'The Most Radical Historicist'

It seems Leo Strauss is referring to one of two people - both of whom he greatly admired: either Heidegger or Schmitt. Which is the more likely candidate?

It is only at this point that we come face to face with the serious antagonist of political philosophy: historicism. After reached its full growth historicism is distinguished from positivism by the following characteristics. (1) It abandons the distinction between facts and values, because every understanding, however theoretical, implies specific evaluations. (2) It denies the authoritative character of modern science, which appears as only one form among many of man's thinking orientation in the world. (3) It refuses to regard the historical process as fundamentally progressive, or, more generally stated, as reasonable. (4) It denies the relevance of the evolutionist thesis by contending that the evolution of man out of non-man cannot make intelligible man's humanity. Historicism rejects the question of the good society, that is to say, of the good society, because of the essentially historical character of society and of human thought: there is no essential necessity for raising the question of the good society; this question is not in principle coeval with man; its very possibility is the outcome of a mysterious dispensation of fate. The crucial issue concerns the status of those permanent characteristics of humanity, such as the distinction between the noble and the base, which are admitted by the thoughtful historicists: can these permanencies be used as criteria for distinguishing between the good and bad dispensations of fate? The historicist answers this question in the negative. He looks down on the permanencies in question because of their objective, common, superficial and rudimentary character: to become relevant, they would have to be completed, and their completion is no longer common but historical. It was the contempt for these permanencies which permitted the most radical historicist in 1933 to submit to, or rather to welcome, as a dispensation of fate, the verdict of the least wise and least moderate part of his nation while at the same time to speak of wisdom and moderation. The biggest event of 1933 would rather seem to have proved, if such proof was necessary, that man cannot abandon the question of the good society, and that he cannot free himself from the responsibility for answering it by deferring to History or to any other power different from his own reason. ("What is Political Philosophy?" in What is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies, 26-7)

As a matter of context, "What is Political Philosophy?," is the published version of the Judah L. Magnes lectures Strauss delivered at the Hebrew University in December 1954 and January 1955.

(Cross-posted to theoria.)

Notes on Coffee

Carl Schmitt and Jurgen Habermas are, without a doubt, the most (in)famous political theorists to come from Germany since Marx. (One might want to include Leo Strauss, but I don't think he wrote anything of substance on coffee.) As is well-known - many of us get our introductions to Habermas via his Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere - Habermas associated the development of the salons and coffee-houses with the development of the public sphere, located between the spheres of 'family' and 'state.' Coffee, for Habermas, was essential to the development of liberal, bourgeois and democratic politics.  Much less well known is that Schmitt also wrote on coffee, the bourgeoisie and liberal democratic. His assessement of coffee and liberalism is nearly the opposite of Habermas'. Their respective assessments of coffee present interesting grounds upon which to judge and compare the anti-liberalism of Schmitt with the pro-liberalism of Habermas. Interestingly, it is worth noting that Schmitt's notes on coffee (1947-51) predate Habermas' book on the coffee-house (orig. 1962) by over a decade and coincide with the end of Schmitt's internment and interrogations at Nuremberg. While Habermas engages in a lengthy -  if albeit surprisingly ambivalent - confrontation with Schmitt in the Structural Transformation, he does not cite Schmitt's notes on coffee (most likely because they were not widely available, even in Germany, until 1991).

Extracts from Habermas' Structural Transformation and a discussion of Schmitt's Glossarium notes on coffee by Jakob Norberg 'below the fold.'

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War/Politics

A few weeks ago I took exception to the following comment by John Emerson to this post:

To me when Schmitt writes "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" on the way to the "friend-enemy" political distinction, he's using a simple-minded logic to stack the cards in favor of conflict and war.

In response to Emerson, I asked him repeatedly to substantiate his claim regarding Schmitt. According to my memory, he never did so, yet kept insisting that, for Schmitt, the point of politics was war - or, in a softer version, that Schmitt was all for war. Rather than substantiating his own claim, Emerson asked me to substantiate my own, which I did, but I never provided a direct reference.

Anyway, while re-reading through Schmitt's The Concept of the Political, I was reminded of the following passage (a mere seven pages after the passage cited by Emerson):

It is by no means as though the political signifies nothing but devastating war and every political deed a military action, by no means as though every nation would be uninterruptedly faced with the friend-enemy alternative vis-a-vis every other nation. And, after all, could not the politically reasonable course reside in avoiding war? The definition of the political suggested here neither favors war nor militarism, neither imperialism nor pacifism. Nor is it an attempt to idealize the victorious war or the successful revolution as a 'social ideal,' since neither war nor revolution is something social or something ideal.

