Excerpts from Schmitt, Carl (1985) Political Theology, MIT Press. The translation is of the second edition of Political Theology from 1934. The first edition was published in 1922.
I now [1934] distinguish not two but three types of legal thinking; in addition to the normativist and the decisionist types there is the institutional one.
p. 2
Whereas the pure normativists thinks in terms of impersonal rules, and the decisionist implements the good law of the correctly recognized political situation by means of a personal decision, institutional legal thinking unfolds in institutions and organizations that transcend the personal sphere. And whereas the normativist in his distortion makes of law a mere mode of operation of a state bureaucracy, and the decisionist, focusing at the moment, always rund the risk of missing the stable content in every great political movement, an isolated institutional thinking leads to the pluralism characteristic of a feudal-corporate growth that is devoid of sovereignty.
p. 3
Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.
p. 5
The assertion that the exception is truly appropriate for the juristic definition of sovereignty has a systematic, legal-logical foundation. The decision on the exceprion is a decision in the true sense of the word. Because a genaral norm, as represented by an ordinary prescription, can never encompass a total exception, the decision that a real exception exists cannot therefore be entirely derived from this norm.
p. 5-6
The exceprion, which is not codified in the existing legal order, can at best be characterized as a case of extre peril, a danger to the existance of the state, or the like. But it cannot be cirumscribe factually and made to conform to a preformed law.
p. 6
The most guidence the constitution can provide is to indicate who can act in such a case. If such action is not subject to controls, if it is not hampered in some way by checks and balances, as is the case in a liberal constitution, the it is clear who the sovereign is. He decides whether there is an extreme emergency as well as what must be done to eliminate it. Although he stands outside the normally valid legal system, he nevertheless belongs to it, for it is he who must decide whether the constitution needs to be suspended in its entirety.
p. 7
After all, every legal order is based on a decision, and also the concept of the legal order, which is applied as something selfevident, contains whitin it the contrast of the two distinct elements of the juristic – norm and decision. Like every other order, the legal order rests on a decision and not on a norm.
p. 10
What charaterizes an exception is principally unlimited authority, which means the suspensin of the entire existing order. In such a situation it is clear that the stat remains, wheras law recedes. Because the exception is different from anarchy and chaos, order in the juristic sense still prevails even if it is not of the ordinary kind.
The existence of the state is undoubted proof of its superiority over the validity of the legal norm. The decision frees itself from all normative ties anf becomes in the true sense absolute. The state suspends the law in the exception on the basis of its right of self-preservation, as one would say.
p. 12
The exception is that which cannot be subsumed; it defies general codification, but it simultaneously reveals a specifically juristic element – the decision in absolut purity.
p. 13
There exists no norm that is applicable to chaos. For a legal order to make sense, a normal situation must exist, and he is sovereign who definitly decides whether this normal situation actually exists.
p. 13
The exception can be more important to it than the rule, not because of a romantic irony for the paradox, but because the seriousness of an insight goes deeper than the clear generalizations unferred from what ordinarily repeats itself. The exceptions is more important than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything: It confirms not only the rule but also its existance, which derives only from the exception. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crus of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.
p. 15
Sovreignty is the highest, legally independent, underived power.
p. 17
The basis for the validity of a norm can only be a norm; in juristic terms the state is therefore identical with its constitution, with the uniform basic norm.
p. 19
The age-old Aristotelian opposites of deliberation and action begin with two distinct forms; wheras deliberation is approchable through legal form, action is approchable only by a technical formation.
p. 28
All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development – in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver – but also because of thier systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence i analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas of the state developed in the las centuries.
