Vital needs......................

 

Freedom is a vital food for the human soul.  In the concrete sense of the word, freedom means the possibility of choice. . . . Those who lack good will or remain infantile are never free in any state of society.

---------------

Initiative and responsibility, the feeling of being useful and even indispensable, are vital needs of the human soul.

-----------------

Equality is a vital need of the human soul.  It consists of public, general, and effective recognition, concretely expressed through institutions and practices, that every human being is owed the same amount of respect and consideration because respect is due to every human being as such and has no degrees.

...................

Hierarchy is a vital need of the human soul.  It comprises a certain veneration, a certain devotion, to superiors considered not in their person or for the powers they exercise, but as symbols.

-------------

Honour is a vital need of the human soul.

-------------

Punishment is a vital need of the human soul.  There are two kinds, disciplinary and penal.

.................

Security is an essential need of the soul.  Security means that the soul is not hampered by fear or terror, except as a result of a combination of accidental circumstances and for rare and short periods.

-------------

Risk is an essential need of the soul.  The absence of risk creates a kind of boredom that numbs in a different way from fear, but almost as much.

---------------

Private property is a vital need of the soul.  The soul is isolated, lost, when not surrounded by objects that feel like an extension of the body's limbs.

----------------

Participation in collective goods does not consist of material enjoyment but in a sense of ownership, is just as important a need.  It is a state of mind rather than a legal provision.

-----------------

-Simone Weil, excerpted from The Need for Roots