'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.)

Desiring "9/11"

The US desired September 11th.

I don't mean that the US desired the specific attacks and losses. But, the US did desire the shock, the horror, the rupture. It may be more accurate then to say that the US desires "9/11" meaning that the series of events and articulation of meanings captured by the term "9/11" are an object of intense US desire.

I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" the Bush administration would not have been able to mobilize a very specific set of meanings and emotions in accordance with the term. I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" journalists, in print and on television, would not continue to sacralize the term, speaking in hushed voices, in awe with continued shock before the horrors of the day. I say this because were it not the case that the US desires "9/11" we would not continue to have feature films ("United 93" and Oliver Stone's upcoming "World Trade Center") about it.

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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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"Oh, enemy, there is no enemy": the partisan disruption of the concept of the political

Carl Schmitt is well known for conceptualizing the political in terms of the friend/enemy distinction. What his account of the partisan suggests is a way of thinking about politics that disrupts this opposition. I read his "Theory of the Partisan," then, as a revision of his earlier work, one that works to elaborate a concept of the political no longer attached to the 18th and 19th centuries, but adequate to the particular challenges of the 20th century. This is not to say that his new account is clear and complete. Yet, it is an approach to the political that recognizes the political character of the indistinction between friend and enemy. The political, in other words, must be understood not simply in its clarity, but in its confusion and undecideability. At stake in the emergence of the partisan is the permanent destabilization of the political and of the political as itself another name for the temporal and spatial destabilizations wrought by the technologies producing something like a global.

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Introduction: Carl Schmitt

In place of something substantive...

"Anybody who is at all committed to liberal democracy does not at all need to read Carl Schmitt." - Kurt Sontheimer

Introduction - First, I would like to thank everyone who has agreed to contribute a short piece or scattered thoughts on Carl Schmitt's essay, "Theory of the Partisan," which will likely end up dominating Long Sunday content for about the next week.  I am especially greatful because this is, by far, the longest piece yet proposed for a symposium and, therefore, the time committments I've asked of people is, most certainly, unreasonable.  I look forward to reading the posts!  Second, if you have not volunteered to post something, but would still like to or would like to contribute a more detailed response to an individual (or series!) of posts than can be adequately done through comment threads, then please do contact me and we'll arrange something.

The texts under discussion can be found here: from the New Centennial Review and Telos; two journals which incidentally published translations - with some interesting differences - of the same text in the same year.  A bibliography of Carl Schmitt's works in English can be found here.

Additionally, this post can be used as an 'open thread' regarding administrative matters, comments, etc that do not fit into the already existing posts.

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Carl (und Karl)

The next (formal) symposium to take place at Long Sunday will be on the topic of Carl Schmitt's "Theory of the Partisan".  (The next informal symposium event will be in celebration or commemoration of Karl Marx's birthday.  Short pieces, scattered thoughts, etc.)  It is tentatively scheduled for early June, possibly the first week. Because of the length of the essay, I've put the announcement out a bit earlier than the previous ones.   If you're interested in participating, please reply here or at theoria.  As always, new and old participants alike are welcome -- and encouraged -- to join in.

The essay, originally published in 1963, has finally been translated into English -- twice in 2004.  One version, under the title of "The Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political" translated by A.C. Goodson is available online [pdf] from CR: The New Centennial Review  as a companion to their special issue on the essay in Volume 4, Issue 3.  It has also been published as "Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political" [pdf] in, of course, Telos 127 (Spring).

A bibliography of Schmitt's writings in English can be found here [pdf].  The essay, like Schmitt's work in general, has received quite a bit of attention, links and references to which will be posted shortly.

Confirmed: John S. Ransom, Adam, Nate, Angela, Craig, Luke, Jodi, Matt, Anthony Paul Smith, Old Doug Johnson, Squibb, John
Unconfirmed: Jon , Brett

State, Race, Sovereignty

Readers wishing to take a break from theorizing Chabert's propensity for multi-commenting as well as the propensity of Long Sundayans to theorize the behavior of those who choose to multi-comment, may wish to read a multi-blog discussion on race, the state, and sovereignty.

