Simone Weil i polityczny romantyzm

Abstract

The main ideas of Simone Weil’s political romanticism are following: negative self- definition in relation to the principle ideas of the 18th century and the Revolution of 1789; criticism of civic society based on law in favour of a community of a higher order, based on moral principles of divine origin; criticism of money; contempt for utilitarian values; disdain for intellectual culture imbued with pragmatic thinking, founded on narrow specialization and deprived of any contact with transcendentalism; morally and aesthetically motivated hostility towards modem technology and machinery; defence of the individual against collective conformism, coupled with criticism of social atomism; nostalgia for the Middle Ages; cult of Ancient Greece (Plato, the tragedians), linked with an aversion for Roman civilization; expectation of religious renewal; hope for a reconciliation between religion and science, and a Gnostic tendency; and last but not least, the theme of “roots” so typical of romantic conservatism.