Concept of the Political and Strauss

[Anonymous No.20523068]

In the University of Chicago Press publication of Concept of the Political, notes on the work by Leo Strauss are included. To Strauss, Schmitt fails to mount a convincing critique of liberalism because he stays within its "horizon." While this does seem to be a valid point to some extent, Strauss is famous for his working solution: a return to revelation as valid (primary) epistemological foundation. Maybe this does transcend the liberal framework but it seems about as realistic as the prospect of the invention of a time machine to take us back to the time Strauss seems to pine for.

Plainly, what Strauss advocates for is impossible without reverting to the shadowy mysticism or deceptive social engineering his detractors accuse him of; religious belief or faith (which, make no mistake, is what it amounts to) in the validity or correctness of revelation is not something that can be faked or half-assed, nor has it ever been. That's his own theological-political quandary, or whatever he calls it. No amount of studying of the ancients will resolve this because no ancients placed as high a value on the "scientific" validity or consistency that we do.

But what does Strauss mean by Schmitt failing to get past the "liberal horizon"? To me that seems besides the point entirely of Schmitt's analysis; he merely points out inconsistencies or contradictions inherent in the dominant tradition of the era, to me the same way Marx points out contradictions of capitalism (though without the weight Marx places on them).

[Anonymous No.20523081]

>>20523068
Don't trust Strausserian critiques of Schmitt. Their aim is always foremost to get people interested in Schmitt to instead be directed to Strauss, rather than a genuine search for truth.

[Anonymous No.20523146]

Why two threads?
I remember every time jungerposter brought up Schmitt someone tried to redirect it to Strauss

[Anonymous No.20523180]

>>20523081
>>20523146
That's what I don't understand; why do people find Strauss's critique convincing? Schmitt was very compelling for me, not just in his analysis of liberalism but of his conception of the political as well. Reading up on SEP gives me the impression he's much more systematic and well thought out than people give him credit for.

[Anonymous No.20523201]

It's not really a critique of Schmitt but a clarification of Schmitt's position where is to me is that Schmitt is clarifying the true essence of liberal pluralistic governance instead of accurately critiquing it.

[Anonymous No.20523229]

Well what does Schmitt say exactly? He says that liberalism's process, manifested as managerialism and bourgeois democratic deliberation cannot legislate or debate away the political.

And what is the political? The political is the incommensurability of beliefs. Liberals believe it is possible to create a society where people can believe different, mutually exclusive things without the specter of bloodshed and war, and the reason why this is impossible is because to believe in something, is to believe in a kind of State or polity. The most important thing about a communist is that he doesn't want a monarchy or a bourgeois democracy, so everyone who does is his enemy. It's not that they simply disagree with eachother and just need to sit down and have a little chat to iron things out; their beliefs are completely incompatible, and the only way such a incompatibility can be resolved is through violence.

This of course doesn't mean that communists, nazis or monarchists always have to fight in the street or kill each other. But liberalism cannot solve this fundamental existential antagonism.

[Anonymous No.20523291]

bump

[Anonymous No.20523575]

>>20523229
Nonsense

[Anonymous No.20523653]

>>20523575
Great argument retard, you really showed me.

[Anonymous No.20523675]

>>20523068
Strauss is a retard who clearly didn't understand the logical conclusion to the friend-enemy distinction.

[Anonymous No.20523680]

>>20523675
What's that?

[Anonymous No.20523702]

>>20523680
A Hobbesian sovereign with the final word on everything.

[Anonymous No.20523712]

>>20523702
What's Hobbes argument against a united assembly which can unanimously make a decision compared to a monarch?

[Anonymous No.20523730]

>>20523712
They'll never agree, and if they ever did unanimously agree, they are superflous to an absolute sovereign.

[Anonymous No.20523744]

>>20523730
Rome is a historical counterexample though
>they are superflous to an absolute sovereign.
Not necessarily. There are given situations where a sovereign's sole decision would be ruin, and others where an aristocratic assembly would for the most part have the best decision in mind. I don't think there is a deductive solution to this problem except that an unconditioned authority is necessary.

[Anonymous No.20523754]

>>20523744
>There are given situations where a sovereign's sole decision would be ruin

Ruin for whom?

[Anonymous No.20523758]

>>20523754
The state. Even the monarch himself if he is incompetent enough.

[Anonymous No.20523788]

>>20523758
But even in Rome they had the role of the dictator because they knew that a deliberative body would be too bogged down with compromise and argument, and in a crisis situation you can't get bogged down unless you want to lose.

