From Goodreads:

It isn't a surprise why many avoid Carl Schmitt. He was, after all, a prominent jurist in the Third Reich. Many political theorists argue it was Schmitt's very ideas that paved the way for Hitler and the Nazi's so what value could one possibly find in his works?

Though the claim that Schmitt's views enabled Nazism is contestable (see Schwab's introduction), it does not appear as if Schmitt ever denounced his party allegiance. The waters are murky indeed.

What is not up for debate, however, is that Schmitt provides a salient right-wing critique of liberalism that now reads as prescient. If human life is essentially political, then modernity's proclivity to diminish the political is equally dehumanizing. Liberalism's feeble attempt to make politics safe sucks the vitality out of life, trapping man in "the dynamic of perpetual competition and perpetual discussion" where there are only new products to buy, new debates to be had, and no decisive actions to be made (72).

For Schmitt, liberalism is fake politics. True politics only occurs with the possibility of conflict between friends and enemies: the chief distinction in the realm politics as good and evil is the chief distinction in morality.

Dividing the world between friends and enemies may appear brutal and militaristic to our modern sensibilities. But we ought to be careful about importing ideas into that distinction that Schmitt does not and even rejects. For example, calling someone an enemy does not necessarily imply a moral category or private animus. One is an enemy solely on the grounds of difference. Their way of life is not our way of life and though they may be quite peaceful now, the possibility of conflict some day under the right circumstances creates the friend-enemy distinction.

For Schmitt, this is actually a more humane way of doing politics since he rejects any appeal to universal moral principles by either the friend or the enemy. As soon as one side appeals to "humanity"to use one value of modern liberalism, he has coincidentally placed his enemy on the side against humanity. There is now no limit to what one may do to him. Total annihilation is now on the table in a way it wasn't when the difference was merely cultural. Thus, Schmitt defends the old European nation-state as the primary political organization as well as diversity, as ironic as that may be for a right-wing post liberal critic.

But as noble as Schmitt's intentions are to rid the political of universal morality, it simply won't do because there's no escaping our moral universe. Even Schmitt is inconsistent on this point, an observation Leo Strauss makes noticing Schmitt's use of "meaning." There is life and there is a meaningful way to live. Some ways of life--as Schmitt's own Nazi regime proved--really are morally abhorrent. There is also a sense that no group holds to their way of life merely because its their's but also because they think it's good. This is likely true for every group thus requiring some moral standard by which to judge which align with truth, goodness, and beauty. Even such an evaluation will help us discern friends from enemies. ( )

1/22/23

Concepts of power by noted Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. Greatly disagree with his analysis of liberalism, but really fascinated by his analysis of power. ( )

Concepts of power by noted Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. Greatly disagree with his analysis of liberalism, but really fascinated by his analysis of power. ( )

Concepts of power by noted Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. Greatly disagree with his analysis of liberalism, but really fascinated by his analysis of power. ( )