Simone Weil: the Martian

Simone Weil was a 20th century French philosopher and mystic who died at age 34, in 1943, of tuberculosis. Her father was a doctor, her mother an heiress to a business fortune. Both parents overindulged their precocious child. She loved to learn and could speak ancient Greek, delighted in the study of mathematics and physics, memorized long prose passages, and taught herself Sanskrit after reading the Bhagavad Gita. But her parents were somewhat neurotic and passed on to her unhelpful habits and fears regarding health and diet. This upbringing made her transition into adulthood awkward and paved the way for clumsy social interactions. When Simone studied for what would be comparable to a master’s degree in philosophy, one of her classmates, upon getting to know her, called her “the Martian.” She graduated first in her class but was ignored by her peers.

As a young adult, despite her privileged upbringing, she was an advocate for the working class and expounded on syndicalism – the movement for transferring ownership of the factories to the workers. She had the courage of her principles, making the unusual decision to work as a drill press operator, a meat packer, and then as a machinist. That year permanently compromised her health. After her health had improved somewhat, Simone made the bold but imprudent decision to enlist in a radical brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Again her health faltered, and her parents brought her back home to France. It was during this “radical” period of her life that something happened, which she would never have anticipated given her background.

Brought up without any religious instruction, she unpredictably encountered God in three mystical experiences that changed the direction of her life. The three mystical contacts occurred in a Portuguese fishing village, in Assisi, Italy, and in a Benedictine abbey in Solesmes, France. These experiences were a revelation; she had never believed a personal encounter with God was even possible. Through them, she converted to Catholicism. She was never baptized, however. She believed with confidence that her particular vocation from God was to witness to the Church as an outsider – “at the gate,” as it were – for all those, she said, who were estranged or had lost their way.

After her mystical experiences at age 26, she continued to write. One area of focus in her writings was the idea of attentiveness, a receptive waiting. She wrote: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Attention or attentiveness was, Weil believed, the beginning of any thoughtful human engagement or interaction. She thought attentiveness countered the human default setting – selfishness and self-regard. Attentiveness was essential in order to help the suffering “other.”

She would have been dismayed by the current Western fixation on digital technology: iPad, iPhone, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Netflix. Her writings strongly suggest that she would say the heavy use of these technologies ensures that people don’t pay the slightest attention to the other, even to one’s neighbor, but instead looked constantly at glowing screens. People, she would lament, are focused on reading text messages, listening to iTunes, scrolling down their newsfeeds, taking a selfie for Snapchat or streaming a movie. Technology holds people in its sway. It is so much easier to avert one’s gaze than to engage face-to-face.

Simone Weil never meant for her writing to be published. But her few friends, including Gustave Thibon, a Catholic theologian and philosopher, and a Dominican priest and her spiritual director, Father Jean-Marie Perrin, realized the depth, beauty, and perceptivity of her writing – essays, journals, letters. They had some of her papers published posthumously in a book titled Gravity and Grace. Other anthologies followed, including Waiting for God. Her books have been translated into several languages.

Thousands of readers have treasured her incredible spiritual insights. She wrote with clarity and conviction on various topics such as God, man, suffering, sin, the Church, materialism, grace, prayer, her role as an outsider, alienation, love, and attentiveness. Through her writing, she influenced people ranging from agnostics to the devout. Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Merton, and Pope Paul VI – to name but a few – considered her spiritual writings luminous and persuasive.  

Sometimes God calls the outsider, the accidental mystic, the socially awkward, the clown, or the “Martian.” Was Simone Weil a saint? She certainly seemed a blessed fool; she had occasions of profound insight coupled with eccentric and erratic behavior. Maybe that is as God intended. He calls all to him – the lost, the pious, the estranged, the strange, and the broken. Blessed are the exasperating, for they will make God laugh.   

Populism’s Ineffectiveness at Governing

The first round of France’s presidential election, which took place on April 23, received much international attention. The four leading candidates were so close in the polls that the winners could not be predicted. The issues at stake – France’s continued involvement in the European Union and its immigration and business policies – could have negative global repercussions depending on what changes the new president makes. In light of some recent elections elsewhere, an additional concern is the protest candidate.