The idea of the modern constitutional state triumphed together with deism, a theology and metaphysics that banished the miracle from the world. This theology anf metaphysics rejected not only the transgression of the laws of nature through an exception brought about by direct intervention, as found in the idea of a miracle, but also in the sovereign’s direct intervention in a valid legal order. The rationalism of the enlightenment rejected the exception in every form.
p. 36-37
After the writers of the Restoration developed a political theology, the radicals who opposed all existing order directed, with heightened awareness, their ideological efforts against the belief in God altogether, fighting that belief as if it were the most fundamental expression of the belief in any authority and unity.
p. 50
Every political idea in one way or another takes a position on the “nature” of man and presupposes that he is either “by nature good” or “by nature evil.” This issue can only be clouded by pedagogic or economic explanations, but not evaded.
p. 56
According to Donoso Cortés, it was characteristic if bourgeois liberalism not to decide in this battle but to begin a discussion. He straightforwardly defined the bourgeoisie as a “discussing class,” una clasa discutidora. It has thus been sentenced. This definition contains the class characteristic if wanting to evade the decision. A class that shifts all political activity onto the plane of conversation in the press and in parliament is no match for social conflict
p. 59
Although the liberal bourgeoisie wanted a god, its god could not not become active; it wanted a monarch, but he had to be powerless; it demanded freedom and equality but limited voting rights to the propertied classes in order to ensure the influence of education and property on legislation, as if education and property entitled that class to repress the poor and uneducated; it abolished the aristocracy of blood and family but permitted the impudent rule of the moneyed aristocracy, the most ignorant and most ordinary form of an aristocracy; it wanted neither the sovreignty of a king nor that of the people. What did it actually want?
The curious contradictions of this liberalism struck not only reactionaries such as Donoso Cortés and F. J. Stahl but also revolutionaries such as Marx and Engels.
p. 59-60
Just as liberalism discusses and negotiates every political detail, so it also wants to dissolve metaphysical truth in a discussion. The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.
p. 63
[D]ecisionism is essentially dictatorship, not legitimacy. [...] [I]n the face of radical evil the only solution is dictatorship, and the legitimist principle of succession becomes at such a moment empty dogamtism. Authority and anarchy could thus confront each other in absolute decisiveness and form a clear antithesis: De Maistre said that every government is necessarily absolute, and the anarchist says the same; but with the aid of his axiom of the good man and corrupt government, the latter draws the exact opposite political conclusion, manelym that all governments must be opposed for the reason that every government is a dictatorship. Every claim of a decision must be evil for the anarchist, because the right emerges by itself if the immanence of life is not disturbed by such claims. This radical antithesis forces him of course to decide against the decision; and this results in the odd paradox whereby Bakunin, the greatest anarchist of the nineteenth century, had to become in theory the theologian of the antitheological and in practice the dictatir of an antidictatorship.
p. 66
Showing posts with label Schmitt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schmitt. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, February 14, 2005
The futility of political discussion
Two days ago swedens largest newspaper published an essay about Jürgen Habermas, on account of two recently published books about him. Focus in the article is Habermas' theories about "deliberative democracy" and the public sphere. Nothing is however said about Carl Schmitt's influence on Habermas.
Habermas' focus on deliberation as the essence in democracy is a loan from, or more correct, a perversion of Schmitt. The essay describes Habermas' view as follows: "In public discussion, the citizens discuss various political questions and arguments alone should be decisive, not who presents them." This can be compared to Schmitt: "To discussion belong shared convictions as premises, the willingness to be persuaded, independency of party ties, freedom of selfish interests." (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy p. 5) Although Schmitt says that as a critique of the pluralistic parliamentary "democracy", the validity of the statement that discussion demands shared convictions is perhaps never more clearly shown than on the internet. One need only to look to the nearest political forum.
Most internet users has at one time or another witnessed a "debate", be it between marxists and objectivists (randians), tradtionalists and modernists, or others, where it, for all with a minimum of intelligence, was obvious from the start that the discussion would lead nowhere. The question is then, what criteria has to be met for a discussion to be fruitful? The paradox here is that real discussion is only possible between equals, but the greater the identity, the less need, or indeed room, for discussion.
