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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1141
It rests upon the supposed existence of a wonderful little piece of mechanism
thanks to which force, on entering into the sphere of human relations, becomes
an automatic producer of justice. The economic liberalism of the nineteenth
century middle classes rests entirely upon the belief in such a mechanism; the
only proviso being that in order to possess this property of being an automatic
producer of justice, force must take the form of money to the exclusion of all
use either of arms or of political power.” However, the apparent neutrality
of currency, which makes everything comparable with everything else
and which realises the enforced relations of superiority and inferiority
in the form of “objective” quantitative connections, is an enormous lie.
Reconciling this lie with the freedom of the individual or with the
principle of social justice is impossible. This is the reason for the huge
success of Nazi demagoguery. Hitler, she writes, represents the victory
of a coherent lie over an incoherent one.
“There is only one possible choice to be made,” she wrote in her final work.
“Either we must perceive at work in the universe, alongside force, a principle
of a different kind, or else we must recognize force as being the unique and
sovereign ruler over human relations also.” Ihe question is not whether
we prefer the power game to be regulated by scientific planning, the
will of the majority or the individual’s thirst for profit, but whether we
accept the rule of force in social relations. Yet we must accept it if we
have no other principle that we can oppose to the blind necessity of
power relations (“real” relations! what a soothing expression).
However, this different principle exists! It exists and few would deny
its fundamental importance in human contact. What protects from force
and what Weil calls the radiance of the spirit is reason itself. Not the
reason that guards the order of industrial society in the form of rational
calculations, but the capacity to understand others, which creates a whole
new kind of connection among people. Participating in others’ lives
with understanding is exactly the opposite of knowing how to deal with
them, of the power of knowledge. Not only does it fail to help one do away
with them, harm them or rule over them, but it makes one incapable of
doing so (as Emmanuel Lévinas explains).
Following Simone Weil — and others, such as Alasdair MacIntyre
— we can boldly state that the incoherent lie forming the foundation of
modern Western civilisation is none other than the removal of goodwill
and mutual assistance (which has continued to be valued in private
12° Simone Weil: The Need for Roots — Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind.
Routledge, London, 2002, p.236.
133 Ibid. pp.235-36.