After the United States presidential election, there is no need to point out the significance of the protest vote. Many American voters chose Donald Trump as their president because of all the things he was not. He was not a member of the Washington elite or a reflection of the establishment politician. He actively campaigned against the “Washington establishment,” and in his inaugural speech promised to transfer power from Washington back to the American people.

This anti-establishment attitude is obvious in America’s current political culture and is emerging in Europe as well. Citizens have sometimes elected candidates based on their distrust of conventional politicians or because they simply resent the government. This misguided way of electing politicians, however, must be addressed, especially in France. As French citizens choose their next president in the second round of the election, institutions like the EU are on the line.

One needs to look no further than France’s neighbor, Italy, to see why voting for candidates simply because they are not politicians is a horrible way to maintain a functioning government. In 2013, the Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) received more seats than any other party in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and two of its members have since been elected the mayors of Rome and Turin.

The Five Star Movement runs on the issues of public water, sustainable transport, sustainable development, the right to Internet access, and environmentalism. While these are all acceptable causes for a political entity to back, the Movement – which was started by popular Italian comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo – does not have enough credentials or policy specifics to run an effective government.

This populist, anti-establishment party is so irresponsible in governing Rome and Turin that, according to the Guardian, Italian health officials are now blaming an alarming rise in measles on its anti-vaccination stance. Many Italians who voted last December to reject Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s reforms – and his role as prime minister more generally – are supporters of the Five Star Movement. Populist movements like the Five Star Movement do not offer solutions to establishment politics. They do not create new, fairer systems of governance or wipe out corruption, as Rome’s “anti-corruption” mayor should now be able to attest after the arrest of her top aide for alleged corruption.

Furthermore, protest candidates simply do not know how to govern. Germany’s populist and pro-nativist party, Alternative for Germany (Alternativ für Deutschland) is facing internal problems for this very reason, especially in light of protests against the AfD in Köln, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on April 23. The AfD exists as a populist alternative to Angela Merkel, her politics, and her refugee policies. When it comes to actually running a government, the AfD, like most other populist parties, deals only with certain specific issues – in this case, promoting anti-Euro policies and attempting to restrict immigration.

In countries that tend to have coalition-run governments, many voters are choosing parties, like the Five Star Movement and the AfD, that cannot and should not form coalitions. As Reuters reported,  no mainstream parties will consider working with the AfD. Should they, too, successfully (and miraculously) win the German federal election in September and oust Merkel from her fourth term, the German government would come to a standstill.

Donald Trump illustrates the problem with populist parties and candidates as well. Although the Republican Party has control of both houses of Congress, his credentials as a reality TV host and businessman and his “America First” foreign policies have contributed nothing to a viable domestic program. The utter failure of Trump’s and Paul Ryan’s health care plan, involving an issue central to Republican campaigns in recent years, to pass Congress is strong evidence of the point.

As France chose among four candidates this past Sunday – the leader of the far-right National Front, a business-friendly, independent centrist, a mainstream candidate mired in corruption and nepotism scandals, and the far-left “Bernie Sanders of French politics” – it was voters’ responsibility to leave their hatred of establishment politics (and politicians in general) outside the polling place. When the economic, political, and humanitarian stakes are as high as they are now, it is irresponsible to choose a president based on who sticks it to the government the most.

Voters must keep this in mind as they make their choice in the upcoming presidential run-off between the “far-right” candidate, Marine Le Pen, and the young “centrist,” Emmanuel Macron.

Erdogan and the State of Turkey

On April 16, the Turkish government underwent a seismic constitutional shift. With the referendum results uncertain till late into the night, Turkey voted to centralize power in the hands of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The referendum, which won with 51.3 percent of the vote, abolishes the post of prime minister and transfers executive power to the president. This allows him to appoint the judges and officials responsible for scrutinizing his decisions. This not only violates many Turks’ sense of proper constitutional order, but also sets the stage for Erdogan to assume a more dictatorial role in the long run. (Additionally, however, the referendum limits the president to two five-year terms.)