[Anonymous No.20523814]

>>20523180
>That's what I don't understand; why do people find Strauss's critique convincing?
Because they’re both right. Schmitt utterly annihilates the dream of cosmopolitan Western democracy, but in its stead, he offers nothing but another nihilism. Strauss and his ilk *aren’t* fans of revelation, as it conflicts with the hedonistic philosophical lifestyle. But if it were a valid epistemology, then it would be able to check all the boxes that one motivated by “the good” would want from political philosophy. In other words, Schmitt should have been an integralist.

[Anonymous No.20523821]

>>20523675
The friend-enemy distinction as a meaningful definition of justice was debunked by Socrates in his debate with Polemarchus in Book I of The Republic.

[Anonymous No.20523830]

>>20523788
The dictator was a temporary role which was extremely useful at times. I'm not suggesting a single ruler can't be highly efficacious. Just that its value is contingent, and the risk can be greater when not mediated (democracy can be thought of as the ultimate risk-averse strategy in certain situations). My line of thought is closer to de Maistre's which is that the real source of sovereignty is history, especially a deep and strongly rooted one, which, as it did in Rome, establishes the theology (I think this is what Schmitt calls "theology"? I have not read him) of the state, which is where the unconditioned decision making authority lies. In Rome it was generally mixed between the tribunes, senators and consuls. Cicero has already made his own intellectual justification of this system which you might have read. It's not a powerful justification but it rests on the basis that it incorporates the possibility of each type being more useful at certain times in its own sphere for the stability of the state. Cicero is at least on record for stating that the monarch is the best type of rule if you had to pick one.

[Anonymous No.20523846]

>>20523821
Except the friend-enemy distinction is Schmitt's definition of what politics actually is, it has nothing to do with values in that sense. It's meant to be a definition of politics in the same way a definition of morality is the difference between good and evil or good and bad. It doesn't say that you are the good guy and your enemy is the bad guy, it only says that in whatever way people act in politics it is always to reward their friends and destroy their enemies.

[Anonymous No.20523868]

>>20523830
Nothing you say here is wrong, but absolute monarchy is precisely what Schmitt's thought implies, at least to me. His combination of traditionalist Catholicism with a Hobbesian view of human nature will inevitably lead to a society in which you have an absolutist sovereign whose only real objective is to crush the given society's enemy.

[Anonymous No.20523943]

>>20523846
It’s more than about values but rather the end of politics. Justice is the end of politics, is it not? And political problems ultimately boil down to competing definitions of justice. Polemarchus attempted to define justice as rewarding your friends and destroying your enemies, only to fail under Socrates’ assault because it ignores virtue completely. Why should your friends succeed and your enemies fail? Can you provide an airtight account for that? Schmitt doesn’t promise anything except more conflict for the sake of conflict and not anything greater.

[Anonymous No.20524005]

>>20523943
>because it ignores virtue completely

No it doesn't. Schmitt says quite clearly multiple times that a communist believes in what he believes because he thinks it is good and just, but everyone who is not a communist is his enemy that he must kill or render powerless in order to get the society he wants.

>Why should your friends succeed and your enemies fail? Can you provide an airtight account for that?

You're confusing an is for an ought. People's beliefs by definition create their enemies, and people can't *not* have beliefs, therefore having enemies is inevitable and this is why the friend-enemy distinction is the definition of politics.

[Anonymous No.20524054]

>>20524005
You keep missing the point. You try to define politics, and I already agree with the definition and the critique. But what is the aim of politics? What is the ultimate arbiter of truth, righteousness, and justice? Schmitt has no answer to this. All he can offer is a robust phenomenology of politics, a promise of an eternal recurrence of bloodshed.
>You're confusing an is for an ought.
By what, being a demanding critic? Schmitt is easily as guilty as Strauss for pushing a hidden agenda, but at least Strauss nominally tries to return the conversation to what politics should be about—justice. And if there’s nothing more to politics than arbitrary conflicts between groups with stochastically-defined beliefs, then he’s a nihilist for a cause that won’t even be relevant in the future. Politics may return in full force when the global liberal hegemony collapses, but it will be between factions that Schmitt himself couldn’t recognize, would find himself alienated from, and even disgusted by.

[Anonymous No.20524079]

>>20523943
>Why should your friends succeed and your enemies fail?
Schmitt's point is that you don't need to, it's basically an axiomatic grounding that your friends should succeed and enemies not. If memory serves me correctly though this wasn't even Socrates's point, it was more subtle than that as per usual (although as per usual people also tend not to really grasp Plato).

