A Nonfiction Book
Addressing Gravity with Grace
‘Being capable of thought, [we] must choose between responding like robots to stimuli […] or adapting to an inner representation of that necessity which is formed idiosyncratically.’⁴⁵ This “inner representation” Weil discusses suggests Nietzsche’s Will, and the ability to cultivate and live according to inner resources suggests an individual who is not “typical” and likely does not think typically. If we don’t turn to and cultivate inner resources (which seems to be all a prisoner has in Plato’s Cave), we seem very likely to end up in Nash Equilibria, but at the same time if we just turn to our inner resources and retreat there (as can be tempting), we end up isolated and the social order dissolves. This is the tension Belonging Again explores constantly, and it is the risk of Deleuze (even if Deleuze is ultimately necessarily). We need to cultivate mentidivergence, without at the same time ending up cut off and isolated from “the other” — how might we accomplish this paradoxical goal? For Weil, we must learn Attention, an act I think we can associate with Martin Buber’s “I-Thou,” and an act that is not typical: to engage in Attention, we must be different.
‘Although people seem to be unaware of it today,” Simon Weil wrote, ‘the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object.’⁴⁶ The work of O.G. Rose stresses “Conditionalism,” and Weil recognized Attention as the greatest force of conditioning. “We are what we love,” Dr. James K.A. Smith tells us, and what we love (which forms our habits and character) is relative to our Attention. ‘Attention is an effort, the greatest of all efforts perhaps, but it is a negative effort,’ which is to say it involves “clearing” (Heidegger) and working on ourselves inwardly more than something external or “in the world.”⁴⁷ To quote Weil extensively:
‘Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object; it means holding in our minds, within reach of that thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with, the diverse knowledge we have acquired, which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain, who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it.’⁴⁸
The image of “valley” makes me think of Heidegger’s notion of death as a range of mountains bordering being (as discussed by Dr. Niederhauser), and we can almost see Attention as an act of “dying to self,” which is emphasized in Christianity. In this death, we are “open” to the other and, through our gaze, engage in “becoming-other” (Hegel, A/B), which is to say that Attention can entail “The Absolute Choice.” In Sartre, “the gaze” is Hell, but in Weil we see Attention as Life. In some Christian thought, God is both Heaven to those who love him and Hell to those who don’t, so perhaps “eyes” are something similar: they are either Sartre’s hellish “gaze” or Weil’s heavenly Attention. We are always dealing with doubles and risk.
There is something about Weil that is Heideggerian, for her doctrine of Attention aligns with what I consider Heidegger’s “clearing” (as I’ve discussed with Andrew Luber) or “nihilation” (as Thomas Winn teaches on), and her very life free of worldly and technical concerns suggests that indeed an experience of “Being as Being” (or what we experience as such) can go a long way to saving us from the thinking which reduces the world to “standing reserve” and us into cogs in a Globalized machine. Now, perhaps this can actually be a problem, as perhaps Weil suggests through the extremity of her life, but at the same time there might be no other way for us to avoid the Nash Equilibria which define “The Meta-Crisis” then for us to be so extreme. Such extremity might be the only way to avoid “capture”; it might be the only way to ultimately prove “imperceptible,” as it might be the only way to stay “free” (for “Concerning Epistemology” does suggest that “freedom is nonrational”).
Weil was ruthless in her deconstruction of anything she believed would threaten her ability to exercise Attention. She ‘never allowed [herself] to think of a future state, but [she] always believed that the instant of death is the center and object of life’ (this brings to mind Hegel’s insistence that we should not think the future, as it also brings to mind Heidegger and his emphasis on death in our thinking).⁴⁹ Even Christ himself could be a threat to Attention: as Weil wrote, ‘Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.’⁵⁰ Weil was even critical of “humans rights,” because she worried that it reduced morality to a legal transaction. ‘It is neither his person, nor the human personality in him, which is sacred to me. It is he,” Weil writes, which is to say it is not because he “has the right” that I respect him, but because of ‘[t]he whole of him.’⁵¹ If this is forgotten, Attention will decline, and Weil saw “human rights” as potentially contributing to this error. ‘To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.’⁵² Lastly, we should note how Weil emphasized that the Germans had a massive advantage in the war because they had ‘the inestimably valuable psychological advantage of progressing toward an objective [while the] French and Allied troops could only feel they were guarding the status quo.’⁵³ In my view, this also suggests Weil’s radical insistence that Attention was everything and worth sacrifice to cultivate: the Germans were winning the war because they had something which focused their Attention on winning and the world which would emerge thanks to that winning. Without this, Weil worried that the Allies were doomed. Furthermore, Weil even attacked the Marxism she once supported, coming to see ‘the revolution [as] the opiate of the people,’ in that it made people believe that the working class had the Attention needed to rise up and change the economic systems — but this was not the case (habituated, structured, and “flattened” by Capital).⁵⁴ A spiritual revolution would be necessary if that Attention were to prove possible, and on this point we might look ahead toward Ivan Illich, who suggested that Discourse and the system focused our Attention only on it, giving it great power and control over our lives (a dictator can control us by simply assuring we never take our eyes off him).
