Carl Schmitt, Anyone?

Economics Political Theory
, ,
1

I recently found out that one of my favourite writers on political sociology, Paul Gottfriend, wrote a book on one of my other favourite authors of political theory, Carl Schmitt. Apparently Gottfried draws paralells between Schmitt and one of my new favourites in political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes.

I was aware that Gottfried had been influenced by Schmitt (see here, for example, where he treats my favourite Nazi, Otto Strasser). But I had no idea, for some reason, that he had written a book on him.

Schmitt thought the principle issue and defining characteristic of the modern state was sovereignty and the post-Enlightenment conception of the ‘political’, which had in itself inherently totalitarian characteristics. He saw politics as developing out of theology, and modern politics as essentially being a religious doctrine. Schmitt was a great critic of democracy, and was himself influenced by two of my favourite writers on things existential and political: the nihilistic egoist Max Stirner and the reactionary conservative Joseph de Maistre.

Like Heidegger, Schmitt has been smeared with ‘Nazi sympathies’, but even more than Heidegger, these have been grossly exagerrated (and, even if they were true, would not negatively impact my view of his work).

Paul Gottfried on Schmitt at VDare

Legality, Legitimacy and Carl Schmitt by Paul Gottfried

A review of Gottfried’s book on Schmitt at Mises.org

Edit: Links Fixed

2

Otto Strasser link broken.

3

Thanks. I copied it from my Fr33agents page, links fixed.

4

He seems like he could be a good critic of modern leftism and modern America, but some of the assertions on theory seem a little odd /off/wrong in the article without further explaination

"Indeed what defines the “political” as opposed to other human activities is the intensity of feeling toward friends and enemies, or toward one’s own and those perceived as hostile outsiders. "

“German historians in the early twentieth century had typically drawn comparisons between, on the one side, Germany and Sparta and, on the other, England (and later the U.S.) and Athens - between what they saw as disciplined land powers and mercantile, expansive naval ones.”

“Sea-based powers had evolved into empires, from the Athenians onward.”

“Schmitt valued community above individual liberty.”

Something new I guess I never really thought about that makes sense, though it still needs further explaination:

“The political entity being discussed lacked the cohesion characteristic of established national communities. Moreover, it was incapable of adapting itself to the state system that had existed in Europe since the early modern period. Without a sustained diplomacy and a continuing awareness of political enemies (as opposed to counter-litigants or competing party coalitions), modern democracies ceased to be recognizable as states. In most cases, they could not defend themselves against adversaries foreign or domestic (being unable or unwilling to distinguish friend from foe), or else they turned all international struggles into ideological contests. This second course endangered sovereign states. It represented an attempt at hegemony by people who pursued globalist dreams instead of limited national interests.”

The Bizzare:

“His observations on American hegemony have given him vogue among Marxists, particularly in Italy.”

And finally:

“the Americans seemed to be ideologically driven and not merely vengeful conquerors”.

“Schmitt came to dread American globalism more deeply than its Soviet form, which he thought to be primitive military despotism allied with Western intellectual faddishness”

There is something beautiful and horrendously true about those observations.

Is there anything free online that I can read of his?

5

I’ll message you with some stuff.