Schmitt, of course, could very well be wrong about his own concepts, but, if Emerson (or others - Emerson's claim is common enough) wants to sustain his reading, the ball is, as they say, in his court.

Conclusion: Carl Schmitt

Not looking to cut off at the last bits of discussion or to discourage future posts on the topic, but below is an interim index to the Carl Schmitt discussion, here at Long Sunday and elsewhere.  Should anyone be aware of any other discussions, please leave a comment with the URL.

I'd like to thank all the contributors - posters and commenters alike - for their participation.  The 'symposium' was far more successful than I had anticipated, given the length of the paper and the tendency of people to divide between those who can't look past his political affiliations and those who try to.

While there are no future symposiums under discussion at this time, I'd encourage people to write on nationalism/patriotism as we approach Canada Day (July 1) and the American Independence Day (July 4) and as we sit in middle of that soccer tournament.  Might I suggest the next formal discussion be on the topic of privilege?

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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.

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Schmitt and Weber

The general progress of Schmitt's lecture (up to the point I'd like to discuss, which is the treatment of Lenin, which I don't get to below) goes like this: The emergence of the partisan, best represented by the anti-French resistance in 1808-1813 Spain, begins a long process that decays the distinction between 'citizen' and 'soldier.' Due to this international actors are pushed more in the direction of total war, where there are no citizens who can be reliably separated off from combattants. A lot of fascinating detail from the history of partisan activity is provided to illustrate the legal and technical changes. Particularly striking is the attempt by the Prussian state to adopt the Spanish model and, by legal fiat, compel the citizens of Prussia to employ 'partigiano' tactics against the French.

But at the same time Schmitt accompanies the description of this development with hyperbolic phrasing about the significance of the phenomena under study. "A spark flew north from Spain at that time. It did not kindle the same flame that gave the Spanish Guerrilla War its world-historical significance. But it started something whose continuance today in the second half of the twentieth century changed the face of the earth and its inhabitants. It produced a *theory* of war and of enmity that culminates in the theory of the partisan" (5). What do people think: does Schmitt overstate the significance of development he traces? Would it be fair to paraphrase Schmitt like this: "The emergence and growth of the partisan meant that the old approach to wars – which relied on a sharp, binary distinction between regular and irregular, combattants and non, legal and illegal – was no longer applicable. That's why the partisan is a world-historic figure that ends up producing new theories of war."

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How shame and envy maketh "the enemy" to go 'round; knights, be ye forever wroth, then with name cast vote, whilst women watch and nearly swoon

        When Sir Palomides saw that Sir Tristram was disguised, he thought to shame him:  he rode to a knight who was sorely wounded and who sat under a tree a good way from the field.
       "Sir knight," said Sir Palomides, "I pray you to lend me your armor and your shield, for mine is overly well known in this field; that hath done me great damage.  Ye shall have my armor and my shield which are as good as yours."
       "I will well," said the knight, "that ye have my armor and my shield.  If they may do you any avail, I am well pleased."
        So Sir Palomides armed hastily in that knight's armor and his shield, which shone like any crystal or silver, and he came riding into the field.  Neither Sir Tristram nor any of Sir Tristram's or King Author's party recognized Sir Palomides.  Just as he came into the field Sir Tristram smote down three knights, right in the sight of Sir Palomides.  Then he rode against Sir Tristram and each met the other with great spears, so hard that the spears burst up to their hands; then they dashed together with swords eagerly.  Sir Tristram marvelled what knight it was who did battle so mightily with him.  Then he was wroth, for he felt that knight to be passing strong, and he deemed he could not have ado with the remnant of the knights because of the strength of Sir Palomides.

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what we lose with 'the partisan'

Schmitt makes a very interesting point around p. 28 of the English translation of "Theory of the Partisan." First there was the irresistible temptation experienced by established European powers to use 'partisans' for their wars of national salvation. He refers to Bismarck's comments about wanting to use "any weapon" made available by new-found national feeling against France and the Hapsburg monarchy. The Prussian Landsturm edict, signed by the Prussian king in 1813, ordered all Prussian citizens to use every means to oppose the French and demanded that citizens refuse to cooperate with any measures, no matter how banal, of the occupiers (29). But at the same time established armies treated 'irregular' troops with great harshness. When armies fought, everyone wore uniforms, carried weapons openly, and you knew who who was. The beneficial aspect of this, Schmitt points out, was that a sharp limit was established concerning who war was directed at. If a soldier from an invading army came upon a civilian in a town -- someone not dressed as a soldier, not carrying a gun or sword -- the soldier didn't have to worry that the 'citizen' might jump up and stab him. The citizen, likewise, did not have to worry that the soldier would regard her as a menace. The result is a barrier against total war. This distinction held up, with exceptions, through World War I.

