/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16122368]

All right /lit/, if you're so smart, explain to me Carl Schmitt's worldview like I was 5 years old.

[Anonymous No.16122375]

>>16122368
There is wikipedia for that. Give it a try.

[Anonymous No.16122387]

Carl Schmitt more like Carl Shitt.

Based and redpilled, OP is now legally obliged to slice his penis off with a pair of garden shears.

[Anonymous No.16122388]

>>16122368
Goverment good

[Anonymous No.16122404]

>>16122368
Basically Nazi Leninism

[Anonymous No.16122502]

>>16122368
enemies make the world go around

[Anonymous No.16122535]

>>16122368
liberals think that politics is fundamentally nice and friendly, Marxists think that it isn't but it will be once we reach the final stage of communism, Schmitt thinks that the notion of enmity is too deeply rooted in politics to be abolished by a change in ownership of the means of production. I'm not going to dumb this down just because you're 5 years old, I had no problem understanding this when I was 5 years old

[Anonymous No.16122582]

He's arguing that the essence of the "political" dimension of human existence is simply whatever allows for the mobilization and administration of human beings at a fundamental level which cannot be abrogated by arbitrary individual abstention from the "social contract," meaning essentially, the sovereign's ability (whether the sovereign be an assembly, a moot, a monarch, and so on) to mobilize citizens for war against external threats, which also means necessarily the capacity to decide what constitutes an external threat and when such a threat has appeared, meaning, i.e., the sovereign is he who decides in the exception. The concrete historical content of the political in any given context is simply that which manifests politically, at the higher level (of philosophical anthropology) Schmitt is describing. That means that any "spiritual" formation (in the German sense, roughly "cultural-historical") can be or become the basis of the political in a given era. For example the political, once it has manifested, might emerge from what contemporaries consider to be an economic basis, like class warfare and class consciousness. Or it could manifest as a religious or cultural difference, or an ideological difference, or ethnic, etc. The concrete content is effectively irrelevant. What matters is that the political can emerge from any sphere. It can even emerge from "the political" sphere, in the liberal sense of the term politics, so for example in a state with a decrepit but ongoing parliamentary tradition, where "politics" essentially doesn't matter and has become mere bureaucracy, a new and vigorous party or movement capable of founding a genuine political order could emerge from concrete divisions within the decrepit, merely "political" order.

What would happen if that happened? If the motion of civil society were merely brownian and bureaucratic, atomized and "depoliticized," and then suddenly a vigorous new movement appeared capable of mobilizing people (mobilizing them for what?). If they didn't simply sweep the decrepit, formless era away by virtue of imposing their new form on the previous formlessness, it would only be because they were opposed by latent elements of the civil society. Maybe the bureaucrats don't want to be dislodged. Well, now the conflict has taken on genuinely political dimensions. Now it's effectively a war, even if it hasn't been carried out through violence yet, because the political is defined by the capacity to mobilize people in one "way of life" (however defined or perceived by those people, concretely) against a contrary way of life, which is necessarily an existential situation, i.e., an emergency, which necessarily involves delegating to a sovereign body the power to decide politically, which is irrevocable, which thereby constitutes a polity.

[Anonymous No.16122590]

>>16122582
To the extent that liberalism seeks the resolution of all conflict, it also seeks the dissolution of the possibility of politics. He talks about this explicitly in the Concept of the Political essay. He says, one could imagine a global society with one "world politics" and nobody in conflict. But that would be, strictly speaking according to Schmitt's philosophical anthropology, no longer political. It would be "managerial," or "administrative," which is an interesting way in which Schmitt's outlook dovetails with the pessimism of Max Weber, the Frankfurt School, and many other thinkers like James Burnham and Paul Piccone (who ran Telos).

The greatest fear of Schmitt and his fascist milieu was the "letzte Mensch," the last man, the utterly managed and administered (Ted K.: "oversocialized") human animal, no longer capable of meaningful life, merely existing. Schmitt was trying to show that the global cosmopolitanism liberalism is not only ugly and not only creates such ugly post-human creatures, but is actually not even a solution to the political, since the political can simply emerge again from whatever differences exist.

The neo-liberal solution to this is to advocate constant difference mediation, constant negation of negativity in the Hegelian sense of the term. This is the philosophical foundation of multiculturalism, and it's why it is strongly opposed to nationalism and ethnocentrism. Schmitt and his friends supported nationalism and ethnocentrism because they wanted political "unities" capable of resisting Nietzsche's "levelling." Multiculturalists by contrast think that a level humanity will be a happy humanity, and instead of being like a sea with great waves (national or ideological wars, e.g.), it will instead be like a kind of constant simmer, constant little micro-differences being produced and melding into one another (so that novelty doesn't die, and humans will never truly become gray little automata). The problem with this view is that if you want to commit to it, you have to commit to leveling: leveling all racial, cultural, national, religious differences away, sanding them down to be no longer capable of "standing against" the "general consensus" (liberal cosmopolitanism), which would in effect be what Schmitt means by the political. Schmitt thinks the cessation of the political that is the liberal utopian vision will create a docile, pointless herd.

It gets more frightening when you combine this critique with the fact that all the prescriptions of well-meaning neo-liberal philosophers like Habermas also dovetail perfectly well with the leveling and deracinating tendencies of late capitalism, which wants an entire planet full of identical consumers and rationalized resources to shuffle around.

[Anonymous No.16122595]

>>16122582
>in the exception
It's "on the exception." Your opinion has been rendered useless.

[Anonymous No.16122659]

>>16122535
Best answer so far

>>16122582
Can you dumb that down for me?

[Anonymous No.16123273]

>>16122368
Howabout you read a book instead
>>16122582
>>16122590
stop spoonfeeding this retard

[Anonymous No.16123377]

>>16122659
How do you even get to the point where you even know who this stooge is without being able to comprehend a simple synthesis of his ideas?

[Anonymous No.16123432]

>>16123377
>>16123273
I asked it to be written for a 5 year old. No 5 year old would be able to understand >>16122582

[Anonymous No.16123594]

>>16122368
Politics is about saying who your enemies are.

[Anonymous No.16123617]

>>16123594
Is Jeff Mangum a schmittian?

[Anonymous No.16123791]

>>16122582
>>16122590
i would add to more things,

1. not only does liberalism reduce the polity to a pointless herd, it weakens it against outside threats who do understand the essence of the political ie marxist soviets, cromwell, french borgiusie. all overthrew regimes that fell into political romanticism.

2. when liberals go to war it is always a war of extermination and humiliation . when you declare yourself on the side of ‘humanity’ all of your enemies are outlaws of humanity and thus the most cruel means can be used against them. Think germany at versailles, under the westphalian system there would’ve simply been a land transfer. but versailles included a ritual humiliation of germany that made them a pariah state for something france and britain were also guilty of. this is also why sanctions that start famines like in iraq or iran are endorsed by the USA , these are outlaw regimes and every cruel punishment can be used against them. same with nuke in japan.