[Anonymous No.20524088]

>>20524054
>But what is the aim of politics? What is the ultimate arbiter of truth, righteousness, and justice?

But that's what you don't seem to get. You're stuck in a completely universalist mode where you actually think there are values that are so true and correct just by the virtue of being able to think them up and argue them that they can dispense with the friend-enemy distinction and that's precisely the kind of worldview that Schmitt criticizes liberals for having.

There's no Socratic dialogue you can quote to a committed Nazi that will make him not be a Nazi.

[Anonymous No.20524115]

>>20524079
>Schmitt's point is that you don't need to, it's basically an axiomatic grounding that your friends should succeed and enemies not.
Anything can be an axiomatic grounding—it doesn’t make it right. All Schmitt offered was insight into the human condition by pointing out the essence of politics. He did nothing to go beyond that and determine the axiological ends of politics.
>If memory serves me correctly though this wasn't even Socrates's point,
It takes two minutes to download a copy of Plato’s Republic from libgen, less than five minutes to briefly skim the relevant passage in Book I to jog your memory, and maybe five to fifteen minutes to offer a cogent rebuttal. Was that too much for you? Or did you hope to bluff about some “misreading” because you don’t have an argument?
>it was more subtle than that as per usual (although as per usual people also tend not to really grasp Plato).
If your friends aren’t virtuous and your enemies are virtuous, then what exactly is just about your conflict? Nothing. It’s a mere petty tribal squabbling, a sense waste of life, like the ongoing Ukrainian resistance to Russia “to save their nation” (while embracing the Western bacchanal that will almost certainly lead them to ruin by promoting the same patterns of demographic collapse that we see elsewhere in the West). Ukraine would probably have been better off joining the Russian bloc in the long-term. Even Belarus is better off than Ukraine by every conceivable measure. So, what was the point of Ukrainian ultranationalism? If you don’t think about these questions clearly, then you’ll end up as a golem for globohomo.

[Anonymous No.20524127]

>>20524088
Then I think this is where I disagree with you and Schmitt. I agree with hid phenomenological assessment of politics and how he points out liberal hypocrisy, futility, etc., in their worldview. But I disagree with liberalism because it’s an objectively repulsive way of life, not because I want to take the opportunity to engage with liberalism in the pit of nihilism by any means I desire.
>dispense with the friend-enemy distinction
I don’t want to dispense with any distinctions. They are inevitable. I want to fight for causes that are righteous in of themselves. I fight to attain a life-affirming peace. There are no other choiceworthy ends.

[Anonymous No.20524134]

>>20524127
>righteous in and of themselves.

There are no such things. There are only your causes. There are no causes that everyone believes are right, if there was, Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction would be refuted.

[Anonymous No.20524143]

>>20524134
>There are no such things.
Proof?
>There are no causes that everyone believes are right
Disagreement doesn’t make for a refutation. There are many reasons why people reject what is right—ignorance, self-interest, vice, you name it. That’s the human condition.

[Anonymous No.20524168]

>>20524143
>There are many reasons why people reject what is right—ignorance, self-interest, vice, you name it.

Which is, again, your universalist prejudice speaking. You really sound like you're religious, but so was Schmitt. In fact, his entire legal philosophy can be seen as a logical conclusion to believing in the Fall of Man.

[Anonymous No.20524177]

>>20524168
You keep refusing to engage the moral dimension by dismissing all moral claims as mere prejudices. It’s getting old, and unironically makes you sound like a typical progressive who refuses to judge anything except intolerance. I know you have no argument here. I’m just disappointed because I thought there was more “there” there.
>In fact, his entire legal philosophy can be seen as a logical conclusion to believing in the Fall of Man.
So he believed in his own damnation? I wonder if Schmitt is burning in hell.

[Anonymous No.20524181]

>>20524177
>You keep refusing to engage the moral dimension by dismissing all moral claims as mere prejudices

Yes, newsflash, morality is just an opinion, even if you personality think that your desert religion's rules are universal.

[Anonymous No.20524187]

>>20524181
>morality is just an opinion
That’s just your opinion. Unfortunately for you, I’ve received a glimpse of the eternal realm of the forms, and it laughs at your nihilism.

[Anonymous No.20524195]

>>20524187
Very irrelevant in the context of this discussion, but enjoy yourself I guess.

[Anonymous No.20524204]

>>20524195
You should just allow yourself to be brainwashed into joining the progressive movement if you believe morality is just an opinion. Opinions are a matter of circumstance. Why hold opinions that will cause you needless misery? You will live a happier life.

