A Beautiful Christmas Down East, Fabulous Georgia

Oh What a World! We enjoyed a white Christmas in Peach Tree City, GA, where my brother and sister are raising their family. They serve at Operation Mobilization with an international team of evangelical worshipers, leaders, travelers, all volunteering to share good news to those who haven't yet heard and minister to the needs of the poorest of the poor. The Dalit are India's people trapped in the lowest rung of the caste system who "...endure near complete social isolation, humiliation and discrimination based exclusively on their birth status. Even a Dalit's shadow is believed to pollute the upper classes. They may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes, drink water from public wells, or visit the same temples as the higher castes." -William Haviland.
"Education has been one of the only mechanisms of upward mobility for Dalits...Basic literacy is a fundamental right but also a means to empower deprived populations." -Sukhadeo Thorat
OM is raising support from churches all over the globe in order to build schools for Dalit children that will offer not only basic literacy, but a full curriculum to prepare them for the pursuit of their dreams.

For all you would be Marxists, read Simone Weil and tell me what you think

 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels inherit many philosophical methods and perspectives from their German predecessor, Georg Hegel, and knowing the details of Hegel’s influence on both Marx and Engels opens up Marxist ideology to clarification as well as objection. Marx often takes Hegelian philosophy for a sharp turn so it would be an overstatement to call him a disciple of Hegel, and yet he supports and develops some of Hegel’s core ideas during his preliminary sketches of communism. The Marxist critique of Hegel’s political philosophy flips his conception of the state upside down; Marx argues that civil society is the foundation for the state instead of the state as the foundation for civil society.

Less than a century later, the French Christian mystic, Simone Weil, turns Marxist moral philosophy inside out by rejecting his materialism and arguing for the primacy of obligations over rights. Her contribution serves as a potent response to Marx, in part because she was herself a Marxist during her youth, but also because she was deeply burdened for the poor and impassioned to help them. As it turns out, Simone died from malnutrition because she refused to eat more than what was accessible to the most destitute. Her extreme selflessness appears in her chapters The Self and The Needs of the Soul found in her most famous work, The Need for Roots.

Weil spent part of her adult life working in a factory and in the military where she became directly acquainted with the working class and their working conditions. The stark inequities between industrial laborers and land owners motivated both Marx and Weil to write and work on behalf of the poor, but Marx claimed certain rights and entitlements for the poor class, while Weil realized and met the needs of poor individuals. Weil strongly believes that obligations are only binding to human individuals, not collectives. While she acknowledges the necessity of meeting physical needs—needs of the body—such as thirst and hunger, she spends most of her time writing about the needs of the soul.

The irony in Weil’s response to Marx is beautiful because she presents the needs of the soul—already a point of contention—in Hegelian pairs. Each need of the soul accompanies its counterpart in a balancing duo. One side should not be fulfilled at the expense of the other; instead both sides need to be satisfied. When all of these needs are met, the result is a healthy soul, so Weil is not offering the conditions for survival, but for livelihood. For the sake of being thorough, I will summarize each need and those relevant to Marx will be obvious. In Weil’s arrangement, the needs of the soul are as follows.

Order. A society is perfectly orderly if it minimizes to zero the number of incompatible imperative obligations. This means that no one will need to sacrifice an obligation for the sake of another because no two obligations are incompatible.

Liberty. This is the freedom to choose within rules. Rules inherently limit freedom, but they should be sensible so that a person may understand the reason for their enactment.

Obedience. This is the adherence and submission to established human leaders, who ought to obey in turn with “their face set toward a goal.” I think she has a democratic leader in mind because she adds that the legitimacy originates from consent.

Responsibility. People need to produce, contribute, make decisions, and “supply fresh efforts.”

Equality. This is the recognition that all humans as such are due the same amount of respect. So, differences (e.g. wealth and intelligence) need not be abolished, but they ought not to imply a difference in moral standing. Equality of opportunity allows more people to benefit from their strengths but it also makes their weaknesses more apparent.

Hierarchism. This is the veneration of superiors as a symbol of “that realm situated high above all [people].” People need to acknowledge greatness when they see it and step aside when they have been beaten. Hierarchism, unlike obedience, should not be interpreted as a degree of command, rather, as an awareness of the place each person occupies.

Honor. This is the remembrance and admiration of nobility, heroism, probity, generosity, genius, etc. Collectively participating in a culture whose traditions are respected.

Punishment. Penal punishment is the reinstating a criminal into the law by subjecting him to the punishment ordained by the law. A person commits a crime when he violates an obligation. Notice how different the U.S. legal system and Weil’s legal system would appropriate criminal status upon their members. The U.S. does not criminalize their citizens for refraining from helping a hungry cold beggar, but Weil’s legal system would. Punishment acts as a butler, allowing re-entrance into the legal community for everyone who by committing a crime places himself outside the bounds of that law. Weil also believes that punishment may serve as a supplementary form of education, teaching people what justice is, and it should remove the stigma of the crime.

Security. A person is secure when he is free from fear and terror. Importantly, she does not mean something analogous to safety or protection from harm.

Risk. For Weil, risk is a danger that develops courage in those who confront it. The slogan, “Whatever doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger,” might be appropriate. The absence of risk dissolves a person's courage which in turn makes her more susceptible to fear.

Private property. Not unlike Locke’s conception of property, Weil connects property with labor. After devoting extensive time and work to a two-room igloo, for example, the builder will probably feel that the igloo belongs to him. If a legal protection of property does not coincide with this kind of appropriation, people are “exposed to extremely painful spiritual wrenches.”

Collective property. In a good civic life, fellow citizens share a sense of participation with, involvement in, and (most importantly) ownership of public monuments, parks, gardens, and traditions.

Freedom of opinion. People need the ability to express any sort of opinion without restriction. Furthermore, authors of opinions need to be insulated from the consequences of their writing and speech. According to Weil, no group may legitimately claim freedom of expression because no group has the need for it.

Truth. Simply, this is the protection from falsehood. Weil believes the best way to fulfill this need is to establish a court of people who love truth to verify publications, make known the falsehood and introduce relevant truths that the publication may have omitted.

Every human being has an obligation to meet the needs of others. This is the fundamental moral premise in Weil’s writing and the progress of a society is best determined by how well the needs of its people are met. Progress entails moral accountability in Weil’s philosophy, for example, “nobody is of the opinion that any man is innocent if, possessing food himself in abundance and finding someone on his doorstep three parts dead from hunger, he brushes past without giving him anything.”ⁱ If progress is not being made in a society, the people of that society ought to live in such a way that more thoroughly meets the needs of its people. More crucial to obey above all other obligations is one’s obligation to God. Marx is not convincing when he argues for the need to reject theism. Weil is a perfect example who illustrates how compatible Christianity and a Marxist agenda are. The point of fundamental conflict in Weil and Marx’s moral systems is the priorities of rights and obligations.

But for Marx progress is an amoral concept, events are inevitable, and history is a necessary progression, the course of which is beyond human choosing. This historicism comes directly from Hegel, where history is a story of alienation.

Marx is so preoccupied with militant equality that he does not ask what the proletariat need, instead he asks what the proletariat lack and how must they attain it? “The proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation…”ⁱⁱ It is unclear at times whether Marx advocates equality or a violent power shift favoring the majority.

i Weil, Simone. "The Needs of the Soul." Simone Weil. By Sian Miles. New York: Virago P, 1986.

ii Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. "Manifesto of the Communist Party." The Marx-Engels Reader. By Karl Marx and Robert C. Tucker. Ed. David P. McLellan. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 1978.