We pretend that our present system is democratic, yet the people never have the chance or the means to express their views on any problem of public life. Any issue that does not pertain to particular interests is abandoned to collective passions, which are systematically and officially inflamed.
― Simone Weil, ‘On the Abolition of All Political Parties’ (tr. Leys)
Comments Off on
Posted in Simone Weil
I do not need any hope or any promise to believe that God is rich in mercy. I know this wealth of his with the certainty of experience; I have touched it. What I know of it through actual contact is so far beyond my capacity of understanding and gratitude that even the promise of future bliss could add nothing to it for me; since for human intelligence the addition of two infinites is not an addition.
— Weil, letter, 1942 (tr. Craufurd)
Comments Off on I do not need any hope
Posted in Simone Weil
I guess there are just two things I wanted to talk about besides language. One is the emphasis on being. Let’s just start with this: here we are, you and I, together. What brought us here now? The most fundamental preconditions for each of us to be here now are, first, that anything is at all, second, that such beings as human beings exist, and third, that each of us here actually exists and is in this room right here now. These ontological miracles are required for you and I to be here together. Existential thought and practice counsels us to remember and hold near the awareness that it need not be so, and that that it is so is the wonder of all wonders. I consider this one of the greatest strengths of existential psychotherapy in general, and Daseinsanalysis in particular, namely their steady gaze at the miracle of being at all.
Comments Off on These ontological miracles
Posted in Heidegger
Notes from a Room 