[Anonymous No.20524216]

>>20524204
It's pretty funny that you have completely failed at understanding Carl Schmitt's thought after an hour of talking about it, when you can't help yourself explaining why the progressive movement are your political enemies.

[Anonymous No.20524233]

>>20524216
No, seriously, why shouldn’t you just give in to spirit of the times? Morality is just an opinion, is it not? Resistance is pointless in the grand scheme of things. Beliefs aren’t set in stone. Let your mind be changed, and you’ll be happier.

[Anonymous No.20524242]

>>20524233
Why are you so fucking mad? I have never claimed to not have any beliefs, I've simply been trying to accurately describe Schmitt's thought to you.

[Anonymous No.20524259]

>>20524242
Mad? I’m just asking questions. I’m curious to why you hold the beliefs that you hold. It’s getting harder and harder to resist the times. I only do it because it’s the right thing to do, and I would be ashamed of doing anything less. I’m surprised you don’t embrace your politics with the same kind of grounding. If morality is just a clash of opinions, then why put yourself through the trouble?
> I have never claimed to not have any beliefs
I never claimed that you had no beliefs. To be fair, I assumed you were vaguely sympathetic to third positionism, the Nouvelle Droit, the dissident right, etc. I could be wrong, though. Maybe you just like reading philosophy because it’s fun and you’re just a run-of-the-mill apolitical centrist or something. In that case, your frustration is understandable.

[Anonymous No.20524271]

>>20524259
>If morality is just a clash of opinions

In the context of this discussion, it was meant as a meta-view. It's just a fact that if a Christian and a Muslim sit in a room and talk, they are going to have 2 different opinions on morality, but both of them will think that their own morality is from God and therefore universal and should apply everywhere.

But, it is an opinion. It can be a well-argued opinion, and it can be an opinion that is defended by a tremendous amount of physical force through armies and governments, but it's still just an opinion.

[Anonymous No.20524381]

>>20524271
Whether it is an opinion or not is still just your opinion. You still haven't sufficiently whether or not these opinions can have any force of truth behind them.

And again, I'm pretty sure you're a dissident right-wing thinker who views the current world with disgust, right? You're highly motivated. You've probably been on /lit/ for years, writing expressive and erudite effortposts that inspired people like me to read more deeply into the great thinkers, in the hopes of coming up with worthwhile angles to attack the modern world's rotten edifice. Surely you think there's a point to all of this that's greater than your own biases, right? Otherwise, why do it?

If you can't come up with one, if it's all just a meaningless clash of arbitrary opinions, then you're no better than Strauss, who philosophizes because it's enjoyable, or a "support the current thing" NPC, who vehemently believes what he believes because he was conditioned into doing so. It's getting harder to resist the political order by the day. Why do it unless there's something worthwhile to cling to, beyond the fray? You can just submit. It's easier.

Obviously, I'm not telling you because I think you should submit. I'm pressing you to rise to the next level of metapolitics, something Strauss couldn't do because he was pulled between his loyalty to Judaism (rejection of revelation) and his perceived duty to "esoteric philosophy" (philosophical hedonism).

[Anonymous No.20524394]

>>20524271
Whether it is an opinion or not is still just your opinion. You still haven't sufficiently shown whether or not these opinions can have any force of truth behind them. In fact, you haven't even tried to tackle the question, which is disappointing. At least liberals *can* give an account of morality in the wake of nihilism. All you can do is piss in their punch bowl. I'd like to see the dissident right bypass the fray and depict a shining vision of what human potential could be, if only we were able to decisively confront the problems of modernity.

And again, I'm pretty sure you're a dissident right-wing thinker who views the current world with disgust, right? You're highly motivated. You've probably been on /lit/ for years, writing expressive and erudite effortposts that inspired people like me to read more deeply into the great thinkers, in the hopes of coming up with worthwhile angles to attack the modern world's rotten edifice. Surely you think there's a point to all of this that's greater than your own biases, right? Otherwise, why do it?

If you can't come up with a compelling reason, if it's all just a meaningless clash of arbitrary opinions, then you're no better than Strauss, who philosophizes because it's enjoyable, or a "support the current thing" NPC, who uncritically believes what he believes because he was conditioned into doing so. Remember, you can always recondition yourself if you just let go. It's getting harder to resist the political order by the day. Why do it unless there's something worthwhile to cling to, beyond the fray? You can just submit. It's easier.