The discussion began with Jodi's posts on Zizek and Levinas to Long Sunday and I Cite.  Doug, at the Weblog, attempted to re-focus the discussion on state racism.  This prompted a counter-post from Jodi at I Cite and a counter-counter-post from Angela at the Archive.  I countered the counter and counter-counter posts with one of my own at Theoria.

(Readers will note that Jodi has twiced 'pulled a Holbo' claiming a pressing need to be elsewhere that is not online.  Suspicion reigns!)

Por Ahora

When we started LS, we spent quite awhile batting around possible names. One suggestion was por ahora. Here's the back story.

Guerrero started supporting Chávez in 1992, on that fateful day when the then-unknown 37-year-old colonel launched a failed coup of his own. When defeat appeared imminent, Chávez surrendered. To avoid a bloodbath he went on television and asked his compatriots who were still holding two cities to put down their weapons.

During that short live broadcast Chávez did two things that electrified the Venezuelan imagination. First, he took personal responsibility for the botched coup. This seemed to many viewers like a significant break from the standard political tradition of lying and blaming others for failure. Then, in explaining the defeat, Chávez said, "For now, the objectives that we have set for ourselves have not been achieved."

During the next two years, while Chávez was in prison studying, that key phrase--"for now," or por ahora in Spanish--became a rallying cry, a slogan of defiance painted on walls, a talisman of hope in an otherwise
squalid and corrupt political landscape.

Today, we find on Planned Obsolescence the following:

To the Pomona College community:

On Tuesday, March 7, Miguel Tinker Salas, Arango Professor of Latin American History and Chicano Studies, was visited in his Pearsons Hall office by two men from the Los Angeles County Sheriff/FBI Joint Task Force on Terrorism. To avoid rumors, I wanted the Pomona College community to be aware of the facts.

The agents asked Professor Tinker Salas a number of personal questions as well as questions about the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan community in the U.S. During the meeting, they told him that he was not a subject of investigation. The tone and content of the questioning, however, troubled him deeply. He was also troubled by the fact that the agents reportedly questioned some of the students outside his office while waiting to see him.

Miguel, as all of you know, is a superb Wig Award winning teacher and a fine scholar on Latin American history, politics, and culture who is sometimes asked by the news media to comment on topics related to his research, including Venezuelan politics. The College supports him and his scholarly work without reservation.

I am extremely concerned about the chilling effect this kind of intrusive government interest could have on free scholarly and political discourse. I am also concerned about the negative message it sends to students who are considering the pursuit of important areas of international study, in which they may now feel exposed to unwarranted official scrutiny.

The College is currently consulting with legal advisors about the most effective way to register a strong official protest about this intrusion into our scholarly and educational activities, and we will take appropriate action as soon as their advice is received. We are also asking for their help in assuring that all members of the College community are fully informed about their rights and their options in such situations.

David Oxtoby

And Kathleen Fitzgerald asks the right questions:

-- If Venezuela is in fact the subject of official anti-terrorist scrutiny, how much of that scrutiny really has to do with terrorism? How much has to do with the threat of socialism? How much has to do with oil?

"Por ahora" has suddenly taken on a whole new - and wholly dark - new meaning. For if we have been waiting for the other shoe to drop - "they're interested only in terror, in the middle east - they're not interested in me and what I say or think or write...For now, things will be OK..." - it is becoming increasingly clear that por ahora has already become just plain ahora...

Weber/Schmitt

A 'short' extract from a larger piece I'm currently working on.  The point of the larger piece is to understand the relation of the social to the political in political sociology.  This section, on Max Weber and Carl Schmitt, takes their concept of the political as one of the strongest positions within political sociology.  This section attempts to articulate their work on the political and point to reasons why it may be found wanting from the perspective of political sociology.

Subsequent sections will look at Pierre Clastres and Marshall Sahlins on 'primitive societies', Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort on 'modern societies', and the final major section will look at how Lefort and Giorgio Agamben draw upon Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies.

