Straight Power Concepts, post by Mark

In our second class, we read a declassified portion of a 1948 planning study by George Kennan, who noted, "The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.  The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."

That day came with the U.S. invasion of Vietnam.

Breakdown Precedes Breakthrough, post by Mark

Jorge earned enough to be under the taxable limit
Because he didn’t want to pay for war

He couldn’t say “No” when someone asked
“Would you help us fight back?”

He gave and gave and gave some more
Rarely drank, but smoked like it was the 50s

He said his “career” was resistance
He said he’d been arrested 17 times

His world was often crowds, noise, speed
A friend told him to take a day off

A Famous Story, post by Mark

And now a lawyer stood up and, to test him, asked, 'Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

He said to him, 'What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?’

One of Simone's Contemporaries, by Mark

A while back I read several books by French philosopher Pierre Hadot, who has focused on the role of spiritual exercises in philosophy. Through Hadot, I became acquainted with this short passage from a diary kept by Frenchman and Marxist sociologist Georges Friedmann in the 1940s:

“To take flight” every day! At least for a moment, which may be brief, so long as it is intense. A 'spiritual exercise' every day—alone or in the company of a person who also wants to better herself.

Spiritual exercise. Leave duration behind. Try to strip yourself of your own passions, of the vanities and the rash of noise surrounding your name (which, from time to time, itches like a chronic affliction). Flee backbiting. Strip yourself of pity and of hatred. Love all free human beings. Become eternal by transcending yourself.<!--more-->

This effort upon yourself is necessary; this ambition is just. Many are those who become completely absorbed in militant politics and the preparation of the social revolution. Few, very few, are those who, to prepare for the revolution, are willing to make themselves worthy of it."


In What is Ancient Philosophy? Hadot offers the following comment on Friedmann: “The ‘engaged’ philosopher always runs the risk of letting himself be swept along by political passions and hatreds. This is why it was vital, in Friedmann’s view, that in order to improve the human situation we concentrate our strength ‘on limited groups, even on individuals,’ and ‘on the spiritual effort (the transformation of a few),’ which, he thought, would eventually be communicated and diffused.”

Hadot goes on to describe such spiritual exercises as “voluntary, personal practices meant to bring about a transformation of the individual, a transformation of the self.”

A Suggestion on Chris's Quotations Post, by Mark

For those of you who want to do more introspective writing, choose one of Chris's Simone quotations, and write for 15 minutes, freewriting-style.  Repeat  writing on the same passage a few days (or weeks)  later.

Quotations, by Chris

After watching the documentary "An Encounter with Simone Weil" and being moved by some of the quotes shared there, I decided to google search for quotes and made this list that spoke to me.  I am sharing here. 

Simone Weil

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” 

“All sins are attempts to fill voids.” 

“A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not.”

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ” 

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.” 

Such a difficult assignment, by Sarah

I would love to hear if anyone else struggled with the assignment on Week 1 to undertake Concentration Practice.  I am apparently sleepwalking through 99% of my life!

I kept thinking - no problem - I can focus my attention when I do a daily task like packing lunches for the kids, showering, etc....but weeks later I have still not managed to do it.

I was able to intensely focus a few times when I stepped outside of my daily routine:
-when I attended Mass for the first time in almost a year on Holy Thursday
-when I took the day off on Friday and went on a bike ride with my family in the freezing cold weather
-on my morning run today

In those instances, I paid attention to my breathing, the sights, sounds, and smells around me, and the feelings in my body.  Somehow, other than those three times, I have been thinking about what is coming up instead of focusing on the present moment.

I don't like moving on to the next agenda until I complete all the tasks listed in order...but in this case I'd better just carry that challenge forward as I move on.

Introduction - Sarah

This is my fourth class with Mark.  I love opportunities to learn/grow/change, and these classes offer all of that.  I knew nothing about Simone Weil prior to this class, but that was irrelevant to my interest in the class.  I knew nothing about Diane di Prima prior to Mark's class about her and her poetry last fall, and I am so grateful that I read her memoir, "Recollections of My Life as a Woman".  I still think back to passages in that book and the feelings they stirred in me.

For the past twenty years, I had not written anything other than letters to clients.  Last summer, I began writing again in the first class I took with Mark.  It felt like looking over a cliff, especially the first time I posted on the blog.  I am so thankful I did something I was fearful of, because I grew in the process.  Now I write for pleasure - particularly with my two daughters, who both have set an example of writing for me in the past few years.  I look forward to Mark's interesting prompts and where the writing takes my thoughts!