[Anonymous No.16123803]

>>16123791
Interesting , where does Schmitt talk about the humiliation element?

[Anonymous No.16123959]

>>16123803
concept of the political

[Anonymous No.16124560]

Whatever this >>16119186 is not.
Sad that the right is so consumed by mundane shit when someone like Schmitt is more relevant than ever.

[Anonymous No.16124585]

>>16122502
this seems to be the most appropriate answer

[Anonymous No.16124664]

This is more difficult to understand than Carl Schmitt himself. Work on your writing.

[Anonymous No.16124669]

>>16122590
>>16123791
>>16123803
Is there anyone who writes a complete synthesis of schmitt, nietzsche, the Frankfurt school, weber, and habermas into this worldview of fight or melt into human mush that you've laid out?

[Anonymous No.16124679]

>>16124664
Meant for >>16122582
>>16122590
Schmitt was not a fascist.

[Anonymous No.16124722]

>>16124664
>>16124679
I thought it was pretty easy to read and he doesn't say anywhere that schmitt was a fascist, only explaining why he was a fellow-traveler.

[Anonymous No.16124735]

"The process of continuous neutralization of various do-mains of cultural life has reached its end because technology is at hand. Technology is no longer neutral ground in the sense of the process of neutralization; every strong politics will make use of it. For this reason, the present century can only be understood provisionally as the century of technology. How ultimately it should be understood will be revealed only when it is known which type of politics is strong enough to master the new technology and which type of genuine friend-enemy groupings can develop on this new ground.

Great masses of industrialized peoples today still cling to a torpid religion of technicity because they, like all masses, seek radical results and believe subconsciously that the absolute depoliticization sought after four centuries can be found here and that universal peace begins here. Yet technology can do nothing more than intensify peace or war; it is equally available to both. In this respect, nothing changes by speaking in the name of and employing the magic formula of peace. Today we see through the fog of names and words with which the psycho-technical machinery of mass suggestion works.

Today we even recognize the secret law of this vocabulary and know that the most terrible war is pursued only in the name of peace, the most terrible oppression only in the name of freedom, the most terrible inhumanity only in the name of humanity. Finally, we also see through the mood of that generation which saw only spiritual death or a soulless mechanism in the age of technicity. We recognize the pluralism of spiritual life and know that the central domain of spiritual existence cannot be a neutral domain and that it is wrong to solve a political problem with the antithesis of organic and mechanistic, life and death. A life which has only death as its antithesis is no longer life but powerlessness and helplessness. Whoever knows no other enemy than death and recognizes in his enemy nothing more than an empty mechanism is nearer to death than life. The comfortable antithesis of the organic and the mechanistic is itself something crudely mechanistic. A grouping which sees on the one side only spirit and life and on the other only death and mechanism signifies nothing more than a renunciation of the struggle and amounts to nothing more than a romantic lament. For life struggles not with death, spirit not with spiritlessness; spirit struggles with spirit, life with life, and out of the power of an integral understanding of this arises the order of human things. Ab integro nascitur ordo."

[Anonymous No.16124758]

>>16124722
He was not a fellow-traveler, either. He wanted the Nazi and other extremist parties banned and was willing to sacrifice the Weimar Constitution to do it.
As far as your writing goes, it is opaque. To anyone familiar with the subject, it is somewhat comprehensible, but to anyone else it may as well be Greek. Do you spend a lot of time reading postmodern philosophy?

[Anonymous No.16124798]

>>16124758
I've never read schmitt and I thought his posts were easy to understand retard. schmitt was very active in supporting Hitler's state according to Wikipedia. That's the definition of a fellow-traveler.

[Anonymous No.16124907]

>>16124798
>I've never read schmitt and I thought his posts were easy to understand retard.
I don't think you got much of anything out of those posts. Read Schmitt himself and you'll see just how much of an obscurantist the guy ITT is.
>schmitt was very active in supporting Hitler's state according to Wikipedia. That's the definition of a fellow-traveler.
Take a look at his work for yourself. George Schwab's introduction and Tracy B. Strong's foreword to The Concept of the Political should help clear things up, but to put it simply, Schmitt was in favor of destroying the Nazi Party. He urged Hindenburg to eliminate both the Nazi and Communist parties in order to preserve the republic, but was ignored in favor of other forces that sought to place Hitler in power. Once Hitler was in power, the logical decision for a man of Schmitt's views was to accommodate himself to that power. If you'd like to see just how much of a fellow traveller he was, look at the introduction to his translated Writings on War.

[Anonymous No.16124959]

>>16124758
>>16124798
He started supporting the anti-constitutional Nazis as a kind of revenge against liberal Weimar. He was aware that only an illiberal state would be able to resist "militant ideology" like that contained in Nazism and Communism, and attempted to get Weimar to declare war on anti-constitutional parties. Being a liberal state, Weimar was doctrinally excluded from the possibility of labelling portions of the citizenry as Enemies (think of their human rights!), and thus it being wiped out and replaced by Nazis or Communists was inevitable. The Nazi victory was a vindication of Schmitt's ideas on this topic, so I think he decided to become a Nazi ideologue as a revenge against Weimar for not listening to his warnings.

With this I suppose proponents of a non-fascist Schmitt could argue that his Nazism was punitive rather than sincere, but his ideal state even before his conversion to Nazism would have been anti-democratic and authoritarian at a minimum. So without the Nazis he would have been some sort of reactionary or proponent of a new German Empire since he speaks favorably of the Second Reich period in Concept of the Political

[Anonymous No.16124976]

>>16124907
Lol my post >>16124959 is ripped off from there too. Major hivemind up in here.

Also from this guy >>16122590 is this concern
>Schmitt thinks the cessation of the political that is the liberal utopian vision will create a docile, pointless herd.
why Strauss called Scmitt a liberal? I didn't get Strauss' critique of Concept

[Anonymous No.16124997]

>>16124959
Can you or anyone else point to anything that he said or did that actually makes him a Nazi? Anti-Semitism doesn't count - it was universal at the time.

[Anonymous No.16125012]

>>16124976
I have yet to read Strauss's notes on The Concept of the Political, so I'm not sure. Maybe some more well-read anon can shed light on this issue.

[Anonymous No.16125040]

>>16124997
He officially joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Even if (as some argue) he did so merely to further his career he was a right-wing authoritarian that was opposed to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy. Based on today's standards he was certainly a Nazi, based on the standards of his day he was definitely close to them ideologically, even if he perhaps did not have the same extreme obsession with race.

[Anonymous No.16125045]

>>16123617
Lmao

[Anonymous No.16125056]

>>16123617
No but Anakin is.

