TO MAKE AN INVENTORY OF OUR CIVILIZATION

Abstract

In “To make an inventory of our civilization” (“Faire l”inventaire de notre civilization”), my aim is to show how the trajectory of Simone Weil’s life and thought led her to write her second major work: The Need for Roots, in London, a few months before her death. The three parts of this book deal respectively with the uprootedness affecting factory workers, agricultural workers, and the French Nation as a whole, something she herself had vividly experienced. In reading this work, one cannot overlook the shaping experiences she underwent from the early 1930’s until her death in 1943, in England, including her participation in the Spanish Civil War. Last but not least, it is also essential to register and appreciate the presence of Christ in Simone Weil’ life when she wrote The Need for Roots, and which adds an extra depth to her probing investigation.

Keywords: Uprootedness. Justice. Action. Christ. Self-sacrifice.