Carl Schmitt Political Existencialism an the Total State

7/27/2019 Carl Schmitt Political Existencialism an the Total State

1/29


2/29

CarlSchmitt,politicalexistentialism,and the totalstate

RICHARD WOLINDepartment of History, Rice University

[Racial] homogeneity of the united German Volk is the most indis-pensable presupposition and foundation for the concept of politicalleadership of the German Volk. The thought of race ... is no theoreti-cally idle postulate. Without a basis in homogeneity the NationalSocialist state could not exist and its legal life would be unthink-able.... All questions and answers intersect with the demand forhomogeneity, without which a total Fiihrerstaat could not subsist for aday. Carl Schmitt, State, Movement, Volk(1933)It would be worthwile to study in detail the careers of those compara-tively few German scholars who went beyond mere cooperation andvolunteered their services because they were convincedNazis.... Most interesting is the example of the jurist Carl Schmitt,whose very ingenious theories about the end of democracy and legalgovernment still make arresting reading.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

The foregoingcitationsraisea numberof fascinating nterpretiveques-tions concerning he political philosophyof Carl Schmitt one of theleading German legal theorists of the Weimaryears, whose whole-heartedsupportfor Hitler'sdictatorshipremaineda scandal thatfol-lowedhim to his grave n 1985 at the advancedage of 96. On the onehand, there is Arendt'scharacterization f Schmittas a "convincedNazi";a statementcertainlyborne out by the factsof the years1933-1936, when Schmitt, nspiredto new heightsof prolificness,authoredno fewer than five books and 35 tractsin supportof the new Reich.Duringthis phase, there were few depths to whichSchmittwould notsink:he pennedanessayin supportof thebloodySA purgeof June30,1934 - thefamous"Nightof theLongKnives" with the ominoustitle,"TheFuhrerProtects the Law."The following yearhe authoredan ar-Theoryand Society 19: 389-416, 1990.? 1990 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


3/29

390tide vigorously endorsing the Nuremberg anti-semitic legislation of1935 with an equally disingenuous title, "The Constitution of Free-dom." These facts, coupled with the ringing defense of "racial homo-geneity" in State, Movement, Volkcited from above would seem to con-firm the first part of Arendt's description.On the other hand, to do justice to Schmitt's work in its entirety, onemust equally confront the second part of Arendt's portrayal, i.e., his"ingenious theories about the end of democracy and legal government"- a reference to Schmitt's conviction, developed in numerous booksand articles during the Weimar years, that democracy had lost its legi-timacy as a form of government in the twentieth century owing to thecontinued strength, rather than the demise of, liberal institutions.Arendt's remark implicitly raises what has become the essential ques-tion for Schmitt-scholarship over the years: namely, is there a directconnection between his political and legal writings in the 1920s -which are largely concerned with justifying the notion of political dicta-torship - and his avid involvement in the Nazi regime in the followingdecade? As Arendt suggests, the answer to this question is by no meansstraightforward. Schmitt, unlike the majority of the intellectual ad-herents of Nazism, was in no way a hack. Instead, he is generally recog-nized as perhaps the most gifted political and legal theorist of his gen-eration. It is the controversial link between these two phases ofSchmitt's career - Nazi and pre-Nazi - that serves as the focal point ofthis essay.There are two main reasons that compel a fresh reconsideration ofSchmitt's legacy at this time. First, MIT Press has recently publishedtranslations of three of Schmitt's major texts from the Weimar period.2This fact, coupled with a 1976 translation of what was perhapsSchmitt's most influential (and controversial) book of these years, TheConcept of the Political (1927),3 means that the most significant of hisextensive pre-Nazi writings are now available to an English-speakingreadership for the first time.Second, the majority of secondary commentaries on Schmitt in Englishto date have been of a strangely apologetic character;a fact that standsin marked contrast to the post-war German reception of Schmitt'swork, in which he has certainly found disciples, but also stridentdetractors.4 To be sure, in contrast with the Federal Republic, anAnglo-American political context would seem to have little to fear with


4/29

391respect to the more authoritarian overtones of Schmitt's political phi-losophy. Yet the English language commentary on Schmitt, much of itvery recent, has bordered on whitewash: a concerted effort has beenmade either to downplay Schmitt's Nazism or explain it away by refer-ence to the force of political circumstances.5Most noteworthy in this respect was a special issue of the journal Telos(72 [1987]) devoted to Schmitt's work. The presumed intent was 1) toindicate Schmitt's serviceability for a (presumably) left-wing critique ofparliamentary democracy; and 2) to present a "fresh,"politically non-prejudicial reading of Schmitt's work. But the results in both cases seemto have grievously misfired.For example, in the introduction to the issue we are given a putativeexample of the way in which Schmittian "solutions"might be employedwith reference to contemporary political problems. And thus we areasked to learn from Schmitt's critique of liberalism that, when under-stood solely in a legalistic sense, "the obsessive left-liberal pursuit ofegalitarianism as a super-legal norm has debilitating consequencesboth in theory and in practice."6But does the left really need the wis-dom of Carl Schmitt to explain what is self-evident: that late capitalismexhibits a contradictory tension between formal and substantive egali-tarianism? And that the inequities of a merely formal egalitarianismmust be overcome in the domain of social practice itself? Moreover,where radical social criticism may utilize this tension as the fruitfulbasis for the task of ideology criticism, Schmitt himself never took thehiatus between bourgeois legal norms and actuality seriously. Instead,his total cynicism regarding bourgeois political norms ("parliamentar-ianism")goes far toward explaining the ease with which his authoritar-ian views of the 1920s - like those of so many other Weimar "conser-vative revolutionaries" - rapidly translated into an unqualified supportfor the policies of National Socialism. Because Schmitt's politicaltheory is devoid of possibilities of an immanent critique of bourgeoisideals, he can only offer us a "negativemoderl: his framework in truthexemplifies the way in which bourgeois societies should not be criti-cized. His political decision of 1933 is the proof of the pudding: a totalcritique of bourgeois norms meshes seamlessly with a totalitarian polit-ical option.In the same issue, we are provided with an anodyne account ofSchmitt's involvement with National Socialism (e.g., Joseph Ben-dersky, "Carl Schmitt at Nuremberg"). And thus Schmitt's more