Attention takes into account a strange but central reality:
‘ ‘You do not interest me.’ No man can say these words to another without committing a cruelty and offending justice. / ‘Your person does not interest me.’ These words can be used in an affectionate conversation between close friends, without jarring upon even the tenderest nerve […] / In the same way, one can say without degrading oneself, ‘My person does not count,’ but not ‘I do not count.’⁵⁵
We do not care about “persons”; we care about a radical “you,” the “Thou” Martin Buber discusses. We in a similar way do not care about “humans rights”; we care about “whole persons.” This is hard to understand or explain, precisely because it is irreducible and can only be experienced, but the distinction is paramount and suggests why we must encounter “the whole of the other” (in their particular story), and never will it suffice to encounter abstractions. Unless that is the system trains us in “disabling professions,” as Ivan Illich discussed, and we are habituated by Discourse to the place where we can’t tell the difference between “a whole person” and “a disabled person,” “humanizing work” and “dehumanizing work” — which might be our current fate.
‘The Greeks had no conception of rights […] They were content with the name of justice.’⁵⁶ For Weil, “rights” can block Attention and keep us from experiencing “the whole person,” which can lead to a death of the very human subject we claim that we seek to help. ‘The notion of rights, by its very mediocrity,’ leads to human degradation: no “Thou” was ever witnessed in the name of rights.⁵⁷ Rights are abstractions (like what technology and a system can reduce us to for Illich), and that is the fundamental problem, but rationality and thinking are in the business of generating abstractions, which means our very minds are a threat to Attention. And yet the abstraction of human rights is generated precisely to protect and honor people — rationality presents its abstractions as to our benefit, and indeed, when we think about them, we are rational to conclude they are beneficial. How would the world organize itself if we didn’t have “human rights?” How could we function without something quantifiable and universalizable? What would be the scaffolding which held together the world? Indeed, Weil seems to be suggesting that removing law could help the world function better, but removing law also seems like it would doom us. Wouldn’t it? Well, if everyone was neurotypical, probably, but if we were all mentidivergent, that could lead to social fragmentation. Here, we can see again why a dialectic between “the external” and “the internal” is needed (A/B), but dialectics are not natural. They emerge from conditioning, but the very thought that we need conditioning is not natural.
Weil is not encouraging a removal of law; she is encouraging us not to believe that law is enough (for “the low order” to be in “the high order” versus replace it). The problem is that where there is law, there is a tendency to outsource our compassion to that law and then conclude we do not need Attention (as Illich understood), for we are indeed “giving Attention” in observing law. This is not the case, but it is easy to conflate “treating people legally” with “treating people with Attention,” as it is easy to feel that “the thought of x” is equivalent to x. Abstractions have a tendency to “overreach” and position themselves as equivalent to “the concrete,” and if we’re “not paying Attention,” this mistake seems inevitable (a notion explored in terms of “such-ness” regarding Hume in “The ‘Such/Lack Solution’ to the ‘Is/Ought Problem’ ”). If this mistake is made, we seem destined for Affliction and “locking ourselves inside” something that’s exit we’ll forget is unlocked.
Weil considered Plato her master, and in “Geometry, Astronomy, and Platonic Forms As Ordering Principles” by O.G. Rose it was discussed on how we should consider “forms” not so much as perfections but like orbits around which planets circle. No foundation or “ground” is needed to hold up the moon: it is held up “in” its very orbit. A dancer is not bound by anything solid or observable into following certain steps and a corresponding logic, and yet to watch a dancer can be to behold something that seems “fitting” and like “it could have been no other way.” The “organizing principle” of “forms” is like this, and when we discuss “human form,” we are not discussing so much “the perfect human” (though that notion can be part of the conversation), but more so “the invisible trajectory” according to which humans form and best formulate (A/B). For Weil, Attention is like an orbit and dance: it leads to social action and organization that utterly changes us and our world. Attention leads to form-ulation free from the Affliction we otherwise couldn’t think to escape on our own. Attention form-ulates the neurotypical toward the neurodivergent; it (nonrationally) frees us of Nash Equilibria without us having to think about it.
