“We have to reject ourselves": Gustav Landauer and Simone Weil’s politics of ascesis

Abstract

This essay aims to establish an extensive comparison between the thoughts of Gustav Landauer and Simone Weil. These two authors are connected by a strong elective affinity. Nevertheless, until now, scholars have not devoted much attention to their similarities. Without dismissing the differences to be found in their writings, this essay focuses on the entanglement between mysticism and politics at the core of their work. Their rejection of modern political rationality led them to recover the revolutionary potential of a mystical ascesis based on the death of the individual. Claiming the need for an inner involvement in society, they challenge the conception of politics as a practice of externalisation. In doing so, their reflections, situated on the fringe of the political, contributed to the establishment of a conceptual framework for political mysticism as an ethical and political disposition that put into question the contemporary political-philosophical framework.