[Anonymous No.16125064]

>>16122368
Liberalism bad because it doesn't recognize enemies. Also politics is just like religion, but minus the god stuff.

[Anonymous No.16125089]

>>16125040
>He officially joined the Nazi Party in 1933
This is meaningless. Everyone and their mother joined the Nazi Party.
>Even if (as some argue) he did so merely to further his career he was a right-wing authoritarian that was opposed to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy.
These were common positions in his time. The Nazis did not have a monopoly on them.
>Based on today's standards he was certainly a Nazi
Who are you referring to when you speak of "today's standards?" I can only think of the kind of person who thinks that milquetoast white nationalism is the same as Nazism.
>based on the standards of his day he was definitely close to them ideologically, even if he perhaps did not have the same extreme obsession with race.
But that obsession with race is at the core of Nazism. Everything else springs forth from it, and you cannot remove the racial ideology from Nazism without turning it into something completely different. If Schmitt lacked even this basic element of Nazism, what is left besides the common illiberal positions that you pointed out earlier?

[Anonymous No.16125113]

>>16123273

When one writes a detailed reply like that, the principal reason in doing so (if one has one's priorities straight) is not primarily to teach or inform the other, but to satisfy one's self of one's own command of whatever subject is under discussion. The fastest way to learn a thing, is to teach that thing, or to think of one's self as teaching it and acting accordingly. Not that guy and didn't read his posts btw

[Anonymous No.16125118]

>>16125113
>Not that guy and didn't read his posts btw

[Anonymous No.16125162]

>>16125118

I forgot to add an appropriate insult for my original addressee >>16125113, who does not appear to be you based on your sympathetic appraisal of what I'd just written, viz (this next bit is directed at him, not you):

"You might know that [teaching others is the fastest way to learn] if you'd ever gone about trying to learn anything efficiently, learning it every which-way, for yourself. But since "don't spoon-feed" is your go-to advice, this other angle seems never to have occurred to you."

[Anonymous No.16125191]

>>16124669
Dugin has most of those.

[Anonymous No.16125196]

>>16124798
Read Dictatorship, he argues for the Weimar state to destroy political extremists like the NSDAP. He only joined the party out of pure opportunism.

[Anonymous No.16125198]

>>16125162
You're right that that's not me, but I do not support gratuitous vitriol of this sort.

[Anonymous No.16125206]

>>16124997
Schmitt also never had a record of private antisemitism like Heidegger that I'm aware of.

[Anonymous No.16125211]

>>16125040
>he was a right-wing authoritarian that was opposed to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy.
Yes, he was a Conservative Revolutionary, which was a completely different school of thought than fascism.

[Anonymous No.16125285]

>>16125211
The conservative revolution was a historical condition, not a political ideology.

[Anonymous No.16125306]

>>16125113
That's partly true yep, I actually reposted it from a recent thread because I wanted to do whatever I could to help OP out without having to retype a bunch of shit or put a ton of effort into a "redpill me on this" thread.

I've skimmed the other guy's posts and he seems pretty unfriendly so I don't want to talk to him very much but I don't agree with his assessment of Schmitt and from my experience it is not at all a standard one. That Schmitt wasn't a sincere Strasserist or racialist hanging out with Himmler doesn't mean he wasn't a "Nazi." Heidegger wasn't a "Nazi" either but he was in much deeper senses thoroughly a Nazi. It might even be more truthful to say that Nazism was Schmittian and Heideggerian, or for a brief moment it could have been, and that is what interested them.

[Anonymous No.16125310]

>>16123432
Ok Timmy you want to understand Carl Schmidt?

You know how when you're at recess all the other little children in your kindergarten class are playing on the playground equipment. Some of the groups of kids might occasionally start fighting with each other about who gets to use the swing set. Normally, the teacher is around to remind the other children that hitting each other is against the rules, but what if there's an emergency and she is called away from watching you kids for a bit? Yeah Timmy the kids might start beating up on each other over the swing set! Now suppose the preschoolers come out to the playground and want to use the equipment. Maybe all of you kindergartners stop fighting each other and group up to fight the preschoolers because you're all kindergartners and they're preschoolers. The most popular guy in your class Timmy, you know who it is. He throws the first punch and everyone follows him in the great kindergardner preschooler war of the playground. The whole grown up world of politics is just like your playground Timmy. Run a long and play.

[Anonymous No.16125319]

>>16124907
>>16125211
He's clearly not in favor of liberal democracy ala Weimar. He defended the Nazis in government and wrote propaganda for them, which is hardly the bare minimum to stay out of the camps. Nobody is calling him a Nazi but he is the definition of a fellow-traveler.

[Anonymous No.16125338]

>>16125319
>definition of a fellow-traveler
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.16125339]

>>16125089
You're engaging in a weird kind of purity spiralling to split hairs over who is a real Nazi. If you want to continue down that route you would end with Rosenberg and Hitler standing alone as the only true Nazis. You correctly identify racial autism as the core of Nazism, and while Schmitt did not share their fervor on this subject, he never indicated opposition to it.
>>16125211
Conservative Revs like Junger (those who cleaved closer to Nietzsche's politics) were more explicit than Schmitt in their desire to reinstate an Aristocratic regime. They essentially criticized fascism from a position further on the right, and saw Hitler as a false authority because his movement was one of mass politics. By joining the NSDAP and being an activist for it in various legal cases in the 30s, Schmitt showed that his hopes for the party outweighed his potential Aristocratic reservations about it

[Anonymous No.16125341]

>>16125338
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.16125354]

>>16125319
Nigger you already admitted to having not read him. I've read both Dictatorship and Concept of the Political. Schmitt outright advocates for the suppression of the NSDAP in the former, he clearly favored Weimar to the Nazis.

[Anonymous No.16125369]

>>16125064
Also liberalism bad because it pretends that all political power, which is inescapable, is not autocratic in nature.

[Anonymous No.16125380]

>>16125306
Heidegger had at least a private record of antisemtism, and went above and beyond for the regime, while Schmitt did not.

[Anonymous No.16125382]

>>16125354
>he hated the Nazis so much he took an active part in justifying their laws and theorizing their system

[Anonymous No.16125392]

>>16125306
> It might even be more truthful to say that Nazism was Schmittian and Heideggerian, or for a brief moment it could have been, and that is what interested them.
What on Earth are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.16125395]

>>16125382
Yes, it's called opportunism. It's like how modern professors will say shit supporting xyz liberal social cause. Schmitt knew what he had to say to get ahead, which is why he got purged out by the SS in the first place. If Schmitt was truly a nazi in any sense beyond the casual use of the word (aka meaningless), he would have joined the party before 1933 and not argued for its suppression in Dictatorship.

