that “working class revolution” was impossible; a “spiritual revolution” would be required. Furthermore, it would seem the neurotypical and average person is extremely likely to fall into Affliction and some “indestructible map.” To approach this problem another way, the average person is likely to end up in a “Plato’s Cave” in which nobody comes to ever drag them out (as we have discussed)…
Anyway, rationality tends toward becoming “autonomous,” as intuition tends to position itself as “all we need,” and to be neurotypical is to naturally follow “external motivators” to align with the social order, and in all of this we see a “gravity” pulls us down into Affliction (A/A and “low order” Discourse). Both Weil and Nietzsche can be seen as thinkers supporting mentidivergence and neurodivergence, for how in the world would anyone ever conclude they are in Plato’s Cave unless someone tells them? If we hear the story from a Philosophy Class, we’re likely to conclude that the very act of hearing the story means we’re Philosopher Kings—how do we avoid such “typical” conclusion? Well, we’d have to think differently, but how in the world does someone come to “think differently?” How do we come to actually live according to Hegel’s “Absolute Knowing” versus only think we do so? Indeed, these are profound questions, and it should be noted that I associated “spreading the conditions for intrinsic motivation” with the question of “spreading mentidivergence,” which is the question of “spreading Childhood,” all of which I associate with spreading certain “material conditions” by which these might be cultivated (which brings to mind “Cone Dynamics” and what we will later call Wordspread)—but more on that later.
Neurodivergence inherently entails an acknowledgment that rationality, once autonomous, becomes its own worst enemy. Unfortunately, Lorenzo warns that it will be “rational” and tempting to use gene-editing technology and systems of gene selection to reduce neurodivergence in the social order, which is to say we might see a return of eugenics in a subtle fashion. If this were to occur, and if indeed neurodivergence is needed for us to solve “The Meta-Crisis,” we might be our own gravedigger.
“Neurodivergence” seems to me to be what we should emphasize to escape Affliction (or “autonomous A/A”), more than “evolving consciousness” or “increasing rationality”—not that these cannot play a role or that people can’t mean something like “mentidivergence” when they discuss “evolving consciousness,” but I myself think there is value in emphasizing diversity and “otherness” versus evolution. There is something Deleuzian about mentidivergence, and though elsewhere I have indeed been critical of Deleuze and the ways his thinking can dissolve “shared intelligibility” and discredit the need for us to “dialectically work through negativity,” I do not want to discount Deleuze entirely, only negate/sublate him into Hegel, for Deleuze offers us an ontology and metaphysics which can aid us).
II.2B
‘Being capable of thought, [we] must choose between responding like robots to stimuli […] or adapting to an inner representation of that necessity which is formed idiosyncratically.’45 This “inner representation” Weil notes suggests Nietzsche’s “Will,” and the ability to cultivate and live according to “inner resources” suggests an individual who is not “typical” and likely does not think “typically.” If we don’t turn to and cultivate “inner resources” (which seems to be all a prisoner has in Plato’s Cave), we seem very likely to end up in Nash Equilibria, but at the same time if we just turn to our “inner resources” and retreat there (as can be very tempting), we end up isolated and the social order dissolves. This is the tension Belonging Again explores constantly, and it is the risk of Deleuze (even if Deleuze is ultimately necessarily). We need to cultivate mentidivergence, without at the same time ending up cut off and isolated from “the other”—how might we accomplish this paradoxical goal? For Weil, we must learn Attention, an act I think we can associate with Martin Buber’s “I-Thou,” and an act that is not typical: to engage in Attention, we must be different.
