Needs for the Soul

My essay on "The Need for Roots" by Simone Weil focuses on rights versus obligations and the difference between them. I wrote about three of the many needs that are important aspects of the human soul, that feed the soul to nourish a person's need. Three of the needs I focused on are Liberty, Honor, and  Hierarchism.

 

Julianne Ferguson

 

                                                 Needs for the Soul

      “The Need for Roots” a prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind by Simone Weil, with a preface by T.S. Eliot, is about compassion in relation to suffering. There are many interesting sections in the reading that discuss needs for the soul, certain needs such as order, to be able to conceive what order is depends on the other needs. There are two important characteristics in what those needs are “the first which distinguishes needs from desires, fancies, or vices, and foods from over indulging, needs are limited” (p.11), meaning one man feels he had enough and the other craves more. The second characteristic is connected with the first, there needs to be some balance to every need, for example “man requires food, but also an interval between his meals; he requires warmth and coolness, rest and exercise, etc…” (p.11), among the need of order there are other needs mentioned as with, liberty, which is the ability to choose.

      In addition, to liberty another reading that demonstrates liberty and the ability to have a choice was in “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl, about a man who survived the Holocaust and wrote to tell about his experience. On page 59, the last paragraph, he chose to volunteer his time to assist the sick patients with medical duties pertaining to the patients in the camp who had typhus.  He did this in spite of people advising against it, and despite others not volunteering. He writes that every prisoner had the decision to make for or against an escape attempt (p.67). Before escaping the camp he recalls making a last round to check on his typhus patients, the ones specifically that were dying that he felt he had to make it his life’s work to save. He chose to stay and help comfort them in their last hours (p.68). He had the choice to stay instead of leave, he chose to volunteer, as well as choosing to give his last piece of bread away to someone he felt needed it more (p.75). He lived for others and with liberty.

          Hierarchism is one of many needs that are essential to the human soul. It is a devotion to those who are more superior and who have more power. A reading that acknowledges those more superior in power overlooking those beneath them is in “Marcus Aurelius Meditations” Marcus being someone of higher power who wrote a list of how to act; to citizens he declares “it would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness as a rational being and a citizen. Anything at all: the applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence” (How to Act, #6). He is saying not to let anything stray you away from goodness such as indulgence for oneself, money, praise, and hierarchy. Even though he was one who was high up on the social spectrum, he knows all too well what can hold you back if you let it. So he writes from experience to show what to do versus what not to do, or at least to be aware of certain things so they do not get the best of you.

        Honor is another important aspect of the human soul. Human beings to satisfy this need require help from their social surroundings, specifically from other people. People need public acknowledgement to share in their nobility. For honor to go unrecognized it would become meaningless and forgotten, as he states “for the noble traditions possessed by those suffering oppression go unrecognized, through lack of social prestige” (p. 18). Honor would only go unrecognized if those of social surrounding didn’t praise one’s nobility. If those who we know today went unrecognized we never would have learned the greatness behind their achievement. People like Joan of Arc, as in the reading “had France been conquered by the English in the fifteenth century, Joan of Arc would be well and truly forgotten, even to a great extent by us”
(p.18). People need public acknowledgment in order for their goodness and achievement to be respected.

       In addition to honor this relates to a reading by Aristotle “Nicomachean Ethics” there was a section on honor where honor is believed to be a part of what makes people happy. People who pursue honor do so in hopes they will be assured of their goodness (p.566). He states it is better to bestow honor rather than receive it because to bestow it means one may be rewarded for their pursue, whereas someone who receives honor can have that honor taking away, though the feeling of being rewarded will still remain.

      I am for the section on liberty because I agree that everyone has a choice, the section on hierarchy I agree it is people looking up to those of superior power who give out orders to maintain an organized system of a higher class verse a lower class. I am also for the section on honor because I agree that people for the most part only do well in hopes that one day they will in some way be rewarded. Goodness and honor only for some have any meaning if their actions are acknowledged by others. The opening on the difference between rights and obligations the difference being between object and subject made some interesting points, such as for rights it explains, a right is not effectual by itself, but when in relation to an obligation, meaning “he, in his turn, only has rights, when seen from the point of view of other men, who recognize that they have obligations toward him” (p.1), whereas when a man in isolated by himself he does not have any rights, but only obligations within himself. Overall I found the reading to be interesting, and enjoyable to read, and even found a new point to add to my final project topic.