[Anonymous No.16125396]

>>16125354
Not that guy but the nuance needed here is that he thought Weimar needed to become more illiberal to resist Nazism/Communism. He essentially wanted to push the constitution far to the right to resist political extremism. With the Nazi victory he "got what he wished for" in an ironic sense, and then actively supported them.

[Anonymous No.16125400]

>>16125380
He absolutely went above and beyond and after the fall of the regime he never admitted any fault for anything he did. His daughter married a Falangist and he was an active intellectual in Franco's spain. The only arguments you retards have is that 20 years before WW2 he had a different view of the subject.

>>16125395
He wasn't a nazi he was a fellow-traveler, which was certainly enough to get you on the bad side of the ss.

[Anonymous No.16125402]

>>16125339
>You're engaging in a weird kind of purity spiralling to split hairs over who is a real Nazi.
No, I'm not.
>If you want to continue down that route you would end with Rosenberg and Hitler standing alone as the only true Nazis.
No.
>You correctly identify racial autism as the core of Nazism, and while Schmitt did not share their fervor on this subject, he never indicated opposition to it.
Why would he publicly indicate his opposition to the racial theories of the regime he worked under? What conceivable purpose could that serve? And again, as has been mentioned by multiple parties in this thread, Schmitt wanted to destroy the Nazi Party and preserve the Weimar Republic. This and other facts indicates that the man was neither a Nazi nor a racialist, but simply an opportunist.

[Anonymous No.16125412]

>>16125402
>preserve the Weimar Republic
>t. doesn't understand schmitt

[Anonymous No.16125418]

>>16125382
Where does he do that? The only things I can see that point in that direction are his Grossraume theory, which shares with the theory of Lebensraum only the claim to a wider portion of Europe than Germany occupied at the time, and his nulla crimen sina lege defense at Nuremberg, which is not at all unique to him, as the dissent of Justice Radhabinod Pal at the Tokyo Trials indicates.

[Anonymous No.16125420]

>>16125354
It's one of the most studied and argued about things in studies of Schmitt that he did a 180 on the Nazis in 1932-33. The Nazi party was about a year old when Schmitt published Dictatorship and nobody cared about it though, for the record.

The arguments about why he did it and whether he was sincere are literally too complex to get into here. But he was no fan of Weimar. He spent years knocking down Weimar's legitimacy, especially after it became clear that it was incapable of promoting and projecting its own legitimacy. Schmitt himself remarks somewhere, can't remember where, that it was a common joke and running assumption among Weimar jurists that Weimar's legal existence was factitious.

Again it's too complex to open in a /lit/ thread but one of the arguments is that he was in favor of normativity per se, not Weimar per se. Note the timing of his throwing in with the Nazis and the legality of their regime. Schmitt was a citizen of the Republic of Article 48, not a citizen of cosmopolitan Berlin.

>>16125395
>he would have joined the party before 1933 and not argued for its suppression in Dictatorship.
Where in Dictatorship does he address the NSDAP? Is it a reissue? I don't remember it being in either of the reissue prefaces.

The opportunist thesis is old and thin, nobody really supports it anymore although they go too far in the simplistic opposite direction and make him into something he equally wasn't. I don't want to slug it out over the opportunism thing, I will just note that nobody really argues for it anymore. What do you think of the fact that Schmitt refused to denazify through all his post-war years?

>>16125380
Heidegger's private record of antisemitism is another one of those things that has been endlessly argued over. He was probably like many people at the time, capable of "everyday antisemitism" similar to the way an average 4chan user is racist. It's only recently that Jews stopped being a byword for greed and so on.

[Anonymous No.16125423]

>>16125418
>Where does he do that?
http://www.flechsig.biz/DJZ34_CS.pdf

[Anonymous No.16125429]

>>16125396
Yeah obviously he wasn't a fan of how Weimar presently existed, but the fact he advocated for the suppression of the Nazis by the Weimar state shows that the Nazis fell into Schmitt's 'enemy' category until 1933.

[Anonymous No.16125438]

>>16125412
Yes, everything except the weakness of the central authority would have been preserved. This would have meant the preservation of Weimar.

[Anonymous No.16125440]

>>16125420
Really the most damning indictment of the opportunist theory is that he refused denazification. If he was an opportunist he would have jumped at chance to throw them under the bus.

[Anonymous No.16125454]

>>16125400
>He absolutely went above and beyond
What? By basically doing the same thing as before and throwing in some antisemitism? If he went above and beyond, he wouldn't have gotten shitcanned by the SS.
>he never admitted any fault for anything he did.
None of the Conservative Revolutionaries did, they always saw their political project and ideas as separate from the Nazis.
> His daughter married a Falangist
That's many, many degrees of separation between him and the Nazis. First off, Schmitt isn't his daughter. Secondly, the Falange pre-war weren't the same thing as the Nazis and post-war they were just a Franco fan club.
>he was an active intellectual in Franco's spain
Franco wasn't a Nazi, it's even arguable that he was far more of a reactionary than a fascist. Also many post-war conservatives had a favorable view of Franco.

[Anonymous No.16125457]

>>16125438
>we'll preserve the government by changing it entirely!
hmmmm

[Anonymous No.16125464]

>>16125319
These arguments ignore that the same could be said of liberalism. He held a legal position in the republic which would later create NSDAP distrust. This would mean that he was a 'fellow-traveler' of liberalism.
And it is clear that you haven't read what he said of the NSDAP period, in your ignorance lowering him to the level of empty politics.

[Anonymous No.16125465]

>>16125420
>It's one of the most studied and argued about things in studies of Schmitt that he did a 180 on the Nazis in 1932-33
You mean the period during which he wrote to Hindenburg directly asking him to ban the Nazi Party?
>The opportunist thesis is old and thin, nobody really supports it anymore although they go too far in the simplistic opposite direction and make him into something he equally wasn't. I don't want to slug it out over the opportunism thing, I will just note that nobody really argues for it anymore.
You haven't done a good job of making the case for that position in this thread.
>What do you think of the fact that Schmitt refused to denazify through all his post-war years?
What is "denazify" supposed to mean in this case?
>It's only recently that Jews stopped being a byword for greed and so on.
You sound like you've never talked to a normal, average American in your life. People still use Jew as a byword for greed where no one can hear them.

[Anonymous No.16125476]

>>16125457
Ah, yes, because making the central authority strong is definitely on the level of promulgating racial laws and carrying out wars of expansion.

[Anonymous No.16125485]

>>16125465
You have a really odd mixture of not knowing the basic details, but also being very opinionated. It's like talking to someone about the English Civil War and they go "what the hell is a parliament and how is it relevant?" It's hard to know how to proceed.

>You mean the period during which he wrote to Hindenburg directly asking him to ban the Nazi Party?
Yeah, the same Hindenburg who made Hitler Chancellor? It's almost as if history is complicated.

