Friendship vs solidarity

“Nothing is more contrary to friendship than solidarity, be it a question of solidarity based on comradeship, personal sympathy, or membership in a common social group, or the same political conviction, the same nation, the same religious confession. The thoughts which enclose the first person plural are infinitely further removed from justice than those which enclose the first person singular; for the first person plural is not susceptible of being involved in a relationship in three terms of which the middle term is God. This is why Plato, very probably inspired by the Pythagoreans, called everything collective, animal. This trap for love is the most dangerous of all that are set here below.” -Simone Weil, The Pythagorean Doctrine

Simone Weil often does this thing where she flips common sense things around and reveals levels of disturbing meaning within them. She does this with her critique of “rights” (which I wrote about a while ago).

Here she flips around the concept of solidarity—which seems so good on its surface, a crucial leftist concept—and finds deceptive roots underneath it. She extends this critique of solidarity into language—that the first person plural (we, us) is “further removed from justice” than the first person singular (I, me). This is contrary to what we usually think, isn’t it—that we/us is more inclusive, progressive, social justice-y, than I/me. Liberal leaders use this line of thinking all the time—Bernie Sanders even made “Not me, us” one of his campaign slogans a few years ago. He spoke often of solidarity, of putting the collective over the individual. This is the most standard, seemingly common-sense leftist logic. And, of course, it has failed again and again (Bernie himself failed twice, but history shows endless examples).

Yet Weil finds a crucial flaw in it, which perhaps helps us understand the failures this “not me, us” solidarity thing has suffered over the years. She calls this privileging of we over I a “trap for love” and says that Plato called everything collective “animal.”

This line of thinking—that it is somehow ethical to be more individualistic—sounds alarmingly close to something Ayn Rand would say; her outlook is often referred to as a kind of ethical egoism; that being egoistic, self-interested, is ethical; that greed is good.

Should we think of Weil as being in some sense compatible with Rand? I don’t think so—for one thing, she writes extensively about the struggles of workers in an exploitative economic system (which Rand, of course, never did—indeed she celebrates exploitation as being natural and just). Weil even put her money where her mouth is—she worked in factories, risking her health and her sanity—(her writing about her factory work reveals that her extremely frail, small frame was in constant danger of injury in the tough physical environment of the factory, with dangerous machines everywhere; and mentally she seemed to totally lose sight of her identity even after a few days as a factory worker).

But the real difference between Weil and Rand comes down to the question of God—Rand is famously an atheist (which is one reason why her fetishization by right-wingers, who posture about being Christians and so on, is so strange); and Weil is an extreme, radical Christian. Indeed, in the passage quoted above, God is the reason that she privileges I over we—with the collectivity of a we/us, there is no room for God; everything is horizontal, going from me to you and to everyone else in a straight, flat line. But with the I/me, there is more verticality—from myself to God, and then, with this energetic connection, more useful interactions between myself and others/the world can happen; this is what Weil calls friendship, which she distinguishes from the collectivity of solidarity. Friendship comes first from self and God; you learn how to be a friend in that way—she makes this same point about love; that you first love yourself because God loves you; and then from that, you expand out.