5/29

392revulsivemisdeedsduringthe Hitleryears(suchas those enumeratedin the openingparagraph f this essay)are dismissedas the insincereefforts of anobsequiouspersonality-typeo ingratiatehimselfwith theNazi dictatorship.At the beginningof his essay,moreover,Benderskytugsat ourheartstrings yinformingus thatSchmitt whoparticipatedwithalacrity n a regimethatunleasheda warresultingn the deathofsome 40 millionpersons- followinghis arrestby theAllies in Septem-ber 1945, was forced to live in an internmentcamp for some 18monthswhileawaiting rial at Nuremberg or warcrimes.)This is fol-lowedby a transcript f Schmitt'ssuccessful)rebuttalof alliedchargesthathis own doctrineof Grossraumervedas the theoreticalbasis forthe National Socialist doctrine of Lebensraum.Neverthelessthe bio-graphicalfact that Schmitt himself was acquittedof "crimesagainsthumanity" ardlyprovidescompellingproofthatSchmitt's wnauthor-itarianpoliticaldoctrinesof the 1920s are "abovesuspicion." n thisrespect, Bendersky'sparalleleffort ("CarlSchmittand the Conser-vative Revolution," n the same number of Telos) flatly to denySchmitt's ntellectual affinities with Germany'soxymoronic,conser-vativerevolutionaryhinkers(Spengler, he Jungerbrothers,Moellervan der Bruck,et al.) is likewisedisingenuous.Even the subtitle ofBendersky's own book on Schmitt - Carl Schmitt: Theorist for theReich - suggeststhat the connectionbetween politics and theory inSchmitt'swork s far from adventitious.Thus in general,the majorstrategyof denialpracticedby the Schmittapologistshas been to tryto separateneatlySchmitt heWeimaruristand political philosopherfrom Schmittthe legal theoristof the NaziMachtergreifung.ccordingto this revisionistgroundswell,Schmitt'swritingsof the 1920s, rather hanpointing he wayto March24, 1933(the date of the EnablingAct, allowingHitler essentiallyto rule bydecree),aimedfundamentally t strengtheninghe Presidential ystemof WeimarandthenotoriousArticle48 (granting mergencypowerstothe president),in order to save the fragile Republic rather than tohasten its demise. In this reading,Schmittemergesas a "theoristofdemocratic egitimacy" albeit a democratic egitimacydivestedof theburdensomefettersof republican nstitutions.Even if it is a dictatorwho actuallygoverns,he (or she) mustdo so only for the sake of up-holdingthe legitimately onstitutedorder.She (or he) mayabrogatebut not abolish- the existingconstitution.To be sure, there exists astrongbasisfor suchaninterpretationn certainof Schmitt'swritingsofthe 1920's;moreover, his is unquestionablyhe way that the masterhimself would like posterityto view his historicalcontribution.At the


6/29

393sametime,thisapproachselectivelybypasses significantandtroublingfacts,bothbiographical nd textual n nature.One of the most puzzlingissues in Schmittscholarshiphas been hisoscillationbetween two apparently rreconcilable endencies: on theone hand,a radicaldecisionism,emphasizinga decision that is "bornout of nothing," ndthusenactedex nihilo,in flagrantdisregardof thelegaland moralrequirements f the existingsocio-historical ituation;on the other hand, a concrete Ordnungsdenken - a "philosophy oforder"- committed to the preservationof the existing systemcomewhat may.Schmitt's tatus as a philosopherof orderfollows logicallyfrom his functional(as well as tautological)definition of legitimacy:agivenorderis "legitimate"f it is recognizedas suchby the majorityofits citizens. This definition of legitimacyis a merely logical conse-quenceof Schmitt'sabandonmentof all moral andphilosophical"nor-mativism":n the absenceof a theoreticalconcept of "justice" gainstwhicha given politicalordermightbe measured,one is ipso facto leftwith afunctionaldefinitionof legitimacy.These seeminglyirreconcilablepositions - decisionismand a philos-ophy of order- have been no small source of confusion,withvariouscritics emphasizingone moment to the exclusion of the other. Forexample,in his excellentessay on Schmitt,Karl Lowithseizes on thecontentlessnessand irrationalism f Schmitt'sdecisionismin order tomake the point that, insofar as it is deprivedof a prior substantive(read:normative)orientation,Schmitt'sdecisionismends up as a mere"occasionalism":n ad hoc, opportunisticexpressionof politicalwill,the self-projection f an arbitrary,uthoritarian ower- the will of thesovereign- upon political reality.7The irony here of course is that"occasionalism"s the termof derision that Schmittuses to flagellatethe romanticmentalityn his 1919 work,PoliticalRomanticism.n DieEntscheidung,an otherwisestandardwork on the concept, Christianvon Krockowattempts to reconcile these two strands of Schmitt'sthought through the convenience of periodization:Schmitt "pro-gressed" rombeinga decisionistduring he 1920s to a philosopherofconcrete orderduring he Nazi years.Yet,thissolutionremainsuncon-vincinginsofaras both elements - decisionismas well as Ordnungs-denken areapparentn Schmitt'swritingduring heWeimaryears.The keyto thisinterpretivequandarys to be found in Schmitt'spoliti-cal existentialism. t is this categorythat serves as the leitmotifof hisWeimarwritingscapableof reconcilingrreconcilables hisapparently


7/29


8/29

395is well known: anticipation of death (Vorlaufen-zum-Tode)becomes theexistential focal point of Sein und Zeit, the hallmark of an authenticexistence. Heidegger's attempt to correlate "death"and "authenticity,"however, was far from an isolated occurrence: in Germany of the inter-war period, there arose a veritable "metaphysics of death,"with the lat-ter understood as a type of existential culmination of human life itself.The most notable illustration of this tendency occurs in Ernst Jiinger'sunabashed celebration of the Fronterlebnis ("frontexperience") duringthese years in works such as Im Stahlgewitter (Storm of Steel), in whichenthusiastic battle descriptions often culminate in scenes of gloriousdeath.' Similarly,in Spengler one finds the adage that "war is the crea-tor of all great things."2 And in The Concept of the Political, in whichSchmitt coins his famous "friend-enemy"distinction as the ultima ratioof political life, we find ourselves in close proximity to Jiinger's dis-course of martial bluster: "War, he readiness for death of fighting men,the physical annihilation of other men who stand on the side of theenemy, all that has no normative, rather an existential meaning, indeed,in the reality of a situation of real struggle against a real enemy, and notin whatever ideals, programs, or normative concepts."13Inchoate existentialist impulses colored Schmitt's approach to legalstudies very early on. In one of his first published works (Gesetz undUrteil - 1912), Schmitt vigorously contests the idea that a legal ordermay be treated as a closed system of norms. He forcefully denies, forexample, that in a particularcase, one could reach a correct decision bya process of deduction or generalization on the basis of existing legalrules. Instead, he employs the notion of "concrete indifference" toillustrate his contention that there will always exist a measure of irre-ducible particularityin a given case that defies mechanical subsumptionunder general principles.'4 For Schmitt the moment of "concrete indif-ference" represents a type of "vitalsubstrate,"that element of pure lifeopposed to the formalism of law. The consequences of this emphasison the irrationalism of the particular case for Schmitt's future as a legalscholar are crucial: they point of necessity in the direction of the para-mountcy of the juridical decision itself as a means of surmounting legalformalism. The failings of a consistent normativist stance endow themoment of decision with a certain extra-legal arbitrariness: the decisionalone is capable of bridging the gap between the abstractnessof law andthe fullness of life. The seeds of Schmitt's later decisionistic politicalphilosophy are already fully in place.The existential cleft between universal and particular is further ex-


