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CONSERVATISM IS NOT MONOLITHIC II
(A review of The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas, by Robert Zaretsky. The University of Chicago Press, 181 pages. (February 2021)

The Subversive Simone Weil—A Review

[...] Renouncing revolution as impetuous and wrong-headed, Weil believed that resistance began with clarity of thought and ended with what we might reasonably expect, not everything we wished for.

In this respect, Zaretsky argues, Weil espoused “a fundamentally conservative conception of revolution and resistance.” But her conservatism did not end there—her wartime book, The Need for Roots, was “both more radical and more conservative” than ever. She shared much in common, in fact, with the father of philosophical conservatism Edmund Burke. Above all, they both stressed the ontological importance of rootedness. Without roots we are nothing. Embracing an organicism intrinsic to conservative thought, Weil averred that there could be no self without society. She lamented the disconnectedness ushered in by modernity and capitalism, where community counts for little, the past counts for less, and the future is rarely considered at all.

Wary of abstract reason (“the great human error is to reason in place of finding out”), Weil was a particularist. She believed in conserving what was exceptional or merely unique in a nation’s heritage. If Burke espoused a compassionate conservatism, Weil espoused a compassionate patriotism. Rejecting pride as a foundation for love of country, she nevertheless maintained that there is nothing inherently wrong with patriotism itself. Quite the opposite—“A perfectly pure love for one’s country,” she wrote, “bears a close resemblance to the feelings which his young children, his aged parents, or a beloved wife inspire in a man.” The right kind of patriotism is both healthy and deeply felt at the level of human need. In its absence we are uprooted and unwell. (read more)

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