[Anonymous No.16125491]

>>16125485
This retard has been sitting here the entire thread trying to argue that he is some kind of authoritarian liberal.

[Anonymous No.16125497]

>>16125465
>What is "denazify" supposed to mean in this case?

[Anonymous No.16125509]

>>16125420
>he did a 180 on the Nazis in 1932-33.
Oh you mean when it was super obvious they were going to come into power soon?
>The Nazi party was about a year old when Schmitt published Dictatorship and nobody cared about it though, for the record.
Sure, but it was essentially just an outgrowth of the Freikorps movement at the time, which had attempted the Kapp Putsch a year earlier. A suppression of the Freikorps was essentially a suppression of the NSDAP.
> But he was no fan of Weimar.
Obviously, and neither were any of the other Conservative Revolutionaries. However, he was still in favor of it becoming more right wing like most of the crowd he associated with it, rather than a complete reinvention of it like occurred with the 3rd Reich.

[Anonymous No.16125510]

>>16125476
He was highly critical of liberal democracy as a whole

[Anonymous No.16125517]

>>16122590
>He talks about this explicitly in the Concept of the Political essay. He says, one could imagine a global society with one "world politics" and nobody in conflict. But that would be, strictly speaking according to Schmitt's philosophical anthropology, no longer political. It would be "managerial," or "administrative," which is an interesting way in which Schmitt's outlook dovetails with the pessimism of Max Weber, the Frankfurt School, and many other thinkers like James Burnham and Paul Piccone (who ran Telos).
>The greatest fear of Schmitt and his fascist milieu was the "letzte Mensch," the last man, the utterly managed and administered
This is exactly what Qarrol Quigly stated in Tragedy and Hope.

This is Globalism.

[Anonymous No.16125521]

>>16125485
>You have a really odd mixture of not knowing the basic details, but also being very opinionated. It's like talking to someone about the English Civil War and they go "what the hell is a parliament and how is it relevant?" It's hard to know how to proceed.
No. You need to define your terms more clearly. If by "denazify," you mean that he refused to condemn everything he said and did during that period, then that proves nothing.
>Yeah, the same Hindenburg who made Hitler Chancellor? It's almost as if history is complicated.
You've only dodged the point. Schmitt wanted to see them destroyed. He did not do anything that could reasonably be conceived as evincing support for them until all his efforts had failed and they had gained power. This is the whole point. You cannot provide any evidence of support for any ideas or positions particular to the Nazi Party outside of the period in which they were in power. You have yet to make anything close to a compelling case for his behavior reflecting anything other than opportunism during that period, either.
>>16125491
I never said that.

[Anonymous No.16125533]

>>16125420
>Where in Dictatorship does he address the NSDAP? Is it a reissue? I don't remember it being in either of the reissue prefaces.
It wasn't explicitly mentioned because it was still fairly marginal, but the Nazis fit the bill of political extremism that Schmitt was arguing to be reeled in, especially given that the Beer Hall Putsch would occur only two years after the publication.
>What do you think of the fact that Schmitt refused to denazify through all his post-war years?
Junger didn't either, and he was certainly no Nazi.

[Anonymous No.16125540]

>>16125465
>What is "denazify" supposed to mean in this case?

[Anonymous No.16125544]

>be an opportunist
>kowtow to the new authoritarian regime
>go above and beyond at helping them consolidate power hoping for gibs
>they get defeated
>the guys that defeated them want you to recant the authoritarian regime that you didn't actually support
>be an opportunist
>don't do it

[Anonymous No.16125555]

>>16125544
>>16125497
>>16125540
Are you gonna make an argument, or are you going to keep samefagging? There was no reason for Carl Schmitt to condemn his own individual activities under the Nazis, any more than there was for Junger to do so.

[Anonymous No.16125573]

>>16125544
>new regime comes to power that's not diametrically opposed to your ideas
>realize you can get ahead by saying Jews bad
>party bureaucracy realizes what you're doing and puts a stop to it
>you stop saying Jews bad
>nazis lose war
>foreign government tries to force you to apologize for shit
>you choose not to like many of your pre-3rd reich friends
>go to teach in Spain because you can actually do your life's work without sucking up to the Americans or Soviets

[Anonymous No.16125581]

>>16125555
I've the anon arguing that Schmitt was only an opportunist with the Nazi party. You're still a tard for not knowing what denazification was.

[Anonymous No.16125586]

>>16125573
Now that's what I call based.

[Anonymous No.16125596]

>>16125581
I know what de-Nazification is. I was asking him to define his terms more clearly. Did Schmitt refuse to condemn his own activities? Did he refuse to renounce all support for the Nazi regime? If he had actually answered the question, I wouldn't have had to make the point that all he did was refuse to apologize for his own activities, because the other guy would've been forced to admit it.

[Anonymous No.16125603]

>>16125555
Only two of those are me. Junger refused to write propaganda for the Nazis and was very open about his unwillingness to work with them. Fuck, he wrote On Marble Cliffs while living under them. To say they contributed the same amount of their effort to helping the Nazis and had the same enthusiasm for them is factually wrong. Junger was not an opportunist in any sense of the word. You're saying the schmitt was, it's the only way to account for the things he did and it makes 0 sense for an opportunist to be so steadfast in refusal to throw the people under the bus who he supposed didn't have anything in common with.

[Anonymous No.16125621]

>>16125603
>it's the only way to account for the things he did and it makes 0 sense for an opportunist to be so steadfast in refusal to throw the people under the bus who he supposed didn't have anything in common with.
The only things he refused to do were,
1. Submit to the authority of the Allied occupation, which is what going through the de-Nazification process would have required.
2. Apologize for his own activities under the Third Reich.
Neither of these things make him at all a Nazi.

[Anonymous No.16125635]

>>16125621
>Neither of these things make him at all a Nazi.
Go back and read the entire thread you stupid nigger I'm done talking to you. You have no idea what we're even arguing about and I've said it at least 3 or 4 times. Talk to yourself it would be just as constructive.

[Anonymous No.16125645]

>>16125635
Keep crying.

[Anonymous No.16125652]

>>16125635
>ad-hominems
Look at this Small Crying Cretin.

[Anonymous No.16125660]

>>16125635
Based ragequitter

[Anonymous No.16125666]

>>16122368
Moldbug minus gay marriage

[Anonymous No.16125673]

>>16125666
More like Moldbug is a Schmitt rip off arguing for more power to Silicon Valley.

