A Forgotten Thinker On Nation-States vs. Empire

A Forgotten Thinker On Nation-States vs. Empire

Paul Gottfried

Ex: http://www.freespeechproject.com/

German legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985[!]) has enjoyed a widespread following among European academics and among that part of the European Right that is most resistant to Americanization. In the U.S. it is a different matter. Outside of the editors and readers of Telos magazine, which has heavily featured his work, Schmitt's American groupies are becoming harder and harder to find.

My intellectual biography of this thinker, which Greenwood Press published in 1990, has sold rather badly. An earlier, much denser biography, by Joseph W. Bendersky, put out by Princeton in 1983, obtained a broader market. In the eighties, academically well-connected commentators, including George Schwab, Ellen Kennedy, Gary Ulmen, and Bendersky, built up for Schmitt a scholarly reputation on these shores by trying to relate his thought to then-contemporary political issues. This caused so much concern among American global democrats that The New Republic (August 22, 1988) published a grim tirade by Stephen Holmes against the Schmittian legacy. An echo could be found in the New York Review of Books (May 15, 1997), in a screed by another neoconservative, Mark Lila. Though the Schmitt scholars sent in responses, the New York Review would not publish any of them. Apparently the political conversation in Midtown Manhattan is not broad enough to include non-globalists.

Schmitt is properly criticized for having joined the Nazi Party in May 1933. But he clearly did so for opportunistic reasons. Attempts to draw a straight line between his association with the Party and his writings of the twenties and early thirties, when he was closely associated with the Catholic Center Party, a predecessor of the Christian Democrats, ignore certain inconvenient facts. In 1931 and 1932, Schmitt urged Weimar president Paul von Hindenburg to suppress the Nazi Party and to jail its leaders. He sharply opposed those in the Center Party who thought the Nazis could be tamed if they were forced to form a coalition government. While an authoritarian of the Right, who later had kind words about the caretaker regime of Franco, he never quite made himself into a plausible Nazi. From 1935 on, the SS kept Schmitt under continuing surveillance.

There are two ideas raised in Schmitt's corpus that deserve attention in our elite-decreed multicultural society. In The Concept of the Political (a tract that first appeared in 1927 and was then published in English in 1976 by Rutgers University) Schmitt explains that the friend/enemy distinction is a necessary feature of all political communities. Indeed what defines the "political" as opposed to other human activities is the intensity of feeling toward friends and enemies, or toward one's own and those perceived as hostile outsiders.

This feeling does not cease to exist in the absence of nation-states. Schmitt argued that friend/enemy distinctions had characterized ancient communities and would likely persist in the more and more ideological environment in which nation-states had grown weaker. The European state system, beginning with the end of the Thirty Years War, had in fact provided the immense service of taming the "political."

The subsequent assaults on that system of nation-states, with their specific and limited geopolitical interests, made the Western world a more feverishly political one, a point that Schmitt develops in his postwar magnum opus Nomos der Erde (now being translated for Telos Press by Gary Ulmen). From the French Revolution on, wars were being increasingly fought over moral doctrines - most recently over claims to be representing "human rights." Such a tendency has replicated the mistakes of the Age of Religious Wars. It turned armed force from a means to achieve limited territorial goals, when diplomatic resources fail, to a crusade for universal goodness against a demonized enemy.

A related idea treated by Schmitt is the tendency toward a universal state (a “New World Order”?). Such a tendency seemed closely linked to Anglo-American hegemony, a theme that Schmitt took up in his commentaries during and after the Second World War.

German historians in the early twentieth century had typically drawn comparisons between, on the one side, Germany and Sparta and, on the other, England (and later the U.S.) and Athens - between what they saw as disciplined land powers and mercantile, expansive naval ones. The Anglo-American powers, which relied on naval might, had less of a sense of territorial limits than landed states. Sea-based powers had evolved into empires, from the Athenians onward.

But while Schmitt falls back, at least indirectly, on this already belabored comparison, he also brings up the more telling point: Americans aspire to a world state because they make universal claims for their way of life. They view "liberal democracy" as something they are morally bound to export. They are pushed by ideology, as well as by the nature of their power, toward a universal friend/enemy distinction.

Although in the forties and fifties Schmitt hoped that the devastated nation-state system would be replaced by a new "political pluralism," the creation of spheres of control by regional powers, he also doubted this would work. The post-World War II period brought with it polarization between the Communist bloc and the anti-Communists, led by the U.S. Schmitt clearly feared and detested the Communists. But he also distrusted the American side for personal and analytic reasons. From September 1945 until May 1947, Schmitt had been a prisoner of the American occupational forces in Germany. Though released on the grounds that he played no significant role as a Nazi ideologue, he was traumatized by the experience. Throughout the internment he had been asked to give evidence of his belief in liberal democracy. Unlike the Soviets, in whose zone of occupation he had resided for a while, the Americans seemed to be ideologically driven and not merely vengeful conquerors.

Schmitt came to dread American globalism more deeply than its Soviet form, which he thought to be primitive military despotism allied with Western intellectual faddishness. In the end, he welcomed the "bipolarity" of the Cold War, seeing in Soviet power a means of limiting American "human rights" crusades.

A learned critic of American expansionists, Schmitt did perceive the by-now inescapably ideological character of American politics.

In the post-Cold War era, despite the irritation he arouses among American imperialists, his commentaries seem fresher and more relevant than ever before.    

Paul Gottfried is Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College, PA. He is the author of After Liberalism and Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory.  

Il tramonto del Leviathan statunitense

di ANTONIO GREGO

Ex: http://www.centroitalicum.it/

PREMESSA SULL’ESPANSIONISMO STATUNITENSE

Nel libro Terra e Mare (1) il grande giurista e teorico dello Stato Carl Schmitt interpreta la storia del mondo alla luce della centralità dello scontro geostrategico tra l’elemento tellurico e l’elemento marino, dai quali discendono due diverse concezioni della politica, del diritto e della civiltà. Lo scontro tra questi due elementi ha origine con la storia dell’uomo, basti pensare alla rivalità tra Roma e Cartagine, ma è solo con l’avvento della modernità che l’elemento marino, fino ad allora sottomesso a quello tellurico sembra essere in grado di fronteggiarlo alla pari e anche di avere la meglio su di esso.
L’Inghilterra, conquistando le terre al di là dell’oceano ed esercitando la supremazia sui mari, si è affermata come potenza marittima mondiale: essa è il Leviathan, che si oppone alla potenza terrestre (Behemoth) rappresentata dagli Stati continentali, fondati sull’identità collettiva della nazione e sulla difesa della patria e dell’integrità territoriale.
Con il tramonto della potenza inglese sono gli Stati Uniti a prenderne il posto, rivendicando non solo l’egemonia sulle Americhe con la ‘dottrina Monroe’, ma anche la supremazia negli oceani, attraverso la forza aeronavale, e tramite quest’ultima il dominio globale. Nell’affermazione di questa egemonia marittima mondiale si nasconde, secondo Schmitt, il germe della rovina, perché conduce alla trasformazione del diritto fra gli Stati in diritto privato internazionale, cioè in diritto commerciale, e introduce una forma di moralismo universalistico, politicamente pericoloso, perché fa appello al concetto discriminatorio di guerra giusta. Sicché il forte radicamento tellurico caratteristico del Vecchio Mondo (Eurasia e Africa) si confronta con il Nuovo Mondo, il luogo dell’universalismo indistinto e delocalizzato, ricettacolo di progetti messianici e mondialisti. Di qua una visione imperiale tellurica, di là una talassocrazia che mira all’egemonia mondiale; di qua il nomos della terra, di là la ‘tirannia dei valori’, il relativismo e il nichilismo assoluto che derivano dallo sradicamento e dal primato dell’economia sulla politica. Si tratta quindi di due concezioni geopolitiche, giuridiche e spirituali radicalmente opposte. Tale percezione di uno scontro fatale tra due opposte visioni del mondo si giustifica anche con il vissuto contingente e le posizioni assunte da Schmitt, basti pensare che alla fine degli anni Trenta questi applaudì al Patto Ribbentrop-Molotov ed al contempo riconobbe nell’Occidente, Gran Bretagna e Stati Uniti, l’avversario irriducibile dell’Europa.
Gli Stati Uniti infatti, fin dalla loro fondazione, si sono basati su un costrutto ideologico che postula la loro unicità come luogo della giustizia e della pace (Occidente) in contrapposizione all’Europa (Vecchio Mondo) luogo dell’oscurantismo e della tirannia. Tale forma di ideologia con venature messianiche trova il suo fondamento nel calvinismo professato dai Padri Pellegrini fuggiti dal Vecchio Continente per approdare sulle coste dell’America con l’intento di costruire la ‘Nuova Gerusalemme’. Riassumendo gli Stati Uniti si possono definire, per dirla con Damiano, «una nazione ideocratica, ‘aiutata’, nel suo ‘tracciato’ espansionista, da una costellazione iniziale di favorevoli circostanze geostoriche, quali, l’immenso spazio a disposizione; l’isolamento geografico; l’assenza di potenti vicini; una forte immigrazione di popolamento; la conflittualità europea, specie nei primi decenni dopo l’indipendenza; il predominio inglese sui mari. A ciò va aggiunta la circostanza storica probabilmente più importante, ossia la “deriva suicidaria dell’Europa”, a partire dalla prima guerra mondiale» (2).

SEGNALI INEQUIVOCABILI DI DECADENZA
L’espansionismo statunitense, che ha avuto diverse fasi, arriva al suo culmine nel ventesimo secolo, quando Washington decide di superare la dottrina Monroe di egemonia continentale per passare alla fase ulteriore dell’egemonia globale imponendosi come agente di ‘sovversione’ mondiale (con, a partire dal 1948, Israele quale sub-agente di destabilizzazione regionale nel Mediterraneo e Vicino Oriente). Si badi bene che l’opera di ‘distruzione creativa’ messa in atto dagli Stati Uniti, parte essenziale del suo moto espansionistico, ha agito ed agisce ancora in tutti i campi: economico, culturale, giuridico, spirituale, ma soprattutto a livello politico e geopolitico.
A partire dal 1945, l’emisfero occidentale, coincidente fino a quel momento con le Americhe secondo l’originaria formulazione della dottrina Monroe, si espande fino ad includere prima l’Europa occidentale ed il Giappone, sconfitti ed occupati militarmente, poi, con il crollo dell’Unione Sovietica, il mondo intero. La fine del bipolarismo est-ovest ha, difatti, prodotto un vuoto nel continente eurasiatico che, data l’estrema debolezza e mancanza di obiettivi degli Stati europei, gli Stati Uniti, come unica superpotenza rimasta, hanno cercato velocemente di colmare prima che nuovi attori sorgessero a contrastarla. All’interno di questa strategia americana rientra il fenomeno della globalizzazione, esso non rappresenta altro che il tentativo estremo da parte degli Stati Uniti di estendere al mondo la propria Ordnung. Nasce, infatti, proprio in questa fase il Project for the New American Century (PNAC, Progetto per il Nuovo Secolo Americano), un think tank americano, fondato nel 1997, che delineerà la politica americana negli anni successivi. Tra i fondatori del PNAC, in prevalenza ebrei americani, ci sono personaggi che durante i due mandati presidenziali di Bush Jr. assumeranno incarichi di governo, basti pensare a Donald Rumsfeld e Paul Wolfowitz. Il PNAC non è altro che un progetto scaturito dal filone neoconservatore che, preso il sopravvento nella seconda metà degli anni ’90, fa l’esaltazione fanatica e millenarista dei predetti miti fondatori degli Stati Uniti e del ‘destino manifesto’ quale missione affidata da Dio di civilizzare il mondo, uniti alla crociata ideologica trockista per l’‘esportazione della democrazia’ e la ‘guerra permanente’. Proprio negli anni ’90 si assiste ad una politica estremamente aggressiva e unilateralista di Washington che tuttavia nel mentre continua attivamente a stimolare negli altri Paesi, specialmente in Europa, il multilateralismo e l’interconnessione finanziaria, da utilizzare come leve per indebolire ulteriormente la loro sovranità. Tuttavia la ‘fine della storia’ pronosticata da Francis Fukuyama e il trionfo definitivo del capitalismo di stampo americano che avrebbe portato la globalizzazione e l’americanizzazione del mondo, non si sono verificati.
La fase unipolare dell’espansionismo americano, iniziata approssimativamente nel 1991 e terminata approssimativamente nel 2001, rappresenta non l’inizio del “Nuovo Secolo Americano”, come auspicato dagli americanisti di tutte le risme, ma bensì la sua conclusione, il tentativo estremo da parte degli Stati Uniti di preservare l’egemonia globale e frenare la nuova fase multipolare subentrante. A ben vedere il momento di massimo unipolarismo americano ha coinciso con il culmine della globalizzazione.
Il processo della globalizzazione, le cui origini risalgono al periodo 1944-1947 (Istituzione degli accordi di Bretton Woods, creazione del Fondo Monetario Internazionale, Banca Mondiale e accordi GATT), rappresenta la proiezione mondiale del sistema statunitense in una logica unipolare egemonica. Si può delimitare la fase ascendente della globalizzazione propriamente detta nel periodo che va dai primi anni ’80 (1980: elezione di Reagan, 1982: morte di Brezhnev) al 1995, quando raggiunge il suo culmine con la creazione dell’OMC ovvero l’Organizzazione Mondiale del Commercio, attestando l’apparente trionfo dell’ideologia liberista che necessita della libera circolazione di capitali, beni e persone.
Non è un caso che proprio in questo breve periodo di trionfo statunitense avviene quella che per Vladimir Putin è stata «la peggior tragedia geopolitica del XX secolo », ovvero il crollo e lo smembramento dell’Unione Sovietica. Un’altra ‘tragedia geopolitica’ avverrà in piena Europa con la dissoluzione della Jugoslavia nel 1991, la conseguenti guerre separatiste e l’apice dell’aggressività anti-europea statunitense raggiunto nel 1999, con i bombardamenti sulla Serbia dietro il paravento della NATO. Tuttavia oggi possiamo affermare che il culmine del ‘momento unipolare’ degli Stati Uniti raggiunto negli anni ’90 piuttosto che rappresentarne il trionfo ne segna già l’inizio della discesa nel baratro.
Al volgere del Terzo Millennio gli USA erano in forte difficoltà sul piano politico-economico, entrando in una vera e propria recessione dopo circa 10 anni di crescita economica forzata e drogata, sorretta da un fortissimo indebitamento interno, da un grande passivo della bilancia dei pagamenti con forte indebitamento esterno, da una tendenza fortemente al ribasso sulla quota imputabile di commercio internazionale. Anche sul piano internazionale la loro egemonia era messa in discussione dall’emersione del potenziale polo geopolitico e geoeconomico rappresentato dall’Unione Europea. La recessione ed il declino della superpotenza USA, la fine delle forme specifiche della globalizzazione, stavano, infatti, avvenendo da diversi anni prima dell’11 settembre 2001, ed evidenti ne erano i segnali. La situazione interna degli USA, già dagli inizi degli anni ’90, presentava dei problemi: basti ricordare che nel 1992 il debito nazionale generale era di oltre 4.000 miliardi di dollari (3), l’assistenza sanitaria era carente e una gran parte della popolazione americana si ritrovava a non avere una minima protezione sociale, il livello degli investimenti e dei risparmi erano inferiori a quelli dei paesi europei, e dal punto di vista produttivo vi era una bassa competitività con minimi tassi di crescita di produttività. La distanza esistente tra ricchi e poveri negli USA è aumentata a dismisura negli ultimi 30 anni; se nel 1969 infatti, l’1% della popolazione possedeva il 25% di ricchezza nazionale, nel 1999 questa percentuale è salita a circa il 40%, mentre l’indebitamento finanziario interno è passato da 12 a 22 trilioni di dollari tra il 1995 e il 2000. Se a ciò si aggiunge l’enorme indebitamento degli USA nei confronti del resto del mondo, coperto da appena il 4% delle riserve di valuta, e il sempre più alto disavanzo commerciale, si comprende quanto diventano forti le debolezze dell’economia americana negli anni ‘90, in piena era della globalizzazione. Inoltre, l’eccedenza degli investimenti attuati da un esagerato afflusso di capitali esteri e da una politica monetaria troppo espansiva ha portato a valori artificialmente gonfiati in Borsa con la conseguente crisi che ne è seguita; i livelli di profitto sono scesi, così come i consumi, ed è evidente che gli Stati Uniti erano in una seria fase di difficoltà economica, ben nascosta dai media e dalle istituzioni internazionali compiacenti, fino a giungere alla recessione, molto prima dei tragici eventi dell’11 settembre.
Un falso grande boom americano sostenuto da un decennio in cui le famiglie e le imprese hanno speso molto di più di quanto guadagnavano e un indebitamento non più sostenibile che, con la successiva moderazione dei comportamenti economici, porta ad un forte rallentamento dell’economia, fino alla recessione. Ecco quindi che, nella seconda metà degli anni ’90, attraverso la guerra del dollaro contro l’euro, la crisi petrolifera a guida americana e la gestione della New Economy nel contesto generale della finanziarizzazione dell’economia, gli Stati Uniti hanno cercato di nascondere la loro crisi ed hanno giocato le loro carte per soffocare le mire di affermazione ed espansionistiche innanzitutto del nuovo polo dell’Unione Europea e in misura via via maggiore anche degli altri poli geopolitici mondiali emergenti. Il gioco del caro dollaro e del caro petrolio si accompagna, quindi, alla ‘bolla finanziaria’ sui titoli della “Net Economy”; questo è uno specifico aspetto del modello complessivo neoliberista imposto dalla globalizzazione americana, una speculazione finanziaria che fa sì che società con scarso fatturato, o appena quotate, nel giro di un mese triplichino, quadruplichino il loro valore. Una globalizzazione finanziaria che da una parte crea forti condizioni e aspettative di guadagno facile e dall’altra determina in continuazione paure di disastrosi crolli. Un NASDAQ, il mercato azionario dei titoli tecnologici, continuamente sbalzato fra eccessi rialzisti ed eccessi ribassisti. E questi terremoti del NASDAQ trovano i loro mandanti proprio negli Stati Uniti, capaci di attirare attraverso i titoli della Net Economy enormi capitali europei sottoposti poi al rischio di continui ed improvvisi crolli. Tuttavia nemmeno la guerra contro l’Euro, l’imposizione del neoliberismo globale e la finanziarizzazione dell’economia sono riusciti ad impedire il declino della potenza americana e l’ascesa di poli geopolitici alternativi, già percepibile all’inizio del terzo millennio. A questo punto, persa la partita per imporre ‘con le buone’, attraverso la globalizzazione dei mercati e la finanziarizzazione speculativa, il loro dominio sul mondo e la ‘fine della storia’, gli Stati Uniti sono costretti a ricorrere ‘alle maniere cattive’, alla guerra, ultima risorsa per uscire dalla crisi sistemica. Dal cilindro viene tirato fuori Bin Laden e il terrorismo islamico, diviene vitale per evitare il disastro che sarebbe anche solo il rallentarsi dei movimenti di capitale verso New York, un attacco al cuore dell’Eurasia con il pretesto della “guerra infinita contro il terrorismo”.

IL DECLINO DELLA POTENZA AMERICANA NEL MONDO
La fase finale e irreversibile del declino americano inizia nel 2001, volendo fare riferimento ad un evento spartiacque si può prendere l’attacco alle torri gemelle av- venuto l’11 settembre del 2001 come simbolo del ‘crollo’ del ‘sogno americano’ e della fine del dominio assoluto della sola superpotenza fino a quel momento.
L’estrema aggressività e l’avventurismo di Washington nel periodo 1995 – 2001 sono stati una disperata reazione alla consapevolezza della fine della fase unipolaristica che ha subito un colpo mortale grazie a due eventi fondamentali: l’adozione dell’Euro nel 1999 e l’elezione di Vladimir Putin alla presidenza russa nel 2000. Come detto in precedenza, tramontato il sogno di egemonia mondiale non restava che la guerra quale extrema ratio per impedire o ritardare l’avvento del multipolarismo. Il periodo 2001 – 2003 è il colpo di coda dell’unipolarismo morente, nel quale gli USA camuffandosi dietro una riesumata NATO si impadroniscono dell’Afghanistan e mettono piede nel Kirghisistan e dell’Uzbekistan, per poi passare all’occupazione dell’Iraq. Nel frattempo la NATO si espande all’inverosimile e attraverso le ‘rivoluzioni colorate’ finanziate da Soros in Ucraina e Georgia arriva a minacciare i confini della Russia. In questo periodo la dottrina della ‘stabilità’ politico-economica internazionale diventa elemento propagandistico prioritario nel tentativo di aggressione all’Eurasia e di dominio manu militari del mondo, dominio imposto attraverso il nuovo ruolo dell’ONU depotenziato e sostituito in pieno dalla NATO. In questo periodo la situazione interna degli USA si aggrava. La disoccupazione ha registrato un notevole aumento, dall’inizio del 2001 si sono avuti oltre 1 milione e 200.000 di disoccupati in più ed il tasso di disoccupazione nell’agosto di quell’anno è arrivato al 4,9%; si è registrata una diminuzione nei consumi di oltre lo 0,5% mentre il PIL nel secondo semestre del 2001 cresce solo dello 0,2%, e il terzo trimestre è addirittura negativo (-0,4%) segnalando, anche ufficialmente, la fase recessiva. Negli anni successivi la situazione si aggrava a causa del drammatico legame fra disoccupazione e logiche liberiste di precarizzazione del vivere sociale. Si aggiunga un mercato di capitali ‘pompato’, dove anche i rialzi e le piccole riprese sono imputabili ai giochi a sostegno dei titoli delle imprese meglio proiettate nei nuovi scenari di economia di guerra post-globale. Si decide di marciare secondo i parametri del sostenimento della domanda e della produzione attraverso una sorta di keynesismo militare come tentativo di risolvere, o almeno gestire, la crisi; per questo l’economia di guerra dell’era Bush Jr. aveva carattere strutturale, cioè ampio respiro e lunga durata sostituendo il Warfare al Welfare, con continui tagli al sistema pensionistico, alla sanità e allo Stato sociale. Dopo l’iniziale apparente successo dell’avventurismo militare americano, nel periodo 2001 – 2003, dovuto all’incertezza internazionale che caratterizzava l’alba della nuova fase multipolare e alla disorganizzazione delle nazioni emergenti, il successivo periodo 2004 – 2009 sancisce la definitiva sconfitta del modello Bush–neocon di attacco al cuore dell’Eurasia quale misura estrema per uscire dall’impasse della crisi. Nel 2006 il PNAC chiude i battenti, attestando il fallimento del progetto di egemonia mondiale.
La guerra russo-georgiana del 2008 o, meglio, la fallita aggressione alla Russia perpetrata per il tramite dell’esercito georgiano armato da Israele e Stati Uniti, ha definitivamente posto la pietra tombale sull’unipolarismo statunitense ed ha sancito e reso effettivo il sistema geopolitico multipolare.

CAUSE DEL DECLINO AMERICANO
In un saggio del 2007 il giornalista Luca Lauriola afferma che l’attuale crisi dell’egemonia americana va imputata ad una molteplicità di cause quali: il ridimensionamento geopolitico del ruolo USA dovuto alla crescita economica e tecnologica dei poli rivali russo, cinese ed indiano; la crisi economica e finanziaria degli USA dovuta a cause sistemiche e non reversibile perché connaturata alla forma del capitalismo americano; il castello di menzogne su cui si basa la strategia di dominio americana per legittimare il proprio espansionismo ha ormai oltrepassato la soglia di tollerabilità ed è sul punto di crollare; le condizioni di vita di gran parte della popolazione statunitense sono simili a quelle di molti paesi sottosviluppati; il ruolo politico sempre maggiore ricoperto dalla lobby sionista.
Per quanto riguarda l’aspetto economico e finanziario, esaminando il periodo 2001 – 2010 praticamente non c’è un solo dato che non indichi una crisi irreversibile del sistema americano. Basti dire tra il 2005 ed il 2010 il numero di disoccupati in USA è praticamente raddoppiato così come, tra questi, è più che quadruplicato il numero di quelli a lungo termine (6 mesi o più) (4). Giova ricordare che gli americani hanno già rischiato la bancarotta e la dissoluzione come entità statale nel 2008 con lo scoppio della ‘bolla immobiliare’ dalla quale si sono salvati in extremis solo grazie all’intervento di Giappone e Cina, timorosi di perdere il mercato di sbocco principale per i loro prodotti. Ma i dati che illustrano in maniera devastante la crisi americana sono quelli del debito pubblico e della bilancia commerciale. A cominciare dagli anni ‘80 (durante l’amministrazione Reagan) gli Stati Uniti hanno iniziato ad avere sia un grande debito pubblico sia un disavanzo commerciale. Il debito pubblico era intorno ai 50-75 miliardi di dollari alla fine degli anni ‘70 e crebbe a oltre 200 miliardi nel 1983. Il disavanzo della bilancia commerciale era attorno allo zero all’inizio degli anni ‘80 ma superò i 100 miliardi di dollari nel 1985. Oggi analizzando il disavanzo commerciale dei vari Paesi gli USA si situano all’ultimo posto della lista con un disavanzo che è piu’ del doppio rispetto a quello della Cina che è in surplus e si situa al primo posto.
Inoltre, il debito pubblico americano ha superato la quota record dei 12 mila miliardi di dollari e non accenna a diminuire risultando essere il più alto al mondo. Ma come mai gli Stati Uniti dopo un ventennio di apparente prosperità, nel quale hanno guidato il processo di globalizzazione, sono oggi sul punto di collassare? Come mai gli Stati Uniti non sono stati in grado di imporre la propria Ordnung al mondo intero? La risposta, più che nell’economia, va ricercata nella natura e nella geopolitica degli USA: « Gli Stati Uniti d’America – potenza talassocratica mondiale – hanno sempre perseguito, fin dalla loro espansione nel subcontinente sudamericano, una prassi geopolitica che in altra sede abbiamo definita “del caos”, vale a dire la geopolitica della “perturbazione continua” degli spazi territoriali suscettibili di essere posti sotto la propria influenza o il proprio dominio; da qui l’incapacità a realizzare un vero ed articolato ordine internazionale, quale ci si dovrebbe aspettare da chi ambisce alla leadership mondiale» (5).
La natura talassocratica degli USA e l’incapacità di governare e amministrare il territorio sono l’origine del loro declino, perciocché non è dato loro il potere di esercitare una funzione regolatrice ed equilibratrice dei vari popoli ed etnie che vivono in un territorio delimitato e di fornire quel senso di unità spirituale basato sulla coscienza di appartenere ad una medesima ecumene, quali invece sono i tratti caratteristici di un impero propriamente detto.

DOPO L’AMERICA

Ricapitolando, l’ultimo ventennio del XX secolo (1980 – 2001), ha visto la potenza degli Stati Uniti raggiungere il suo picco massimo. Quella che oggi viene definita ‘era della globalizzazione’, che ha raggiunto il suo culmine nella metà degli anni ’90, non è stata altro che il tentativo di egemonizzare il mondo, attraverso gli strumenti della finanza speculativa e del soft power (diffusione dei concetti di ‘esportazione della democrazia’, ‘diritti umani’, liberismo, utilizzando anche Hollywood, la musica pop-rock e i ‘nuovi media’, internet in testa), messo in campo dagli USA nel loro ‘momento unipolare’.
Fallito il tentativo di imporsi come soggetto egemone a livello mondiale attraverso l’esportazione dei propri ‘valori’ gli USA nel periodo 2001 – 2008 hanno deciso di puntare tutto in un attacco disperato all’Heartland con tutto il volume di fuoco di cui sono stati capaci, ma anche questa mossa dopo una iniziale serie di successi viene bloccata dalle potenze continentali emergenti. Sempre più si profila all’orizzonte il conflitto aperto, multipolare, tra la ormai ex superpotenza in declino degli USA e i nuovi poli emergenti costituiti dal BRIC (Brasile, Russia, India, Cina) con in più l’Iran in crescita strepitosa.
Non bisogna però sottovalutare l’attuale potenza degli USA ne la residua capacità di reazione al declino in corso, per due ordini di motivi: come detto all’inizio la natura dell’espansionismo talassocratico americano non si basa sulla sovranità e sul controllo del territorio, perché questo avviene sospinto da forze non-statali, finanziarie ed economiche, che ne costituiscono il vero motore. Sono forze ‘liquide’ come liquido è il mezzo che storicamente hanno prediletto per espandersi, cioè il mare. Questa ‘liquidità’ che contraddistingue l’impalcatura economica e geopolitica degli USA comporta una seria difficoltà a batterli sul loro terreno, che è quello, in senso fisico, dei mari e dei cieli, in senso lato, della finanza e del soft power. In secondo luogo gli USA sono riusciti negli anni addietro ad acquisire posizioni di predominio nel settore finanziario (attraverso il controllo di organismi quali lo SWIFT), in quello della sicurezza mondiale e nel controllo dei ‘nuovi media’, internet in testa.
Dal punto di vista militare la NATO, strumento di accerchiamento della massa eurasiatica, è ancora vitale ed in grado di esercitare la sua funzione antieuropea e antieurasiatica, inoltre restano le centinaia di basi militari e avamposti che gli statunitensi sono riusciti a installare in giro per il mondo e attraverso i quali sono in grado di esercitare ancora una capacità di deterrenza e di controllo sugli Stati ‘ospitanti’. In conclusione pur se in una fase di declino gli Stati Uniti sono ancora capaci di esercitare una residua forma di egemonia, soprattutto nelle zone sotto la loro influenza diretta (Europa e Giappone, in quanto ‘colonizzati’ a tutti gli effetti), piuttosto l’attuale fase è da ritenersi potenzialmente più pericolosa della precedente fase unipolare perché è proprio quando l’animale è ferito mortalmente che la sua reazione diventa più sconsiderata e furente, come dimostrano l’avventurismo in Georgia e le recenti esplicite minacce di attacco nucleare nei confronti di Iran e Corea del Nord.
Tali minacce saranno scongiurate solo da una decisa azione di concerto tra le potenze del blocco eurasiatico e quelle dell’america indiolatina.

