The Two Politicals

1. A number of commentators have speculated on the relationship between the people, the state and the political in Carl Schmitt’s political theory. Some, of course, have pointed out that this is a futile task: on the one hand, the English translation of The Concept of the Political is of the second edition and not the apparently decisive third and, on the other hand, the situation in the Weimar Republic is hardly comparable to our own. Thus, in one case we are told not to speak because of a lack of information and in the other case we are told not to speak because of the inherent difficulties in transposing concepts developed in one conjuncture to another. Readers of Carl Schmitt should, apparently, remain silent. (Indeed, some critics would prefer that Schmitt not be discussed at all.) And, yet, non-stop chatter, discussion and inquiries. The present 'symposium' is, by some measures, the most successful to date: it looks as though it will last the entire month featuring a diversity of contributions (many unduly neglected!) from a wide spectrum of contributors.

What to make of these two injunctions to be silent? On the one hand a problem of incompletion and on the other a problem of historicism. In terms of the problem of the incomplete reception of Schmitt's works in English, one can only reply: we read what we can. But, we might make another reply: so what? So what if the English translation is of the second and not the third edition? So what? Why should we take Schmitt’s final edition as authoritative? Isn’t Schmitt as prone to errors as any other? Is it not possible that the second or even the first edition is decisive? And doesn't Schmitt, in the essay under consideration, claim that "The Theory of the Partisan" is an 'intermediary commentary on the concept of the political'? That is, Schmitt points to both the book of the same name (the present essay was published in anticipation of the new edition; hence 'intermediary' referring to a statement between two statements) and it points to that concept itself; a concept under transformation in Schmitt's own thought, in response to changing circumstances.

It seems, in replying to the first objection that we've stumbled upon the second objection. The Concept of the Political underwent three editions, and "The Theory of the Partisan" - almost as long as The Concept of the Political - is an 'intermediate commentary' on these very works. Four editions, perhaps? Rather than presenting refinements to the 'concept of the political' (referring, again, to both the book and the actual concept), that is, further clarification of one, single, transhistorical concept; that is, arriving at the essence of the political itself with greater clarity, we see, instead, Schmitt reacting to changing circumstances. The enemy of The Concept of the Political (second edition) is not the same as the enemy in "The Theory of the Partisan" (published immediately prior to the third edition).

If Schmitt himself regularly revisited 'the concept of the political,' why then can't we do the same? Can't we, as readers of Schmitt or - dare I say it? - as neo-Schmittians, do the same? What fidelity do we owe Schmitt? He, certainly, was not loyal to his own concepts: why must we be loyal where he was not? Nonsense!

Before moving forward, I should, lest I be accused of ignorance, delare that I am not a Schmittian nor am I a Schmitt scholar. I don't read German and don't intend to learn German. Afterall, a scholar of someone should read the language of who he would be a scholar of. Schmitt, however, enters my horizon in terms of my broader interests - I am, in some sense, writing a dissertation on 'the social and the political' in twentieth century thought. How could I ignore Schmitt, his teachers, or his interlocutors? (For instance, Max Weber and Hannah Arendt respectively.)

Enough of this dodging and playing - I'm sounding like Matt channeling Derrida!

2. But Derrida is a good person to reference at this point - for isn't, in part, what Schmitt is attempting to do in these 'political' writings is discuss the political in terms of its constitutive outside? Isn't his problematic, at the core, the question of 'What make us us and what makes them them?' Around what do we inscribe our nomos such that it isn't there nomos? Or, again, how is it that we constitute a political order?

In the first instance, we could examine the question at its most superficial: as has been pointed out a number of times in the symposium thus far, Schmitt says some weird things about humanity and extra-terrestrials. Schmitt suggests that humanity could not be constituted as a political community because there would be no outside which would hold it together. Humanity could only constitute a political community in the face of an encounter with aliens. It is only in The War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks!, or Independence Day that we could constitute humanity as a political category.

So, barring an alien invasion and the reluctant leadership of Tom Cruise or Will Smith, humanity cannot constitute itself as a political community. The relevant referrent for the political must then be something else. (One might note, here, that in addition to reacting to contemporary political events, Schmitt is also engaged in an ongoing debate against Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojeve - but that is another discussion. And, contra Gabriel, it isn't to Strauss's notes on The Concept of the Political.) Even someone, such as Kojeve, who hypothesizes the end of history and the creation of the 'universal and homogeneous state' argues that it still requires an outside. Kojeve, in a revision to the first edition of his lectures on Hegel, inserts a footnote referring to, on the one hand, the 're-animalized man' inhabiting the 'universal and homogeneous state' and, on the other hand, the 'japanized man' who exists on its fringes. Even the global state requires an outside. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves...

3. Referring to the French invasion of Spain between 1808 and 1813, where 'the Spanish people' (and not, it should be noted, 'the Spanish state' or 'the Spanish army') fought a foreign invader, Schmitt writes, "This opened new horizons to the art of war, paving the way for a new understanding of the strategy and ultimately a new theory of war and politics." A new form of war paves the way for a new understanding of politics. Thus, at first, a new way to fight, but, ultimately, a new way to act. It is the action or politics, in the end, that is decisive for his theory.

In a sense, we might say that The Concept of the Political presents a 'French' theory of the political while "The Theory of the Partisan" presents a 'Spanish' theory of the political. With respect to the 'French' theory of the political, we can turn to the first page of The Concept of the Political:

The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political. According to modern linguistic usage, the state is the political status of an organized people in an enclosed territorial unit. [...] In its literal sense and in its historical appearance the state is a specific entity of a people.