9/29


10/29

397pose, the powers of the latter are in principle unlimited. Regardless ofthe sincerity of Schmitt's belief in this distinction, it is clear that his in-terest in the exception over and against the norm results necessarily in apronounced devaluation of normal conditions of constitutionality/legality and a corresponding overvaluation of "emergency powers."And it was these convictions that led to his highly influential"latitudinarian"nterpretation of Article 48 of the Weimar constitution,in which he concluded that presidential emergency powers shouldessentially be freed of constitutional restraints.16If one could say that the Weimar Republic's essence or identity wasembodied in its constitution, then Schmitt certainly displayed little con-cern for its identity. He may have been the champion of a dictatorialpresidential system, but not of Weimar democracy, as we are told insome accounts.17 The in actual practice paper-thin distinction betweencommissarial and sovereign dictatorship would soon fall by the waysidein Schmitt's work of the 1920s. We are left instead with the concept ofdictatorship tout court, stripped of confusing and extraneous intellec-tual subtleties.That in actual practice Schmitt cared very little for the distinction isillustrated by his failure to object to the "sovereign dictatorship" ofAdolf Hitler in 1933. As Franz Neumann is quick to remind, "The ideaof the totalitarian state grew out of the demand that all power be con-centrated in the hands of the president"- precisely Schmitt's strategy.Itis important to recall that the National Socialists presented themselvesnot as the destroyers, but as the saviours of democracy. Neumann goeson to identify none other than Carl Schmitt as "the ideologist of thissham." 1Schmitt's next work, Political Theology (1922), was one of his mostinfluential. It contains what is perhaps the most consequent formula-tion of his decisionistic theory of sovereignty: "Sovereign is he whodecides on the state of exception," proclaims Schmitt in the book'sopening sentence. It is a claim that is in no need of a rational justifica-tion. More precisely, it would be incapable of such justification, insofaras in Schmitt's view, "The exception confounds the unity and order ofthe rationalist scheme" (PT, 14). The power of decision is grounded inan insight superior to the subaltern capacities of human ratiocination,which in any event are only appropriate under the prosaic conditions of"normal life." The superior character of the exceptional decision lies inthe fact that it proves capable of exploding such mundane parameters


11/29

398of existence. As Schmitt affirms time and again, forcefully and unam-biguously, the decision on the state of exception possesses a higher,existential significance. It defies the standards of rationalism by virtueof its sheer existence. In summary,Schmitt's mature political philosophyis an existential decisionism. It persistently withdraws from the tribunalof human reason in order thereby to proclaim with impunity certainhigher,existential truths.One of the most striking features of Schmitt's definition of sovereigntyis a consistent employment of existentialist phraseology. For example,he underlines the importance of understanding the state of exception asa "Grenzbegriff" "pertaining to the outermost sphere.... Sovereigntymust therefore be associated with a border-line case," he observes,"and not with routine" (PT, 14). The border-situation is the place inwhich "Dasein glimpses transcendence, and is thereby transformedfrom possible to real Existence."19By treating the decision on the stateof exception in such fashion, Schmitt tries to invest it with a higher,existential meaning as compared with the normalcy of "routinelife." Itssuperiority derives from its sheer existence: "The existence of the stateis undoubted proof of its superiority over the valid legal norm. Thedecision frees itself from all normative ties and becomes in the truesense absolute.... The norm is destroyedin the exception" he observes(PT, 12; emphasis added).Schmitt's political philosophy endows the exception with a type of"magical omnipotence." This practice allows him to resolve certainintractable "ontological" problems that plague his framework: aboveall, the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between the abstract and the con-crete, between concept and life, a paramount concern for Lebens-philosophie in all its variants. Thus, the state of exception representsthe prospect of an existential transformation of life in its routinizedeverydayness, its elevation to a higher plane. The norm must be"destroyed" insofar as it represents the reign of the merely "concep-tual," the "abstract,"the "average."Under such conditions, the sub-stance of life in its "pulsatingfluidity"is prevented from coming to thefore. The cardinal virtue of the exception, then, from the vantage pointof political existentialism, is that it explodes the routinization to whichlife is subjected under conditions of juridical normalcy. For Schmitt,"The exception is that which cannot be subsumed; it defies generalcodification;" all that remains is the "decision in absolute purity"(PT, 13).


12/29

399In this respect, Schmitt'spolitical philosophy represents a plea for whatone might call "political vitalism."This fact becomes clear when, in thefirst chapter of Political Theology,he explicitly identifies a "philosophyof concrete life" as the conceptual basis of his intellectual enterprise:"Precisely a philosophy of concrete life must not withdraw from theexception and the extreme case, but must be interested in it to the high-est degree" (PT, 13). From the standpoint of political existentialism, therule remains mired in everydayness. It knows no greatness, and merelyfurthers the rising tide of mediocrity so characteristic of modern demo-cratic societies. Thus in his decisionistic preference for the exceptionover and against the rule, it is clear that Schmitt has drunk deeply fromthe vitalist philosophical currents of the period: "The exception is moreinteresting than the rule," he declares. "The rule proves nothing, theexception proves everything: It confirms not only the rule but also itsexistence, which derives only from the exception. In the exception thepower of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that hasbecome torpid by repetition"(PT, 15; emphasis added).Here, Schmitt purveys many of the standard components of the Ger-man conservative-revolutionary critique of modernity as popularizedby thinkers such as Spengler and Junger.The exception, by virtue of its"transcendent"capacities, possesses the "power of real life" necessaryto penetrate the benumbing mechanism of a reified capitalist world. Tobe sure, such romantic anti-capitalist motifs had both their "right"and"left"variants.20 t is not that the motivational impetus behind such crit-icisms is itself groundless. Rather, it is the fact that in Schmitt's case, theemphasis on the exception to the exclusion of all normativism, proce-duralism, and institutional checks, allows him to degenerate into anadvocate of charismatic despotism.One of the central tenets of Political Theology is that all modern politi-cal concepts are merely secularized theological concepts. And thus,one of Schmitt's chief aims as a legal philosopher and political theoristwas to reintroduce a strong "personal"element in modern politics, anelement that had fallen by the wayside with the eclipse of political abso-lutism. Hence, the emphasis on the "personal" aspect of the exceptionaldecision. But there is something greater at stake. In terms of the theo-logical analogies that Schmitt considers essential, the exception shouldplay a role in modern politics comparable to that of the miracle in reli-gious life. The practice of "political theology" aims at nothing less thanthe "transubstantiation" of the debased body politic - which in themodern age had been shackled by the all-encompassing routine of a


