CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE?:
WONDERING ABOUT OUR PLACE IN THE COSMOS
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?
BLAISE PASCAL
Pascal’s haunting passage identifies some of the deepest fears of human beings—that we are insignificant elements in a vast and meaningless universe, which has not the slightest interest in us. We seem to have been inserted into the cosmos at a place and time which were not of our choosing, and we will eventually depart from it at a place and time which are unknown to us. Our “world line” began with our birth at (x1, y1, z1, t1) and will end with our death at an indeterminate point in the future (x2, y2, z2, t2). So why did we enter this cosmic process then and there? Or is it utterly meaningless to ask the question why, when all that can be hoped for is an answer to the rather different question how? And what about that most troubling and perturbing question of all: So what?
It is not surprising that many have concluded that we have found our way into this strange and puzzling world by accident. The biologist Jacques Monod took this view in his book Chance and Necessity. Human beings, he declared, are an accidental and meaningless presence in an equally accidental and meaningless universe. Man must “realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music, and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his sufferings and crimes.”[1] We are not meant to be here. We find ourselves in a world which is neither of our making nor of our choosing. In fact, we are not meant to be anywhere. We just exist.
Nature is thus the prison in which we find ourselves trapped, the landscape through which we are passing on a journey that goes nowhere. The universe doesn’t know we exist. It doesn’t care. Like us, it just exists. And now we know that one day it will die—just as we too must die. It’s a thought that is expressed lyrically in a poem by the twelfth-century Persian mathematician Omar Khayyám:
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’d we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help—for It
As impotently moves as you or I.[2]
So why do so many of us feel such a sense of disconnection with this universe? After all, every human being is made of stardust, the basic stuff of the universe. Elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen were all forged in the cores of stars.[3] At the level of our fundamental building blocks, we are very much part of the universe. And yet so many feel alienated from it, sensing our solitude and isolation within the cosmic mechanism. We sense that there is—that there has to be—more to life than the universe itself can offer. We seem to be born with an innate capacity to wonder, intuiting that there is some greater vision of reality which might make sense of our presence and place in the universe. It’s like the scientist confronted with a mass of observations who knows that there has to be some way of joining up the dots which discloses a pattern that makes sense of things—a grand theory which lies hauntingly beyond our reach.
Perhaps that experience of wondering might begin with the simple yet astonishing fact that there is indeed a universe and that we are here to observe it—what Ludwig Wittgenstein termed an “existential wonder” elicited by our imaginative awakening to the world around us.[4] Michael Mayne captured this sense of exquisite sensitivity towards the existence of such a greater world while he was living in the Swiss Alps:
My subject is wonder, and my starting point is so obvious it often escapes us. It is me, sitting at a table looking out on the world. It is the fact that I exist, that there is anything at all. It is the givenness that astonishes: the fact that the mountains, the larch tree, the gentian, the jay, exist, and that someone called me is here to observe them.[5]
Most of us have experienced some such sense of the strangeness of things—the sheer oddness of the fact that each of us is here and able to see a reality beyond ourselves. G. K. Chesterton wrote movingly and perceptively of a suppressed, submerged, or forgotten “blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence” lying at the back of our minds but able to break through to inform and enrich our “artistic and spiritual life.” How could people be “made to realize the wonder and splendour of being alive” when their dulled imaginations could grasp little more than the quotidian?[6]
Yet that sense of wondering rarely terminates at this point. Having appreciated the singularity and surprise of our individual existence, we cannot help but wonder about the world in which we find ourselves and our place within it. Is this universe our home—even if only for an astonishingly short time in terms of the vast expanse of cosmic history? Or are we like sojourners, passing through it on our way to somewhere else? Do we really belong here?
Feeling at home in the universe is not a matter of cold logic or mathematical calculation; it is a deep-seated sense of belonging. Yet few actually feel at home in this universe. Some are merely resigned to their temporary occupation of cosmic space. Others feel deeply alienated, sensing that they do not belong in this world at all but without any idea of where they might find their proper location. Let’s reflect on these issues more fully.
On Existential Black Holes
The scientific term “black hole” was introduced by the physicist John Wheeler to refer to an object or region within space-time that has such a strong gravitational field that nothing can escape from within it, including light.[7] It was not a new idea. In 1783, the English country parson and natural philosopher John Michell argued for the likely existence of what he called “dark stars” that were sufficiently massive and compact to have such a strong gravitational field that light could not escape. Any light emitted from the surface of these stars would be dragged back by the star’s gravitational field. The implications of this are far reaching. For a start, you can’t tell what is inside a black hole from the outside. Nor can you see them. Their existence has to be inferred indirectly from observations of their gravitational interactions with their surroundings. Black holes are a classic example of the inference of the existence of something that cannot be seen from what can be seen.