It should also be noted that Schmitt makes a distinction between deliberation and discussion. Discussion does not simply mean conversation or negotiation but "an exchange of opinion that is governed by the purpose of persuading one's opponent through argument of the truth or justice of something, or allowing oneself to be persuaded of something as true and just". (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy p. 5)
The essay describes the bourgeois public sphere as "a sphere where private persons meet to discuss cultural and political concerns". It remains unclear whether Habermas actually meant that such a sphere really existed, or if it should be taken as an account of a bougeoisis ideal. In conclusion, where Schmitt talks about discussion, Habermas uses deliberation.
The belief in discussion between political antagonists can be traced to the enlightment's spirit of "rationalism". There is no way to combine communism and capitalism, atheism and Christianity, militarism and pacifism and so on. In fact there can't even be any real discussion. If someone does changes his opinions due to a discussion it's rarely a participant, but rather a listener. In fact, he who indulges in debates with antagonists for the sake of argument acts as a liberal, although some people does seem to derive a strange kind of pleasure from fruitless debating.
Similarly, there is no discussion (in the traditional, non-schmittian, sense) more meaningless than the one between an atheist and a believer. The fundamental of faith, be it the faith that God exist or does not exist, is based on a living feeling rather than rational arguments. The same can be said about the belief in capitalism or communism. To say that the conviction is based on self-interest, not morals, does not change anything. The faith in the truth of one's morals are simply replaced with the faith in that one has correctly identified what serves one's interests the best. Fundamental beliefs, axiom or whatever one wishes to call them, are very seldom changed due to "rational" arguments. They rest upon a much deeper part of reality – faith, feelings, conviction, all of which the rationalist can not grasp.
Habermas' focus on deliberation as the essence in democracy is a loan from, or more correct, a perversion of Schmitt. The essay describes Habermas' view as follows: "In public discussion, the citizens discuss various political questions and arguments alone should be decisive, not who presents them." This can be compared to Schmitt: "To discussion belong shared convictions as premises, the willingness to be persuaded, independency of party ties, freedom of selfish interests." (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy p. 5) Although Schmitt says that as a critique of the pluralistic parliamentary "democracy", the validity of the statement that discussion demands shared convictions is perhaps never more clearly shown than on the internet. One need only to look to the nearest political forum.
Most internet users has at one time or another witnessed a "debate", be it between marxists and objectivists (randians), tradtionalists and modernists, or others, where it, for all with a minimum of intelligence, was obvious from the start that the discussion would lead nowhere. The question is then, what criteria has to be met for a discussion to be fruitful? The paradox here is that real discussion is only possible between equals, but the greater the identity, the less need, or indeed room, for discussion.
It should also be noted that Schmitt makes a distinction between deliberation and discussion. Discussion does not simply mean conversation or negotiation but "an exchange of opinion that is governed by the purpose of persuading one's opponent through argument of the truth or justice of something, or allowing oneself to be persuaded of something as true and just". (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy p. 5)
The essay describes the bourgeois public sphere as "a sphere where private persons meet to discuss cultural and political concerns". It remains unclear whether Habermas actually meant that such a sphere really existed, or if it should be taken as an account of a bougeoisis ideal. In conclusion, where Schmitt talks about discussion, Habermas uses deliberation.
The belief in discussion between political antagonists can be traced to the enlightment's spirit of "rationalism". There is no way to combine communism and capitalism, atheism and Christianity, militarism and pacifism and so on. In fact there can't even be any real discussion. If someone does changes his opinions due to a discussion it's rarely a participant, but rather a listener. In fact, he who indulges in debates with antagonists for the sake of argument acts as a liberal, although some people does seem to derive a strange kind of pleasure from fruitless debating.
Similarly, there is no discussion (in the traditional, non-schmittian, sense) more meaningless than the one between an atheist and a believer. The fundamental of faith, be it the faith that God exist or does not exist, is based on a living feeling rather than rational arguments. The same can be said about the belief in capitalism or communism. To say that the conviction is based on self-interest, not morals, does not change anything. The faith in the truth of one's morals are simply replaced with the faith in that one has correctly identified what serves one's interests the best. Fundamental beliefs, axiom or whatever one wishes to call them, are very seldom changed due to "rational" arguments. They rest upon a much deeper part of reality – faith, feelings, conviction, all of which the rationalist can not grasp.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Under the mask of humanity
Yet another program about U.S. violation of human rights in the “war against terrorism” was aired by Swedish radio today. The details are of little importance although it should be noted that the violations were described as systematic, not isolated events, conducted not by individual grunts, but sanctioned and encouraged by president Bush and secretary of defense Rumsfeld.