13/29

400legal formalism - into the politically vital ether of the state of excep-tion; a feat, moreover, that can only be accomplished by the charismaticsovereign, the modern-day analogue to the divine monarch of abso-lutist times.2'It is of further interest to note that in Political Theology the earlier dis-tinction between two types of dictatorship, commissarial and sovereign,vanishes entirely. Instead, one is left with the idea of dictatorship in allits authoritarian starkness. Schmitt contends that in an emergencysituation, the powers of the sovereign must be "unlimited."This meansthat, "From the liberal constitutional point of view, there would be nojurisdictional competence at all";for the sovereign "stands outside thenormally valid legal system" (PT, 7). That the sovereign would have toshare jurisdictional competence over the question of whether a state ofemergency exists or how long it may continue is dismissed by Schmittas an unwarranted "liberal constitutional interference... whichattempts to suppress the question of sovereignty by a division andmutual control of competences" (PT, 11). The glory of the sovereignmust remain indivisible and untainted by power-sharing. This conclu-sion is fully consistent with Schmitt's persistent degradation of liberalinstitutions, which are capable of "endless conversation" but never anultimate decision.Schmitt attempts to provide his theory of dictatorship with historico-philosophical grounding in the discussion of the "counterrevolutionaryphilosophers of state"- de Maistre, Bonald, Donoso Cort6s - that con-cludes Political Theology. According to Schmitt's philosophy of his-tory,22political life since the seventeenth century has fallen into a stateof permanent decline. Whereas in the absolutist era the two pillars ofthe state - God and sovereign - occupied their rightful position ofsupremacy, since then, these concepts have suffered nothing but humi-liation and debasement at the hands of the rising bourgeois class and itssocialist successors. In the secularizing doctrines of the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries, the concept of "God" was supplanted by the ideaof "man,"and the majesty of the sovereign proper was irreparablydeci-mated by the notion of popular sovereignty. As a result of these devel-opments, "The decisionistic and personalistic element in the concept ofsovereignty was lost" (PT, 48). More generally, this period of transitionwitnessed the sacrifice of the sublime virtues of transcendence in favorof the prosaic values of immanence. The concerted assault against tra-ditional religiosity could only end in atheism, disorder, and "anarchicfreedom."It was the chief merit of the Catholic philosophers of state to


14/29

401have confronted this situation head on and to have never shied awayfrom drawing the logical conclusion: dictatorship alone could save theworld from the godless era of secular humanism. (Junger expresses asimilar thought in Blatter und Steine, when he observes, "To the extentthat the race degenerates, action takes on the character of decision.")Donoso Cortes, "one of the foremost representatives of decisionisticthinking and a Catholic philosopher of the state ... concluded in refer-ence to the revolution of 1848 that the epoch of royalism was at an end.Royalism is no longer because there are no kings. Therefore legitimacyno longer exists in the traditional sense. For him there was only onesolution: dictatorship"(PT, 51-52).In the reasoning behind Schmitt's praise of Donoso Cortes, thereechoes clearly one of the standard justifications of fascist dictatorshipfrom a Catholic point of view: the cases of Franco's Spain and Pino-chet's Chile immediately leap to mind. Schmitt never tried to hide hisview that "allauthentic political theories presuppose man as 'evil', thatis, in no way as unproblematical, rather as 'dangerous'" (PT, 61).This undoubtedly accounts in part for his strong personal identificationwith Donoso Cortes, "whose contempt for man knew no limits," andwhom Schmitt lauds as "aspiritualdescendant of the Grand inquisitors"(PT, 57-58). In Donoso Cortes' view, evil had triumphed to suchan extent in the modern world that only a miracle could deny it ulti-mate victory. The battle-line he saw being drawn in the nineteenth cen-tury - that between Catholicism and atheistic socialism - was not justanother in a long series of historical struggles; rather, it was Armag-gedon. According to Donoso Cortes, therefore, political dictatorshipwas not only a political, but a theological necessity.At stake was the sal-vation of men's souls. There is no doubt that Schmitt himself viewed asecularized version of Donoso Cortes' argument as a historical imper-ative if a decision was to be reached, the prevarications of endless dis-cussion avoided, and the essence of the political saved. Schmitt's ownreflections on this theme could hardly be less equivocal:

The true significance of those counterrevolutionary philosophers of state liesprecisely in the consistency with which they decide. They heightened themoment of decision to such an extent that the notion of legitimacy, theirstarting point, was finally dissolved. As soon as Donoso Cortes realized thatthe period of monarchy had come to an end ... he brought his decisionism toa logical conclusion. He demanded a political dictatorship. In ... de Maistrewe can also see a reduction of the state to the moment of decision, to a puredecision not based on reason or discussion and not justifying itself, that is, toan absolute decision created out of nothingness. But this decision is essen-tially dictatorship, not legitimacy. (PT 57, 58)23


15/29

402Schmitt's The Crisis of ParliamentaryDemocracy is often cited as evi-dence of the democratic inclinations of his thought during the WeimarRepublic. His basic argument is that liberal institutions essentially in-validate democratic politics, making these two political approachesfundamentally incompatible with one another. Through an extremelyselective reading (and mis-reading) of both political traditions, Schmittbuilds an effective case. He defines democracy as the "identityof rulersand ruled,"thus carefully skirtingother historically prominent interpre-tations of the democratic tradition. Conversely, liberalism - whichSchmitt identifies with the institutions of parliament, free discussion,and publicity - in essence subverts the people's right to self-determina-tion, insofar as a variety of cliques and interest groups have seized holdof these institutions merely to exploit them for their own private gain.Hence, "constitutionalism"(here, a code-word for liberalism) has for-feited its validity as a political principle in the modern world and standsurgently in need of replacement. The argumentation proceeds seam-lessly in the direction of Schmitt's own choice of a successor: plebisci-tariandictatorship.24To understand what Schmitt means by democracy, it is helpful to recallNeumann's claim that the Nazis, too, presented themselves as thechampions of democracy, i.e., as the party that represented the authen-tic embodiment of the popular will. Schmitt's formula for democracy -"theidentity between rulers and ruled"- must be understood in a simi-lar vein. Needless to say, the idea of "participatory democracy" couldnot be further from his mind. Nor the various conceptions of "directdemocracy," certainly a logical alternative if one chooses to reject par-liamentarianism in toto. Schmitt studiously avoids taking democracyseriously in the etymological sense - "ruleof the demos" - nor wouldhe be much interested in the Aristotelian definition of the term, "rulingand being ruled in turn."Hence, like the Nazis' commitment to popu-lism, Schmitt's commitment to democracy is a pseudo-commitment.With the highly tendentious separation of democracy from its sup-porting liberal institutions - separation of powers, checks and balances,publicity, etc. - he has succeeded in rendering all modern historicalincarnations of the term meaningless - precisely his object. To conceiveof the democratic Revolutions of the eighteenth century minus the sub-structure of civil liberties (freedom of speech, the press, assembly, etc.)that was their necessary concomitant and raison d'&tres a monumentalnon sequitur in historical reasoning (although the tradition of "caesar-ism" resurrected by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety


16/29

403during the course of the French Revolution provides Schmitt with thetype of historical precedent he needs).25Via the specious separation of democracy from liberalism, Schmitt hasin effect laid out the conceptual and legal groundwork for the turntoward the authoritarian or "total state"in Germany.Historically, liber-al institutions have provided a bulwark for civil society against unwar-ranted encroachments by the state. In destroying this safeguard, thetruly regressive features of Schmitt's political philosophy come to thefore. Thus for Schmitt, the individual ceases to be a point of referencefor political theory altogether.Instead, the state is consistently portrayedas the sole embodiment of authority.One cannot even say it is the soleembodiment of "right," ince the concept of right loses all its meaningin a situation where the chief virtue of the sovereign is his or her capaci-ty to formulate decisions ex nihilo, in disregard of every normative orjuridical precedent.Lest there be any doubt as to the specific constituents of democracyaccording to Schmitt, the evidence in The Crisis of ParliamentaryDemocracy is fairly unequivocal. The major criterion, as specified inthe Preface to the Second Edition, is the concept of "national homo-geneity,"a distinct precursor of the National Socialist concept of "racialhomogeneity."In Schmitt's framework, "homogeneity" plays the role indemocratic theory formerly played by "equality"- a concept Schmittdismisses outright as part of the conceptual baggage of the liberal men-tality.Of course, when the concept of "national homogeneity" is erect-ed as a political ideal, it follows logically that anything that poses a pos-sible threat to its purity must be annihilated. To be sure, Schmitt doesnot shrink in the least from drawing precisely this conclusion: "Demo-cracy requires, therefore, first homogeneity and second - if the occa-sion arises - elimination or eradication of heterogeneity" (CPD 9).Schmitt's rhetoric is chilling. He leaves it to the goose-stepping heirs ofhis political ideas to specify what form such "eradication of hetero-geneity" will take. Insofar as his Anglo-American apologists are alwaysarguingfor the necessity of understanding his works in "historical con-text,"let us take their suggestion to heart in this case by inquiring whatethnic or religious group might have posed a threat to the national in-tegrity of the Germans in the year 1926, and thus might have served asthe unspoken target of Schmitt'sattack?'A democracy demonstrates its political power by knowing how to