Yet that same term was used in an existential sense in 1861 by the great French novelist Gustav Flaubert to refer to the “black hole (trou noir)” that stood at the heart of human existence. In a letter to his friend Madame Roger des Genettes, Flaubert wrote of the existential void that stood at the heart of a godless world:
The melancholy of antiquity seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, all of whom more or less imply that immortality lies beyond the black hole. But for the ancients, that black hole is infinity itself; their dreams take shape and pass away on a foundation of changeless ebony. No crying out, no convulsions—nothing but the steadiness of a pensive face. Just when the gods were no more, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius when humanity was alone.[8]
What was Flaubert getting at? His major theme is that humanity, in the absence of the divine, is alone in the universe, steadfastly facing a meaningless void without any hope of immortality. Flaubert regarded such a resignation as noble. If happiness was to be found, it lay in the acceptance of human isolation within a faceless universe, realizing that our beliefs in meaning are dreams which rise and fall within a “black hole” of disinterested nothingness.
A similar view was taken by Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), a German philosopher who did much to encourage the emergence of existentialist philosophy, which recognized the important role of human subjectivity. For Heidegger, we have been “thrown” into this world, and we try to make sense of its riddles, including our own identity and purpose. We search for “authenticity” or “authentic existence” without entirely understanding what form this should take, yet we possess the freedom to choose what we believe to be the best option.[9] Heidegger himself seems to have believed that “authentic existence” lay in the acceptance of human mortality and in resisting any notion of an afterlife or transcendent domain.
But what happens if there is a God and if this God chooses to enter and inhabit this world of ours—and in doing so, dignifies this “black hole,” lending it value and meaning and saturating it with intimations of eternity and immortality? Flaubert hints at this possibility, perhaps realizing that the coming of Christ changes everything. But it’s a central theme of the Christian way of thinking about our relationship with this world, as we shall see later in this chapter. Before we consider this idea, though, let’s think more about what it means to be “at home in the universe.”
Home: Belonging Somewhere
The word “home” is one of the richest and most emotive words in any language. It designates somewhere special—a place where we feel, above anything else, that we belong. It’s a way of mapping space in our minds, highlighting one special place which is our spot. We come to feel a deep kinship, a sense of connectedness, with our home. Our heart belongs there, and we feel disconnected and alienated when we end up somewhere else. We find ourselves experiencing an existential ambivalence—a queasy unsettledness—which hints that this is not where we really belong.
It’s part of being human to feel moored to a specific place, rich in associations and memories. Home, as they say, is where the heart is. Yet it proves hard to conceptualize what is distinct about a “home” and what distinguishes it from a “habitat.” Perhaps that’s because “home” is really a category of the human heart rather than of the human mind. It’s about the way we feel about a place—experiencing its existential magnetism, taking pleasure in its associated sense of peace and security, and feeling ill at ease when we are away. We are rooted animals, who often see “home” as a repository for our personal historical pasts, a gathering place for memories that define who we are partly in terms of where we come from.[10]
For some people, the notion of home is problematic. What about the perpetual nomads of our global culture—the international players who move from one continent to another, never really setting down roots anywhere? Or what about immigrants, who leave behind their homelands and their family roots as they seek a better life or freedom from oppression? They bring only their memories to their new situations. Yet many immigrants show a remarkable capacity to recreate the vestiges of their lost homeland in a different place while adapting to a new language and society. Memories of their homeland subtly shape their understandings of their adopted country, helping them to cope with their sense of alienation and disconnection.
Where physics speaks of space and time, most of us find these notions abstract and disconnected from human concerns. We prefer to speak of place and history. The distinction is, of course, subjective. Yet subjectivity really matters to human beings, and it cannot be ignored. This point is emphasized by the noted Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, who argued that to make sense of the theological concerns of ancient Israel a fundamental distinction had to be made between “space” and “place.” “Place is space which has historical meanings, where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken which have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny.”[11]
Brueggemann’s analysis of the history of Israel shifts discussion away from the abstract notions of space and time and anchors it firmly to the experiential realities of human existence, which are much more naturally expressed using the categories of place and history. We merely exist in space and time; we live and act in places and in history. Not every space is seen as a place. The French anthropologist Marc Augé highlighted the role of “non-places” in Western culture—such as airports, shopping malls, hotels, highways, and subways.[12] We have no sense of “belonging” there; we merely pass through them on our way to somewhere else. Home is where we feel that we are rooted and where we belong.