The most fascinating thing is that each new information is greeted with a sense of surprise. Fascinating not because of the considerable amount of atrocities previously known, but because of the premises under which the “war against terrorism” is fought. Of course it is always interesting to see liberals cling on to their illusions. History has proved the so called “realist” school of international relations if not right, at least fairly correct over and over the last century.
When it comes to wars fought in the name of humanity, or to protect human rights, they tend to be more brutal then wars not fought under that kind of justification because it necessarily dehumanizes the enemy. Carl Schmitt realized this more then 70 years ago, the relevance of the passages below from The concept of the political today is almost frightening. Of course all this should not be seen as some sort of defense of the liberal metaphysic conception of rights. The notion of rights are, as Schmitt rightly argues, despite liberal claims of the opposite, political to the extreme. Spöknippet disapproves all notions of transcendent “rights”.
At some later point there will hopefully be a text dedicated exclusively to establishing Spöknippets standpoint on rights. For now it is sufficient to establish that there has never been a crime to great to not be committed under the mask of humanity. Indeed many of the most gruesome atrocities has been committed under the mask of humanity. Let us now look upon what Schmitt has to say about war and humanity:
Schmitt finishes The concept of the political with some observations regarding terminology, perhaps even more corret today then when first written.
The most fascinating thing is that each new information is greeted with a sense of surprise. Fascinating not because of the considerable amount of atrocities previously known, but because of the premises under which the “war against terrorism” is fought. Of course it is always interesting to see liberals cling on to their illusions. History has proved the so called “realist” school of international relations if not right, at least fairly correct over and over the last century.
When it comes to wars fought in the name of humanity, or to protect human rights, they tend to be more brutal then wars not fought under that kind of justification because it necessarily dehumanizes the enemy. Carl Schmitt realized this more then 70 years ago, the relevance of the passages below from The concept of the political today is almost frightening. Of course all this should not be seen as some sort of defense of the liberal metaphysic conception of rights. The notion of rights are, as Schmitt rightly argues, despite liberal claims of the opposite, political to the extreme. Spöknippet disapproves all notions of transcendent “rights”.
At some later point there will hopefully be a text dedicated exclusively to establishing Spöknippets standpoint on rights. For now it is sufficient to establish that there has never been a crime to great to not be committed under the mask of humanity. Indeed many of the most gruesome atrocities has been committed under the mask of humanity. Let us now look upon what Schmitt has to say about war and humanity:
Humanity as such cannot wage war because it has no enemy, at least not on this planet. The concept of humanity excludes the concept of the enemy, because the enemy does not cease to be a human being – and hence there is no specific differentiation in that concept. That wars are waged in the name of humanity is not a contradiction of this simple truth; quite the contrary, it has an especially intensive political meaning. When a state fights its political enemy in the name of humanity, it is not a war for the sake of humanity, but a war wherein a particular state seeks to usurp a universal concept against its military opponent. At the expense of its opponent, it tries to identify itself with humanity in the same way one can misuse peace, justice, progress, and civilization in order to claim these as one’s own and to deny the same to the enemy.Schmitt adds in a note:
The concept of humanity is especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism. Here one is reminded of a somewhat modified expression of Proudhon’s: whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat. To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects, such as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme inhumanity.*
p 54
* Pufendorf quotes approvingly Bacon’s comment that specific peoples are “prescribed by nature itself,” e.g., the Indians, because they eat human flesh. And in fact the Indians of North America were then exterminated. As civilization progresses and morality rises, even less harmless things than devouring human flesh could perhaps qualify as deserving to be outlawed in such a manner. Maybe one day it will be enough if a people were unable to pay its debts.It follows from the above that a war sanctioned by the United Nations has all the more potential to be exceedingly brutal then a bi-lateral conflict. What can possibly be a stronger argument to present a war as fought on behalf of humanity then one formally sanctioned by the “international community”? It is hard not to think on the sanctions imposed on Iraq, and also the annihilation of Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait.
