PARTISAN REVIEW
death, is appropriate tq its sociological use in describing the contem–
porary world. It is not so with the word
rooted,
and the question
is
whether the metaphor derived from a sessile organism is ever adequate
to
the purpose of describing animal life; though it makes sense to speak
of a man as uprooted, I am not sure what it means to use the opposite
term. Simone Weil herself furnishes an excellent example of the dif–
ficulty of this word. The little I know, and have mentioned in passing,
of her background, the diverse sources from which she draws together
the complicated perspective of her writing, show her to
be
an extremely
mobile
intellectual; the very sort of woman, in other words, whom it
would not occur to us to speak of as rooted. For what does it mean
to be rooted? To spend one's life in the environment of his birth
will
hardly do as a definition. This is not even a desirable meaning to Miss
Weil, since one of her suggestions for improving the life of working
people is to make a
tour de France
available to the young; and even
if
it were desirable, it would
be
too much to ask, as it was of herself, of
populations under the constant threat of the displacement of war.
This
is only the literal sense of the word, but as it
is
inapplicable, it begins to
cast some doubt on the symbolic meanings.
To
be
rooted in an intellectual, cultural or religious tradition?
If
this is not to mean the surrender of curiosity or the circumscription of
intellectual life within a narrow compass, some provision must be made
for learning of the world outside one's tradition.
If
this learning is not to
be superficial, there must remain the real possibility of one's never
sinking roots. Yet the image of the rooted intellectual presupposes a
single tradition: a man rooted in many traditions,
if
this is not a con–
tradiction in terms, would exhibit all the traits presumably characteristic
of the uprooted condition. The problem, how to combine the values of
rootedness with those of variety and stimulation necessary for growth,
is never squarely faced by Miss Weil who, a good deal of the time, speaks
out against the settled condition, as when she expresses the complaint
of the peasantry at feeling left out of the life of the cities, and urges
that something be done to make the countryside more exciting. She
gives her case away on still another point when she discloses her sus–
picion of collectivities, and reserves the proper uses of intellect and will
to the individual. A collectivity, she protests, can have no opinions and
ought not to be allowed to exercise will; the danger she wants to avoid
is that of dogma and tyranny. That this is a danger well worth avoiding
is obvious; but it is precisely the danger that lies in a rooted society. It
would appear that every time she speaks of the blessings of rootedness,
she really has in mind the values of coming to rest-in valid beliefs,