Places play a critically important role in human life, not least in that they function as anchor points for memory, identity, and aspiration. Two observers might look at the same objective space but see it—and experience it—in very different ways. Place is what a space is for us, shaped by memories that are often known only to ourselves. That’s why some see home as the place to which they long to return, others as a place they never want to see again.
This is a highly subjective matter in that there is no physical or biological difference between a space and a place. Yet the fact remains that human beings both make this distinction and regard it as important. Two people might look at exactly the same landscape at the same time. One sees the place where she met and fell in love with her long-dead lover; the other sees a rather uninteresting example of the kind of deciduous woods you find at the base of a mountain in that region. Both observe the same phenomenon; they see something quite different.
So are we at home in the universe? Or do we really belong somewhere else? Throughout this section, I have emphasized the importance of subjective perceptions and intuitions—in other words, engaging our feelings and desires, not the cold calculus of logic. So are there feelings within us that might suggest that our home lies somewhere else? That this is not where we really belong? Do we possess some homing instinct for another world? Let’s turn to consider this question.
A Homing Instinct?:
Intuitions of Another World
One of the reasons I read poetry is to be challenged to write better prose myself. It’s not that I’m depressed by the generally wooden quality of my writing and need to be challenged to improve it. It’s that poets so often seem to find the right words to express something that eludes more scientific writers. A good example lies in Matthew Arnold’s lines from “The Buried Life” (1852), in which he speaks of an irrepressible and “unspeakable desire” for knowledge rising up within him.
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.[13]
Arnold’s poem is haunted by the fear of loss of identity, absence of meaning, and deprivation of purpose in life. Arnold believed that we too easily lose our way in life, often in spite of external successes and appearances. The language of the poem hints at the importance of emotions, intuitions, and feelings in causing the poet to rethink and recalibrate his life, reaching for something that has been lost, forgotten, or suppressed.
Arnold puts into words a feeling known to writers and poets since late classical antiquity: that something has been submerged or overlooked; that there is something that can be uncovered and retrieved—and by doing so, we open up a way of living and thinking that had been lost to us. We are prompted in this rediscovery by instincts deep within us, which somehow serve to first awaken and then redirect the course of our lives. It is as if—to use a classical biblical idea—God has implanted a longing for eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and however much we try to suppress or ignore it, this keeps bubbling up in our dreams and reflections.
It is a thought that was famously explored (though in subtly different ways) by Augustine of Hippo in his Confessions and by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées. Yet perhaps the most familiar exploration of this theme is that of C. S. Lewis, who was profoundly influenced by his deep intuition that there was more to life than his early “glib and shallow rationalism” suggested or permitted. Lewis found that his reason was like a prison guard, trying to enforce the materialist “spirit of the age”; his imagination screamed in protest, insisting that there was more to reality than this grim dogma allowed.
One of Lewis’s most imaginative and engaging explorations of this theme is found in his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” preached at the Oxford University Church of St. Mary the Virgin on June 6, 1941.[14] Lewis spoke of the haunting fragrance of another world, which spiced the stale air of our everyday experience, causing us to long to trace this scent to its source. In particular, Lewis highlighted the apologetic significance of a sense of longing for something—or someone—indefinable yet seemingly irresistible. So often such exquisite longings broke the hearts of those who experienced them, who mistakenly confused a sign with what it signified. This desire was a pointer to the one who alone could satisfy this seemingly unquenchable thirst and to our transcendent goal, where such desires would find their final fulfilment.
Lewis summed this up in a landmark statement in Mere Christianity, perhaps his best-known work: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[15] To some, this seems a hasty, even premature, conclusion. Yet Lewis’s point is that there are only two alternatives: to dismiss such longings as meaningless or to abandon any search for their goal out of sheer exhaustion or frustration. We must never despise these longings on the one hand or fail to appreciate that they are “a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage” of what really matters. They are not the goal itself; they are the stimulus that made us look for and long for that goal in the first place.
Some will be worried that Lewis places such an emphasis on human subjectivity. Two responses can be made. First, elsewhere in his writings, Lewis develops much more objective modes of reasoning, which emphasize the explanatory capaciousness of the Christian faith. Yet perhaps the second response is more important. For Lewis, the subjectivity of the individual matters profoundly. The way we feel about ourselves, our world, and God has a deep impact on our lives. Christianity effects an affective transformation of our emotional worlds, not simply a realignment of our thinking.