Schmitt finishes The concept of the political with some observations regarding terminology, perhaps even more corret today then when first written.
An imperialism based on pure economic power will naturally attempt to sustain a worldwide condition which enables it to apply and manage, unmolested, its economic means, e.g., terminating credit, embargoing raw materials, destroying the currencies of others, and so on. Every attempt of a people to withdraw itself from the effects of such “peaceful” methods is considered by this imperialism as extra economic power.
p 78
For the application of such means, a new and essentially pacifist vocabulary has been created. War is condemned but executions, sanctions, punitive expeditions, pacifications, protections of treaties, international police, and measures to assure peace remains. The adversary is thus no longer called an enemy but a disturber of
peace and is thereby designated to be an outlaw of humanity. A war waged to protect or expand economic power must, with the aid of propaganda, turn into a crusade and into the last war of humanity. This is implicit in the polarity of ethics and economics, a polarity astonishingly systematic and consistent. But this allegedly non-political and apparently even antipolitical system serves existing or newly emerging friend-and-enemy groupings and cannot escape the logic of the political.
p 79
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
[Excerpts] Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy
Excerpts from Carl Schmitt's The crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, first published in 1923.
What numerous parliaments in various European and non-European states have produced in the way of a political elite of hundreds of successive ministers justifies no great optimism. But worse and destroying almost every hope, in a few states, parliamenatism has already produced a situation in which all public business has become an object of spoils and compromise for the parties and their followers, and politics, far from being the concern of an elite, has become the despised business of a rather duboius class of persons.
p. 4
To discussion belong shared convictions as premises, the willingness to be persuaded, independence of party ties, freedom from selfish intrests.
p. 5
The belief in parliamentarism, in government by discussion, belongs to the intellectual world of liberalism. It does not belong to democracy. Both, liberalism and democracy, have to be distinguished from one another so that the patchwork picture that makes up modern mass democracy can be recognized.
p. 9
A democracy demonstrates its political power by knowing how to refuse or keep at bay something foreign and unequal that threatens its homogeneity.
p. 9
The state theory of the Contrat social also proves that democracy is correctly defined as the identity of governed and governing.
p. 14
A democracy can be militarist or pacifist, absolutist or liberal, centralized or decentralized, progressive or reactionary, and agian differant at differant times without ceasing to be a democracy. [...] What remains then of democracy? For its definition, one has a string of identities. It belongs to the essence of democracy that every and all decisions which are taken are only valid for those who themselves decide. That the outvoted minority must be ignored in this only causes theoretical and superficial difficulties.
p. 25
The will of the people is of course always identical to the will of the people, wether a decision comes from the yes or no of millions of voting papers, or from a single individual who has the will of the people even without the ballot, or from the people acclaiming in some way. Everything depends on how the will of the people is formed.
p. 27
If for practical and technical reasons the representatives of the people can decide instead od the people themselves, then certainly a single trusted representative could also decide in the name of the same people.
p. 34
A threefold division of powers, a substantial distinction between the legislative and the executive, the rejections of the idea that the plenitude of state power should be allowed to gather at any one point – all of this is in fact the antithesis of a democratic concept of identity.
p. 36
The usual definition of sovereignty today rests on Bodin’s recognition that it will always be necessary to make exeptions to the general rule in concrete circumstances, and that the sovereign is whoever decides what constitutes an exception.
p. 43
The last remnants of solidatity and a feeling of belonging together willl be destroyed in the pluralism of an unforeseeable number of myths.