[Anonymous No.16125679]

>itt: one retard argues that schmitt wasn't a nazi against the whole thread who also thinks schmitt wasn't a nazi

[Anonymous No.16125684]

>>16125679
>Returning to samefag
Bro I thought you quit

[Anonymous No.16125686]

>>16125673
as I said, Moldbug minus gay marriage

[Anonymous No.16125707]

>>16125684
bruh I wish I had 5 different ips that could post on this site lmao

[Anonymous No.16125783]

>>16125465
>The removal procedure established under this directive was founded under a system of "vetting" or screening by Military government. All persons used by our Occupation Forces in public or quasi-public office were required to fill out a detailed six-page personnel questionnaire called the Fragebogen, containing questions intended to make the individual reveal his personal history, employment record, experience, military service, membership, and role in all types of organizations, and especially the Nazi Party and its affiliates, writings and speeches since 1923 when Hitlerism was being organized, income and assets since the Party first achieved power, travel and residence abroad, and the like.
>When the Fragebogen was completed the applicant signed and certified that the answers were true and that he understood that he would be prosecuted in an American Military Government Court for falsification. It then was evaluated, and answers were checked against all available intelligence, German police, civil service, Nazi Party, and other records and documents. Military Government prosecuted cases of falsification, and offenders were sentenced from two to five years or more imprisonment by Military Government Courts. Such action was published in order to deter others from falsification.
>Over 1,613,000 Germans - or one out of every 10 persons in the American zone - were processed under this procedure by June 1, 1946, when a new procedure was adopted as described below. This in itself was a tremendous undertaking, achieved during a period of rapid redeployment of our troops. It entailed not only the perfunctory completing of the questionnaires and its evaluation, but also as complete a check, field investigation, and personal interview as possible. Of the cases examined, 373,762, or roughly 23 percent, resulted in removal or exclusion from office, the remaining 77 percent being cleared by this procedure.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2193091?seq=1
Pages 9 and 10.

[Anonymous No.16125823]

i'm on the verge of falling asleep so i might be a little impaired but even if i wasn't i wouldn't understand a quarter of most of these posts. so what the fuck was this guy about? what i got was liberalism bad for all the reasons we mostly already are aware about, then what? what does he advocate for? what type of system does he want?

[Anonymous No.16125936]

>>16122582
>>16124735
This is interesting, and I appreciate the effortpost. However, I'd like to correct a few things and then present my own account.

First, the idea that the friend-enemy distinction amounts to an opposition of powers. This is perhaps the most common misunderstanding of the friend-enemy distinction, and it highlights Schmitt's idea of the laws of time which limit the possibility of a wide readership - or at least a readership capable of tackling the depth of his legal questioning. Rather than a political position Schmitt's questions should be understood as beginning from no place. This is similar to Plato's questioning which begins on a path between city-states - Schmitt's, questions rise from the perspective of an occupied nation - one in which the possibility of the death of Europe itself looms on the horizon. From this viewpoint any debate over political ideology appears mundane, and, as it should be, fruitless.

Then there is the materialist language. What is interesting in Schmitt's writing, much like Plato's dialogues, is the ability to apply technical language to that which is greater, to eternal laws. Writings of the fascists and communists are rarely capable of this, perhaps even far less than those of the liberals - to confuse them is to limit the extent of his legal philosophy. In the extreme, we see a character like Nietzsche who, despite the violence of his language, can only oppose modernity at the surface level, becoming further ensnared the harder he struggles. 'One cannot write against that which proscribes.' The argument that Nietzsche was responsible for the catastrophe of National Socialism may be seen from its other pole: he was the spiritual father of their weakness and fruitless sacrifice. Incapable of even seeing the scales of justice, the blindness of self-destroying power.

This becomes clear where Schmitt begins his dialogue, he speaks as Socrates does, from total weakness: "I have no power. I belong to the powerless." Here the struggle against death takes on another meaning, the opposition to that which only proscribes death necessitates that one must become death. There can be no other possibility if we are against those who are the holders of power. And 'those more informed than Nietzsche' remind us that he who speaks of God wishes to deceive. Death is the final dominion of God, and only through its acceptance may we proscribe the deception of that which is merely life-affirming.

[Anonymous No.16125939]

>>16125936
2
'Law is the sovereign hand that guides mortals and immortals through the utmost violence.' Pindar reminds us of the power of Chaos as it levels everything into the void of life. To be 'deathless' holds two meanings: for man it is a curse, one which is only deepened for the heroes, and for the gods it is their very realm of legislation. In the scales of Themis we see that the gods continue to legislate even in death. This power is greater in the titans and they continue to wield it in the age of the gods. The scales of Themis weight all things: power in warfare, the fate of nations, even the will of the gods and the return of ages.

All legal questioning follows the counsel of justice, and even laws may be destroyed or proscribed. Such a position demands a greater weight than politics or even philosophy. For Plato, the war of the human against himself and the defeat of the city's justice; and for Schmitt the defeat of European law before which time itself is threatened.

After the death of Pan the whole of Europe is threatened with a law of timelessness - this is the other figure, godless, that presides over the forced conversion of Europe. The "neutral domain" that forms at the heart of Europe, beginning a whole other war against itself, must be understood in terms of the greatest laws of time, that which sweeps away the gods as if they were mere mortals. The founding conflict of the state of nature against the monstrous sovereignty of civilisation rises as a new boundary of Europe - a transitional state against dominion, the society of nations. The threat of nature returns as something completely unknown, a horrific power which shakes the very foundations of faith in Christianity. At the opposite pole, Christianity brings about its own ruin in the completion of a defeat of nature, in the warring of individual, city, and state against all laws of justice. All is brought to defeat through the rule of non-contradiction, and the endless neutralizing force creates a new figure of man equal to the laws of this transitional dominion. Equal to Plato's laws of justice this new man is formed, firstly, through a blind law of destruction, then as a void force set against all autochtonous formatons; combined with power a return of elemental forces, and finally power itself. The Leviathan levels the territory of these laws in a state of destruction - the monsters the absolute power of that which lies outside of dominion.

[Anonymous No.16125941]

>>16125939
3
This transitional figure is equal to the forming of man from new elements as a new age rises, and the neutral territory equal to that great law of the pomerium where the boundaries of a city are set as an autochthonous formation of eternal laws. The fate of a city is its divine judgement and the pomerium the human law balancing its weight. This is what Plato's Athenian asks of Clinias and Megillus, What are the ruling laws in the permanent state of war? Schmitt's question is fundamentally the same, however, it applies to the pomerium of an entire continent, and one in which all greater laws appear to have been defeated. The Leviathan is the myth of the stateless, before which all cities and laws have been brought to defeat - the goddess Tyche on the level of an entire continent and forming world. Even nations are nothing before this impossible force, swept away like soldiers before a tidal wave.

https://youtu.be/Il3FJMf4mSE

[Anonymous No.16126086]

>>16125823
This >>16125936
is the answer. Although you'll likely counter the same problem because the complexities of legal matters are difficult to communicate in simple terms.