17/29

404refuse or keep at bay something foreign and dissimilar that threatens itshomogeneity,"adds Schmitt (ibid.), in a formulation that anticipates hisinsistence a year later in The Concept of the Political on the necessity ofextirpating the "domestic enemy."It is important to keep in mind thatSchmitt's discussion of the need to "eradicate heterogeneity" is in noway an accidental by-product of his political thought. Instead, it followsquite logically from his contempt of political pluralism as part andparcel of the liberal heritage to be jettisoned.Given these orientations, it is hardly surprising that The Crisisof Parlia-mentary Democracy culminates in a glowing panegyric to the achieve-ments of Italian fascism. As Schmitt observes:

Until now the democracy of mankind and parliamentarianism has only oncebeen contemptuously pushed aside through the conscious appeal to myth,and that was an example of the irrational power of the national myth. In hisfamous speech of October 1922 in Naples before the march on Rome, Mus-solini said, "We have created a myth, this myth is a belief, a noble enthusiasm;it does not need to be reality, it is a striving and a hope, belief and courage.Our myth is the nation, the great nation which we want to make into a con-crete reality for ourselves." (CPD, 75-76)

"The theory of myth is the most powerful symptom of the decline ofthe relative rationalism of parliamentary thought," he continues, notleast of all insofar as it offers the possibility of establishing "anauthor-ity based on the new feeling for order, discipline, and hierarchy."Schmitt's political doctrines consistently attempt to reassert a charis-matic dimension that has supposedly been lost in twentieth-centurypolitical life. This explains his fascination with the exception as a typeof existential "boundary-situation,"his preoccupation with the sover-eignty of decision and its capacity to restore the dwindling "personalelement" of politics, and his interest in the irrationalism of politicalmyth. It is curious therefore to note the simultaneous operation ofdiametrically opposite tendencies in his work, tendencies that push inthe direction of a disenchanted functionalism. This functionalismderives in no small measure from Schmitt's agnostic refusal to specifyany substantive ends for decisionistic politics. Because his decisionism,as devoid of substantive goals, remains essentially contentless, there isin principle only one end to which the decisionistic sovereign can directhis (or her) energies, and a rather unexalted end at that: the end ofpolitical self-preservation. In part this result is a direct consequence ofSchmitt's secularization of the political theory of absolutism: when one


18/29

405does awaywith the "divinerightof kings"argument, here is littleleftfor theoristsof the authoritariantate to fall backon exceptHobbes's"mutualrelationof protectionand obedience" - i.e., a functionalist"Ordnungsdenken"s suggestedby Schmitt'spraisefor the virtuesof"order,discipline,and hierarchy"ust cited. Of course, the readingofHobbes hereis a highlyselectiveone:retained s theimageof thesover-eign standingover and abovethe normallyvalidlegal system;rejectedis Hobbes the founder of moderncontracttheory,since this readingleavesHobbesvulnerable o liberal nterpretations,.g.,as a precursorof the idea of popularsovereignty preciselythe conclusionRousseauwoulddraw romhisreadingof Hobbes).Yet,in the prosaicterminusof Schmitt'spoliticalthought i.e., its ulti-mateemphasison questionsof functionalself-preservation his exis-tentialistpoint of departurehas merelycome full circle.When sheer"existence"s posited as a primaryvalue,whence all othervaluesfol-low,it is only logicalto perceivenakedself-preservation s the highestendof political ife.In TheConceptof thePolitical 1927) Schmitt hinks hrough heimpli-cationsof apoliticaldoctrinepredicatedon the conceptof self-preser-vation with frighteningconsistency.The result is a glorified socialDarwinism n whichconsiderationsof foreignpolicy dominate to thepoint where domestic politics are strippedof all independenceandintegrity.But in point of fact, the primacyof foreign policy means:"war"as the ultimate, existential"limit-condition" f politics. Thewholeanalysis eadsinevitably owardajustification f the "total tate,"whose raison d'etre is the ever-presentpossibilityof war.Hence, forSchmitt, he supremacy f thefriend-enemydistinctionn politics.Here,too, Schmitt'sdeas mustbe carefullydistinguishedromthose ofHobbes. For Hobbes, the state of nature or bellum omnium contraomnesmustbe overcome in the contractthatestablishescivil society.For Schmitt,conversely, he stateof waramongnationsopens up dis-tinctlypositiveprospects:"war" s the highest nstanceof the political.This is one of the reasonsSchmittinsists time and againthat were asingle, internationalfederation (foreshadowed by the League ofNations) to supplantthe nation-state,the political would disappearfrom life altogether: or along with the disappearanceof the nation-state, the possibility of war too would disappear.26n Hobbesianfashion, Schmitt attributes a rather unelevated, functional role topolitics in times of political normalcy:the maintenanceof internal


19/29


20/29

407In pursuingthis existentialist ack, Schmittconsciously abandonsallhigherquestionsabout themeaningof political ife,questionshe hastilyequateswith the normativist raditionhe is so eager to be done with.The sole important actis that a stateexists,not the specificcontentorends of its existence.In this respect,Lowith'scritiqueprovesjustified:insofar as Schmitt'snotion of the political is devoid of independentcontent, it, too, is a mere "occasionalism."t, too, merelystands in theserviceof other,"unpolitical owers" aboveall,the powersof war.Inthe lastanalysis, he specificityof the political sphere,whosepreserva-tion Schmittviewed as his primaryntellectual ask,is itselfeclipsed-sacrificedon the altarof Ares,as it were. Abandoned is a wholeseriesof politicalquestionswhose posing accounts for the birthof politicalphilosophyin the West:questionsabout justice, the virtuouscitizen,and, more generally, he "goodlife."In Schmitt'spolitical theorywetrade the "goodlife"for "mere ife": he existentialrightof self-preser-vation.Inhiswritingsof theearly1930s, Schmittdiscernsa trendat workthatpresagesa returnof the political: he re-emergenceof new Kampfge-biete or "areasof struggle"n the modernworld.The key variable nthis newly emergentequationis technology,which, in the twentiethcentury,seems to have surpassedeconomics as the singulardeter-minant of cultural life. Advocates of a "religionof technologicalprogress"ongbelievedthat therise of technologyrepresentedanotherstage n theneutralization f politics,a verdictSchmittwishesvigorous-ly to contest.Rather hanbeing"mechanistic"ndsoulless,"as manyofhis Germancontemporariescomplained,Schmitt sees "anactivisticmetaphysic"at work in technology that promises the "unboundedpowerand dominationof manovernature,even overhumanphysics"itself.28Ratherthanrepresenting ne morestagein a 400 yearprocessof political "neutralization,"echnology embodies prospects for amomentousreturnof the politicalon an unprecedentedlygrandiosescale. For the historicallyuniqueconcentrationand accumulationoftechnologyin the twentiethcenturyopens up concreteprospectsforthe realizationof the "total tate."Schmittdescribesthisprocessas fol-lows:

The process of the progressive neutralization of the various spheres of cul-tural life has arrived at its end, because it has arrived at technology. Tech-nology is no longer a neutral basis, in the sense of the process of neutraliza-tion, and every strong politics will make use of it. The present century canthus be understood in a cultural sense as a technological century only in aprovisional way. Its ultimate meaning will be revealed when it is known what


21/29

408

typeof politicsis strongenoughto master he new technology,and what arethe realfriend/enemygroupingshatariseon this newbasis.29Schmittdevelopshis theoryof the "totalstate" n two key essaysfromthe early 1930s, "TheTurntoward the Total State" and "The Con-tinuedDevelopmentof the Total Statein Germany." or Schmitt,thevirtueof the total stateis that the nineteenth-centuryeutralization fpolitics is eclipsed as the state undertakesthe "self-organization fsociety.""Politics ntervenesin all spheresof life,"remarksSchmitt;"there s no neutralsphere."As an example,he cites the moder im-perativesof politicalarmament,which concern "notonly the military,but also the industrialand economic preparation or war."Even the"intellectual nd moralformationof the citizens" s incorporated ntothis totalizingnetwork.Schmittsees welcome confirmationof suchtrends n the theoryof "totalmobilization" dvancedby "a remarkablerepresentative f the GermanFrontsoldaten," rnst"Junger'sormulaprovesthat a self-organization f society into the state is in process,leadingfrom the neutralstateof the 19thcenturyto the total state ofthe 20thcentury."3"heonlypossibleobstacleSchmittenvisionsto theultimate riumphof the totalstateis the residualpartypluralismof theWeimarperiod.3'Schmitt'sheoryof the total state- whose prescienceas an analysisofkey developments n twentieth-centuryoliticscan hardlybe denied-was formulatedpriorto the Nazi seizureof powerin 1933. It hasbeenarguedthat Schmitt'segal opinion on the "equalchance"questionin1932 (suggestinghat extremistpoliticalpartieswho did not respecttheconsitution be denied an "equalchance"of political participation)mighthavejeopardizedhis statusin the eyes of the Nazi powerelite.Whatever he truthconcerningthese allegations,32t certainlydid notpreventthe Nazi government rom summoning heirprestigiousnewconvert to draft the infamous Gleichschaltungegislation of April1933. Schmittcooperatedwithalacrity.33In his first major work of the Nazi years, State, Movement,Volk,Schmitt ried to reconcilehis theoryof the totalstatewithParty deol-ogy.The tripartiteconceptionof sovereigntyexpressedin the title ofSchmitt's1933 workrepresentsan attempt o bringhis thinkingn linewith the new National Socialistreality.The opening pagesarequicktoproclaim he overthrowof the Weimarconstitutionon the basisof theEnablingAct of March24, 1933. Ironically,n whatat the time pos-sessed the legal statusof a temporary,commissarialdistatorship,or


22/29

409limitedgrantingof emergencypowers,Schmittperceiveda sovereignorpermanentdictatorship.Since the Weimarconstitutionwas incapableof distinguishing riend from enemy, it deserved to perish, arguedSchmitt.He chose to viewthe Reichstagelections of March5, 1933, inwhichthe National Socialistscapturedmerely43.9%of the vote, as a"plebiscite through which the German people recognized AdolfHitler... as the politicalFiihrerof the GermanVolk."34chmitt'sargu-ments here, his alacritoussupportof the "sovereigndictatorship" fAdolf Hitler, n no wayconstitutea breakwith his earlierpositions,butrepresent heirlogicalcompletion.As he saysat one point with refer-ence to the political"pluralism"hatpresented tselfas the scourgeofWeimar:"Inthe one-partystate of National Socialist Germany,thedanger of a pluralistic dismemberment of Germany... has beenvanquished."35There is no small measureof irony in the fact that despite Schmitt'sfawningsubservience o Nazi ideologyon almosteverypoint in State,Movement,Volk- the "Fiihrerprinzip"nd racial"homogeneity" repraisedas the substanceof NationalSocialistlegality;as is the move-ment in general or itskeen attention o "authenticVolkssubstanz"thebook was not entirelysuccessful.Schmitthad lapsedfromNazi ideol-ogy on one crucial theme: by considering the movement as the"dynamic"spectof the tripartitedivisionand the Volkas merelythe"passive;'"unpolitical"lement,he had failed to accord the lattertheequalstatusrequired or it by officialpropaganda.Needless to say,theNazi invocation of the Volk was an immenselyfraudulentpseudo-populism,in whichpopularenergieswere merelyinstrumentalizedothe advantageof the leadershipcliqueand its expansionistgoals.Yet,Schmitt's"honesty"n owningup to the actualrealityof the situationcausedhis book to be viewedwithsuspicion.36Wehavealreadyalludedto thevariousdepthsto whichSchmitt unk inhis consistent support of the Nazi dictatorship.Certainlythe mostreprehensibleaspect of his collusion with the regimewas the aviditywithwhichhe supportedNaziracialpolicies.Hisarticle"TheConstitu-tion of Freedom" n 1935 was quickto supportthe Nurembergraciallegislationof thesameyear,whichforbade ntermarriageetweenJewsand non-Jews,and sought to invalidateexisting marriagesbetweenJewishandnon-JewishGermans.Schmitt'sgreatestoffensescan prob-ably be found in an article published the following year, entitled"GermanLegal Science in the Struggleagainstthe Jewish Spirit,"nwhich the standardrefrains of Nazi anti-semitic rhetoricare to be