We simply cannot ignore the question of what it feels like to exist in the world. Some theologians are profoundly nervous of questions such as this, which seem to reduce the Christian faith to subjective emotions and longings. Now there are some reasonable concerns here, not least the risk of collapsing into some imaginary world that we have invented purely in order to satisfy our longing for meaning or our feelings of inadequacy.[16] Yet there is a danger that this legitimate concern for a truth that is independent of us blinds us to the experiential, emotional, and relational aspects of faith.
The Christian “big picture” allows us to see the world in a new way. No longer is it a faceless void; it bears the imprint of God. Psalm 8 offers perhaps one of the most eloquent reflections on this theme. We may feel overwhelmed by the immensity of this universe, with its vast starry skies. Yet God has placed us within this universe, where we are meant to be. It is stamped and studded with signs of God’s presence and glory; and we, who bear God’s image, can discern those signs and, illuminated and empowered by grace, may reach out and embrace the God who created us and our world.
Psalm 23 speaks of a journeying God who accompanies and guides us as we travel through this world. This insight is intensified and solidified by the distinctively Christian idea of the Incarnation, which affirms that God entered into our world of history in Jesus of Nazareth. This intellectual framework allows us to make sense of our existence in the universe. Yet it does more than help us understand ourselves; it also enables us to live fully and authentically on the Road. Let’s explore this point in more detail using a biblical image which has come to play a critical role in Christian spirituality: the idea of being exiled in this world.
The Exile: A Framework for Reflection
Why do so many feel that we don’t really belong in this world? Such a sense of displacement or disconnection underlies the movement known as Gnosticism, which flourished in late classical antiquity.[17] Central to many forms of Gnosticism was the belief that we do not really belong here. We are meant to be somewhere else. We are trapped in this universe and struggle to find our way out of it and return to the realm where our true destiny lies. Human beings are “gold in the mud,” spiritual beings who are imprisoned in material bodies and a corrupt world. Our ultimate goal is to escape from these prisons and make our way to our true homeland.
It’s a feeling that was well known to G. K. Chesterton, who had his own explanation of its origins and significance. We experience a sense of homesickness for our real native land as we slowly realize that this world is not where our true destiny lies. “We have come to the wrong star. . . . That is what makes life at once so splendid and so strange. The true happiness is that we don’t fit. We come from somewhere else.”[18]
While this experience is not specific to Christians, the Christian tradition brings a particular framework of interpretation to bear on it. The New Testament letters—often using the imagery of citizenship to make the point—emphasize that this world is a place of transit rather than our permanent habitation. We have no permanent citizenship in this world in that our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). “Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).
Christian theologians developed other organizing images to help illuminate this idea. One of the most powerful derives from first-century Roman imperial culture. Roman citizens would regularly serve the imperial administration abroad—for example, in the colonies of North Africa or Asia Minor—eagerly anticipating their return home on completion of their service. Rome was their patria, their “homeland”—the place where they really belonged.[19] Early Christian writers used this framework to illuminate the dynamics of living on earth while hoping for heaven. Cyprian of Carthage, a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity and served as bishop in the great colonial city of Carthage in North Africa in the third century, expressed this way of seeing things in a pithy maxim: “Paradise is our native land (patria).”[20] Yet the framework that many regard as best adapted to express and capture the experiential aspects of the Christian way of thinking about our place in this universe is that of exile. A landmark episode in the history of Israel was developed by Christian spiritual writers into an imaginative template, allowing Christians both to visualize and to evaluate their position within the world of space and time. Although it offers a Balcony view of life, it comes into its own as a way of thinking about faith on the Road. The historical episode is what is generally known as the “Babylonian Deportation” or “Babylonian Exile,” a complex event which extended throughout much of the sixth century BC.[21]
The exile began with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple and the ending of the Davidic monarchy in 586 BC. Following a failed rebellion by the kingdom of Judah against the Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar besieged the city of Jerusalem and deported most of its inhabitants to Babylon over the period 597–581. Archaeological evidence indicates that most of the population of rural Judah remained in place; those who were deported were mostly from Jerusalem itself. They would remain in exile until the fall of Babylon to Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Although some Jews remained in Babylon, most appear to have made their way back to Jerusalem in the following years, rebuilding the fallen city walls and its Temple.