The supporting campaign argued that a stronger centralized government would better enable Turkey to take on its challenges: a struggling economy, the world’s largest Syrian refugee population, a war against Kurdish insurgents, and the Syrian war on Turkey’s southern border.

The opposition worried that the new presidential powers will, according to the New York Times, “threaten the separation of powers on which liberal democracies have traditionally depended.” Judicial independence in Turkey was already weak before the change, and now it is in more peril. President Erdogan will now have unilateral authority in selecting the judges, as well as other administrators, who will review his actions to decide their constitutionality. This tightens his grip on the Turkish bureaucracy even further, a process that began after the attempted military coup last summer.”

Since the failed coup, Erdogan has constantly monitored the media, and journalists themselves, for anti-government opinions. One journalist, Kadri Grusel, has been imprisoned since October. His work at Cumhuriyet, Turkey’s last major independent media outlet, was questioned due to his alleged connections to the Islamist Gulenist movement and the Kurdish Independence Movement. Mr. Grusel and at least 81 other journalists are held in detention at Silivri prison, just south of Istanbul, where shuttle services are provided so families can visit the large number of imprisoned newspaper employees. Turkey has now surpassed China as the world’s biggest jailer of journalists. Furthermore, Erdogan’s actions concerning the press have garnered attention from several international human rights organizations.

In addition to silencing the press, Erdogan immediately imprisoned more than 45,000 of the 130,000 state employees he fired after the coup attempt. These imprisonments include punishment for alleged anti-Erdogan sentiments, insulting Erdogan directly over social media, or being suspected of participating in the coup. A former Miss Turkey, Merve Buyuksarac, posted on Instagram a satirical rewording of the country’s national anthem: I am like a wild flood, I smash over the law and beyond / I follow state bids, take my bribe and live. She was sentenced to fourteen months.  

Moreover, the legitimacy of the vote is already under scrutiny. The results will take time to confirm, but the opposition Republican People’s Party is already calling for a recount of more than one-third of the ballots – around 2.5 million votes. The opposition claims the president’s campaign on behalf of the referendum was corrupt in that it supposedly threatened people who intended to vote “no.” Many Turks either voted “yes” or stayed away from the polls in fear of their safety. Additionally, a last-minute raising of the standard for proving allegations of ballot stuffing made it easier to tamper with the election results. As of the day after the referendum, there was only one case of voter fraud caught on camera.

The result of the vote, if it holds up, cannot bode well for Turkey. Erdogan has been exceptionally power-hungry and on guard after last year’s coup attempt. All the evidence we can see points to the likelihood that given the opportunity, he will continue to limit the media and centralize more power to himself. This constitutional change will not benefit Turkey in the long run, particularly if Erdogan is elected for a second term.

Gorsuch Confirmed

The Supreme Court is finally at capacity again. In what seemed like a miracle of miracles, the Senate voted last Friday to confirm Neil Gorsuch as the court’s ninth member. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led the charge to end the Democrats’ stonewalling of the nomination by changing a long-standing Senate rule. Like many Senate Republicans, he believed Gorsuch had faced immense, unfair opposition from Democrats across the country who wished to see a progressive appointed.

On the morning of April 10 – more than a year after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia – Gorsuch was sworn in. The ceremony had a nostalgic undertone. With his wife beside him – and the late Antonin Scalia’s widow, Maureen, looking on – the new member took the oath from his former mentor, Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the White House Rose Garden. Gorsuch began his law career as a clerk for Kennedy, who also swore him in as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge eleven years ago.

In a brief speech, Justice Gorsuch thanked President Trump for his appointment, Vice President Pence for his friendship, and White House attorneys, among many others, for their support. “I will never forget that to whom much is given, much will be expected,” he said, “and I promise you that I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant of the Constitution and laws of this great nation.”