‘Although people seem to be unaware of it today,” Simon Weil wrote, ‘the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object.’46 The work of O.G. Rose stresses “Conditionalism,” and Weil recognized Attention as the greatest force of conditioning. “We are what we love,” Dr. James K.A. Smith tells us, and what we love (which forms our habits and character) is relative to our Attention. ‘Attention is an effort, the greatest of all efforts perhaps, but it is a negative effort,’ which is to say it involves “clearing” (Heidegger) and working on ourselves inwardly more than something external or “in the world.”47 To quote her extensively:
‘Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object; it means holding in our minds, within reach of that though, but on a lower level and not in contact with, the diverse knowledge we have acquired, which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain, who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it.’48
The language of “valley” makes me think of Heidegger’s notion of death as a range of mountains bordering being (as discussed by Dr. Niederhauser), and we can almost see Attention as an act of “dying to self,” which is emphasized in Christianity. In this death, we are “open” to the other and, through our gaze, engage in “becoming-other” (Hegel, A/B), which is to say that Attention entails “The Absolute Choice.” In Sartre, “the gaze” is Hell, but in Weil we see Attention as Life. In some Christian thought though, God is both Heaven to those who love him and Hell to those who don’t, so perhaps “eyes” are something similar: they are either Sartre’s hellish “gaze” or Weil’s heavenly Attention. We are always dealing with doubles.
As has already been noted, there is something about Weil that is Heideggerian, for her doctrine of Attention aligns very much with what I consider Heidegger’s “clearing” (as I’ve discussed with Andrew Luber), and her very life free of practical and technical concerns suggests that indeed an experience of “Being as Being” (or what we experience as such) can go a long way to saving us from the thinking which reduces the world to “standing reserve” and us into cogs in a great Globalized machine. Now, perhaps this can actually be a problem, as perhaps Weil suggests through the extremity of her life, but at the same time there might be no other way for us to avoid the Nash Equilibria which define “The Meta-Crisis” then for us to be so extreme. Such extremity might be the only way to avoid “capture” (as Deleuze warned about); it might be the only way to ultimately prove “imperceptible,” as it might be the only way to stay “free” (for “Concerning Epistemology” by O.G. Rose does suggest that “freedom is nonrational”).
Anyway, Weil was ruthless in her deconstruction of anything she believed would threaten her ability to exercise attention. She ‘never allowed [herself] to think of a future state, but [she] always believed that the instant of death is the center and object of life’ (this brings to mind Hegel’s instance that we should not think the future, as it also brings to mind Heidegger and his emphasis on death in our thinking).49 Even Christ himself could be a threat to Attention: as Weil wrote, ‘Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.’50 Weil was even critical of “humans rights,” because she worried that it reduced morality to a legal transaction. ‘It is neither his person, nor the human personality in him, which is sacred to me. It is he,” Weil writes, which is to say it is not because he “has right” that I respect him, but because of ‘[t]he whole of him.’51 If this is forgotten, Attention will decline, and Weil sees “human rights” as potentially contributing to this error. ‘To set up as a standard of publica morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.’52 Lastly, we should note how Weil emphasized that the German had a massive advantage in the war because they had ‘the inestimably valuable psychological advantage of progressing toward an objective [while the] French and Allied troops could only feel they were guarding the status quo.’53 In my view, this also suggests Weil’s radical insistence that Attention was everything and worth sacrifice to cultivate: the Germans were winning the war because they had something which focused their Attention on winning and the world which would come thanks to that winning. Without this, Weil worried that the Allies were doomed. Furthermore, Weil even attacks the Marxism she once supported, coming to see ‘the revolution [as] the opiate of the people,’ in that it made people believe that the working class had the Attention needed to rise up and change the economic systems—but this was not the case.54 A spiritual revolution would be necessary if that Attention were to prove possible, and on this point we might look ahead toward Ivan Illich, who suggested that Discourse and the system focused our Attention only on it, giving it great power and control over our lives (a dictator can control us by simply assuring we never take our eyes off him).
What is Attention though? Well, it takes into account a strange reality:
‘ ‘You do not interest me.’ No man can say these words to another without committing a cruelty and offending justice. / ‘Your person does not interest me.’ These words can be used in an affectionate conversation between close friends, without jarring upon even the tenderest nerve […] / In the same way, one can say without degrading oneself, ‘My person does not count,’ but not ‘I do not count.’55
We do not care about “persons”; we care about a radical “you,” the “Thou” Martin Buber discusses. We in a similar way do not care about “humans rights”; we care about “whole persons.” This is hard to understand or explain, precisely because it is irreducible and can only be experienced, but the distinction is paramount and suggests why we must encounter “the whole of the other” (in their particular story), and never will it suffice to encounter abstractions. Unless that is the system trains us in “disabling professions,” as Ivan Illich discussed, and we are habituated by Discourse to the place where we can’t tell the difference between “a whole person” and “a disabled person,” “humanizing work” and “dehumanizing work”—which might be our current fate.
