So I challenged myself before beginning this book to try and find a few points upon which Carl Schmitt and I could agree – I knew from the start that I would be biased reading him. First of all, I think it is important to establish how Schmitt defines “political.” Politics has many meanings and connotations. In my opinion, the political Schmitt is referring to has to do with the “process by which groups of people make collective decisions” (Webster’s Dictionary) and, according to him, the most basic collective decision a group makes is to view everyone not included in this decision as the foreigner, the “other,” which is the enemy, and by virtue of that distinction all of those involved in the decision-making process “us.”
According to Schmitt, “an enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.” (28) Furthermore, the “political enemy” is not hated personally but is solely the “public enemy.” (28) Since the enemy thus becomes a broad concept it is really more of an idea than something to be tangibly hated. While Osama bin Laden may be the “face” of terrorism, terrorists and terrorism is still a decidedly impersonal enemy. So, there is one point where I can agree with Schmitt.
Backtracking for a moment, I find the presupposition of the friend and enemy distinction suspect. While Schmitt detaches the emotional significance from the word “enemy” he still argues that this group is “in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien” (27) from us. I argue that looking at political entities as existing in this sort of exclusive antithesis immediately negates any possibility of similarity between diverse groups of people and nations. Arguing that this antithesis presupposes all other domains sets governments on a path to myopia, narrow-mindedness and danger. Furthermore, even in cases of “extreme” otherness, such as seen between the buggers and humans, understanding is possible and commonalities exist on a fundamental level.
I find the sort of rhetoric espoused by Schmitt not to be a truism as he claims it to be, just as I don’t view the world through Bush’s paradigm of good and bad, with nations being either “with us or against us” as in the War on Terror. However, it is an interesting binary to examine because it is so common in human thought. What makes us think in this dichotomy? Is it merely xenophobia, intellectual sloth or something else?
Another interesting point Schmitt makes is that liberalism does not put forth a positive definition of politics, but rather is revolved around attacking the political since it potentially inhibits personal freedoms. In effect, he implies that liberalism is not a “real” political entity but rather somewhat vacuous. I agree that liberalism involves an essential distrust of government but isn’t that a political ideology in and of itself? There is also the whole checks and balances power balance/struggle. Does this not qualify as a political philosophy?
One point that mginsberg makes that I find particularly interesting is the comparison of Schmitt's friend/enemy dichotomy with Bush's "with us or against us" rhetoric. This did not come to mind when I read Schmitt's work, but I can certainly see the connection. When I read The Concept of the Political, I think I had the opposite problem that mginsberg had. Instead of going into it feeling biased, I had no expectations whatsoever and this may have caused me to take many of Schmitt's arguments for granted. Of course I didn't agree with everything he said, but I probably could have been more critical of many of the theories. This being said, I'm not sure I agree with mginsberg when he says that Schmitt is arguing that the friend/enemy distinction implies the complete impossibility of understanding and cooperation between enemies. I think that Schmitt was setting up the idea of this world system to show the challenges within the political. It doesn't necessarily mean that relations between enemies will end in war.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree that Schmitt's friend/enemy is similar to the "with us or against us" rhetoric. Schmitt considers here that the ultimate "us" is the state. There is know "us" other than those of us inside the state. Everyone else(every other state) is the enemy. They are the enemy because at some extreme time we could be going to war with them. The "with us or against us" mentality allows other states the opportunity to be part of "us", which I believe Schmitt would not be the case. Even if we are allies with the UK, they are still the political enemy because of the possibility of war with them. The question that comes from this is do we ever get to a point where multiple nations become a legitimate "us"? Is this the EU? I think some would argue that the alliance between liberal democratic states seems to be the best(though still no good) example of this, as they have had a tendency to not fight amongst each other.
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