A review by foundeasily
The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind, by Simone Weil
2.0
The very beginning felt very interesting but it slipped precipitously from radical to liberal to a confused, sort of naturalism that supposed people away from their indigenous homes, by choice or by force, were damaged. There's room for an investigation of some of what that implies but in many or most cases it turns, as it does in the text, to a radically anti-immigrant point of view. Once it went down that path I went from a patient reading, to a skimmed one and never found my way back.
This feels, especially in it's anti-Marxian fervor at times, to be an interesting example of a certain radical liberal perspective, which like The New Deal liberalism, offers certain prizes to the working class, in exchange for not challenging the ruling order. In this case, it is a naturalist view of human rights. Elsewhere, however, one can see the shape of a neoliberal modernist perspective, where knowledge work replaces human toil, not to free the human cost but to 'better' them.
This feels, especially in it's anti-Marxian fervor at times, to be an interesting example of a certain radical liberal perspective, which like The New Deal liberalism, offers certain prizes to the working class, in exchange for not challenging the ruling order. In this case, it is a naturalist view of human rights. Elsewhere, however, one can see the shape of a neoliberal modernist perspective, where knowledge work replaces human toil, not to free the human cost but to 'better' them.