131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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The phenomenon has an interesting parallel in the conflict between right Hegelians and
left Hegelians. One could say that philosophy has its own real life if it can bring into
existence actual contradictions and organize battling opponents as living enemies. From
this perspective it is remarkable that only the opponents of parliamentarism have drawn
this vitality from Bergson's philosophy. By contrast German liberalism in the middle of
the nineteenth century used the concept of life to support the parliamentary constitutional
system and saw parliament as the living representative of social differences.
23. [Tr.] Sorel wrote an appendix to the fourth edition of the Réflexions entitled "Pour
Lenine" (Réflexions, 437–54).
24. [Tr.] Patrick Pearse and James Connolly were executed by British firing squads after
the Easter Rising (1916) was suppressed. Both became heroes of the Irish national
movement, but Connolly's death took on an almost mystical importance in Irish politics
partly because he was already so badly wounded that British troops had to tie him to a
chair for the execution. Connolly's Marxist analysis has had little impact, but his death
became a powerful symbol in Ireland's later political history. Pearse, it has been claimed,
"has had more influence on the Ireland of the twentieth century than any other person."
See P. MacAonghusa, Quotations from P. H. Pearse (Dublin & Cork: Mercier Press,
1979). Although the metaphors of their nationalism are different—Pearse's is a mystical
Catholic nationalism, Connolly's is Marxism—they are both united by the definition of a
mystique of death and national salvation that is still current in Irish politics today.
25. Trotsky at the Fourth World Congress of the Third International, on Freemasonry.
[Cf. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed. —tr.]
26. [Tr.] Mussolini's speech in Naples, on October 24, 1922, was a landmark on the way
to the Fascist takeover in Italy. See Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in
Italy, 1919–1929 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1973).
27. [Tr.] Beyerle, Parlamentarisches System—oder was sonst? (Munich: Pfeiffer & Co.,
Verlag, 1921).
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