[Long: approximately 5000 words.  Crossposted to theoria.]

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Presidential Signing Statements Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration

Some of the most egregious ways in which Bush is taking the country into fascism are not getting the attention they deserve. In an editorial today, the NYT briefly mentioned the problem of Bush's use of 'signing statements.' But it provided little background and as usual has failed in its responsibility in keeping up with important political and constitutional matters. John I. Dean, however, offers the following, chilling, analysis of signing statements. Here are some excerpts.

Link: FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration.

Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law. ...

Bush has quietly been using these statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed (even though these statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents) until recently, when President Bush's used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent, controversial McCain amendment regarding torture, which drew some media attention.

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The web we're on

Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use...
President Bush has admitted that he gave orders that allowed the NSA to eavesdrop on a small number of Americans without the usual requisite warrants.
But Tice [former NSA insider] disagrees. He says the number of Americans subject to eavesdropping by the NSA could be in the millions if the full range of secret NSA programs is used.  "That would mean for most Americans that if they conducted, or you know, placed an overseas communication, more than likely they were sucked into that vacuum," Tice said.

Today via The Volokh's, who also raise a few questions about the wisdom of that whole e-annoyance law thing from 50-odd posts ago:

This potentially criminalizes any anonymous speech on a Web site that's intended to annoy at least some readers, even if it's also intended to inform other readers.  This is true whether the poster is berating a government official, a religious figure, a company that he thinks provides bad service, an academic who he thinks is doing or saying something misguided, a sports figure who he thinks is misbehaving, or what have you; so long as he's trying to annoy any recipient (whether the target, if the poster thinks the target is reading the blog, or the target's partisans or fans).

How is this different from traditional telephone harassment law? The trouble is that the change extends traditional telephone harassment law from a basically one-to-one medium (phone calls) to include a one-to-many medium (Web sites).

This is a big change. One-to-one speech that's intended to annoy the one recipient is rarely of very much First Amendment value; people are just rarely persuaded or enlightened by speech that's intended to annoy them. It has some value (see item 3 below), but to the extent that it's in some measure deterred, the loss to public debate isn't that great — speakers are still free to speak to others besides the person they're trying to annoy.

But one-to-many speech that is intended to annoy one or a few readers, but intended and likely to enlighten or persuade many other readers, is potentially much more valuable.

Update:  Then again, maybe not such a  big deal you gullible little bloggers, you.  More blog-able items of this sort beneath the fold:

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Democracy to Totalitarianism

As some of you may know, I've spent a good part of the past few weeks reading Claude Lefort and Cornelius Castoriadis. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of them, but, at the very least, reading them has been an excellent corrective to my Foucauldian/Deleuzian tendencies. Among other things, Lefort is a first-rate theorist of democracy, totalitarianism and bureaucracy. Indeed, it is quite possible that Lefort was the first to use totalitarianism as a theoretical concept. While the word 'totalitarianism' pre-dates the second World War, it wasn't until well after the War that the concept was imbued with any theoretical content; previously it was descriptive. Lefort's major intelocutors, it is worth noting, are Arendt and Strauss.

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Carl Schmitt at Nuremberg

[Cross-posted to theoria.]

With the revelation of secret and illegal domestic spying in the United States, along with Bush's justification of such actions, people have started talking about Carl Schmitt again.  Afterall, didn't Bush justify his actions in explicitly Schmittian terms?  Recall, it was Schmitt who, in Political Theology, defined the sovereign 'as he who decides upon the exception'.  This sudden interest derives, in large part, from comments made at press conference on Monday, December 19, where Bush said the following:

And having suggested this idea, I then, obviously, went to the question, is it legal to do so? I swore to uphold the laws. Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely.

As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.

If the liminal relationship between sovereignty, legality and illegality is in question (i.e., whether or not illegal acts can be legally justified as exception within the Patriot Act deemed legal as seen by the Constitution), then commentators are right to wonder if Bush's policy is, at the core, Schmittian.  It is, I think, a fair question.

