131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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My praise is directed least toward the first two chapters, although they contain a wealth of
sharp observations and instruction, for example, on the currently undeniable "obviousness of
democratic legitimacy" and the readiness of the League of Nations to intervene on
democratic grounds in the internal affairs of states. When the author argues in the first
chapter, "Democracy and Parliamentarism," that the definition of democracy exhausts itself
in a series of identifications (majority will is parliament's will, parliament's will is the
people's will, and so on), then he confuses only one among many justifications for
democracy, one that is certainly the most prominent in the literature but hardly the most
important among the historical factors in European democratization. In terms of Realpolitik,
nationalistic, power-political (Konnex with universal conscription), tactical (Disraeli,
Bismarck), social-political arguments for democratization have been more important than the
ideal of freedom and equality. I have already indicated the one-sidedness of chapter 2, "The
Principles of Parliamentarism." There remains only to say that the weaknesses in Schmitt's
argument are overshadowed by the equally learned and profound analysis of Guizot's
ideology, locating it in the intellectual world of liberalism, with its belief in balance and
harmony, and in the philosophical principles of the Englightenment.
The sympathy of the author is with the "irrationalism of the mythical," which in spite of its
origins in anarchism has worked to reconstruct the foundation for "a new feeling for order,
hierarchy, and discipline." But he sees and fears its risks, which are not—naturally—of a
practical sort but also intellectual. These he discovers in the possibility of a destructive
pluralism of myths, a "polytheism." I would hazard to guess, but not assert, that behind these
ultimately rather sinister observations there stands the unexpressed personal conviction of the
author that an alliance between a nationalistic dictator and the Catholic Church could be the
real solution and achieve a definitive restoration of order, discipline, and hierarchy.
Regarding this conjecture it should again be said that he seems completely blind to the fact
that there is
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