The Concept of the Political

Rating:
Summary: An insightful text w/a great summary/commentary
Review: "The Concept of the Political", by Carl Schmitt, is a theorhetical tract wherein Schmitt lays the groundwork for a criticism of current 'liberal' political theory (liberal in the technical sense of the term, i.e. as concerned with the preservation of human freedom as the sovreign good of political society, as opposed to the word's conventional use as an adjective describing adherents of the various species of Leftist ideology; note as well that here we mean 'negative freedom', not 'positive freedom', in Isaiah Berlin's scheme). His reflections are somewhat disjointed, but fortunately the notes on this text penned by the great and sadly passed away Leo Strauss are appended at the end of the book. This provides a useful synthesis and critique of Schmitt's work; essentially, Strauss argues that Schmitt is criticizing liberalism from a concealed moral point of view, under the guise of the supposed necessities of politics as a function of human nature; however, what Schmitt never comes out and says is that the 'ethics' and 'morality' of liberalism, that he says he is disregarding in favor of cold-eyed necessity, is in fact just one of a plurality of possible ethical systems, and that there is an alternative ethical vision available that does in fact embrace politics as struggle between friends and enemies as valuable in itself, which is a step further than Schmitt takes the analysis, seeing the political and its allegedly unpalatable characteristics as a matter of pure necessity. Strauss never says so, but the antithesis his analysis sets up is strikingly similar to the godlike Friererich Nietzsche's notions of 'master morality' and 'slave morality'. Read this book, especially Strauss' epitome of it, alongside 'Beyond Good and Evil', 'On the Geneology of Morals', 'The Anti-Christ', and 'Twilight of the Idols', for a look at a positive formulation of what Schmitt merely hints at. Also good for further info on Nietzsche's political philosophy would be 'Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism' by Bruce Dettweiler; 'Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker', by Keith Ansell-Pearson; and 'Nietzsche and the Political', by Daniel W. Conway.

N.B. - Schmitt disgraced himself as a man for all eternity by his willing association with the satanic forces of the Third Reich. In no way should this be a reason for you to avoid this book. He repetedly denounces totalitarinism in it as different from his own ideas; likewise, do not allow the old canard that Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi to keep you from reading him - this is an out-and-out lie, as Walter Kaufman proved half a century ago in his "Nietzsche: Philospoher, Psychologist, and Anti-Christ". Friederich Nietzsche would not have deigned to so much as urinate on Adolf Hitler if he found the Furher on fire. In any case, even if the charges against Nietzsche were true, it would still constitute an ad hominem attack, which has no rational vlaue whatsoever (the same goes for Schmitt). Ad hominems, in case you are wondering, consist of attempts to discredit ideas by discrediting their thinkers - e.g. 'elimination of affirmitive action is a mistake because white conservatives are racists and black conservatives are Uncle Toms'. I'm sure you've heard similar fallacies before. Neither man's ideas necessarily leads to Nazism or any other form of totalitarianism - people who oppose them just want you to think so. Read it, and ponder it, if you want a glimpse of a radically different way of thinking about politics.

Rating:
Summary: Friend and foe--but what's the issue?
Review: I read the German edition of this book. It's eerily simple to read. The space that Schmitt carves out here for the political seems to be a good idea: the political is essentially the field of tension between enemy and friend. Most political problems can be cast in these terms, but Schmitt does not go far enough. Unlike Hegel, there is no issue (Ding) between the enemy and friend. Yes, of course there are always oppositions, but the issue between the two parties is enormously important. Perhaps Schmitt would only say that the issue implies a party (even a third party) which cannot be impartial and so is only aligning itself. I don't buy this. I think it is enormously important for sides in a political conflict to look at what the issue at hand is, e.g., a land dispute, and then to work from there. According to Schmitt's view, there's nothing to do other than to maintain the opposition until defeat or victory. That is too limited an approach.

Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, but very densely written
Review: It takes a lot of effort to understand the ideas in this book, simply because it is very densely written. That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn about Schmitt, just that you would be best of doing so through secondary sources.

Rating:
Summary: This is so Troy.
Review: Politics is just the wooden horse in this book. Schmittian political theory treats killing as the unthinkable monstrosity which it usually is, but allows the state to have a monopoly on declarations of war, which is about the only thing that might be considered important by those who only permit it when they have an enemy. The things in this book apply so well to the Greeks who were camped outside Troy all those years, wondering why they couldn't win when they were so obviously right, that the kind of politics in this book might be considered classic. Schmitt was in a little trouble once, after World War II, when people wondered if he should be treated like a war criminal for openly thinking about the logic of this kind of thing as a German, who published this as Der Begriff des Politischen in 1932. There is a possibility that some of the people who won World War II didn't want politicians to think this way: "The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping." (p. 29). Honestly, the things people think can get them in a lot of trouble, which is probably why you never see much thinking on television.

