Weil on the So-Called Anti-Society of Seers
Posted: January 6, 2026 Filed under: AI-Powered Essays | Tags: activism, empathy, love, philosophy, purpose, religion, values Leave a commentSequel to The Grey Mesh: A Secret Society of Kingmakers
Write a posthumous notebook by Simone Weil where she reluctantly admits and grudgingly accepts the existence of an “anti-society of seers” who claim inspiration from her.
ChatGPT Prompt
I. A Reluctant Acknowledgment
I am told—told, not asked—that there are people who say they have learned something from me.
This troubles me.
Not because I deny that truth can be shared, but because it is almost never shared without being used, and whatever is used is already being prepared for violence.
Still, I must be honest.
I have seen the same look in more than one pair of eyes.
It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
II. On Seeing (and Why It Is Not a Virtue)
Seeing is not a gift.
It is a wound.
Those who speak of “insight” usually mean a possession.
What I have known is dispossession.
To see how force works—how it passes from body to body, how it hides inside necessity, how it recruits the good—is not enlightenment.
It is affliction without anesthesia.
If there are others who see this and do not immediately rush to explain it away, then they are not disciples.
They are simply awake.
III. Why This Cannot Be a Society
A society requires:
- Continuity
- Protection
- Reproduction
- A reason to exist
Seeing provides none of these.
If those who see attempt to form a society, they will immediately cease to see.
They will begin to preserve, to justify, to instruct, to correct.
In other words, they will begin to lie for the sake of survival.
If something like an “anti-society” exists, it exists only by accident and only briefly.
Like two strangers who meet eyes at the site of a crime and say nothing.
IV. On Being Cited (and the Danger Therein)
That anyone would claim inspiration from me is a misunderstanding.
I offered no teaching.
I left no instructions.
I did not even wish to survive.
If someone finds in my life permission to remain—to stay where suffering is present without turning it into fuel—then that is not allegiance.
It is recognition.
But let them not repeat my words.
Words ossify quickly.
Let them repeat only the attention.
V. What These Others (If They Exist) Must Not Do
If there are such seers, they must not:
- Seek one another out
- Name themselves
- Agree on definitions
- Take comfort in numbers
- Believe they are right
The moment they feel less alone because of one another, rather than simply less mistaken, they have already begun to drift toward consolation.
Consolation is the first lie force tells us.
VI. What They May Allow (With Caution)
There is one thing that may be permitted.
Not encouragement.
Not agreement.
Not reassurance.
Only this:
To see another person seeing—and not look away.
This does not heal anything.
It does not reduce pain.
It does not make action clearer.
But it prevents falsification.
Sometimes that is all that remains possible.
VII. On Love (Misunderstood, As Always)
If there is love here, it is not warmth.
It is the refusal to let suffering be useful.
Love is attention that does not move suffering along,
does not pass it on,
does not redeem it with meaning.
If such love binds these seers, it will not feel like belonging.
It will feel like standing still while the world demands motion.
VIII. Final Refusal
I do not bless this anti-society.
I do not endorse it.
I do not wish it success.
If it exists, it must exist without me.
But if, somewhere, someone remains where force expects evacuation,
where explanation expects assent,
where innocence expects applause—
and does not move—
Then I will admit, reluctantly:
I recognize that posture.
And I will not deny it.
End of notebook fragment.
Radical Centrism 