Simone Weil is the brightest intellectual of the 20th century. Her thoughts are more relevant than ever. They help us to understand and master the crisis of the present. In his new essay, Byung-Chul Han brings us closer to Simone Weil's inspiring, clairvoyant, even healing world of thought and re-reads it through our present. With Weil, he vividly brings up the transcendence that has been completely lost in today's world of consumption and production. Weil leads us, indeed seduces us, to a different reality that leads us out of a life devoid of meaning, out of a radical lack of being. She teaches us that ultimately it is God, this overwhelming power from above, that gives us a blissful fullness of being. Reading her writings, we at least sense that there is another way of life, another way of being than the one that is completely at the mercy of performance, production and consumption.
According to Han in his impressive essay, there would be more peace and beauty in the world today if we lived the way Simone Weil exemplified and envisioned.
“God is not dead. Dead is the man to whom God revealed himself.”
Essay
Byung-Chul Han was born in Seoul, South-Korea. His works have been translated in over 30 languages and are bestellers in numerous countries. He lives in Berlin.