‘The Greeks had no conception of rights […] They were content with the name of justice.’56 For Weil, “rights” can block Attention and keep us from experiencing “the whole person,” which leads to a death of the very human subject we claim that we seek to help. ‘The notion of rights, by its very mediocrity,’ leads to human degradation: no “Thou” was ever witnessed in the name of rights.57 Rights are abstractions (like what technology and a system can reduce us to for Illich), and that is the fundamental problem, but rationality and thinking ARE in the business of generating abstractions, which means are very minds are a threat to Attention. And yet the abstraction of human rights is generated precisely to protect and honor people—rationality presents its abstractions as To our benefit, and indeed, when we think about them, we are rational to conclude they are beneficial. How would the world organize itself if we didn’t have “human rights?” How could we function without something quantifiable and universalizable? What would be the scaffolding which held together the world? Indeed, Weil seems to be suggesting that removing law could help the world function better, but removing law also seems like it would doom us. Wouldn’t it? Well, if everyone was neurotypical, probably, but if were all mentidivergent, that could lead to social fragmentation. Here, we can see why a dialectic between “the external” and “the internal” is needed (A/B), but dialectics are not natural. They emerge from conditioning, but the very thought that we need conditioning is not natural.
Weil is not encouraging a removal of law; she is encouraging us not to believe that law is enough (for “the low order” to be in “the high order” versus replace it). The problem is that where there is law, there is a tendency to outsource our compassion to that law and conclude we do not need Attention (as Illich understood), for we are indeed “giving Attention” in observing law. This is not the case, but it is easy to conflate “treating people legally” with “treating people with Attention,” as it is easy to feel that “the thought of x” is equivalent to x. All abstractions have a tendency to “overreach” and position themselves as equivalent to “the concrete,” and if we’re “not paying Attention,” this mistake seems inevitable (a notion explored in terms of “such-ness” regarding Hume in “The ‘Such/Lack Solution’ to the ‘Is/Ought Problem’ ” by O.G. Rose). If this mistake is made, we seem destined for Affliction and “locking ourselves inside” something in which we’ll forget that the exit is unlocked.
Weil considered Plato her master, and in “Geometry, Astronomy, and Platonic Forms As Ordering Principles” by O.G. Rose it was discussed on how we should consider “forms” not so much perfections but like orbits around which planet circle. No foundation or “ground” is needed to hold up the moon: it is held up “in” its very orbit. A dancer is not bound by anything solid or observable into following certain steps and a corresponding logic, and yet to watch a dancer can be to behold something that seems “fitting” and like “it could have been no other way.” The “organizing principle” of “forms” is like this, and when we discuss “human form,” we are not discussing so much “the perfect human” (though that notion can be part of the conversation), but more so “the invisible trajectory” according to which humans form and best formulate (A/B). For Weil, Attention is like an orbit and dance: it leads to social action and organization that utterly changes us and our world. Attention leads to form-ulation free from the Affliction we otherwise couldn’t think to escape our own. Attention form-ulates the neurotypical toward the neurodivergent; it (nonrationally) frees us of Nash Equilibria without us having to think about it.
Attention gives rise to emergences of moral behavior, without the “scaffolding” of law. Indeed, the scaffolding can be there, and in fact should be there, but the scaffolding is not the same as the dance. Law is not “form,” however much law might be necessary to help provide a social “space” in which dancing can occur: it can help “fill the distance” between those “who do not know the same dance,” per se. But if we can enter into a “formulating dance of Attention,” we are like a planet and help up in our “orbit”—the scaffolding is not needed—and indeed we find a way to organize ourselves and the occurring relationship through “a call and response” between those in the dance. We meet them in their “suchness” (versus our abstract notion of their “is-ness”), and so ethical behavior becomes possible. We formulate there, concrete.
