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Carl Schmitt, 1888- 1985

Carl Schmitt, 1888- 1985. He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil , paragraph 146. Schmitt. Life Weimar Germany.

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Carl Schmitt, 1888- 1985

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  1. Carl Schmitt, 1888- 1985

  2. He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. • Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, paragraph 146

  3. Schmitt • Life • Weimar Germany

  4. “Only at the end did my suspicions [of you, said Captain Delano to Benito Cereno] get the better of me, and you know how wide of the mark they then proved." • "Wide, indeed," said Don Benito, sadly; "you were with me all day; stood with me, sat with me, talked with me, looked at me, ate with me, drank with me; and yet, your last act was to clutch for a villain, not only an innocent man, but the most pitiable of all men. To such degree may malign machinations and deceptions impose. So far may even the best men err, in judging the conduct of one with the recesses of whose condition he is not acquainted. But you were forced to it; and you were in time undeceived. Would that, in both respects, it was so ever, and with all men." • "I think I understand you; you generalize, Don Benito; and mournfully enough. But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves

  5. Schmitt sees danger in the increasing sense of the State as “ a great enterprise -- ein grosser Betrieb” (PT 65) Increasingly this plant is “ a huge industrial plant” …[it] ”runs on its own …[and] the decisionistic and personalistic element in the concept of sovereignty is lost. (PT 68)

  6. First problem • our present stage – “technicity” – is the “striving for a neutral sphere.” • “When a people no longer has the strength or the will to hold itself to the realm of the political, the political does not thereby disappear from the world. It is only a weak people that perishes.” (Concept of the Political

  7. Second problem • critique of liberalism as a clasadiscutora . • If a liberal is asked “Christ or Barrabas, he responds with a proposal to adjourn or appoint a committee of investigation.”

  8. Sovereignty • “Sovereign is he who decides on the exceptional case. “ (PT, page 5) • “on” (?) • “exceptional” (?) • NOT a theory of dictatorship

  9. Law • Against Kelsen: “all law is situational law.” (PT 13). • Against Locke: [He] “did not recognize that the law does not designate to whom it gives authority. It cannot be just anybody….” (PT 32) • Point: “create a juridical order” (Recht zu schaffen) under conditions that threaten anarchy.

  10. Sovereignty and miracles • “The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology.” (PT 36) • Cf Hobbes: a miracle is “a work of God, (besides his operation by the way of nature, ordained in the creation,) done, for the making manifest to his elect, the mission of an extraordinary minister for their salvation.” (Leviathan, chap.37)

  11. The decline of the political in modernity • “Today nothing is more modern than the onslaught against the political…. There must be no longer be political problems, only organizational technical and economic-sociological ones.” (PT 65).

  12. The effects of secularization • On power • On myth • On the “people” (Volk)

  13. Politics • Politics as Friend and Enemy

  14. How did Hitler appear? • August 1, 1934: “Der Führer schutzt das Recht – The Führer protects the legal order”

  15. Schmitt, the Jews and anti-Semitism • To say “Jesus is the Christ” is to say that He is the Messiah, that is, He is anointed and appointed by God to lead a people and that what He does transcends all Law. • Messiah = mashiah= anointed one • Cf Saint Paul and Epistle to the Romans • the event of Christianity is political rather than religious .

  16. Schmitt and Nazi regime • Article 48 of Weimar Constitution

  17.  Dostojevsky and The Grand Inquisitor: • “It was a terribly humane measure when Pope Innocent III created the 'Inquisitorial Law.' The Inquisition was probably perhaps the most humane institution conceivable, since it came from the standpoint that no one accused could be condemned without a confession. When, in the course of a century, the practice of the Inquisition degenerated into torture, because one wanted a confession, and had to extort it, that is indeed a dark chapter of cultural history, but seen in terms of legal history, even today the idea of Inquisition can hardly be touched.” (Sept, 1936)

  18. Concluding thoughts • Are there “crimes against humanity”? • “Wars on terror”

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