Simone Weil and Rootedness--Part 1

The French mystic and philosopher Simone Weil's last work, The Need for Roots, was written in 1943, the year of her death, and published posthumously in 1949, as well as being translated into English in 1952 with an introduction by T.S. Eliot. The Need for Roots offers a passionate call for helping the French return to a sense of true patriotism, tied not to the State, but to place and ideals. In the first part of the book, Weil explores briefly fourteen "needs of the soul" before focusing on her chief concern, the 15th and perhaps most comprehensive need--rootedness.

1. Order, by which Weil means a sense of epistemic coherence. The soul needs a sense that a balance of the forces of the universe exists, that they have a beauty to them, a rationality at some level.
2. Liberty, that is the ability to choose within a system of rules that we trust because they "emanate from a source of authority which is not looked upon as strange or hostile, but loved as something belonging to those placed under its direction." None are free unless they operate out of goodwill and obligation to others, she contends.
3. Obedience of a healthy sort is "necessary food for the soul," and the one who is forced to obey a tyrant must partake of the sickness of such a society.
4. Responsibility of a real sort, that is, of type that actually impacts the person and his or her fellows in a meaningful way.
5. Equality in degree of respect and with a degree of opportunity. There must also be a way for movement to take place up and down the ladder of social equilibrium.
6. Hierarchism, that is a proper veneration of one's superiors who are symbols of what we each desire.
7. Honor in being a part of a noble tradition with a proud past of examples of virtuous actions.
8. Punishment that restores the one who has moved outside the circle of obedience--fully for the one who is truly repentant, and partially for the one who refuses. "Punishment is a method for getting justice into the soul of the criminal by bodily suffering."
9. Freedom of Opinion, that is an unrestricted freedom to explore all opinions, though this pursuit is conducted by one who serves the truth.
10. Security from constant, debilitating fear or terror.
11. Risk that keeps one from boredom even while not descending into terror.
12. Private Property such as owning a piece of land and one's own tools, because these are the means of a necessary and bodily life.
13. Collective Property, a feeling of ownership in public monuments, parks, and ceremonies.
14. Truth: "The need for truth is more sacred than any other need," so we must do all we can to curtail lying in print or in public speech.
15. Rootedness. She defines rootedness in the following way:

"A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations of the future. This participation is a natural one, in the sense that it is automatically brought about by place, conditions of birth, profession and social surroundings. Every human being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him to draw wellnigh the whole of his moral, intellectual, and spiritual life by the way of the environment of which he forms a natural part."