This is the short version, reading the first chapter of Plato's Laws will give you a fairly simple series of questions that amount to 'What are the laws formed in a state of total war?' This situation is much like a number of city states in a permanent state of civil war, one in which laws are upheld by greater forces (the gods) and keep forming these states anew.
Schmitt's questions are very similar, only applied to the European Continent and the chasm of the New World (which should be understood as form rather than literally, as if Europe and North America are united in this forming New World). You will have to have some understanding of the endless state of war that resulted in the great peace treaties (Peace of Westphalia essentially being the founding legal agreement of the transitional states), in law this human measure was balanced on one scale against that of the divine on the other (both the Great European Civil War and the founding of North America). This is why I use the image of the pomerium, a legal territory to which all forces are mobilised and to which the whole of the West establishes territorial boundaries which are 'representative' of the new laws.

In a single image I suppose that we could relate it to the Judgment of Solomon. Europe forms one of the prostitutes while the individual nation that comes into opposition with the whole is the other. As the nation is threatened it is as if its child has been killed, and so steals the child of the totality of Europe. The judgement in relation to European law is that great threat of cutting the child in half, to which Europe itself offers to give up the child, which is then spared.
This is a rough understanding of the law of totality, justice necessitates that all nations be able to rise up in order to defend divine territory just as one should be able to come to prominence without threatening the others - the formation of power instead strengthening the whole. This situation is opposed to that of just war, which through its technical administration of peace creates a condition of permanent low-scale warfare, or what might be understood as a war of invisible forces.

All technical organisation of the modern era should be understood as a process of this law, and Schmitt's thinking attempts to answer this greater question.

[Anonymous No.16126097]

>>16126086
>*likely encounter the same problem

[Anonymous No.16126636]

>>16126086
Your solomon analogy is trite and poor. This post and your other ones smack of a superficiality of ecumenical legal thought transposed onto Schmitt's concepts. You should consider not ever reading or commenting on politics or legal issues again because you have corrupted your brain beyond recourse.

[Anonymous No.16127049]

>>16122582
Why is the high brow dissident right (Spencer etc) so obsessed with Schmitt? And how does their interpretation of Schmitt differ from the neoconservative interpretation of Schmitt?

[Anonymous No.16127065]

>>16122368
Doggy-dog world kid, big dogs gotta eat, and big dogs get to eat other dogs.

[Anonymous No.16127086]

>>16122375
You're an actual moron if you trust wikipedia

[Anonymous No.16127142]

>>16126636
Nice try, anon.
You realise that the entire point is to explain Schmitt's thinking, right? So why would the arguments not be transposed onto Schmitt's thinking? Your post is obviously due to a political opposition.
Otherwise, please post your own interpretation and what exactly in mine makes it both incorrect and superficial. And since you referred to it as "ecumenical" I can guarantee you didn't understand what I said, perhaps you didn't even read t.

[Anonymous No.16127275]

>>16122368
Well, he believes that the state is the highest form of social organization, and that it should be used as such. In other words, he thinks that government is good. But then again, what else could it be? It is the institution which makes society possible. If it were not for government, there would be no law, no order, no justice; everything would be chaos. Government is therefore the most important thing in this world. Without it, nothing is possible. In fact, the whole world exists only in order to serve the will of the state. But there is another concept which exists in this world, a conflict-ridden thing which represents a massive break from the true nature of things. This is man. Man exists outside of the order of the state. Man is chaotic, uncertain and weak. Man is mortal, and must submit to the eternal laws of the state. And yet, in this world of conflict, there is no justification for man's existence other than man himself. The will of man is good, and should be served regardless of the cost. That is why man must be free. Only then can he serve the state, and the state alone.

[Anonymous No.16127729]

>>16127142
Schmitt was a devout catholic and his rejection of antinomianism makes him an insincere one, which relates directly to his legal justifications of ruling (via jurisprudence). If you have not read sufficiently on catholic doctrine, Roman and medieval jurisprudence, and Weber's sociological concepts of society then you are reading him like a dilettante poseur. That is why your shoe horning of Solomon outs you as being a psued but also is sufficient proof that your inclination for truth is retarded by your incapacity for its discovery.

[Anonymous No.16127783]

>>16127729
Not the guy you're replying to, but are you the homo who ragequit earlier in this thread? I just wanted to let you know that you're hella gay and should shut the fuck up.

[Anonymous No.16127834]

>>16127783
I am not him. So cool reply dumb cunt

[Anonymous No.16127868]

>>16127834
Alright sorry, mate. You're still hella gay for insulting that guy instead of just telling him to keep quiet for a while and keep reading.

[Anonymous No.16127885]

>>16127868
This is 4channel not tumblr. If you act like a pretentious twat you ought to be called one

[Anonymous No.16127908]

>>16127885
What makes you think that doesn't apply to you?

[Anonymous No.16128037]

>>16127908
When did i say it did?

[Anonymous No.16128135]

>>16125936
>>16125939
>>16125941
>>16126086
So, does Schmitt ACTUALLY call on Plato and Neoplatonism this much, or is this just one of /lit/'s resident autists just reading what he wants into Schmitt?

[Anonymous No.16128143]

>>16128135
No.

[Anonymous No.16128275]

>>16125211
based photo

[Anonymous No.16128407]

>>16125310
nice
all books should be written in this way

[Anonymous No.16128580]

>>16127729
>I disagree with you therefore you don't read
Now I see, anon. This is definitely a superior understanding of justice.
>your inclination for truth is retarded by your incapacity for its discovery.
Imagine writing a sentence like this ad calling anyone else a pseud.

The idea that Schmitt was a devout Catholic is ridiculous given that he was exiled from the Church. You are simply attempting to transpose your own dogmatic reading onto his thought - which you have not yet provided any account of to prove that you understand even the basics.
As an argument of form this is even more significant, Schmitt described his very essence as that of a Christian Epimetheus. What this means is that he was at least as influenced by Greek mythology, which, from a Christian perspective, would make him a heretic.
Clearly you have not read Plato.

Further, your insistence that Schmitt can only be understood through a dogmatic transposition of Christian doctrine means that, at best, his legal philosophy would be understood through half of his being. Essentially, and ironically, cutting the baby in half. This is why the 'trite' and simple is often necessary, something we must return to. What you have demonstrated is a total misunderstanding of this 'most trite' image of justice. Very strange given your insistence on reading all things through the Christian image. Why proscribe Christianity's greatest myth of justice if you are so devout?

This also demonstrates your inability to read. The question that we are attempting to answer is, 'What is the essence of Schmitt's thinking, and how can it be explained in a way that a child would understand?' A cliche or trite image is, in this case, precisely what we must aim for. It is, unfortunately for those who insist on only the highest, simply how things must be explained to children and the uninitiated.