Justice Gorsuch’s successful placement on the Supreme Court is a relief for conservatives who, after Justice Scalia died with President Obama still in office, feared that it would take a clearly progressive tilt. It restores a balance. The court now consists of four Democrats and five Republicans, as it did at the start of 2016. Justice Kennedy acts as a swing vote, however, and often does not side with his Republican colleagues. Gorsuch’s court appointment therefore ensures a continued balance between liberal and conservative interpretations of the constitution.  

Gorsuch’s impact upon the court will likely be seen immediately. On Thursday, the justices will convene to begin deciding which cases to consider in the next term. Gorsuch will also have the opportunity to help decide his first case, on April 17. In recent months, the Supreme Court has occasionally split 4-4 on party lines. Justice Gorsuch’s vote will probably be necessary in order to issue rulings on a number of cases in the near future. Tie votes leave the lower court’s ruling in place, but without an endorsement of that decision by the Supreme Court. Because they lack the authority of a majority decision by the Supreme Court, they are not considered rulings.

As the newest member of the court, Gorsuch will also take over certain traditional duties – designed to humble new members and ensure that they keep their humility in one of the nation’s most powerful offices – from Justice Elena Kagan, who President Obama appointed in 2010. These responsibilities include answering the door during the justices’ private conferences and attending meetings of the Supreme Court’s cafeteria committee.

As Gorsuch assumes his position, the world watches to see how he will affect decisions. He developed a reputation for being a sound judge with a high regard for the constitution, and there is no doubt he will continue to act as such. He has large shoes to fill, but undoubtedly will leave behind his own legacy for Supreme Court justices in the future.

Tocqueville Foretold the Poet, Walt Whitman

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, political philosopher, and accomplished writer. He ventured to the United States for nine months in 1831 to discern how democracy was proceeding since the American Revolution. Tocqueville began by observing how politics was lived in this nascent democracy; he imposed no grand principles or theories from the outside. With thoroughness and a surprising honesty, he wrote two comprehensive volumes detailing and evaluating his experience.

Besides writing a sophisticated depiction of America’s social and political life, he also engaged in certain predictions about her future. He had a willingness to speculate across many disciplinary silos, including the fine arts, as to future developments in the republic. One such prediction was the invention and flourishing of a uniquely American poetry movement; in this, Tocqueville was prescient. He anticipated the lyrical, moving poetry of Longfellow, Emerson, Dickinson, and Frost -- but also, especially, the splendid poetry of Walt Whitman as seen in his celebrated “Song of Myself.”

There were few respected American poets to speak of in 1831, but Tocqueville was undaunted by that fact. He earnestly believed that “in the heart of this incoherent and agitated multitude,” great poets would appear in the decades to come. Americans were, for the time being, focused on politics, religion, journalism, and wealth creation and scarcely had time for literary pursuits. But he expected that such accomplishments would develop. He recognized the writings of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper as indicating a promising future and the existence of a blossoming literary class.

Tocqueville believed that the great extent of equality in the country withered old ideas and traditions; literary conventions, too, would be redefined and rewritten here. Americans would reinvent poetry, making it anew for their egalitarian society. A quite different American poetry would emerge, without European structures or themes as its masters. Poetry would be animated by images of a shared national experience, since Americans, Tocqueville wrote, wished “to be spoken to about themselves.” He also predicted that this poetry would be grounded in reality, without flights of fancy, retreat to antiquity, or ethereal gods and goddesses – just “the confused mixture of conditions, sentiments, and ideas that they [Americans] encounter before their eyes.”

Poets would speak for the nation, about the nation, in a common language that elevated their own experience. The poets, he believed, would be drawn to verse as the ideal of poetic language. Moreover, poetry would be uniquely American in the degree to which it would be instinctive, fluid, spiritual, natural, and emotionally direct. In all of this, Tocqueville was indeed predictive.