Attention gives rise to emergences of moral behavior, without the “scaffolding” of law. Indeed, the scaffolding can be there, and in fact should be there, but the scaffolding is not the same as the dance. Law is not “form,” however much law might be necessary to help provide a social “space” in which dancing can occur: it can help “fill the distance” between those “who do not know the same dance,” per se. But if we can enter into a “formulating dance of Attention,” we are like a planet and held up in our “orbit” — the scaffolding is not needed — and indeed we find a way to organize ourselves and the occurring relationship through “a call and response” between those in the dance. We meet them in their “suchness” (versus our abstract notion of their “is-ness”), and so ethical behavior becomes possible. We formulate there, concrete.
In Attention, we “give” our self to the other, and this is utterly necessary where sociological “givens” are gone. We could all learn to so “give” ourselves, then perhaps the loss of “givens” could prove beneficial to humanity, a challenge which gave us an opportunity to rise to a great possibility. But isn’t this idealist? How probable is it that everyone could engage in Attention, escape Affliction, and “formulate and organize” themselves emergently through Attention? Perhaps it is very unlikely, but this seems to be what a “Community of Absolute Knowing” must accomplish. If it is not possible (which is “the spreading of Childhood”), it seems unlikely for the majority to avoid neurotypical thinking and thus avoid Nash Equilibria. “The Meta-Crisis” will worsen.
Attention “holds us up”: it is a “giving” that can replace “givens,” while also helping us avoid Affliction and “invincible maps.” We never erase “maps” entirely, no, but we can hold them differently and more “openly” so that we can “make space for the other.” Attention can change the world, for the world is under Affliction, and Attention is to check the (unlocked) door. But this is not neurotypical, and the act is ultimately “nonrational,” which means our brains will not easily let us carry out this simple act (perhaps there is a reason God is simple).
Weil wrote on “roots” and our desperate need for them, but what can we do in a Pluralistic and Globalized world where “givens” are deconstructed and “roots” seem impossible? Weil claimed that the ‘loss of the past [was] equivalent of the loss of the supernatural […],’ and so without “roots” we are stuck with “the horizon of the world” (A/A), which can mean we are stuck in Affliction.⁵⁸ A “ground” is no longer possible, but this means we require an “orbit” (where “givens” are gone, we need “giving”) (and please note that a Cypher “orbits” around an “apophatic space” — a notion which will reemerge later). A world of neurotypical A/A-logic will likely not succeed in this transition, and we certainly won’t see a “reason” to make this transition unless we take seriously the lessons of Hegel, who supports A/B-logic. Affliction is A/A (inside), while Attention is A/B (inside/outside), and for Weil Attention aligns with the Eucharist, for we identify with something “other” than ourselves. As the Eucharist entails transubstantiation (like Hegel’s “spirit/bone”), to deeply identify with “the other” through Attention is for us to align ourselves with others (I/other) (which I would associate with “The Absolute Choice”), and in this opening up an entirely different ontoepistemology of A/B (neurodivergent and mentidivergent), helps us avoid Nash Equilibria and “The Meta-Crisis.” If we cannot engage in this practice, we will likely not escape Affliction (A/A); we will likely “never leave Plato’s Cave on our own.”
Alright, but why do we end up in Affliction in the first place? How do we end up in Plato’s Cave? That’s a profound question, and requires examining both the tendencies of rationality and nonrationality into becoming “autonomous,” which requires The True Isn’t the Rational to elaborate on. Later in the book we will discuss Discourse and Rhetoric to answer this question, but, here, let us touch on something Weil wrote:
‘a consciousness of the various obligations always proceeds from a desire for good which is unique, unchanging and identical with itself for every man, from the cradle to grave. This desire, perpetually stirring in the depths of our being, makes it impossible for us ever to resign ourselves to situations in which obligations are incompatible with one another.’⁵⁹
We cannot stand for our values and notions to conflict, and yet all “otherness” requires such a conflict, which means we are primed to avoid “the other” (we are primed to avoid A/B for A/A). If we feel pulled in too many directions, we are paralyzed with uncertainty and possibility; we are mentally overwhelmed. To escape the resulting anxiety, we can find ways to discount “the other” without doing so directly (for if we were direct, we would have to see ourselves as discounting “others,” which would put us in a bad light). But without “otherness,” we are prone to fall into a system of self-relating and self-justifying logic (A/A), which means we are vulnerable to falling into Affliction. And indeed, that is what readily occurs.
