La personne et le sacré: collectivité, personne, impersonnel, droit, justice
H-France Review, vol. 20, no. 143, pp. 1-5.
Political-Social Philosophy
Personal Identity and National Identity: An Analogy
Philosophical Investigations, vol. 43, nos. 1-2, pp. 158-164
An Ethic of Refusal: Simone Weil and the Choice of the Lesser ‘Lesser Evil’
In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties,” Simone Weil poses the hypothetical predicament of a person who is intent on solving highly complex mathematical problems but is flogged every time the answer he arrives at is an even number. The person will oscillate between his genuine desire for the truth and the painful cries of his body. “[I]nevitably,” Weil writes, “he will make many mistakes—even if he happens to be very intelligent, very brave and deeply attached to the truth.” She then asks: “What should he do?” Weil’s answer may surprise many readers, even though she claims it is “simple.” If possible, “he must run away” from those who wield the whip. It would have been best, she avers, had he avoided these associations in the first place. Elsewhere in her writings, Weil openly endorses the argument for the lesser evil, justifying active, potentially violent, resistance instead of a pacifist ethic of refusal. This essay analyses the tension between Weil’s ethic of “running away” and her acceptance of the lesser evil.
Philosophical Investigations, vol. 43, nos. 1-2, pp. 165-166.
Immigration and the Desire for Rootedness
National conservatives need to help create an America that knows who she is, one that can give immigrants more than just a place to get a job—an America that can draw them in, giving them a sense of belonging. This essay is based on remarks delivered at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC, on July 15, 2019.
Excerpt: Simone Weil said in The Need for Roots, “to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul . . . Every human being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him to draw well nigh the whole of his moral, intellectual, and spiritual life by way of the environment of which he forms a natural part.” I see rootedness as something due to every human being, as part of their human dignity. Without it, man is cut off from the very elements that make him who he is.
Public Discourse, July 22, 2019.
See also Luma Simms, “Rootedness and National Identity in the Twenty-First Century,” in Ann Ward, ed., Polis, Nation, Global Community The Philosophic Foundations of Citizenship, New York: Routledge (2022), chapter 9.
Luma Simms, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies the life and thought of immigrants.
This French intellectual diagnosed America’s current political malaise — in 1943
Washington Post
Rooting for a New Patriotism
Foreign Affairs
What We Owe to Others: Simone Weil’s Radical Reminder
New York Times
Party of One: Democracy, Political Parties, and Simone Weil
Los Angeles Review of Books
Simone Weil and the End of Political Parties
Houston Chronicle
“A Radical Cure Hannah Arendt & Simone Weil on the Need for Roots”
Philosophy Now, vol. 127, p. 16-19