It appears, however, as though Tocqueville did not believe all Americans were capable of producing such poetry. He wrote: “one can conceive of nothing … so dull … so antipoetic, as the life of a man in the United States.” Yet he remarked, “one always meets one that is full of poetry, and that one is like the hidden nerve that gives vigor to the rest.” No other image could better describe the arrival, two decades later, of Walt Whitman on the American literary stage when he published his first book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, in 1855. It truly was “the hidden nerve that gives vigor to the rest” – revolutionary, effervescent, a bouncy spring, the pioneering mechanism for developing and advancing poetry in America. He was, as Tocqueville anticipated, an individual who was “full of poetry” and would inspire other poets and invigorate a young nation to think differently and to sing.     

Whitman created poetry with a less formal structure, utilized the language of the common man, celebrated individualism, and was not bound by the past. He was energized by the American move westward and the nation’s flourishing democracy, and was moved by the struggles and journeys of its ordinary citizens.

His poem “Song of Myself” has the fluidity Tocqueville foresaw. After the first line had been crafted in iambic pentameter, Whitman abandoned all semblance of standards, rules, and convention. Gone were rhymes, metrics, and links with past poets; he was, as it were, the master of the open poetic road. He sang his celebratory chant: “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.”

Tocqueville would have been pleased with his prognostication’s accuracy. It was as he had suggested it would be. He called forth, with prophetic words, the prospect of a poetry and poets for America that described in detail its people’s energy, their industry, their decency, their love of creation, their language, and their gift for freedom and democracy. He wanted for America someone who would listen to their voice, what Whitman called his own “barbaric

Within his admirable panegyric to American democracy, then, Tocqueville not only predicted the style and structure of a new American poetry; he also gleaned from the tea leaves, long beforehand, the voice of one of its most beloved and original poets, Walt Whitman. In appreciating Whitman’s gift, we appreciate Tocqueville’s genius as well.

Hypocrisy in the Senate

On March 16 of last year, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. But over the next couple of months, Garland faced adamant opposition from the Senate Republicans, who refused even to hold a committee hearing for him.

As Democrats, including Obama, strongly criticized the Republicans for this action, I criticized along with them. Ideological differences aside, I could find no reason for Republican senators to block Garland’s appointment. He seemed to be qualified for the job, and I thought it likely that as a justice, he would refrain from ruling on the basis of political preference. It seemed to me the Republicans in the Senate were being immature about the entire thing. Blocking Garland’s confirmation not only put a strain on our judicial system, but would have left the door open for Hillary Clinton – had she been elected – to nominate someone even further to the left.

Fast-forward to last week, when the Senate Republicans – led by Mitch McConnell – decided to execute the “nuclear option.” In doing so, they effectively guaranteed the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch by disallowing filibusters against Supreme Court nominees.

The Republican decision to take the nuclear option came in response to Senate Democrats, who were preventing Gorsuch’s confirmation by blocking a vote on it. It dawned on me that these Democrats were now doing basically the same thing that the Republicans had done to Garland. They were now engaged in the “anti-democratic” action they had publicly criticized just months before. The saddest part is that these Democrats have yet to provide a sound rationale for their behavior. It appears as if they attempted to block Gorsuch because they wanted to match the move the Republicans made last year. Although the Senate Democrats, among others, disagree with some of Gorsuch’s views and opinions, that doesn’t make him an illegitimate or unqualified nominee for the Supreme Court.

The truth is that the country took a turn in the last election. A much more conservative president was elected, and the Republicans maintained control of Congress with only minimal losses. As much as the Democrats dislike this, it is the result of the democratic process. I have the same reaction as many when I hear President Trump make a remark that is far from presidential, or see that Congress has taken action towards a strong conservative agenda that I may not agree with. But I accept it. I read it, nod, and acknowledge that I am still grateful to live in a country like our own.

Perhaps Congress and the White House do not share my views, but they do share the views of those who voted them in. Democrats and Republicans alike – although Democrats seem to be the ones doing it these days – should not simply halt vital governing processes, or manipulatively frustrate them, just because they disagree on ideological grounds.

If the Democrats, after pointing out that Senate Republicans’ blocking of Garland a year ago was against the spirit of the constitution, had then done their jobs and voted for or against Gorsuch – in the spirit of the constitution – a week ago, they would not have looked nearly as hypocritical.