When we experience tension, anxiety, uncertainty, and the like, we must decide what these feelings mean and how we should respond. We are naturally led to believe that a feeling of anxiety is evidence that we need to “change course,” “back away,” “withdraw,” etc., and indeed that all follows from an A/A-framework. This is why adopting an A/B-framework is critical, for otherwise we lack the resources needed to interpret anxiety and tension as perhaps evidence that we are going in the right direction. If anxiety is needed for us to escape Affliction through paying Attention to “the other,” then an A/A-framework would have us withdraw from the very experience that could help us escape Affliction. Worse yet, as we “lock ourselves inside” Affliction, we might believe we are escaping it.
We are all prone to solipsism, the belief that we are “the only mind which exists,” for the brain wants to “practically believe this,” regardless what we want. If the brain is all that exists, it is safe and doesn’t have to use as much energy; after all, there isn’t an external world which the brain has to worry about: all the brain must do is survive. This desire for solipsism might exist forever in conflict with our bodily desire for love and relationship, and yet we need the brain to love. Thus, the brain is a frenemy, and of course the brain also cannot explicitly assert or suggest that it “wants to be all that exists,” and so it engages in subtle mental gymnastics to “practically (indirectly) believe” this without “technically (directly) believing” this — suggesting that the brain is always in the business, for its own convenience, of moving us into Affliction (A/A). Avoiding this subtle way our brains direct us will not be easy, and in fact though it often seems like philosophy is meaningless and has no purpose (other than perhaps boosting human pride and making us feel better through “therapeutic understanding”), the very reality of Affliction is why philosophy is needed. If thought naturally traps us in A/A, then we require thought which can think differently from “typical” thought, and that is what philosophy makes possible. We ignore it for “good reason” at our own peril (perhaps suggesting that the very engagement with philosophy requires for us to overcome a “Rational Impasse”).
Such as in “The Net (20),” elsewhere in O.G. Rose is discussed the topic of self-forgetfulness, inspired by Timothy Keller, which attempts to navigate a space between selfishness and selflessness by emphasizing the need to simply forget ourselves and just use our self (like a thumb). In my opinion, focusing on the self is how we can readily end up in Affliction (A/A), whereas if we live paying Attention, we can find ourselves engaged in self-forgetfulness, focused on “the other” (A/B). Where there is Attention, there is self-forgetfulness, which can be a state in which we forget that we think “the door of Affliction is locked” and thus we try to open it and find ourselves walking outside without thinking about it. In fact, given how thought naturally structures reality “toward” us (A/A), it seems as if the only hope we have to escape Affliction is indeed through a state of “not thinking,” and yet there is a fine line between “thoughtlessness,” which is precisely what occurs in Affliction (and can lead to “the banality of evil” of Hannah Arendt), and the “cessation of thought” which occurs in self-forgetfulness (a negation/sublation). The problems and solutions are all so similar (suggesting why philosophy has a critical role, to tell these fine distinctions), suggesting a need for skill and Attention toward our very minds.
Attention entails a state of self-forgetfulness in favor of “the other,” and in this we (“practically”) move from A/A to A/B. Ultimately, A/B is closer to “The Absolute” than A/A (though A/B includes A/A, A/A doesn’t include A/B), and for Weil we can assume that Attention is possible for anyone (suggesting hope for everyone in Plato’s Cave), as we can infer from her beautiful reflection:
‘[…] any human being, even though practically devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the kingdom of truth reserved for genius, if only he longs for truth perpetually concentrates all his attention upon its attainment.’⁶⁰
The misery of human society can be summed up for Weil in the notion that we have created and let ourselves be carried into worlds of Affliction; we are yet to make worlds of Attention. In this, we can see Weil suggesting that “societies of givens” might tend toward Affliction, similar to how “givens” lead to “the banality of evil” (discussed in Hannah Arendt). If “givens” are done for, might this be an opportunity for “societies of giving” instead? Could “giving” be the new “given,” per se? Would this be a move from a world that is basically “autonomously neurotypical” to a world that is more neurodivergent and mentidivergent?