The narrative of this historical event is important in its own right. Yet it gave rise to an imaginative template, a way of looking at the world, which was widely adopted and developed within the Christian spiritual tradition, especially during the Middle Ages. Christians, it is argued, should locate themselves within an imaginative framework in which they are the inhabitants of Jerusalem who have been exiled to Babylon. They do not belong there and long to return home. During their enforced absence, they console themselves by singing the songs of their lost homeland, keeping its memory alive while they wait for the day when they can go home. In the meantime, they live in Babylon with hope, knowing their true identity and destiny. The great medieval theologian Peter Abelard captured this in one of his most famous hymns:
Now, in the meantime, with hearts raised on high,
we for that country must yearn and must sigh,
seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
through our long exile on Babylon’s strand.[22]
This does not encourage any disengagement or disconnection from the world; it simply affirms that we really belong elsewhere. Yet this world is our place of transit in which we begin to garner hints that something lies beyond it. Like the prisoners in Plato’s dark underground cave, we sense there must be more than a world of shadows. The theologian Josef Pieper noted how our natural hopes and longings were grounded in something beyond us, yet not alien to us. “All our natural hopes tend towards fulfilments that are like vague mirrorings and foreshadowings of, like unconscious preparations for, eternal life.”[23] Such enigmatic foreshadowings disclose both the penultimacy of our own world and the distant lure of another, which is our true home. For Abelard, this world is God’s world and is to be valued, appreciated, and enjoyed. Yet it is studded with clues that it is not our real home, that there is a still better world beyond its frontiers, and that we may hope one day to enter and inhabit this better place.
Although the image of “exile” is grounded in the theological framework of the Christian faith, it has found wider cultural resonance, not least because it offers a framework for naming and understanding the feeling of not being at home in the world. For the literary critic Edward Said, the notion of exile speaks of an “unhealable rift” imposed between an individual and a “native place,” between a person and their “true home,”[24] evoking a sense of loss and alienation. Simone Weil saw the notion of being “rooted” as a core “need of the soul.”[25] Yet the concept of “rootedness” does not entail belonging here; rather, it is about belonging somewhere, which makes existing here bearable.
Thus far, we have reflected mainly on our present situation, above all our quest for meaning in this universe. So what of the future? What hope might we have for ourselves and our world? In the final section of this work, we shall consider some of the deep and troubling issues that human beings face and how we might engage with these.
[1] Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (London: Penguin, 1997), 2.
[2] Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (London: Wordsworth, 1993), 66.
[3] Marcel Arnould, Stephane Goriely, and Kohji Takahashi, “The R-Process of Stellar Nucleosynthesis: Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics Achievements and Mysteries,” Physics Reports 450, nos. 4–6 (2007): 97–213.
[4] Gordon C. F. Bearn, Waking to Wonder: Wittgenstein’s Existential Investigations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 163–97.
[5] Michael Mayne, This Sunrise of Wonder: Letters for the Journey (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008), 15.
[6] G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), 99, 134.
[7] Stephen Hawking, Black Holes: The Reith Lectures (London: Bantam, 2006).
[8] Gustave Flaubert, Correspondance, vol. 3 of 5 (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 220.
[9] Heidegger’s views on what constitutes “authentic existence” are complex and contested. For a useful starting point, see Mark A. Wrathall and Jeff Malpas, eds., Heidegger, Authenticity and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).
[10] Douglas Burton-Christie, “Place-Making as Contemplative Practice,” Anglican Theological Review 91, no. 3 (2009): 347–71.
[11] Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2002), 5. More generally, see Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 285–330.
[12] Marc Augé, Non-lieux: Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992). See further Emer O’Beirne, “Mapping the Non-Lieu in Marc Augé’s Writings,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 42, no. 1 (2006): 38–50.
[13] Matthew Arnold, “The Buried Life,” lines 51–54.
[14] C. S. Lewis, Essay Collection (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 96–106.
[15] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 136–37.
[16] For examples of such worldviews, see Carole M. Cusack, Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), especially 7–25.
[17] For a good introduction, see Gérard Vallée, The Shaping of Christianity: The History and Literature of Its Formative Centuries (100–800) (New York: Paulist, 1999), 64–73.
[18] G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles (London: Methuen, 1909), 209.
[19] For a full discussion, see Erhardt Güttgemanns, Der leidende Apostel und sein Herr; Studien zur paulinischen Christologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). More generally, see Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
[20] Cyprian of Carthage, On Mortality, 7.
[21] For a detailed study, see Avi Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012).
[22] Peter Abelard, “O What Their Joy and Their Glory Must Be.”
[23] Joseph Pieper, On Hope (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 38.
[24] Edward Said, “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile,” Harper’s Magazine, September 1984, 49–55, quote on p. 49.
[25] Simone Weil, L’enracinement. Prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1949).