Obviously, I'm not telling you because I think you should submit. I'm pressing you to rise to the next level of metapolitics, something Strauss couldn't do because he was pulled between his (self-admittedly pointless) loyalty to the Jewish community (rejection of revelation) and his perceived duty to "esoteric philosophy" (philosophical hedonism).

[Anonymous No.20524430]

>>20523068
>While this does seem to be a valid point to some extent, Strauss is famous for his working solution: a return to revelation as valid (primary) epistemological foundation. Maybe this does transcend the liberal framework but it seems about as realistic as the prospect of the invention of a time machine to take us back to the time Strauss seems to pine for.
That's not Strauss's solution. His move is returning to the ancients in general for an account of the political that doesn't have its source in liberalism, which for Strauss means anything operating from Hobbes and Machiavelli onwards.

While the friend-enemy distinction is ancient, the entire frame Schmitt discusses it in is still the Enlightenment liberal frame. That's what Strauss contests about what Schmitt actually does; he supports Schmitt in trying to get behind liberalism, but Schmitt simply doesn't.

[Anonymous No.20524441]

>>20524430
this. Schmitt is basically
>what if Zionism... but for ARYANS instead of filthy kikes
that's it. and also
>you can't end politics forever :^)
that's really all there is to it. everything else is just fluff.

[Anonymous No.20524456]

>>20523702
That's just conceding Strauss's point about operating within the horizons of liberalism (i.e. Hobbes). Friend-enemy doesn't require that as a necessary conclusion, otherwise we would've seen the ancients conclude it, e.g. in bk. 1 of the Republic.

[Anonymous No.20524526]

>>20524088
The differences are about what justice is, not over whether justice is even relevant; you don't think the Nazis appealed to justice via the felt injustice of the conclusion of WW1 and the Versailles Treaty?

[Anonymous No.20524869]

Schmitt? more like, Shit

fuckin BTFO

[Anonymous No.20525365]

damn... I didn't realize /lit/ nazis were the equivalent of right-wing globohomo... really makes you think

also why is it always the losers of history who assert might makes right? it's cuck logic. fitting for the right.

[Anonymous No.20526061]

bump

[Anonymous No.20526584]

>>20523068
Don't trust Strausserian critiques of Schmitt. Their aim is always foremost to get people interested in Schmitt to instead be directed to Strauss, rather than a genuine search for truth.

[Anonymous No.20526628]

>>20523081
You already said this here:
>>20526584
Why are you sweating bullets, shill? You can read Schmitt AND Strauss. Neither are prophets. They both have valid critiques of liberallism and modernity. Synthesize the two (while removing the demystifying tendencies), and you have a devastating ideological timebomb.

[Anonymous No.20526926]

>>20526628
The second post is not me. I have no idea why he copied and pasted my post.

[Anonymous No.20527200]

>>20526926
Fair enough. Still though, there's no need to stop at Schmitt or Strauss. Schmitt wants you to be an Aryanist. Strauss wants you to be a Zionist. Both have a strained relationship with revelation (the final boss of political philosophy and the human condition). First you need to overcome Strauss (who is motivated by his own Jewish prejudices to reject the other Abrahamic religions), then you need to find God.

[Anonymous No.20527480]

>>20527200
I don't have a problem with reading both, but I just find that Straussians are very often not honest at all. It's best just to read both individuals without any secondary sources.

As for that anon who copied my post, I've noticed he's been doing it in quite a few threads recently. He sees a post near the top, then reposts it. Don't ask me why.

[Anonymous No.20527507]

>>20527480
Well you know why they’re not honest. They’re atheists, and many of them are ethnic Jews. And where is the first point of divergence? The question of Jesus Christ and whether he was the prophet.

[Anonymous No.20527517]

>>20523229
>It's not that they simply disagree with eachother and just need to sit down and have a little chat to iron things out; their beliefs are completely incompatible, and the only way such a incompatibility can be resolved is through violence.

No one has ever been peacefully persuaded to change their beliefs?

[Anonymous No.20528191]

>>20523068
Don't trust Strausserian critiques of Schmitt. Their aim is always foremost to get people interested in Schmitt to instead be directed to Strauss, rather than a genuine search for truth.

[Anonymous No.20528820]

>>20523068 (OP) #
Don't trust Strausserian critiques of Schmitt. Their aim is always foremost to get people interested in Schmitt to instead be directed to Strauss, rather than a genuine search for truth.

[Anonymous No.20528858]

>>20527200
>Strauss wants you to be a Zionist.
No he doesn't, worse, he wants you to be a philosopher