ABSTRACT
Simone Weil was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Paris in 1909. From a very young age she developed a deep empathy for the suffering and those who occupied the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Weil drew on this experience in La Condition ouvriere: an extraordinary sociological essay on work in large-scale industrial organisations. In the period immediately preceding her experience of working in a factory, Weil penned Reflexions sur la guerre, in which she reflected on the relationship between violence and the liberation from oppression. In her essay, Weil called into question the conception of war as a revolutionary tool and the advocacy of war against Nazism. According to Weil, the reason for wars launched with the aid of empty words could be traced precisely to power and its dynamics. In 1939, Weil developed an interest in Christianity; she devoted herself intensely to the study of Greek classics, the Bible and ancient Egyptian documents.
