We live in an age where self-aggrandisement reigns supreme. And criticism is paralysed

There are moments in history when, whether through reason or imagination, everything seems to be heading in one direction. Today, at least since 2020, everything is falling into place in the worst possible way. Ongoing or potential pandemics, climate crises, crises of democracy and the democratic ideal, the deterioration of social life, individual, organised and political crime, the impoverishment and irrelevance of culture, the collapse of international relations erupting into wars, the shattering of historical continuity leading to gaps in understanding and a general sense of disorientation. The very idea of civilisation is becoming obscured, and with it, confidence in the notion of progress, which now appears solely as technological development, whilst socialisation is increasingly and exclusively reduced to the use of social media. It is true that cultural criticism of society has always been primarily intellectual, without having any social impact. But today, social criticism is also in decline, and cultural criticism is ignored and avoided, for the simple reason that anything labelled as "culture" is seen as a value in itself, even if it is worthless. Is there anyone who criticises mass-market literature, the noise-music of mega-concerts, trash cinema and the visual arts reduced to nothing? Even the most ridiculous and absurd fashion shows are accepted with open arms and applause.

The ‘extraterrestrial’ invasion of tattoos and cosmetic surgery, even on the most intimate parts of the body, is also regarded as culture. Aesthetics inspired by sadomasochism are the norm, even though they express with unequivocal clarity that we are living in a cultural climate of self-harm mistaken for hysterical self-perfectionism. The paralysis of critical thinking and sensitivity coincides with the triumph of self-aggrandisement. One wonders what, in such a climate, the upbringing that parents impart to children and adolescents actually consists of. An adult infantilism prevails in the world, from which the planet’s most powerful political leaders clearly suffer. The ‘ideal ego’ is a condition in which an ideal of narcissistic omnipotence is constructed on the model of infantile narcissism. As in the most barbaric periods of history, war has once again become the whim or vice of political leaders who dream of being remembered like Caesar, Napoleon and other great figures of history.

At this point, it is worth recalling what is perhaps Simone Weil’s most memorable and prescient passage, written during the Second World War and shortly before her death:

We learn from a biographer of Hitler that amongst the books which exerted a profound influence on his youth was a work of the lowest order on Sulla. It matters not that it was a work of the lowest quality. If Hitler yearned for the sort of grandeur he saw glorified in that book and everywhere amongst the ruling classes, there was no fault on his part. That is the grandeur to which we all bow when we consider the past. Moreover, this dogma seems to fit the facts so well only because the historical spirit consists in taking murderers at their word. ‘The brutality of the Romans terrified and paralysed their contemporaries just as the brutality of the Germans does today.’ Almost half of this article is taken up by a series of quotations drawn from "La prima radice" by Simone Weil, the greatest moral, religious and social philosopher of the last century, who had the noble and instructive privilege of being ignored by the histories of philosophy and literature. For this reason alone, it seemed right to me to quote her. It is one of the most surprising – and, for us, scandalous – passages from her posthumous work, which she ideally intended for a future Europe, whose civilisation was to be radically renewed.