Two issues invariably rise: (1) we know that much 'national security' policy is in the control of those who deny being part of the international Straussian conspiracy, that Strauss was a student of Schmitt's, and that Schmitt only ended the relationship when it became impossible for him (as a Nazi party member) to remain friends with a Jew (there is no indication that Strauss wanted the relationship to end; he continued sending letters -- unanswered -- to Schmitt well after Schmitt assisted him in fleeing Germany to London) and (2) when people start talking about Schmitt they start talking about Nazis and fascism.  Thus, rather than spending time on (1) Schmitt's intellectual output, (2) potential relations between Schmitt, Strauss and Straussians, (3) whether or not recent policy can be characterized as 'Schmittian', people rather (4) discuss "Hey, wasn't he a Nazi?  How Nazi was he?  Doesn't that make his philosophy 'Nazi philosophy'? Isn't anyone who talks about Schmitt also a Nazi?".

Not wanting to fuel this -- despite it being a moderately interesting question that we've already been over a number of times with Heidegger and then de Man -- I'll nonetheless contribute the following, taken from Schmitt's interrogations at Nuremberg.

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Fascism?

"An interesting dynamic is taking shape in this city, not altogether positive: after days of rampant lawlessness (making for what I think most would agree was an impossible job for the New Orleans Police Department during those first few crucial days of rising water, pitch-black nights and looting of stores) the city has now reached a near-saturation level of military and law enforcement. In the areas we visited, the red berets of the 82nd Airborne are visible on just about every block. National Guard soldiers are ubiquitous. At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history." Brian Williams NBC news anchor/ Posted September 7th

A Question of Ends?

"It is not legitimate to identify the ends of Fascism with the ends of Russian Communism.  The first represents the exaltation of the executioner by the executioner; the second, more dramatic in concept, the exaltation of the executioner by the victims.  The former never dreamed of liberating all men, but only of liberating a few by subjecting the rest.  The latter, in its most profound principle, aims at liberating all men by provisionally enslaving them all.  It must be granted the grandeur of its intentions."

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Rove, Nixon's Gray Ghost, Pinball Proto-Fascism...

Remember the 70s? We're doomed to repeat it. So, now let's try to find the hopes and aspirations of the past and reinvigorate them in a new context. Phil Rockstroh has a terrific piece at Dissident Voice. Read the whole thing.

Link: (DV) Rockstroh: Of Karl Rove, Nixon's Gray Ghost, Pinball Proto-Fascism, Muscle Car Imperialism, and the Gong Show of the American Political System.

Nixon's legacy looms large before us, because we Americans have refused to face a few sad and creepy facts regarding why we were (and remain) possessed of the need to tell ourselves Watergate and Vietnam were mere aberrations and that Nixon's resignation from office in August of 1974 purged the demons from our nation's soul and cleansed us all. Even after Nixon was exiled to San Clemente and we took up the mantra “That was that ... Let's move on ... Our long national nightmare is over,” we Americans remained uneasy, desperately clinging to the sustaining self-deception of our being mere bystanders when the crimes were committed -- and, as a consequence, we made ourselves willing marks for political flimflammers (as within a few years time Ronald Reagan would exemplify) who peddle the politics of the comfort zone and all its attendant lies exalting the inviolable grace of our collective obliviousness. Otherwise, we would be forced to face our complicity in Nixon's crimes; otherwise, a million Vietnamese corpses would have risen accusingly in our dreams -- as tens of thousands of Iraqi dead would haunt our sleep tonight.

Murder Anyone?

"Our purpose is to find out whether innocence, the moment it becomes involved in action, can avoid committing murder.  We can act only in terms of our own time, among the people who surround us.  We shall know nothing until we know whether we have the right to kill our fellow men, or the right to let them be killed.  In that every action today leads to murder, direct or indirect, we cannot act until we know whether or why we have the right to kill." Albert Camus, The Rebel