Attention for Weil is ‘far more important than will,’ and yet how Nietzsche understands Will seems paramount.⁶¹ It seems to me that we are to be Nietzscheans toward ourselves, and more like Weil and Martin Buber to others (Will is our orientation to us, while Attention is our orientation to “other-ness”). In this, we find a Hegelian dialectic which consists of the work we must do so that we can enter into “the stories of others” (“Story Democracy”) and find support for ourselves in this world without “givens” (“orbits” like “forms” and Cyphers). Our Attention to others “holds us up” with them, as our Will to ourselves keep us “intrinsically motivated.” The Attention keeps us out of conflict and misunderstanding and even thrilled to enter different stories, while the Will keeps us going. Attention to others means we are self-forgetful to let their story surround us like something worth losing ourselves in (other-flow).
Weil speaks of “grace” and “gravity,” and tells us that ‘the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity.’⁶² For me, this suggests that souls naturally seek “givens” and want to be supported by “givens,” and when they are gone, the soul naturally feels despair (pushed down by “gravity”). If the soul is not to so descend, it must act unnaturally, and that would entail “Absolute Knowing” or the Childlikeness of Nietzsche (‘[w]e must always expect things to happen in conformity with the laws of gravity unless there is supernatural intervention’).⁶³ How can we act unnaturally? Weil tells Christians to pray ‘with the thought that God does not exist.’⁶⁴ The “Absolute Knower” believes “Absolute Knowing” is unobtainable. The Children of Nietzsche do not believe Nietzsche has been created yet. ‘God can only be present in creation under the form of an absence.’⁶⁵ ‘This world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.’⁶⁶
Weil tells us that ‘God gave me being in order that I should give it back to him’; likewise, perhaps we have Will by other-ness so that we can give it back through self-forgetful Attention to others.⁶⁷ Weil discusses ‘the impersonal’ and ‘the anonymous’ as where we can find truth and beauty,’ and though there is a sense in which this is true, I would note that this realm requires Self-Forgetfulness and Conditionalism, so we should not mistake Weil as encouraging us to ignore the subject or believe we can avoid it.⁶⁸ The impersonal is known only through the person, and thus the person must work hard. Weil writes:
‘The human being can only escape from the collective by raising himself above the personal and entering the impersonal. The moment he does this, there is something in him, a small portion of his soul, upon which nothing of the collective can get a hold.’⁶⁹
Society ‘should be arranged with the sole purpose of removing whatever is detrimental to the growth and mysterious germination of the impersonal element of the soul,’ which for me suggests a society focused on cultivating and spreading Self-Forgetfulness, Childhood, and Rhetoric (as we’ll later explain in light of Deirdre McCloskey).⁷⁰ This suggests a society focused on ending Affliction, which is a society that keeps “force” and rationality from directing people into situations where what is rational is what is detrimental (whether this be a Nash Equilibria, working a job which requires thoughtlessness, etc.). If Lorenzo is correct that social Nash Equilibria and Rational Impasses require neurodivergence to avoid, then society should be in the business of incorporating neurodivergence and mentidivergence into its collective consciousness and operations. Otherwise, a matter of Affliction, “The Meta-Crisis” might prove insurmountable.
‘Whereas gravity is the work of creation, the work of grace consists of ‘decreating’ us,’ which here we can use Weil’s words to suggest that rationality is in the work of building society into Nash Equilibria (“for good reason”), whereas nonrationality and neurodivergence work to pull society away from building itself into what it will lock itself inside.⁷¹ After her time experiencing Affliction, Weil’s ‘belief in [Marxist] revolution disappeared completely […] Not religion, but revolution, she said, was the opiate of the people.’ Revolution organized and operated according to rationality would not free us from Nash Equilibria, and yet belief that it could might pacify us into putting all our faith in revolution, which meant we would never engage in the “spiritual change” of Attention which Weil believed was necessary.⁷² Similarly, if we believe that we can “evolve consciousness” or “increase rationality,” we have little incentive to look for a new kind of thinking outside the neurotypical, meaning we will be in the business of “degrees of rationality” versus “nonrationality.” To engage in neurodivergence and mentidivergence could be to engage in something distinct like “the spiritual” in Weil, and ‘it is supernatural to die for something weak’ in the eyes of society, as “nonrationality” is likely to be seen.⁷³ To die and sacrifice ourselves for the neurotypical is natural, but to embrace at our possible expense the neurodivergent is unnatural. It requires madness or bravery, and arguably the neurotypical would be incapable of this — hence why the neurodivergent are so necessary, exactly as Lorenzo teaches.
