Oppression And Liberty (Michael)

The reality portrayed by Simone Weil's "The Cuases of Liberty and Social Oppression" seems to point to a careful balance that has to be maintained between people and nature.

This relationship becomes more interesting once we have people who depend upon other people to exploit nature for them. So then we can bring in the idea of an oppressive force (government/industry/etc) who wishes to increase productive to remain competitive with the other forces. Then, we see the enslavement of people as they succumb to this machine of continual need of increased production.

After seeing this relationship, Weil tries to see what a better situation would be, which seemed to be stowed away with people having to consciously do what is need to be done, and not have a central brain directing people in mindless tasks as found in a production line where people may only know one portion, but never the whole. This is since if the mind thinks for itself, then it is free. And that's the logic from what I understood.

Weil had a lot of detail (bringing 80 pages into a few short paragraphs is no easy task). And before we reach the final paragraph, there is the final detail -- that of competing powers. When one power feels threatened, they compete (productivity, war, etc.) using the oppressed as pawns in their grand game to remain the "best"; using any means possible to rally the people under their control, fear, terror, uncertainty, doubt.

Weil's argument seems to make sense, as well as provide an interesting theory. I tend to agree with him; especially in terms of how the capitalist ideal still (could) grind people down. The entire thing seems more to be a balance. Like SimCity (something I play too often) -- it's a game whose entire goal is to achieve a balance among multitudes of variables (zones, polution, traffic, resources, jobs, education, etc). You can end up destabilizing the simulation by just progressing through the game and trying to amass a huge population, or keep things simple and small. However, to accomplish great things, you must expand. In the end, complementing what Weil is saying.