Schmitt’s logic is quite clear: the political mediates between the people and the state, which is a historical form dating to the French Revolution. We’d also note in passing that Schmitt is clearly discussing the democratic people, the democratic political and the democratic state. While non-democratic states tend to refer to the legitimacy of the people, it is rare that they are, in fact, constituted by the people – the “People’s Republic of China” being but one example among many. Pushed further, the state Schmitt is discussing is the state that is “the political status” of an “organized people.” The state is the political outcome of the demands made by the people for an organized form of life.

The problem, however, in this is that the people are never constituted. From where do the people arise? The answer, perhaps strangely, can only be political: that is, the people are constituted through the political via the constitutive antagonism of the political: friends and enemies. The people are constituted through the double movement of, on the one hand, constituting themselves as friends and, on the other hand, constituting others as enemies. That is, an ‘us’ and a ‘not-us’. Even stranger, it seems that the ‘not-us’ is prior to the ‘us’. It is only by getting together as an ‘us’ – that is, by excluding the ‘not-us’ – that we can constitute ‘ourselves’ as ‘friends’ in opposition to the ‘them’ that is the ‘enemy.’ (As an aside, we might see here the image of a savage sovereignty: the ‘state of exception’ qua sovereign decision is the founding moment of the people: one does not kill friends, but one most certainly kills enemies.)

It is thus in reference to the democratic people that we can understand Schmitt’s constant digressions not into international war, but into civil war throughout The Concept of the Political. In a sense, civil war is a formative moment in the history of the political: it is only when the people make an attempt to capture the state and thus give organized expression to themselves that they can be said to be political. It is only by defeating their ‘internal’ enemies – the aristocracy and the monarchy – that the people can constitute the state. (One sees here, again, another image of that savage sovereignty: the problem of capturing the king alive and what to do with him. Robespierre was clearly correct – the king should be executed without trial for the king is homo sacer.) Upon the destruction of the internal enemies, a new enemy must be found; a new outside to render the inside coherent. Hence, at once, the Terror and the popular armies and pan-European war with non-democratic states.

It is no coincidence, given the above, that Schmitt locates in the Spanish guerilla war against the French the founding a new form of the political.

The situation of the Spanish partisan in 1808 is characterized primarily by the fact that he engaged in war only on his home soil, while his king and his family were not yet able to tell exactly who the real enemy was.

Again later,

Today, another feature that comes to the fore is the intense political engagement that distinguishes the partisan from other fighters. This intense political character of the partisan must be kept in mind, precisely because it makes it possible to distinguish him from the ordinary criminal and thief, whose motives are concerned purely with private enrichment. This conceptual criterion, its political character, has exactly the opposite structure of that of the pirate in the law of sea war: this concept includes the apolitical character of the pirate’s evil deeds, focused as they are on booty and private gain. As jurists put it, the pirate has an animus furandi. The partisan fights within a political front, and precisely the political character of his acts restores the original meaning of the word partisan. In fact, the word derives from party, and refers to the tie with a part or a group somehow involved in the fighting, both in war and in active politics. Ties to a party of this kind become especially strong during revolutionary times.

In contradistinction to the ‘French’ theory of the political, the ‘Spanish’ theory of the political presents a new problem: whereas the French people constituted themselves in opposition to king and aristocracy, that is, to an internal enemy, the Spanish partisans constitute themselves in opposition to foreign invaders, the king and bourgeoisie notwithstanding. The king, being unable to recognize ‘the real enemy’ – the French? the Spanish partisans? – in a sense forfeited his sovereign power for the sovereign must, of necessity, be able to determine and distinguish between friend and enemy. The Spanish king reveals himself as useless and superfluous: the real power – however weak in actuality – were the people in the form of the partisan. Hence, even though the partisans were not organized politically in the form of the state, Schmitt points crucially to the substitute form of organization: the party.

4. And it is here that we see the true importance of the partisan, or, the ‘Spanish’ theory of the political. At this point we jump to the ellipsis in the passage cited from The Concept of the Political above:

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 a community, an enterprise or a beehive, or perhaps even a basis procedural order. […] Vis-à-vis the many conceivable kinds of entities, it [the state] is in the decisive case the ultimate authority.

The partisan presents a rupture in this assertion: it turns out that there is a decisive entity capable of claiming the sovereign power – the party. Returning to “The Theory of the Partisan,” Schmitt indicates what this new politics is: totalitarian politics

In the course of the long debate concerning the so-called total state, it has not yet been possible to see clearly, as we do today, that not the state as such, but the revolutionary party represents the only true totalitarian organization.

It is the destruction of the democratic political – the political of The Concept of the Political – that is so worrisome to Schmitt. With the destruction of the democratic political and its virtual or potential replacement by the partisan political, a new horizon is opened in politics: totalitarianism. (Of course, we already ‘know’ that: opening the world to democracy opens the world to new forms of tyranny.) Hence the last line in “The Theory of the Partisan,”

The theory of the partisan flows into the concept of the political, into the question concerning who is the real enemy and in a new nomos of the earth.

Here we can return to the political status of humanity. In the horizon of constituting a world state – a totalitarian world state – the possibility of politicizing humanity is rendered real. The question, therefore, is of the disjunction between the ‘possibility’ and the dream of actualizing it. Hence, humanity is actualized as a political category in a phantasmic form: claiming action in the name of ‘humanity’ is a gesture and is, in a sense, not ‘real.’ Rather,

War is condemned but executions, sanctions, punitive expeditions, pacifications, protection of treaties, international police, and measures to assure peace remain. The adversary is thus no longer called an enemy by 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.

(Apologies for incoherencies: I have broken my rule of not writing and posting immediately before bed!)