Again, to emphasize, I do not know if Simone Weil was neurodivergent, but she at least “practically” seems that way. She was arguably super-human, but can we say she had “an evolved personality?” Simone was a genius, but can we say her life was a product of being “amazingly rational?” Albert Camus was a genius, as was Sartre, and yet Simone Weil seems to have had something else about her that was greater than intellect. She simply lived differently. She could stand up in Plato’s Cave and leave on her own. Under Affliction, the other prisoners would have laughed. Typical.
Simone Weil represents neurodivergence for me, and when I think of what characterizes an Absolute Knower, Deleuzian Dividual, or Nietzschean Child, it strikes me as having far more to do with something akin to neurodivergence than it does “intelligence.” I’m not saying it is equivalent technically, but there seems to be “practical overlaps” that need to be taken into consideration. Indeed, if what is needed to address the problems outlined in Belonging Again require something closer to neurodivergence than it does “evolved consciousness” or “greater rationality,” than we need to emphasize neurodivergence and what Cadell Last refers to as “alienness” — language used across the internet that suggests otherwise might contribute to the problem. Here, we should note something Simone believed:
‘More genius is needed than was needed by Archimedes to invent mechanics and physics. A new saintliness is a still more marvelous invention.’⁷⁴
Rationality and philosophy certainly have a role, just not an “autonomous” one, and I also agree with Weil’s sentiment: we need a world full of “Communities of Absolute Knowing,” but how to bring that about is not self-evident. In fact, if it was self-evident, it would likely be an expression of Affliction and A/A-thinking: to see difficulty in the task suggests the task is rightly seen. But it is not seen easily, and often it feels like we only ever catch glances of it that are gone just as quickly as we notice them. And yet we must keep trying, for we are always at risk of ending up in Affliction and “indestructible maps,” and we will end up in those if we cease being vigilant.
Attention is a practice that can bring us into mentidivergence, as seems to be needed so that we take Nietzsche’s Will seriously and exercise the “intrinsic motivation” which is required so that we might “leave Plato’s Cave on our own.” Furthermore, mentidivergence seems to be what we practice if we are self-forgetful, which emerges in Attention, and in Attention we see the possibility of “sociological giving” (A/B) to make up for the loss of “sociological givens” (A/A). This is a key notion which is inherently far more “intersuppositional” than “presuppositional” (as discussed in The Absolute Choice), and it suggests the need for us to discuss differences between “gifts,” “giving,” “givens,” and the like, and it seems that a “Community of Absolute Knowing” is a community of “sociological giving” and hence “openness.” But what does this mean? That is the question, and the answer is not something that will come naturally or “typically.” Fortunately, we have Weil’s life and example to help us think anew.
As I’ve spoken to Layman Pascal about, Gurdjieff seems to have been an example like Simone Weil of a life which is more mentidivergent and able to move beyond Affliction. I am no expert on Gurdjieff like Layman or Luke Behncke, so I cannot speak on him, but Gurdjieff could be seen as a teacher who might help us “make our experiences more nutritious,” to use Layman’s phrase (and thus capable of Attention). If so, we might speak of a “Gurdjieffian Subject” in a way similar to Nietzsche’s Child. I might pick up on this notion in (Re)constructing “A Is A,” but here I wanted at least to note the potential relevance of Gurdjieff before moving on.
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Notes
⁴⁵Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 11.
⁴⁶Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 57.
⁴⁷Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 61.
⁴⁸Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 62.
⁴⁹Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 22.
⁵⁰Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 27.
⁵¹Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 50.
⁵²Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 51.
⁵³Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 23.
⁵⁴Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: xxi.
⁵⁵Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 50.
⁵⁶Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 62.
⁵⁷Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 64.
⁵⁸Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 39.
⁵⁹Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 93.
⁶⁰Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 23.
⁶¹Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxiii.
⁶²Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 1.
⁶³Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 1.
⁶⁴Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 19.
⁶⁵Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 99.
⁶⁶Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 132.
⁶⁷Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: 35.
⁶⁸Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 55.
⁶⁹Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 57.
⁷⁰Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 59.
⁷¹Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxi.
⁷²Weil, Simone. An Anthology. Edited and Introduced by Siân Miles. New York, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986: 16.
⁷³Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997: xxii.
⁷⁴Weil, Simone. Waiting for God. Translated by Emma Craufurd. New York, NY: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics Edition, 2009: 51.
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