"The Romans conquered the world through seriousness, discipline, organisation, continuity of vision and method; through the conviction that they were a superior race, born to command; through the well-considered, methodically calculated use of the most ruthless cruelty, cold perfidy and the most hypocritical propaganda, employed simultaneously or in turn; by an unshakeable resolution to always sacrifice everything to prestige, without ever being sensitive either to peril, or to pity, or to any human respect; by the art of decomposing under terror the very soul of their adversaries, or of putting them to sleep with hope, before enslaving them with arms; finally by such skilful handling of the crudest lie that they have deceived even posterity and are still deceiving us. "
Simone Weil, in "Some reflections on the origins of Hitlerism". @history
The Origin of the Political: Hannah Arendt or Simone Weil?
In this book Roberto Esposito explores the conceptual trajectories of two of the twentieth century’s most vital thinkers of the political: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil.
Esposito examines the foundational relation between war and the political.
'The climate crisis calls for a radical rethink of our cushy, carbon-heavy lives and our collective willingless to make sacrifices for future generations', writes Justine Doh in her interesting article about the relevance of the French philosopher and political activist Simone Weil for today's world.
Because: 'If anyone can offer us an earthly education in sacrifice, it's Simone Weil. (...) Hers was a lived philosophy.'