In Attention, we “give” ourself to the other, and this is utterly necessary where sociological “givens” are gone. We could all learn to so “give” ourselves, then perhaps the loss of “givens” could prove beneficial to humanity, a challenge which gave us an opportunity to rise to a great possibility. But isn’t this idealist? How probable is it that everyone could engage in Attention, escape Affliction, and “formulate and organize” themselves emergently through Attention? Perhaps it is very unlikely, but this seems to be what a “Community of Absolute Knowing” must accomplish. If it is not possible (which is “the spreading of Childhood”), it seems unlikely for the majority to avoid neurotypical thinking and thus avoid Nash Equilibria. “The Meta-Crisis” will worsen.
Attention “holds us up”: it is a “giving” that can replace “givens,” while also helping us avoid Affliction and “invincible maps.” We never erase “maps,” no, but we can hold them differently and more “openly” so that we can “make space for the other.” Attention can change the world, for the world is under Affliction, and Attention is to check the (unlocked) door. But this is not neurotypical, and the act is ultimately “nonrational,” which means our brains will not easily let us carry out this simple act (perhaps there is a reason God is simple).
Weil wrote on “roots” and our desperate need for them, but what can we do in a Pluralistic and Globalized world where “givens” are deconstructed and “roots” seem impossible? Weil claimed that the ‘loss of the past [was] equivalent of loss of the supernatural […],’ and so without “roots” we are stuck with “the horizon of the world” (A/A), which means we are stuck in Affliction.58 A “ground” is no longer possible, but this means we require an “orbit” (where “givens” are gone, we need “giving”) (and please note that a Cypher “orbits” around an “apophatic space”—a notion which will reemergence later). A world of neurotypical A/A-logic will likely not succeed in this transition, and we certainly won’t see a “reason” to make this transition unless we take seriously the lessons of Hegel, who supports A/B-logic. Affliction is A/A (inside), while Attention is A/B (inside/outside), and for Weil Attention aligns with the Eucharist, for we identify with something “other” than ourselves. As the Eucharist entails transubstantiation (like Hegel’s “Spirit/bone”), so to deeply identify with “the other” through Attention is for us to align ourselves with others (I/other) (which I would associate with “The Absolute Choice”), and in this opens up an entirely different ontoepistemology of A/B (neurodivergent and mentidivergent), helping us avoid Nash Equilibria and “The Meta-Crisis.” If we cannot engage in this practice, we likely will not escape Affliction (A/A); we will likely “never leave Plato’s Cave on our own.”
Alright, but why do we end up in Affliction in the first place? How do we end up in Plato’s Cave? That’s a profound question, and requires examining both the tendencies of rationality and nonrationality into becoming “autonomous,” which requires The True Isn’t the Rational to elaborate on. Later in the book will discuss Discourse and Rhetoric to answer this question, but, here, let us touch on something Weil wrote:
‘a consciousness of the various obligations always proceeds from a desire for good which is unique, unchanging and identical with itself for every man, from the cradle to grave. This desire, perpetually stirring in the depths of our being, makes it impossible for us ever to resign ourselves to situations in which obligations are incompatible with one another.’59
We cannot stand for our values and notions to conflict, and yet all “otherness” requires such a conflict, which means we are primed to avoid “the other” (we are primed to avoid A/B for A/A). If we feel pulled in too many directions, we are paralyzed with uncertainty and possibility; we are mentally overwhelmed. To escape the resulting anxiety, we can find ways to discount “the other” without doing so directly, (for if we were direct, we would have to see ourselves as discounting “others,” which would put us in a bad light). But without “otherness,” we are prone to fall into a system of self-relating and self-justifying logic (A/A), which means are vulnerable to falling into Affliction. And indeed, that is what readily occurs.
When we experience tension, anxiety, uncertainty, and the like, we must decide what these feelings mean and how we should respond. We are naturally led to believe that a feeling of anxiety is evidence that we need to “change course,” “back away,” “withdraw,” or the like, and indeed that all follows from an A/A-framework. This is why adopting an A/B-framework is critical, for otherwise we lack the resources needed to interpret anxiety and tension as perhaps evidence that we are going in the right direction. If anxiety is needed for us to escape Affliction through paying Attention to “the other,” then an A/A-framework would have us withdraw from the very experience that could help us escape Affliction. Worse yet, as we “lock ourselves inside” Affliction, we might believe we are escaping it.