p. 76
What numerous parliaments in various European and non-European states have produced in the way of a political elite of hundreds of successive ministers justifies no great optimism. But worse and destroying almost every hope, in a few states, parliamenatism has already produced a situation in which all public business has become an object of spoils and compromise for the parties and their followers, and politics, far from being the concern of an elite, has become the despised business of a rather duboius class of persons.
p. 4
To discussion belong shared convictions as premises, the willingness to be persuaded, independence of party ties, freedom from selfish intrests.
p. 5
The belief in parliamentarism, in government by discussion, belongs to the intellectual world of liberalism. It does not belong to democracy. Both, liberalism and democracy, have to be distinguished from one another so that the patchwork picture that makes up modern mass democracy can be recognized.
p. 9
A democracy demonstrates its political power by knowing how to refuse or keep at bay something foreign and unequal that threatens its homogeneity.
p. 9
The state theory of the Contrat social also proves that democracy is correctly defined as the identity of governed and governing.
p. 14
A democracy can be militarist or pacifist, absolutist or liberal, centralized or decentralized, progressive or reactionary, and agian differant at differant times without ceasing to be a democracy. [...] What remains then of democracy? For its definition, one has a string of identities. It belongs to the essence of democracy that every and all decisions which are taken are only valid for those who themselves decide. That the outvoted minority must be ignored in this only causes theoretical and superficial difficulties.
p. 25
The will of the people is of course always identical to the will of the people, wether a decision comes from the yes or no of millions of voting papers, or from a single individual who has the will of the people even without the ballot, or from the people acclaiming in some way. Everything depends on how the will of the people is formed.
p. 27
If for practical and technical reasons the representatives of the people can decide instead od the people themselves, then certainly a single trusted representative could also decide in the name of the same people.
p. 34
A threefold division of powers, a substantial distinction between the legislative and the executive, the rejections of the idea that the plenitude of state power should be allowed to gather at any one point – all of this is in fact the antithesis of a democratic concept of identity.
p. 36
The usual definition of sovereignty today rests on Bodin’s recognition that it will always be necessary to make exeptions to the general rule in concrete circumstances, and that the sovereign is whoever decides what constitutes an exception.
p. 43
The last remnants of solidatity and a feeling of belonging together willl be destroyed in the pluralism of an unforeseeable number of myths.
p. 76
Monday, September 20, 2004
[Excerpts] Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
Exerpts from Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political.
The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political.
According to modern linguistic usage, the stat is the political status of an organized people in an enclosed territorial unit. This is nothing more than a general paraphrase, not a definition of the state. Since we are concerned here with the nature of the political, such a definition is un warranted. It may be left open what the state is in its essence – a machine or an organism, a person or an institution, a society or community, an enterprise or a beehive, or perhaps even a basic procedural order. These definitions and images anticipate too much meaning, interpretation, illustration, and construction, and therefore cannot constitute any appropriate point of departure for a simple and elemenarary statment.
In its literal sense and its historical appearance the state is a specific entity of a people. Vis-á-vis the many conceivable kinds of entities, it is in the decisice case the ultimate authority.
p 19-20
The political must [...] rest on its own ultimate distinctions, to which all action with a specifically political meaning can be traced. Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable. [...]
The specifice political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. This provides a definition in the sense of a criterion and not as an exhaustive definition or one indicative of substantial content.
p 26
The political enemy need not be morally evil or aestetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he ism in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgement of a disintrested and therefore neutral third party.
Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation abd settle the extreme case of conflict. [...] Emotionally the enemy is treated as being evil and ugly, because every distinction, most of all the political, as the strongest and most intensiv of the distinictions and categorizations, draws upon other distinctions for support. This does not alter the autonomy of such distinctions.
p 27
The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.
p 28
A world in which the possibility of war is utterly eliminated, a completely pacified globe, would be a world without the distinction of friend and enemy and hence a world without politics.
p 35
A war need be neither something religious nor something morally good nor something lucrative. War today is in all likelihood none of these. This obvious point is mostly confused by the fact that religious, moral and other antithesis can intensify to political ones and can bring about the decisive friend-or-enemy constellation. If, in fact, this occurs, then the relevant antithesis is no longer purely religious, moral, or economic, but political. The sole remaining question then is always whether such a friend-and-enemy grouping is really at hand, regardless of which human motives are sufficiently strong to have brought it about.