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Bibliographical Comments on Carl Schmitt

Commenter Gabriel Sanchez has some interesting things to say. To me, the most interesting involve the availability of Schmitt's work in English. Given the amount of attention Schmitt has gotten in recent years, one would think that the gears would be turning and soon we'd have the complete works -- but to my knowledge, there is not even a scholarly edition of the complete works in German, much less in English. What we have in English are a series of rather small books and short translations scattered throughout journals, and up until this spring, Political Theology -- one of his most discussed books -- was out of print.

What's the deal?

And why not an anthology? For instance, I just picked up the standard Marx-Engels Reader (ed. Tucker), which seems to be an agreed-upon standard for non-experts seeking to get a sense of the scope of Marx's thought. From what I know of Schmitt's work, such an anthology would be comparatively easy to assemble. His tendency toward relatively short books would make it easy to include entire works and avoid the danger of printing a series of potentially misleading extracts, for instance. Given the current status of Schmitt's work in English, an anthology of 400-500 pages would represent not simply a valuable condensation of a larger body of work -- it would arguably be a major step forward for knowledge of Schmitt in the English-speaking world. Even if there are already 400-500 pages (in Norton Anthology format) worth of stuff out there in English right now, half of it is out of print and most of the rest is difficult to track down.

Maybe I can get a fellowship to go over to Germany and get started on this. But until then, does anyone have any idea why this problem is so pronounced, given that Schmitt has become so unavoidable in certain ways?

If that question doesn't do it for you, here's a stupid one: Does it seem to anyone else that Schmitt is referred to by his first and last name more often than other thinkers are? You've got Hegel, Derrida, Agamben, Benjamin (though he gets a first name more often than some), Adorno, Marcuse, Zizek.... and Carl Schmitt. Is it the unexpected "C" that so fascinates us?

blogging schmitt

Schmitt's lecture, "The Theory of the Partisan," is given in March, 1962.  What was the status of the figure of the 'partisan' at that moment?  Castro was active as early as 1953.  The Algerian War of Independence took place 1953-1962.  Schmitt has been invited to the capital of the basque region in the far north of Spain, Navarra, by the Estudio General de Navarra.  This 'estudio' has long-time links with Opus Dei; the estudio itself was founded by the Church in 1960.

For me the substance of the preface is very hard to make out.  He seems to say that a mistake has been made concerning this essay, that it's not really linked to The Concept of the Political (CP) at all.  But then what's with the subtitle?  The subtitle, he writes, is "explained by the specific date of the publication.  " The publishers, Schmitt goes on, "are making the text of my essay of 1932 (that is, CP -jsr) accessible again at this time.  In recent decades several corollaries to this theme have emerged.  " Corollaries to what theme?  Are we still talking about the subtitle or now is it CP?  "The present treatment of the subject is not one of these" – that is, not one of these corollaries of an indefinite theme.  No, The Theory of the Partisan (TP) "is a freestanding work." And this free-standing work, what does it do?  In a sketchy way – and here I quote precisely (as always!) – "issues unavoidably in the problem of the distinction between friend and enemy."   Either that's a typo or an infelicitous translation -- which is easy to do with German.  The problem is at the word 'issues.' TP can't "issues unavoidably" in any problem.  A plausible rephrasing: "The Theory of the Partisan is not one of these more recent corollaries to CP, but a free-standing work that nevertheless unavoidably touches on the friend-enemy distinction."   But at the end of the paragraph he tells us he has decided to make TP available in the interests of "all those who have been following so far the difficult earlier discussion of the concept of the political."   I end this paragraph not being sure how to assess the 'free-standing work' line.  The comment about the publisher is also unclear to me.

The historical illustration that Schmitt chooses for his discussion of the partisan is the popular, reactionary Spanish resistance to Napoleon.  A choice of historical backdrop that doubtless provoke a wolf-like grin of approval from Schmitt's masters in Opus Dei.  (Okay, that last sentence was a joke.  But Schmitt does choose a "Spanish civil war" and one that was also – in large part, no reductionism here – marked by the battle between Enlightenment and Reaction.  He also does not choose the other, twentieth century Spanish civil war, with its different sentimental attachments.  No Ernest Hemingway is going to show up in Schmitt's spanish civil war.)

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