We are all prone to solipsism, the belief that we are “the only mind which exists,” for the brain wants to “practically believe this,” regardless what we want. If the brain is all that exists, it is safe and doesn’t have to use as much energy; after all, there isn’t an external world which the brain has to worry about: all the brain must do is survive. This desire for solipsism might exist forever in conflict with our bodily desire for love and relationship, and yet we need the brain to love. Thus, the brain is a frenemy, and of course the brain also cannot explicitly assert or suggest that it “wants to be all that exists,” and so engages in subtle mental gymnastics to “practically (indirectly) believe” this without “technically (directly)” believing this—suggesting that the brain is always in the business, for its own convenience, of moving us into Affliction (A/A). Avoiding this subtle way our brains direct us will not be avoided easily, and in fact though it often seems like philosophy is meaningless and has no purpose (other than perhaps boosting human pride and making us feel better through “therapeutic understanding”), the very reality of Affliction is why philosophy is needed. If thought naturally traps us in A/A, then we require thought which can think differently from “typical” thought, and that is what philosophy makes possible. We ignore it for “good reason” at our own peril (perhaps suggesting that very engagement with philosophy requires for us to overcome a “Rational Impasse”).
Such as in “The Net (20),” elsewhere in O.G. Rose is discussed the topic of self-forgetfulness, inspired by Timothy Keller, which attempts to navigate a space between selfishness and selflessness by emphasizing the need to simply forget ourselves and just use our self (like a thumb). In my opinion, focusing on the self is how we can readily end up in Affliction (A/A), whereas if we live paying Attention, we can find ourselves engaged in self-forgetfulness, focused on “the other” (A/B). Where there is Attention, there is self-forgetfulness, which can be a state in which we forget that we think “the door of Affliction is locked” and thus we try to open it and find ourselves walking outside without thinking about it. In fact, given how thought naturally structures reality “toward” us (A/A), it seems as if they only hope we have to escape Affliction is indeed through a state of “not thinking,” and yet there is a fine line between “thoughtlessness,” which is precisely what occurs in Affliction (and can lead to “the banality of evil” of Hannah Arendt), and the “cessation of thought” which occurs in self-forgetfulness (a negation/sublation). The problems and solutions are all so similar (suggesting why philosophy has a critical role, I think, to tell these fine distinctions), suggesting a need for skill and Attention toward our very minds.
Attention entails a state of self-forgetfulness in favor of “the other,” and in this we (“practically”) move from A/A to A/B. Ultimately, A/B is closer to “The Absolute” than A/A (though A/B includes A/A, A/A doesn’t include A/B), and for Weil we can assume that Attention is possible for anyone (suggesting hope for anyone in Plato’s Cave), as we can infer from her beautiful reflection:
‘[…] any human being, even though practically devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the kingdom of trusted reserved for genius, if only he longs for truth perpetually concentrates all his attention upon its attainment.’60
The misery of human society can be summed up for Weil in the notion that we have created and let ourselves be carried into worlds of Affliction; we are yet to make worlds of Attention. In this, we can see Weil suggests that “societies of givens” might tend toward Affliction, similar to how “givens” lead to “the banality of evil” (discussed in Hannah Arendt). If “givens” are done for, might this be an opportunity for “societies of giving” instead? Could “giving” be the new “given,” per se? Would this be a move from a world that is basically “autonomously neurotypical” to a world that is more neurodivergent and mentidivergent? Yes, I think so.
Attention, for Weil, is ‘far more important than will,’ and yet how Nietzsche understands Will seems paramount.61 It seems to me that we are to be Nietzscheans toward ourselves, and more like Weil and Buber to others (Will is our orientation to us, while Attention is our orientation to “other-mess”). In this, we find a Hegelian dialectic which consists of the work we must do so that we can enter into “the stories of others” (“Story Democracy”) and find support for ourselves in this world without “givens” (“orbits” like “forms” and Cyphers). Our Attention to others “holds us up” with them, as our Will to ourselves keep us “intrinsically motivated.” The Attention keeps us out of conflict and misunderstanding and even thrilled to enter different stories, while the Will keeps us going. Attention to others means we are self-forgetful to let their story surround us like something worth losing ourselves in (other-flow).
