{"id":12187,"date":"2009-11-20T13:51:57","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T13:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/20\/simone-weil-and-generic-wretchedness\/"},"modified":"2009-11-20T13:51:57","modified_gmt":"2009-11-20T13:51:57","slug":"simone-weil-and-generic-wretchedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/11\/20\/simone-weil-and-generic-wretchedness\/","title":{"rendered":"Simone Weil and Generic Wretchedness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace<\/strong>, tr. Emma Craufurd, Routledge 1995, p. 70:<\/font><\/p>\n

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The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This suggests one of several tests you might apply to yourself to see if you have a religious 'bent' or sensibility, or orientation toward life, or however you wish to phrase it. If, upon reading the Weilian line, a 'yes!' wells up in you, then the chances are excellent that you are religiously inclined. If your response is in the negative, however, or if you are just puzzled, then that indicates that you lack the religious attitude.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

I offer the following, from an <\/font>earlier post<\/font><\/a>, as a partial unpacking of the Weil quotation:<\/font><\/p>\n

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Man's wretchedness is 'structural': man qua<\/em> man is wretched. Wretched are not merely the sick, the unloved, and the destitute; all of us are wretched, even those of us who count as well off. Some of us are aware of this, our condition, the rest hide it from themselves by losing themselves in Pascalian divertissement, <\/em>diversion. We are as if fallen from a higher state, our true and rightful state, into a lower one, and the sense of wretchedness is an indicator of our having fallen. We are in a dire state from which we need salvation but are incapable of saving ourselves by our own efforts, whether individual or collective.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An interesting thing about the Red Virgin is that, though she remained a virgin until death, she came to see though the illusions of the Left. This begs<\/s> raises the question whether speaking strictly there could be a religious Left. To tackle this question properly, however, would involve explaining what ought to be meant by 'religion,' what ought to be meant by 'Left,' and then arranging a confrontation of their respective denotata<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, tr. Emma Craufurd, Routledge 1995, p. 70: The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it. This suggests one of several tests you might apply to yourself to see if you have a religious 'bent' or sensibility, or orientation toward life, or however … Continue reading “Simone Weil and Generic Wretchedness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-weil-simone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}