p 36
Every religious, moral, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is sufficiently strong to group human beings effectively according to friend or enemy. [...] A religious community which wages wars agains members of other religious communities ir engages in other wars is already more than a religious community; it is a political entity. [...] Also a class in the Marxian sense ceases to be something purley economic and becomes a political factor when it reaches this decisive point, for example, when Marxists approach the class struggle seriously and treat the class adversary as a real enemy and fights him either in the form of a war of state against state or in a civil war within a state.
p 37
If a part of the population declares that it no longer recognizes enemies, then, depending on the circumstance, it joins their side and aids them. Such a declaration does not abolish the reality of the friend-and-enemy distinction.
p 51
Political thought and political instinct prove themselves theoretically and practically in the ability to distinguish friend and enemy. The high points of politics are simultaneously the moments in which the enemy is, in concrete clarity, recognized as the enemy.
p 67
The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political.
According to modern linguistic usage, the stat is the political status of an organized people in an enclosed territorial unit. This is nothing more than a general paraphrase, not a definition of the state. Since we are concerned here with the nature of the political, such a definition is un warranted. It may be left open what the state is in its essence – a machine or an organism, a person or an institution, a society or community, an enterprise or a beehive, or perhaps even a basic procedural order. These definitions and images anticipate too much meaning, interpretation, illustration, and construction, and therefore cannot constitute any appropriate point of departure for a simple and elemenarary statment.
In its literal sense and its historical appearance the state is a specific entity of a people. Vis-á-vis the many conceivable kinds of entities, it is in the decisice case the ultimate authority.
p 19-20
The political must [...] rest on its own ultimate distinctions, to which all action with a specifically political meaning can be traced. Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable. [...]
The specifice political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. This provides a definition in the sense of a criterion and not as an exhaustive definition or one indicative of substantial content.
p 26
The political enemy need not be morally evil or aestetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he ism in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgement of a disintrested and therefore neutral third party.
Only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation abd settle the extreme case of conflict. [...] Emotionally the enemy is treated as being evil and ugly, because every distinction, most of all the political, as the strongest and most intensiv of the distinictions and categorizations, draws upon other distinctions for support. This does not alter the autonomy of such distinctions.
p 27
The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.
p 28
A world in which the possibility of war is utterly eliminated, a completely pacified globe, would be a world without the distinction of friend and enemy and hence a world without politics.
p 35
A war need be neither something religious nor something morally good nor something lucrative. War today is in all likelihood none of these. This obvious point is mostly confused by the fact that religious, moral and other antithesis can intensify to political ones and can bring about the decisive friend-or-enemy constellation. If, in fact, this occurs, then the relevant antithesis is no longer purely religious, moral, or economic, but political. The sole remaining question then is always whether such a friend-and-enemy grouping is really at hand, regardless of which human motives are sufficiently strong to have brought it about.
p 36
Every religious, moral, ethical, or other antithesis transforms into a political one if it is sufficiently strong to group human beings effectively according to friend or enemy. [...] A religious community which wages wars agains members of other religious communities ir engages in other wars is already more than a religious community; it is a political entity. [...] Also a class in the Marxian sense ceases to be something purley economic and becomes a political factor when it reaches this decisive point, for example, when Marxists approach the class struggle seriously and treat the class adversary as a real enemy and fights him either in the form of a war of state against state or in a civil war within a state.
p 37
If a part of the population declares that it no longer recognizes enemies, then, depending on the circumstance, it joins their side and aids them. Such a declaration does not abolish the reality of the friend-and-enemy distinction.
p 51
Political thought and political instinct prove themselves theoretically and practically in the ability to distinguish friend and enemy. The high points of politics are simultaneously the moments in which the enemy is, in concrete clarity, recognized as the enemy.
p 67
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