Weil speaks of “grace” and “gravity,” and tells us that ‘the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity.’62 For me, this suggests that souls naturally seek “givens” and want to be supported by “givens,” and when they are gone, the soul “naturally falls” into despair (pushed down by “gravity”). If the soul is not to so descend, it must act unnaturally, and that would entail “Absolute Knowing” or the Childlikeness of Nietzsche (‘[w]e must always expect things to happen in conformity with the laws of gravity unless there is supernatural intervention’).63 How can we act unnaturally? Weil tells Christians to pray ‘with the thought that God does not exist.’64 The “Absolute Knower” believes “Absolute Knowing” is unobtainable. The Children of Nietzsche do not believe Nietzsche has been created yet. ‘God can only be present in creation under the form of an absence.’65 ‘This world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.’66
Weil tells us that ‘God gave me being in order that I should give it back to him’; likewise, perhaps we have Will by other-ness so that we can give it back through self-forgetful Attention to others.67 Weil discusses ‘the impersonal’ and ‘the anonymous’ as where we can find truth and beauty,’ and though there is a sense in which this is true, I would note that this realm requires Self-Forgetfulness and “conditioning,” so we should not mistake Weil as encouraging to ignore the subject or believe we can avoid it.68 “The impersonal” is known only through the person, and thus the person must work hard. Weil writes:
‘The human being can only escape from the collective by raising himself above the personal and entering the impersonal. The moment he does this, there is something in him, a small portion of his soul, upon which nothing of the collective can get a hold.’69
Furthermore, society ‘should be arranged with the sole purpose of removing whatever is detrimental to the growth and mysterious germination of the impersonal element of the soul,’ which for me suggests a society focused on cultivating and spreading self-forgetfulness, Childhood, and Rhetoric (as we’ll explain in light of Deirdre McCloskey later).70 This suggests a society focused on ending Affliction, which is a society that keeps “force” and rationality from directing people into situations where what is rational is what is detrimental (whether this be a Nash Equilibria, working a job which we can only handle by turning off our minds, or the like). If Lorenzo is correct that social Nash Equilibria and “Rational Impasses” require neurodivergence to avoid, then society should be in the business of incorporating neurodivergence and mentidivergence into its “collective consciousness” and operations. Otherwise, a matter of Affliction, “The Meta-Crisis” might prove insurmountable.
‘Whereas gravity is the work of creation, the work of grace consists of ‘decreating’ us,’ which here we can use Weil’s words to suggest that rationality is in the work of building society into Nash Equilibria (“for good reason”), whereas nonrationality and neurodivergence works to pull society away from building itself into what it will lack itself inside.71 After her time experiencing Affliction, Weil’s ‘belief in [Marxist] revolution disappeared completely […] Not religion, but revolution, she said, was the opiate of the people.’ Revolution organized and operated according to rationality would not free us from Nash Equilibria, and yet belief that it could might pacify us into putting all our faith in revolution, which meant we would never engage in the “spiritual change” of Attention which Weil believed was necessary.72 Similarly, if we believe that we can “evolve consciousness” or “increase rationality,” we have no incentive to look for a new kind of thinking outside the neurotypical, meaning we will be in the business of “degrees of rationality” versus “nonrationality.” To engage in neurodivergence and mentidivergence would be to engage in something distinct like “the spiritual” in Weil, but ‘it is supernatural to die for something weak’ in the eyes of society, as “nonrationality” is likely to be seen.73 To die and sacrifice ourselves for the neurotypical is natural, but to embrace at our possible expense the neurodivergent is unnatural. It requires madness or bravery, and arguably the neurotypical would be incapable of this—hence why the neurodivergent are so necessary, exactly as Lorenzo teaches.