Rating:
Summary: This is so Troy.
Review: Politics is just the wooden horse in this book. Schmittian political theory treats killing as the unthinkable monstrosity which it usually is, but allows the state to have a monopoly on declarations of war, which is about the only thing that might be considered important by those who only permit it when they have an enemy. The things in this book apply so well to the Greeks who were camped outside Troy all those years, wondering why they couldn't win when they were so obviously right, that the kind of politics in this book might be considered classic. Schmitt was in a little trouble once, after World War II, when people wondered if he should be treated like a war criminal for openly thinking about the logic of this kind of thing as a German, who published this as Der Begriff des Politischen in 1932. There is a possibility that some of the people who won World War II didn't want politicians to think this way: "The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping." (p. 29). Honestly, the things people think can get them in a lot of trouble, which is probably why you never see much thinking on television.

Rating:
Summary: maurras redivivus!
Review: The equation politics=war (friends/enemies), or the choice between liberalism and politics, is in fact the disjunction authority or anarchy. The valorization of mere bellicosity is in fact the valorization of authority, of whatever kind, as against the universalism/freedom/apoliticism of liberalism. There is consequently an association between authority and representation, the personalised sovereign. By personalizing power (decisionism), Hobbes paradoxically paved the wave for the abstract decisionism of the state as mechanism, or liberalism, which is not adequate to representation and political imagery. Liberalism/mechanism/technology is image-poor, and here we can see an intersection with Benjamin. The connection between politics as war and representation is very simple: politics, as war and hence the only realm which involves a threat to life, is always a battle between living and breathing individuals fighting for the sovereign who decides. Hence the concept of life/representation at the very bottom of Schmitt's thought. We can see here his "Catholicism" but also his Hegelianism (the personalized sovereign represents the "Idee"). Neither democracy nor liberalism is adequate to "representation."

Rating:
Summary: The paradox of the enemy recognition
Review: The other reviews of this book already give the potential reader a good insight into what they are buying, and so I will comment on a fascinating conceptual tension within the book. Like all political realists (or so Schmitt would claim), Schmitt begins his theorizing from the empirical fact that "man is a dangerous and dynamic being". Schmitt allows that the nature of man may not be evil, but man's nature is inarguably problematic. Schmitt then inquires as to how man's problematic nature reveals itself conceptually. His answer is the enemy recognition. We know man is evil because he is prone to locating in the stranger, the other (that person or group who holds inimical aesthetic, religious, ethical beliefs), a potential source of violent conflict. A tension (there are many in the book!) then materializes when Schmitt speaks of the necessity of the state to make the proper enemy recognition if peace and security are to be maintained. It is of course a perilous folly if the state fails to make the proper enemy recognition (see Hindenburg's 1933 alliance with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement, and Stalin's secret pact with Hitler for three failed enemy recognitions before WWII). But how does the state make the proper enemy recognition, and not simply needlessly multiply conflict in order to root out the enemy? Thus, the Soviet archives tell us that Stalin erroneously viewed the West as a threat (particularly a rebuilt Germany) after WWII, and so seized Eastern Europe as a buffer zone. The tension of the enemy recognition is that it is the source of all of our troubles, but yet it must be made when necessary. Sounds like the stuff of which politics is made...

Rating:
Summary: The paradox of the enemy recognition
Review: The other reviews of this book already give the potential reader a good insight into what they are buying, and so I will comment on a fascinating conceptual tension within the book. Like all political realists (or so Schmitt would claim), Schmitt begins his theorizing from the empirical fact that "man is a dangerous and dynamic being". Schmitt allows that the nature of man may not be evil, but man's nature is inarguably problematic. Schmitt then inquires as to how man's problematic nature reveals itself conceptually. His answer is the enemy recognition. We know man is evil because he is prone to locating in the stranger, the other (that person or group who holds inimical aesthetic, religious, ethical beliefs), a potential source of violent conflict. A tension (there are many in the book!) then materializes when Schmitt speaks of the necessity of the state to make the proper enemy recognition if peace and security are to be maintained. It is of course a perilous folly if the state fails to make the proper enemy recognition (see Hindenburg's 1933 alliance with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement, and Stalin's secret pact with Hitler for three failed enemy recognitions before WWII). But how does the state make the proper enemy recognition, and not simply needlessly multiply conflict in order to root out the enemy? Thus, the Soviet archives tell us that Stalin erroneously viewed the West as a threat (particularly a rebuilt Germany) after WWII, and so seized Eastern Europe as a buffer zone. The tension of the enemy recognition is that it is the source of all of our troubles, but yet it must be made when necessary. Sounds like the stuff of which politics is made...