Schmitt-Political Theology I.pdf - Townsend Humanities Lab

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Foreword xxix gny, an important legal theorist in the first half of the nineteenth century, argued that civil law acquired its character from the Volksbewusstsein—the common consciousness of the people—and was thus the product of the particular historically given qualities that a people might have. Hence, for him there was, in the Germany of that time, with its common language and customs, no real basis for different systems of law. For Savigny, the sovereign or legislator was the expresser of the Volksbewusstsein. 54 Schmitt, as we have seen, gives this part of Savigny’s thought very strong emphasis. Taken together, these elements in Schmitt’s thought cast light on what we can surmise was the attraction of National Socialism. Schmitt came, as did Heidegger, from a rural, Catholic, petitbourgeois upbringing. He describes his childhood, adolescence, and youth—the latter lasting for him until the end of World War I, during which he served as an officer and at the end of which he was thirty years old—as periods of getting rid of various influences. His Catholicism is “dis-placed” and “de-totalised”; greater Prussianness is “de-Hegelised.” Likewise, during his “manhood,” Weimar Germany is “de-Prussified.” 55 While Catholicism was always to remain important to Schmitt, it is important to see in this self-description the portrait of a person whose ties to his various traditions are negative and are not replaced by a liberal faith in 54. This may make the question of Schmitt’s anti-Semitic writings more complex. One might speak of anti-Judaism, meaning by that that Schmitt saw in German Judaism the kind of pluralism that he found incompatible with the commonalty of the Volk that he saw as essential to the political. In practice, however, certainly in the Third Reich, one could not be opposed to Judaism without being opposed to Jews. 55. This is Schmitt’s account in his contribution to Complexio Oppositorum. Uber Carl Schmitt, ed. H. Quaritsch (Berlin, 1988), 105. See the discussion in Mehring, Carl Schmitt, 12–15, to which I owe this reference. It is worth noting that the flexibility of the German language permits Schmitt to construct neologisms in each of these cases: entortet, entotalisiert, enthegelianisiert, and entpreusst.
xxx Tracy B. Strong the future or in progress. 56 One has to read therefore his attacks on liberalism in conjunction with the accumulation of “de-” verbs. 57 What then was the source of his attraction to Hitler? It was pretty clearly not an admiration of the particular qualities that the man had: even if one discounts the occasion, the disdain he expresses during his interrogation at Nuremberg is palpable. 58 One might rather say that Hitler appeared to him as something like the entity God had sent to perform a miracle—as in the citation from Hobbes above—and the miracle was the recovery of a this-world transcendence to sovereignty and thus the human realm of the political. From this understanding, the person Hitler was of no importance, and Schmitt’s relation to Hitler’s actions could only be the relation one has to a miracle: acceptance or rejection. This is all the more likely as very rapidly Hitler seemed to many to behave like a true statesman in times of exception, legally in power and capable of making the hard, extra-legal decisions that were necessary. When Hitler and Goering ordered on June 30– July 2, 1934, the execution of all of the leadership of the SA, within two days almost all the press was congratulating them on having saved the country from civil war. Hindenburg sent (or was led to send) a telegram of thanks to the new Chancellor. Schmitt published on August 1, 1934, a newspaper article entitled Der Führer schützt das Recht [The Führer protects the legal order], de- 56. Schmitt is of course not the only person to be in this situation, nor was Heidegger. For a representative sense of the times, one can still profitably read J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (London: Macmillan, 1920). 57. And thus while left-wing anti-liberals can “learn from” Carl Schmitt, it is not completely clear that it is Carl Schmitt that they are learning. See Paul Piccone and G. L. Ulmen, “Introduction to Carl Schmitt,” Telos 72 (Summer 1987), 14. See the material cited in Strong, “New Dimensions,” 5–7. 58. Carl Schmitt, Ex Captivate Salus, 41: “He (Hitler) was so uninteresting to me that I don’t even want to talk about it.”
Page 2: Political Theology
Page 5 and 6: The University of Chicago Press, Ch
Page 7 and 8: VI Contents 3 Political Theology Th
Page 9 and 10: viii Tracy B. Strong Semitic. 1 All
Page 11 and 12: x Tracy B. Strong How was it, the c
Page 13 and 14: xii Tracy B. Strong decides what to
Page 15 and 16: xiv Tracy B. Strong in the Civil wa
Page 17 and 18: xvi Tracy B. Strong This claim is a
Page 19 and 20: xviii Tracy B. Strong to set onesel
Page 21 and 22: xx Tracy B. Strong “not of the or
Page 23 and 24: xxii Tracy B. Strong of rules on hu
Page 25 and 26: xxiv Tracy B. Strong West shows a c
Page 27 and 28: xxvi Tracy B. Strong who would argu
Page 29: xxviii Tracy B. Strong dictatorship
Page 33 and 34: xxxii Tracy B. Strong In the larger
Page 35 and 36: xxxiv Tracy B. Strong Selected Engl
Page 38 and 39: Introduction George Schwab Carl Sch
Page 40 and 41: XXXlX Introduction the role of the
Page 42 and 43: xli Introduction There are a number
Page 44 and 45: xliii Introduction tinguishable fro
Page 46 and 47: xlv Introduction will show, he ackn
Page 48 and 49: xlvii Introduction forces." The sec
Page 50 and 51: xlix Introduction "value-free" and
Page 52 and 53: Ii Introduction challenge the state
Page 54 and 55: Preface to the Second Edition (1934
Page 56 and 57: 3 Preface to the Second Edition and
Page 58: 1 Definition of Sovereignty Soverei
Page 61 and 62: 8 Definition of Sovereignty phraseo
Page 63 and 64: 10 Definition of Sovereignty reaucr
Page 65 and 66: 12 Definition of Sovereignty 48 is
Page 67 and 68: 14 Definition of Sovereignty eighte
Page 69 and 70: 2 The Problem of Sovereignty as the
Page 71 and 72: 18 The Problem of Sovereignty holds
Page 73 and 74: 20 The Problem of Sovereignty ing t
Page 75 and 76: 22 The Problem of Sovereignty order
Page 77 and 78: 24 The Problem of Sovereignty inter
Page 79 and 80: 26 The Problem of Sovereignty self-
Page 81 and 82:
28 The Problem of Sovereignty Form
Page 83 and 84:
30 The Problem of Sovereignty autho
Page 85 and 86:
32 The Problem of Sovereignty decis
Page 87 and 88:
34 The Problem of Sovereignty Comma
Page 89:
3 Political Theology All significan
Page 92 and 93:
39 Political Theology with the char
Page 94 and 95:
41 Political Theology work on the s
Page 96 and 97:
43 Political Theology a clear antit
Page 98 and 99:
45 Political Theology possible to v
Page 100 and 101:
47 Political Theology characteristi
Page 102 and 103:
49 Political Theology interests and
Page 104 and 105:
51 Political Theology this tendency
Page 106 and 107:
4 On the Counterrevolutionary Philo
Page 108 and 109:
55 On the Counterrevolutionary Phil
Page 110 and 111:
Page 112 and 113:
Page 114 and 115:
Page 116 and 117:
Page 118 and 119:
Page 120 and 121:
Index "Age of Neutralization and De
Page 122:
69 Index restoration critique of, 5
show all

Schmitt-Political Theology I.pdf - Townsend Humanities Lab

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?