If you read the intro to the Share the Wealth I did last fall, you will know that I don't live in a bubble.  That is wonderful in many respects, but I also crave some time in a bubble to share thoughts I could not safely verbalize in this small town and to listen to new ideas I would not hear here.  I am selfishly using all of you in the class to create a bubble for myself.  So, please share and write in the blog, because I love reading what all of you have to say!

Simone and the Gita, by Mark

This week's agenda has parallels from other traditions (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu)  to Simone's essay on school studies and the cultivation of attention.

I found this link to a work on the place of the Bhagavad Gita in Simone's work by Norman Hendricks from McMaster Univeristy (1969).

Francis of Assisi/2, by Mark

How Saint Francis, walking one day with brother Leo, explained to him what things are perfect joy.

One day in winter, as Saint Francis was going with Brother Leo from Perugia to Saint Mary of the Angels, and was suffering greatly from the cold, he called to Brother Leo, who was walking on before him, and said to him: "Brother Leo, if it were to please God that the Friars Minor should give, in all lands, a great example of holiness and edification, write down, and note carefully, that this would not be perfect joy.”

A little further on, Saint Francis called to him a second time: "O Brother Leo, if the Friars Minor were to make the lame to walk, if they should make straight the crooked, chase away demons, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and, what is even a far greater work, if they should raise the dead after four days, write that this would not be perfect joy.”

Shortly after, he cried out again: "O Brother Leo, if the Friars Minor knew all languages; if they were versed in all science; if they could explain all Scripture; if they had the gift of prophecy, and could reveal, not only all future things, but likewise the secrets of all consciences and all souls, write that this would not be perfect joy.”

Francis of Assisi/1, by Mark

The following is an interview Mev Puleo did with Dr. Ann Manganaro in El Salvador, January 1993…

Mev:  What in your life has brought you to the decision to cast your lot with the poor?

Ann:  From childhood, my parents were great lovers of  Francis of Assisi — so that whole image of someone who lived poorly and tried to live according to the Gospel is an image I grew up with as an ideal person.

Dipa Ma, post by Mark

All of us know women, from our own lives and from our reading and knowledge of history, who have led  amazing lives of service, deep spirituality, and social action.  As we read Simone Weil, feel free to share reflections on some of the women who have mattered to you.  

Here's something I compiled a while back.  I wish Simone could have sat with Dipa Ma.

We are so fortunate to be alive at this time, so many teachers to learn with and from.

Here’s one: Dipa Ma who was born in East Bengal, lived for years in Burma, and spent her last years in Calcutta. Several American teachers were greatly inspired and influenced by her, such as Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jack Kornfield.

A book worth meditating on is by Amy Schmidt, entitled, Dipa Ma: The Life and Teachings of a Buddhist Master;  here are a couple short anecdotes I’ve adapted from her students, which I think you’ll appreciate! Next are a few of her short teachings.

1.

“Dipa Ma and I were on an airplane
Coming to the States from India.

It was very, very turbulent,
And at one point, the plane hit an air pocket and dropped.

Simone's Thought via SEP, post my Mark

For those with a philosophic bent,  the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Simone  may be worth a perusal.

Here's an excerpt...

Simone Weil was born in Paris on 3 February 1909. Her parents, both of whom came from Jewish families, provided her with an assimilated, secular, bourgeois French childhood both cultured and comfortable. Both Weil and her older brother André—himself a math prodigy, founder of the Bourbaki group, and a distinguished mathematician at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study—studied at prestigious Parisian schools. Weil’s first philosophy teacher, at the Lycée Victor-Duruy, was René Le Senne; it was he who introduced her to the thesis—which she would maintain—that contradiction is a theoretical obstacle generative of nuanced, alert thinking. Beginning in October 1925, Weil studied at Henri IV Lycée in preparation for the entrance exams of the École Normale Supérieure. At Henri IV she studied under the philosopher and essayist Émile-Auguste Chartier (known pseudonymously as Alain), whose teacher was Jules Lageneau. Like Weil at this time, Alain was agnostic. In his classes he emphasized intellectual history: in philosophy this included Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant, and in literature, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Already sympathetic with the downtrodden and critical of French society, she gained the theoretical tools to levy critiques against her country and philosophical tradition in Alain’s class. There, employing paradox and attention through the form of the essay (it is important to note that none of her writings was published as a book in her lifetime), she began intentionally developing what would become her distinct mode of philosophizing. It is therefore arguable that she is part of the Alain/Lagneau line of voluntarist, spiritueliste philosophy in France.

