Hardcore Thought: Simone Weil & Swords
Tarotscopes/week of December 18
ASTROLOGY & TAROT READINGS
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“Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.” (Simone Weil, On the Abolition of All Political Parties, 1943)
I picked the Ace of Swords—sharp start of thought—cutting and crowned entrance to a chamber of daggers and misericords, background mountains, clarity and madness, (s)words and their limits, how they break then call us into their glares, fractured.
Sword-wielding hand emerges from a cloud to slice through what’s untrue. What’s crucial about the truth seeker, in Simone Weil’s hardcore estimation, is that she is driven neither by the desire to belong seamlessly to a side nor the desire to be correct.
Instead, the truth seeker is engined by the “irresistible light of evidence.” In these daze of internet-laced likes and dislikes—-how to think—truth seek?
To think is to become hard to place. Placeless. Atopos. The thinker is the lover—-excessive, asymmetrical, sus—-a puzzle. Erotic and insufferable Socrates teaches us that. Plus the tarot’s swords—-
—-teem with insomniacs, blindfolded women, night vision, hearts penetrated by blades, figure rowing slow over clear blue waters serenely leaving, relief and release, genius, neurological euphoria, rain-wind then unexpected sweetness, horizontal daggers as wallpaper, daymares, the bold and the clear, every variety of severing——
Weil speaks of the outbreak of a kind of intellectual leprosy—(!)—-leprosy caused, in part, by the imperative to merely take sides. She writes that she sees people using language like—-“As a conservative…” or “As a Socialist, I do think that….” —-sheathing thoughts in partisan lingo. But if we believe there is truth—-and are committed to going after it—-swords and words—this kind of speech, she concludes, will not do.
Tarotscopes for the week: