Harbal and MikeHarbal wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:31 amMaybe it's because I don't know the context in which that was written that I don't understand what is being said here. While truth and justice etc. all seem like desireable things, they don't have much meaning spoken of in the abstract. Can you explain what Simone Weil was thinking of when she wrote this, and something about what she meant by it?
That excerpt was taken from Simone Weil's "The Need for Roots" written as she was near death concerning a transcendent and universal moral law, and describes the social responsibilities that accompany it.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html
She asserts that unless a person psychologically turns with the whole of themselves towards the light they remain emotionally unaware of human purpose; the obligations which makes rights possible.Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith
There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men............................................