On the Abolition of All Political Parties

Simone Weil’s essay talks about how people are pulled either into the light of truth through a sense of unbiased reason, or away into the darkness through the bouts and vicissitudes of passionate desire. But each person’s pull away from the light is in a different direct, and each person’s pull towards it is in the same direction. This is a basic assumption of the goodness of democracy. (If democracy is not good, it is not what we should be practicing. If Hitler had never risen to power but the Weimar Republic still committed the atrocities of World War II through a democratic process it does not make those atrocities somehow less atrocious.) Political parties, on the other hand, serve to focus and align the chaotic desires of show more darkness and bundle them together into a force with power. It makes no sense, these days, to criticize someone for saying “As a democrat,” or “as a republican,” but these statements are parroted nonsense. It is not interesting or useful to know what a representative’s party stands for when we purportedly elected them for their ability to represent our own or on their views being a close enough reflection of our own. For this and other reasons all political parties should be abolished. We should replace them with a kind of informal forum, or as she calls them a series of journals, to which one may read or contribute, but to which one would not belong, but orbit, or be a reader of, or a writer in, but never a member, or subordinate, or a parrot of. In that way each person, each representative evaluates for themselves the plans and policies and proposals of the others, asking questions and offering criticism, and each shall cast their votes, when the time comes, in the light of their own reason and the will of those whom they represent.

I basically agree with everything she says. The trouble is that it makes action difficult. One of the ways in which she criticizes political parties is how they develop a binary stance towards or against something, how they drain from the issue all nuance and use propaganda and slander to vie for power. The trouble is that our votes work this way, most of the time. One piece of legislation, arguments for or against. She doesn’t talk about it much, but in an ideal congress there would be a deliberation, proposals sent out and digested, discussion had, amendments made, and the best and most just proposal would succeed. That takes a long time, though. Maybe it should. I don’t know. But I agree with her. And her words are stark and piercing in the firelight of the current political climate. show less

The only thing I needed to know about this was that Ensor's 'Christ's Entry into Brussels' was on the cover. It helped that I'm curious about Weil, and that NYRB put it out, and that sometimes I just want a book I can finish in an hour or two. And the title helped a lot. But really I just needed the cover.

Weil's argument is quite clear, and seems pretty accurate: partisanship distorts thought, whereas disinterested thought helps politics. The relevance to our present political rhetoric is pretty clear. Consider, "Nearly everywhere - often even when dealing with purely technical problems - instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind." Now consider the political 'debates' show more about [insert any contentious political issue here.]

The essay is padded out with another essay by Milosz, which I found very puzzling at times and insightful at others; and one by Simon Leys, which was unnecessary.

A beautiful little artifact, anyway, and a stimulating after-lunch read. show less

As one can surmise from the title alone, Weil was not a fan of political parties. She considered them totalitarian in nature, and felt they reduced their members to mindlessness. Her vision of democracy involved individuals standing alone, making clear their beliefs issue by issue. Clear and thoughtful with a supplemental essay suggesting her place in western thought.

une critique des risques que font courir les passions collectives (qui nourrissent les partis) ; mais dans l'esquisse d'un paradigme qui permet de fonder sa cause (comme l'essaie Stirner) la tentation de l'éclairage mystique, alors que "l'histoire réellement en marche" sort les personnes de l'excitation des passions collectives pour les mettre en face de la libido vitale, mais ça ne dure pas longtemps

Bien sûr, note indispensable pour le renouveau des dicussions démocratiques, loin des machines à faire gagner le pouvoir.