While this does not mean that I succeeded with the image, it remains the correct method to teach such things. A simple image communicates through the senses that which exists beyond our current understanding and the shortcomings of language. It is the question of one who is lost, knowing what direction to take is not the whole of the answer but it is the first step that must be taken to ensure that he does not become even more lost.

[Anonymous No.16128591]

>>16128580
2
My questions were chosen with this purpose in mind, it is necessary to first understand the context of the knowledge one pursues - otherwise its higher value is lost. This is particularly true of thinkers like Schmitt or Plato, there is great potential for knowledge, but the paradox of the highest values is that they also come with the potential for great ruin. Essentially, set within its historical context, Schmitt's thinking is of the ruins of Europe and Germany, to misread him is to hand him over to his enemies, or simply abandon him to memory. Historical questions must be approached as in burial rites, and where there is greater force in these questions it is as if we are compelled to follow the tragic or heroic myths.

On the other hand, there are greater numbers of those who wish to deny both Polynices and Antigone. This is essentially what the left is doing with Schmitt's legacy, and rather than the right going down the same path it would be better if he were simply left alone, not to be forgotten but to be taken up by someone else in the future as if stumbling upon the unburied and scattered corpse. It is the unfinished works which are often the most compelling, the great mistake of Christianity as well as humanism is the moralistic compulsion to complete, to resolve all contradictions - that which by its very nature is irresolvable.

This, at least partially, explains the chasm between our understanding of justice. You, as a Christian, insist that the greatest values have been captured by Christian doctrine. I, following Pindar, suggest that even the immortals are subject to the workings of justice. Religion is itself historical, and the result of the totalisation of God into a doctrine, into an absolute idol, is that at its death God also dies. There is no possibility of return to the laws of the Katechon once its dominion falls, and with it all eschatology is historicised. The modern period is not the death of God, nor of Christianity, it is an apprehending of the laws of dominion which Christianity merely revealed. The Christian God died in the same moment as Pan, and the entire history of faith is an attempt to reconcile with God's defeat before this law. Here we see the greatness of a simple man like Plato over a historicized God. No Christian has as yet read Plato - such a reading is impossible as it would necessitate renunciation and heresy. In Schmitt we see this renunciation unfolding along with that of his fate.

If the Greek myths die then it is only they that die, the gods are already reconciled with being handed over to justice - this is the potential force of their return. Eternal return opposed to eternal rebirth, a reading which once again sets Schmitt against Nietzsche and, much like Holderlin, grounds Christianity within a force of law which only retains its value if formed of the greater values of the myths.

[Anonymous No.16128598]

>>16128591
3
Once again, we see the scales of justice appear ever present. The history of the modern period is simultaneously the weighing of the mundane laws of the revolutionary state against the catastrophe of its origins in a divine territory. Then there is a second scale, one upon which the very laws of theology and myth are weighted against the mundane, the natural, and nihilistic. What seems impossible for us is that both the Christian and mundane world are destroyed at once. How could both be lost? One must be true! But beyond the vengeance set against the founding of the New World, of the finalisation of a history equal to the loss of the Katechon, there is the catastrophic return of time against the very law of non-contradiction. It is this greater law which orders a legal territory in which the inescapable, an eternal defeat, appears as the only triumph. This is why we see a landscape of technical neutralisation, of what appears to be a deathless setting upon of law against law, of endless trials within trials. One can never see the completion of an order until its final moments, or until well after its death. What presents itself now is an end to all laws of war and defeat, the utmost violence which guides both mortals and immortals. The end of all law is also our greatest hope, it is neither a state of exception on the territory of politics or theology, but within the very dominion which apprehends us in the myths.

This is not a direct reading of Schmitt, it may not even be a good reading in terms of a pedagogy of the highest or lowest. But it is the correct reading, and it is the best reading possible because it does for Schmitt what he did for Tocqueville.

[Anonymous No.16128737]

>>16128135
The point is not that Schmitt was calling on Plato and Neoplatonism, obviously that was not his style as he was a legal scholar and jurist of the 20th century. Rather, the point is to set Schmitt's questioning upon a similar territory as Plato because he asked the original questions of law amidst total war. They are, in their essence, the same questions, Plato's simply being much easier and serve as a good introduction.
There are a few reasons to do this. The first should be obvious, although everyone seems to have missed it. We are trying to answer complex legal questions and relay them to a beginner. What better way to begin than asking the simple questions? And Plato was the master of this, so following his lead is a great introduction for a beginner.
Secondly, we should remember that Schmitt had a professional legal education, which certainly included Plato, that almost all of his readers lack. Plato's laws serve as the best introduction for the uninitiated. And thirdly, Schmitt's concern was not that of law itself, its technical administration as it dominates in the modern era, but that of justice. This puts him firmly within the same philosophical territory as Plato. This also adds to the problem of a required introduction, because aside from not having a basic legal education the majority of readers have no understanding of the conflict between justice and law - the domination of law over justice is assumed.

Beyond this, he wrote Socratic dialogues, and his greatest work is what amounts to a Socratic questioning of his own defeat before the laws of fate.

[Anonymous No.16128758]

>>Schmitt was a Nazi
>Heidegger’s claim “Carl Schmitt thinks as a Liberal”
OH NO NO NO NO

[Anonymous No.16128765]

>>16128737
>*not that Schmitt was directly calling on Plato

[Anonymous No.16128974]

>>16127868
>>16127834
>>16127729
>>16126636
>CHICKENYALE!
The absolute state of right-wing discourse.

[Anonymous No.16129203]

>>16128580
>>16128591
>>16128598
>>16128737
The Chad Platonist vs The Virgin Moldbugman

[Anonymous No.16129325]

>>16125310
I hope you're still here because Timmy's got a question. Is it correct that the teacher in your example is like the league of nation / the UN? So if only the teacher was always around, there'd be no conflict right? If only there was a strong enough UN, conflicts could be ended quickly? It's not like the members of the UN read Schmitt and then said "Oh well, that German philosopher made such convincing arguments, conflicts will always happen, let's abolish the UN"

[Anonymous No.16129495]

>>16125310
>>16129325
The Feed-Seed distinction.
https://youtu.be/jpVagGj6ct0

[Anonymous No.16129511]

>>16126636
Why be so hostile if the guy is working out his ideas? This is 4chan, tell him where he's wrong and be as devastating as you want about it but no need to be a dick

[Anonymous No.16129626]

https://youtu.be/AjCGpBUCOOM

[Anonymous No.16130728]

>>16129495
i just realized the only brown kid in this is portugal kek

[Anonymous No.16130776]

>>16127049
Because Schmitt is one of the most important of far right political theorists

[Anonymous No.16131039]

>>16129511
He's a tradcath twitterfag. Just slinging shit because of political and religious differences.