23/29

410found. Here, Schmitt polemicizes against the "rootlessness" of theJewish race and the inferiority of the "unproductiveand sterile"Jewishintellect.37He urged his fellow jurists, when citing from texts written byJews, to be sure to identify the writer as a "Jewishauthor."In an otherwise academic, 1938 work on the political thought ofHobbes, Schmitt gratuitously recites a litany of nineteenth-centuryJewish figures who, since the emancipation, have infiltrated and pol-luted the German nation: "The young Rothchilds, Karl Marx, Borne,Heine, and Meyerbeer" all possess their "spheres of operation" in thevarious fields of German cultural life.38Singled out for special mentionis the legal thinker Friedrich Julius Stahl (whom Schmitt insists on call-ing "Stahl-Jolson" to indicate his Jewish heritage): "The Christiansacrament of Baptism serves him not only as an 'entry-ticket'to 'socie-ty,'but also as the identity-card for entrance into the holiness of a stillvery solid German state,"remarks Schmitt. In his advocacy of "consti-tutionalism," Stahl-Jolson, the treacherous Jew, is charged withseducing the Prussian conservatives "on to the terrain of the enemy" -liberal thinking - "on which the Prussian military state, under the bur-densome test of the war, collapses in 1918."39 In this way, Schmittattempts to provide a vulgar intellectual-historical grounding for theinfamous "stab-in-the-back"myth.Despite these repugnant efforts to ingratiate himself with the newregime,4"Schmitt sensed that the alliance was potentially ill-fated andvoluntarily resigned from his post in the National Socialist JuristsAssociation in November 1936. However, he retained his position inthe Nazi party,his chair on the law faculty in Berlin, and his position onthe prestigious Prussian State Council until the end of the war. Hispost-1936 writings revolved around the concept of "Grossraum,"a per-verted version of the Monroe doctrine, which served as a justificationof German territorial expansion in the East. In truth, this idea was littlemore than a pseudo-legalistic variant of the Nazi theory of "Lebens-raum."In Schmitt's political writings of the 1930s, he predictably attempts toback away from the radical implications of his earlier decisionism andinstead accords Ordnungsdenkenconceptual pride of place. For exam-ple, in his forward to the 1933 edition of Political Theology, Schmittwarns that decisionism risks succumbing to the exigencies of the"moment,"and hence overlooks that "restfulBeing contained in everygreat political movement." Now, instead of "decision ex nihilo" one


24/29

411finds an emphasis on "volkish substantiality"- it is no longer the stateof exception that concerns Schmitt, but the state of normalcy embodiedin the existing fascist order. The latter can now be seen as providing the"concrete basis for decision" in his work, thereby offering a solution tothe contentlessness of the decision in its earlier versions. Yet, ratherthan constituting an absolute break with his earlier work, this move sig-nifies the ultimate union of the two parallel strands of his thought, deci-sionism and Ordnungsdenken.That is, the concrete, racial life of theVolk (Artgleichheit) now provides the existential basis for decision -just as in State, Movement, and Volk,it was a Grundentscheidungof theVolk in the elections of March 1933 that abrogated the Weimar consti-tution and sanctified Hitler's sovereign dictatorship.Since the 1920s, Schmitt had been a staunch opponent of formal legali-ty and always advocated the importance of substantive, political criteriain the promulgation of legal decisions. The Nazi revolution thus inmany ways merely represented the tangible realization of the basicinclinations of Schmitt's earlier legal and political thinking. For Schmittit was an essential fact that the "existential-rootedness of all humanthought" leads with necessity to a sphere in which human existence isfilled with "organic, biological and volkish differentiations." Thisremains true insofar as "Man, in the deepest, most unconscious im-pulses of his soul, but also in his tiniest brain-cell, stands in the realityof volkish and racial belonging."41It was therefore one of Schmitt'sdeeply held convictions that "all questions and answers intersect withthe demand for [racial]homogeneity, without which a total Fuhrer-statecould not subsist for a day."42The notion that Schmitt's "no-nonsense approach to concrete powerrelations can provide a healthy corrective to the predominant leftistmoralism,"as it has been recently suggested (along with the even morestartling claim that "the left can only benefit by learning from CarlSchmitt"),43would seem, in light of the foregoing analysis, an extremelytenuous proposition. For wouldn't one of the primaryconclusions to bedrawn from Schmitt's own intellectual-political itinerary be that all such"transcendent" as opposed to "immanent"critiques of liberal demo-cratic political paradigms - i.e., all attempts to "transcend" without"preserving"this ethico-political legacy - invite historical regressionsof the highest magnitude? Schmitt himself was fond of drawing ananalogy between his own fate under the National Socialist regime andthat of the eponymous hero of Melville's "Benito Cereno" - the shipcaptain who is forced against his will to carry out the orders of his thug-


25/29


26/29

4133. Schmitt,TheConceptof thePolitical, rans.G. Schwab NewYork,1976).4. Representative tudies of Schmitt'swork in the post-war years include:J. Fijal-kowski, Die Wendungzum Fuhrerstaat:Ideologische Komponenten in der Politische

Philosophie Carl Schmitts (Koln, 1958); H. Hofman, Legitimitat gegen Legalitdt:Der Wegder politischen Philosophie Carl Schmitts (Neuwied and Berlin, 1964); C.van Krockow, Die Entscheidung: Eine Untersuchung iiber Ernst Jiinger, CarlSchmitt,und MartinHeidegger Stuttgart,1958). For a bibliographyof Schmitt'swork andsecondary iterature, ee P.Tommissen,"CarlSchmittBibliographie,"nFestschriftfur Carl Schmitt zum 70. Geburtstag, H. Barion et al., editors (Berlin:DunkerundHumblot,1959);as well as an "Erganzungliste"lso byTommissen nEpirrhosis: Festgabe fur Carl Schmitt, H. Barion et al., editors, 2 vols. (Berlin:Duncker und Humblot, 1968). The two last-named volumes generallycontainessays that are supportiveof Schmitt's deas. For two more recent volumes ofessays on Schmitt, see Der Fiirst dieser Welt: Carl Schmitt und die Folgen, vol. 1, J.Taubes,ed. (MunichandZurich,1983).5. ForEnglish iterature n Schmitt, ee GeorgeSchwab,TheChallenge f theExcep-tion (Berlin:Dunker und Humblot, 1970); see also Schwab'sIntroductiontoSchmitt, Political Theology; Ellen Kennedy, Introduction to Schmitt, The Crisis ofParliamentary Democracy; and Joseph Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theorist for theReich(Princeton,1983).Unlike thediscussionsof SchwabandKennedy,Benders-ky's studyhas the meritof confrontingSchmitt'sdeep Nazi involvements, s well ashis at times viciousanti-semitism, ead on. However,he reachesthe unsatisfactoryconclusion that Schmitt, ar from being a "convincedNazi,"merelyunderwentaseriesof extensivepoliticalcompromises n the 1930s for the sake of self-preserva-tion. Hence, his Nazismand anti-semitismwere "insincere."Unsurprisingly, othSchwab (Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory [4/2 Spring-Summer,19801)andKennedy Historyof PoliticalThought4/3 Winter,1983])have writtenvery positive reviews of Bendersky'swork endorsinghis conclusionsconcerningthe insincerityof Schmitt'sNazism.A salutarycontrastto this "hallof mirrors"semblance of unanimity s MartinJay's review of Benderskyin TheJournalofModernHistory53/3 (September,1984). See also GordonCraig'sreview of Ben-dersky, "Decision,Not Discussion," n Times LiterarySupplement,August 13,1983.6. Telos72(1987), 5.7. Lowith,"DerokkasionelleDezionismus von Carl Schmitt," irstpublished n theInternationale Zeitschrift fiir Theorie des Rechts 9 (1935) under the pseudonymHugo Fiala. It has been republished in Lowith, Heidegger: Denker in diirftigerZeit(Stuttgart:Metzler,1984), 32-71. Philosophicaluse of this peculiarterm,"occa-sionalism,"maybe tracedbackto Malebranche's olemicwithDescartesin De larecherche e la verite 1674-1675). There,in oppositionto the Cartesianviewthatthe body, as influencedby the soul, is responsiblefor its own movement,Male-brancheargues hatthe trueprincipleof the movementof bodies is to be foundinGod alone.Bodilymovementsarethus"occasioned" ya higher,divine,causality.8. To be sure,fromexistentialismone can also derive a very differentpoliticalphi-losophy- e.g., thatof Jean-PaulSartre who was at leastequally nfluenced n hisearlyworkby the "rationalist"henomenologyof Husserl n anyevent).At issueisa determinate ersionof Germanexistentialism n vogue during he inter-war earsthatfacilitated he rejectionof liberal-democratic oliticalparadigms nda prefer-enceinstead orones thatweredistinctly ascistic.9. See F. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard,


