131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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tification of the intellectual basis of parliamentarism in an outmoded system of thought,
because I regard discussion and openness as the essential principles of parliament; something
of the sort may perhaps have been the definitive conception a few generations ago, but
parliament today has for a long time stood on a completely different foundation. That belief
in openness and discussion appears today as outmoded is also my fear. But it must then be
asked, What sort of arguments or convictions are these which have given a new intellectual
foundation to parliamentarism? Naturally, institutions, like people's ideas, change in the
course of time. But I do not see where contemporary parliamentarism could find a new
intellectual foundation if the principles of discussion and openness really are inapplicable, or
how the truth and justice of parliament could still be so evident. Like every great institution,
parliament presupposes certain characteristic ideas. Whoever wants to find out what these are
will be forced to return to Burke, Bentham, Guizot, and John Stuart Mill. 4 He will then be
forced to admit that after them, since about 1848, there have certainly been many new
practical considerations but no new principled arguments. 5 In the last century, one scarcely
noticed this because parliamentarism advanced at the same time and in the closest alliance
with democracy, without either of them being carefully distinguished from the other. 6 But
today after their common victory, the difference manifests itself and the distinction between
liberal parliamentary ideas and mass democratic ideas cannot remain unnoticed any longer.
Therefore one has to concern oneself with those "moldy" greats, as Thoma puts it, because
what is specific to parliamentarism can only be gleaned from their thought, and only there
does parliament retain the particular character of a specially founded institution that can
demonstrate its intellectual superiority to direct democracy as well as Bolshevism and
Fascism. 7 That the parliamentary enterprise today is the lesser evil, that it will continue to be
preferable to Bolshevism and dictatorship, that it would have unforeseeable consequences
were it to be discarded, that it is "socially and technically" a very practical
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