Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that when people face oppressive forces they cannot overcome, they often choose to submit rather than rebel.
Simone Weil highlights the psychological impact of facing unstoppable oppression. When people confront situations that they perceive as invincible, the natural human response may shift from resistance or revolt to a sense of resignation and submission, as rebellion may seem futile against an overwhelming force.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of fighting against visible injustices.
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!
No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as " the right to enslave .
I well remember it being said to me by an occultist of great experience that two things are necessary for safety in occultism, right motives and right associates.
When remaining in awareness itself, every thought movement, no matter what kind, is like a drawing in air.
It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.
Awareness isnβt something we own; awareness isnβt something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.
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