In 1928 Weil began her studies at the École Normale. She was the only woman in her class, the first woman having been first admitted in 1917. In 1929–1930 she worked on her dissertation on knowledge and perception in Descartes, and having received her agrégation diploma, she served from late 1931 to mid-1934 as a teacher at lycées. Throughout this period, outside of her duties at each lycée where she instructed professionally, Weil taught philosophy to, lobbied for, and wrote on behalf of workers’ groups; at times, moreover, she herself joined in manual labor. In her early thinking she prized at once the first-person perspective and radical skepticism of Descartes, the class-based solidarity and materialist analysis of Marx, and the moral absolutism and respect for the individual of Kant. Drawing from each, her early work can be read as an attempt to provide, with a view toward liberty, her own analysis of the fundamental causes of oppression in society.

Sarah's Small-Town Wealth

Sarah is still in the last days of accounting service to her clients before April 15. She will join us soon.

Here's her Share announcement about living in a  small town; here's another in which she and others spoke about what they learned from poet and memoirist Diane di Prima.

Sarah, with daughter Liz

Priya's Journey

Many of us had the riveting experience of being present at Priya's Share in February; she also did one back in 2014.

Maggie: A Poet amongst Us

Here's the announcement for Maggie's Share the Wealth FOUR years ago!

And here's testimony to her being a bibliophile.

Celine Sharing the Wealth

I'm grateful to Celine for twice sharing with us on Sunday nights about her life and work. We miss you in St. Louis!

See the announcement here for her talk on disability;  see  here for the announcement about her Egyptian Jewish grandma.

Introduction - Maggie

Hi everyone! I just finished listening to the BBC piece on Simone Weil and am so grateful to be in this class, spending time with her and slowing down to pay attention to the things around me. I'm in Chicago (SLU class of 2015), work at a youth literacy nonprofit, and drink a lot of earl grey tea. I also work on social media and community-building projects with the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, whose producer recently mentioned Simone Weil in passing and sparked my interest. Life has been a little hectic for me recently, and I haven't been reading or writing as much as I'd like, so I'm hoping this class will give me time to slow down and sit with my own thoughts a little more.

Sontag on Simone, post by Mark

Here is an early appraisal of Simone Weil in the New York Review of Books by Susan Sontag, intellectual, writer, and activist. For an introduction to Sontag, here's one of my compilations.

Factory Life, post by Mark

The factory inspectors had to confront the problem of how the working day might be defined in practice. At what times should laborers get to work? Is the start-up time inside the factory or outside the factory? And what about breaks for lunch?

Marx quotes an inspector’s report: “The profit to be gained by it” [over-working in violation of the British Factory Acts] “appears to be, to many, a greater temptation than they can resist”…These “small thefts” of capital from the workers’ meal-times and recreation times are also described by the factory inspectors as “petty pilferings of minutes,” “snatching a few minutes” or, in the technical language of the workers, “nibbling and cribbling at meal-times.”

Marx then quotes the key idea: “Moments are the elements of profit.” I think this a crucial formation. Capitalists seek to capture every moment of the worker’s time in the labor process. Capitalists do not simply buy a worker’s labor-power for twelve hours; they have to make sure every moment of those twelve hours is used at maximum intensity. And this, of course, is what a factory disciplinary and supervisory system is all about.

–David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Capital

When Simone Met Simone

Most interesting among [Alain’s disciples] was Simone Weil, the future author of Gravity and Grace, who was taking the same classes as the future author of The Second Sex.  Simone Weil dressed oddly and always carried copies of Libres Propos and the Communist newspaper L’Humanité that spilled from her pockets. She was extremely committed politically, and she took the world’s sorrows personally. The strength of her convictions prompted her to become a worker at the Renault auto factory, to join the international brigades at the time of the Spanish civil war, and later to work at the Free French headquarters in London during World War II. Simone de Beauvoir wanted to get to know her fellow student and managed to start a conversation that soured abruptly when Weil declared flatly that the only thing that mattered was “the Revolution which will feed all the starving people of the earth.” De Beauvoir shot back that the only thing that counted was to make sense of the reason for human existence. Weil lashed out, “It’s easy to see you’ve never gone hungry!” and this effectively ended the exchange. Yet there was much common ground between this doctor’s daughter who had never lacked for anything and a Simone de Beauvoir who was always just a few steps ahead of privation.

–Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier, Simone de Beauvoir: A Life, A Love Story

Simone de Beauvoir