Ignorance and Philosophy / Simone Beille

Although I studied Eastern philosophy a lot, I never revealed it. Strangely, the background of Eastern philosophy felt like it was connected to class authority or superrationality (in other words, irrationality), which hindered social development. I thought it was a problem that should not be assimilated while researching.

 

Every time there was a conservative government in Korea, my vow to maintain political neutrality was broken and I tried to prevent the union of politics and religion. This was especially true for North Korea. In fact, this issue has been plagued by a lot, and the non-physical attitudes of leaders and people, not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in Japan, China, and Russia, have often ignited the world into division and struggle.

 

Hitler, a young painter, quickly discovered the non-physical nature of the people by using his imagination and charisma. He combined himself as a political leader and a religious leader. He also committed a tremendous event called World War II.

 

When I was in high school, I read an interesting biography of Simone Beille, a French social activist and philosopher. I was also impressed by the philosophical (thinking) attitude of her and her teacher, Alain. While studying law, I even lectured on the constitution to civil service students, and whenever I talked about Rousseau's social contract theory or Montesquieu's separation of powers, I envied French philosophy that blossomed early. Back then and now, I felt like I had lived as an eccentric person in an Eastern society that had not evolved due to the interference of ideology and superrationality.

 - These days, I'm disillusioned with ideology and hyper-rationality, so I'm emptying my head while studying engineering, but something funny happened. Twelve years ago, while imitating Alain, I frequently posted brief articles on Blog, one of which was about Mrs. Roland. It is a story that Mrs. Roland leads her husband, a politician, during the French Revolution, and gets deeply involved in politics, but when the opposition party comes to power, she is executed. Roland, the husband, commits suicide after hearing the news of his wife's death penalty. I was surprised to find that the post was deleted from Facebook a few days ago. Also, I thought that empathy was excessive in a country dominated by hyper-rationality. The post was later restored, but I was a little embarrassed and puzzled.

이형춘(Hyeong Chun Lee): 롤랑부인에 대한 검색결과 (hyeong-chun.blogspot.com)

The following is a part of the book written by Simone Petermang, a friend of Simone Beille, and translated by Kang Kyung-hwa.

 

Simone, who used to jump straight to the heart of a problem whenever he tried to solve it, soon began to think about the consequences of war. Thus, it was not Germany under Hitler's dictatorship that threatened the world, but the overall culture that caused Hitler to exercise his dictatorship, and it was difficult to overcome this threat even if a democracy ultimately won without a cool-headed awareness of it.

 

In an article published with this point, [A Study on the Cause of Hitler's dictatorship], Simone raised this issue.

 

"Should humanism want world reunification? We have seen the conquest of the Roman Empire and the formation of a great empire as great achievements, but we have not fully grasped what it really was like. Even though the same way Rome conquered the world is reproduced before our eyes and threatened us, we are not accepting it."

 

Similarly, it is incorrect to say that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a method for unification. When we judge justice, we must return to our most humane form and make judgments. Simone Beille was a philosophical figure who sought the answer.