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Full Idea
Participation in collective possessions is important. Where real civic life exists, each feels he has a personal ownership in the public monuments, gardens, ceremonial pomp and circumstances; sumptuousness is thus place within the reach of the poorest.
Gist of Idea
Even the poorest should feel collective ownership, and participation in grand display
Source
Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], I 'Collective')
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'The Need for Roots' [Routledge 2002], p.35
A Reaction
OK with gardens. Dubious about fobbing the poor off with pomp. Monuments are a modern controversy, when they turn out to commemorate slavery and colonial conquest. I agree with her basic thought.