27/29

4141969); F. Stern, The Failure of Illiberalism (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976); andmore recently, H. Brunkhorst, Der Intellektuelle im Land der Mandarine (Frank-furt:Suhrkamp 1988); and J. Herf, Reactionary Modernism (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1984). Herfs study, which contains a section on Schmitt, is espe-cially relevant in the present context, because he convincingly details the world-view held in common by thinkers such as Schmitt, Jiinger, Spengler, and Heidegger.10. As a result of this shared emphasis on the concept of decision, Lowith perceivesdistinct parallels between the existential philosophy of Heidegger and the politicalexistentialism of Schmitt. He observes: "It is in no way accidental if in C. Schmitt apolitical decisionism, which corresponds to the existential philosophy of Heideg-ger, transposes the Heideggerian 'potentiality-for-Being-a-whole' of an always par-ticular existence to the 'totality' of the authentic state, itself always particular."Cf.Lowith, "The Political Implications of Heidegger's Existentialism," New GermanCritique45 (Fall, 1988).11. "War is an intoxication beyond all intoxication, an unleashing that breaks all bonds.It is a frenzy without caution and limits, comparable only to the forces of nature. Incombat the individual is like a raging storm, the tossing sea, the raging thunder. Hehas melted into everything. He rests at the dark door of death like a bullet that hasreached its goal. And the purple waves dash over him. For a long time he has noawareness of transition. It is as if a wave slipped back into the flowing sea." Jiinger,Kampf als inneres Erlebnis (Berlin, 1922), 57.

12. Spengler, Der Untergangdes Abendlandes, vol. 2 (Munich, 1923), 1007.13. Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker und Humbolt, 1963), 49;

emphasis added (hereafter cited as BP).14. Schmitt, Gesetz und Urteil (Berlin, 1912), 69.15. Schmitt, Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung des Einzelnen (Tubingen: J. C. B.

Mohr, 1914), 108, 74.16. Cf. Schwab, The Challenge of the Exception, 37-43.17. Kennedy, Introduction to The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy.18. The Neumann quotes are from Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National

Socialism, 1933-44 (New York: Oxford, 1967), 47 and 43. Recently, Ellen Ken-nedy has argued that many of the positions of Neumann himself - as well as theFrankfurt School's critique of liberalism in general - were borrowed without ack-nowledgment from Schmitt's own critique of "parliamentarianism."See Kennedy,"Carl Schmitt and the Frankfurt School," Telos 71 (1987). Although it is true thatNeumann and Otto Kirchheimer attended Schmitt's lectures in Berlin in the late1920s, she makes a travesty of an originally worthwhile insight by attempting toview the Frankfurt School in general as a type of covert "Carl Schmitt Society." Intrying to work the positions of Horkheimer, Marcuse, and even Walter Benjamininto the bargain, this Schmitt-obsession takes on absurd proportions. After theextremely thorough rejoinders by Martin Jay, Alfons Sollner, and Ulrich Preuss inthe same issue of Telos, there seems to be little left of Kennedy's original claim con-cerning the Frankfurt School's furtive reliance on Schmittian paradigms.19. H. Saner, "Grenzsituation," Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 3 (Basel,1974), 877.20. Cf. Michael L6wy, Georg Lukdcs: From Romanticism to Bolshevism (London: NewLeft Books, 1977).21. Schmitt concludes the first chapter of Political Theology with a laudatory referenceto an unnamed nineteenth-century theologian (Kierkegaard) who demonstrated"the vital intensity possible in theological reflection." He cites the following


28/29


29/29

41627. Schmitt,"Reich,Staat,Bund" 1933); reprinted n Positionenund Begriffe Ham-burg,1940), 198.28. Schmitt,"DasZeitalterderNeutralisierungenndEntpolitisierung,"3.29. Ibid.30. Schmitt,"Die Wendungzum totalen Staat,"EuropaischeRevue 7 (April, 1941),241-243.31. Schmitt,"Weiterentwicklunges totalen Staat in Deutschlands,"n Verfassungs-rechtliche Aufsdtze (Berlin, 1973).32. StephenHolmeshad addressed his issue as follows:"thenotion that[Schmitt]wasequallyhostile to the rightand the left isn'taltogether redible.Prior to the seizureof power,he considered he Nazis 'immature' able to makeGermanyungovern-able,but unable o govern t themselves.He disliked hemmainlybecause hefearedthey would create disorderthat communists, n turn,might exploit. He also op-posed attempts o revise the Weimarconstitution or this reason,not because hewas loyalto it or thought t good (allhis constitutionalwritingsare devoted to dis-playing ts fundamentalncoherence),but because he feared that upendingbasicinstitutions n a crisiscould createopportunities or a communistcoup."The New

Republic, August 22, 1988, 33.33. Cf., Bendersky, "The Expendable Kronjurist:Carl Schmitt and National Socialism,1933-36," Journal of Contemporary History 14 (1979), 312.34. Schmitt, Staat, Bewegung, Volk(Hamburg, 1933), 7.35. Ibid, 11.36. Cf. Neumann, Behemoth, 65-66.37. Schmitt,"Die Deutsche Rechtwissenschaftm Kampfgegen den judischenGeist,Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung20 (1936), 1197.38. Schmitt, Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes (Hamburg, 1938),108.39. Ibid., 109.40. Both SchwabandBenderskyattempt o justifySchmitt'soyaltyto the Nazis usingthe following argument: Byoptingfor National SocialismSchmittmerelytrans-ferred his allegianceto the newly constitutedlegal authority,and this was not

incompatiblewith his belief in therelationbetweenprotectionand obedience."Thecitation is from Schwab, The Challenge of the Exception, 106. Bendersky citesSchwab's easoningwithapprovaln "TheExpendableKronjurist,"12.41. Schmitt, Staat, Bewegung, Volk, 45.42. Ibid, 46.43. PaulPiccone and G. L.Ulmen,"Introductiono CarlSchmitt,"Telos72 (1987), 14.44. Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus: Erfahrungen der Zeit, 1945-47 (Cologne: Greven,1950).45. The letter of Heideggerto Schmittof August 22, 1933 is reprinted n Telos 72(1987), 132.

46. See RichardWolin, "The FrenchHeideggerDebate,"New GermanCritique45(1988).

Carl Schmitt Political Existencialism an the Total State

Documents

Transcript of Carl Schmitt Political Existencialism an the Total State