Again, to emphasize, I do not know if Simone Weil was neurodivergent, but she at least “practically” seems that way to me. She was arguably super-human, but can we say she had “an evolved personality?” Simone was a genius, but can we say her life was a product of being “amazingly rational,” as might be the language of a Rationalist Community? Albert Camus was a genius, as was Jean Paul Sartre, and yet Simone Weil seems to have had “something else” about her that was greater than intellect and genius. She simply thought differently. She lived differently. She was the kind of person who would stand up in Plato’s Cave and leave on her own. Under Affliction, the other prisoners would have laughed. Typical.
Simone Weil represents is neurodivergence, and when I think of what categorizes an “Absolute Knower,” “Deleuzian Individual,” or “Nietzschean Child,” it strikes me as having far more to do with something akin to neurodivergence than it does “intelligence.” I’m not saying it is equivalent to neurodivergence technically, but there seems to be “practical overlaps” that need to be taken into consideration. Indeed, if what is needed to address the problems outlined in Belonging Again requires something closer to neurodivergence than it does “evolved consciousness” or “greater rationality,” than we need to emphasize neurodivergence and what Cadell Last refers to as “alienness”—the language used across the internet that suggests otherwise might contribute to the problem. Here, we should acknowledge a something Simone believed:
‘More genius is needed than was needed by Archimedes to invent mechanics and physics. A new saintliness is a still more marvelous invention.’74
Rationality and philosophy certainly have a role, just not an “autonomous” one, and I also agree with Weil’s sentiment: we need a world full of “Communities of Absolute Knowing,” but how to bring that about is not self-evident at all. In fact, if it was self-evident, it would likely be an expression of Affliction and A/A-thinking: to see difficulty in the task suggests the task is rightly seen. But it is not seen easily, and often it feels like we only ever catch glances of it that are gone just as quickly as we notice them. And yet we must keep trying, for we are always at risk of ending up in Affliction and “indestructible maps,” and we will end up in those if we cease being vigilant.
Attention is a practice that can bring us into mentidivergence, as seems to be needed so that we take Nietzsche’s Will seriously and exercise the “intrinsic motivation” which is required so that we might “leave Plato’s Cave on our own.” Furthermore, mentidivergence seems to be what we practice if we engage in self-forgetfulness, which emergences in Attention, and in Attention we see the possibility of “sociological giving” (A/B) to make up for the loss of “sociological givens” (A/A). This is a key notion which is inherently far more “intersuppositional” than “presuppositional” (as discussed in The Absolute Choice), and it suggests the need for us to discuss differences between “gifts,” “giving,” “givens,” and the like, and it seems that a “Community of Absolute Knowing” is a community of “sociological giving” and hence “openness.” But what does this mean? That is the question, and the answer is not something that will come naturally or “typically.” Fortunately, we have Weil’s life and example to help us consider and live out the inquiry.
On a closing note, as I’ve spoken to Layman Pascal about, Georges Gurdjieff seems to also be an example like Simone Weil of a life which is more mentidivergent and able to move beyond Affliction. I am no expert on Gurdjieff like Layman or Luke Behncke, so I cannot speak on him, but Gurdjieff could be seen as a teacher who might help us “make our experiences more nutritious” (and thus capable of Attention). If so, it would seem that we might be able to speak of a “Gurdjieffian Subject” in a way similar to Nietzsche’s Child. I might pick up this notion in (Re)constructing “A Is A,” but here at least I wanted to note the potential relevance of Gurdjieff before moving on.
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Notes
1Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 11 (P.S. Section).
2Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 31.
³Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: viii.
⁴Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: xii.
⁵Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: ix.
⁶Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: xi.
⁷Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 12.
⁸Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 6.
⁹Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 36.
¹⁰Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 49.
¹¹Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxii.
Omitted Sections
36Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: x.
37Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: xvi.
38Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 133.
39Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 135.
40Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 153.
41Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 163.
42Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 157.
43Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 69.
44Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 41.
45Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 11.
46Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 57.
47Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 61.
48Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 62.
49Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 22.
50Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 27.
51Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 50.
52Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 51.
53Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 23.
54Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: xxi.
55Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 50.
56Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 62.
57Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 64.
58Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 39.
59Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 93.
60Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 23.
61Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxiii.
62Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 1.
63Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 1.
64Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 19.
65Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 99.
66Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 132.
67Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 35.
68Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 55.
69Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 57.
70Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 59.
71Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxi.
72Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 16.
73Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxii.
74Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 51.
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