Editing Simone Weil (section)

=== Spiritual Nature of Work ===
Weil's ''The Need for Roots'' argues for the spiritual nature of work placing labor not merely as an economic necessity but as a moral and metaphysical act relating to attention, affliction, and rootedness. Weil believes urban and rural workers face conditions that create uprootedness. Weil argues for a social model that would be neither [[Capitalism|capitalist]] nor [[Socialism|socialist]], but allow restore human dignity through a cooperative system where the workplace becomes a site of meaningful engagement, community, and spiritual fulfillment and workers feel at home.<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|35-59}}  

Weil criticizes the disunity and ineffectiveness of well-intentioned reformers, noting that activism is often undermined by a lack of cohesion and by human nature's tendency to overlook the suffering of the truly oppressed. She observes that unions frequently focus on the relatively privileged, neglecting marginalized groups such as youth, women, and immigrant workers, who bear the brunt of systemic injustice.<ref name=":42" />{{rp|98}} She also critiques socialist reformers who attempt to make everyone proletariat rather than improve conditions.<ref name=":42" />{{rp|98}}

For urban laborers in particular, Weil advocates for the abolition of large-scale factories in favor of smaller, decentralized workshops. These would operate with limited working hours and dedicate time to learning and community life. She envisions a structure in which machinery is owned by individuals or cooperatives, with homes and land granted by the state to encourage stability and autonomy<ref name=":42" />{{rp|45-46}} 

Crucially, Weil maintains that the alienation of urban workers can only be healed by forms of industrial production and culture that make them feel "at home". In her proposed cooperative system, workers would receive a set number of tasks and be free to organize their own schedules, fostering both responsibility and agency.<ref name=":42" />{{rp|45-46}}  Machines would be owned by individuals or cooperatives, not the factories, and combined with house and land conferred to them by the state.<ref name=":43">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|56}} She insists that working and thinking must not be separated; instead, physical labor should engage the intellect and spirit alongside the body<ref name=":42" />{{rp|50,73}} Weil states that working and thinking should not be separate acts.<ref name=":44">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|73}}  

In the last few pages of this section of ''The Need for Roots'' she focuses on her central theme – that the great vocation of our times is to create a civilization which recognizes the spiritual nature of work. She draws further parallels between spiritual mechanism and physical mechanism, referring to parables in the Bible concerning seeds and then discussing our scientific understanding about how plants reach the surface by consuming the energy in their seeds and then grow upwards towards the light. Weil suggests similar parallels could be targeted for urban workers. She says if people can have both spiritual and scientific ideas converging in the act of work,  then even the fatigue associated with toil can be transformed for good, becoming  "the pain that makes the beauty of the world  penetrates right into the core of the human body".<ref name="Weil_pp94-98">{{Harvnb|Weil|1952|loc=p94-98}}</ref>

Weil further asserts that the return of truth will also reawaken the dignity of physical labor.<ref name=":45">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|229}} She describes physical work as a kind of breath, an act in which the human body and soul become intermediaries between different states of [[matter]].<ref name=":45" />{{rp|229}} Yet she warns that labor can become violent to human nature, especially when marked by monotony. To consent to work, she concludes, is second only to consenting to death, both acts of submission that are essential to life and spiritual growth.<ref name=":45" />{{rp|235}}