NOTE
1) C. Schmitt, Land und Meer. Eine weltgeschichtliche Betrachtung, Reclam, Leipzig 1942, trad. it. Terra e mare, Adelphi, Milano 2002.
2) G. Damiano, L’espansionismo americano, un «destino manifesto»?, Edizioni di Ar, Padova 2006, pp. 14-15. Il termine ‘ideocrazia’ riferito agli Stati Uniti è stato coniato da Costanzo Preve, cfr. C. Preve, L’ideocrazia imperiale americana, Settimo Sigillo, Roma 2004.
3) Da questo punto in avanti e dove non specificato diversamente si tratta di dati ufficiali del governo americano. Cfr. http://www.whitehouse.gov/ e http://www.cbo.gov/
4) Fonte: Bureau of labor statistics, http://www.bls.gov/
5) T. Graziani, America indiolatina ed Eurasia: i pilastri del nuovo sistema multipolare, “Eurasia – Rivista di Studi Geopolitici”, XV, 3/2008, p. 7.

Carl Schmitt, pensador liberal

Carl Schmitt, pensador liberal: a modo de introducción

por Giovanni B. Krähe

Ex: http://geviert.wordpress.com/
 

Una de las tesis consolidadas en los estudios schmittianos es el anti-liberalismo de Carl Schmitt. Conservadores, monárquicos, católicos, filo-schmittianos “de Weimar”,  anti-schmittianos de wikipedia, ocasionalistas pro-dictadura, antifascistas etc., todos, en familia, están de acuerdo con esta tesis: Schmitt fue un anti-liberal. En este preciso punto, ambos bandos de apologetas y anti-schmittianos se demuestran de acuerdo. La pregunta que queremos poner en este post es: ¿Pero de cuál liberalismo señores? ¿contra cuál liberalismo Schmitt desarrolla su crítica? A continuación retomanos una respuesta que se dió en este blog a modo de introducción sumaria al tema.

Entre revolución nacional y religión: las cuatro tradiciones de la Sonderweg alemana

En Alemania se desarrollan cuatro diferentes tradiciones políticas: conservadora, liberal, católica y socialista. Todas nacen y se desarrollan mucho antes de la fundación del Reich alemán por Bismark (1871). Las cuatro tradiciones poseen un curioso elemento pre-estatual, pre-societario, comunitario y anti-contractualista. Estas características no las convierten en tradiciones “prematuras” o “tardías” (H. Plessner) en relación a la formación de los Estados en USA, Inglaterra o Francia. Muy al contrario. En efecto, a las características mencionadas se añaden otros dos factores históricos muy interesantes que se desarrollarán transversalmente a las cuatro tradiciones mencionadas. Estos dos factores determinarán la denominada “vía particular” (Deutscher Sonderweg):  la revolución nacional y la religión. Siempre a modo de sinopsis, mencionaremos una diferencia curiosa ulterior: el denominado “absolutismo iluminado” de los prusianos (S. XVIII). Los prusianos introducen reformas estructurales a diferentes niveles (la tolerancia religiosa por ejemplo) que la “reina de las revolución continental”, la revolución francesa, conocerá tan sólo posteriormente. Se puede notar entonces un Estado alemán de facto, ya maduro en diferentes frentes, que le faltaba únicamente la forma política del aparato estatal en su sentido moderno con soberanía única, monopolio de la fuerza y territorio unificado. Mientras en los demás casos nacionales europeos los primeros partidos asumirán el rol de la socialización política, en Alemania, en cambio, los primeros agentes de socialización política no son “partidos”, sino asociaciones (Vereine) de creyentes, dado que no hay “Estado” como unidad política hasta 1871. El fenómeno de las asociaciones (religiosas) alemanas es un fenómeno europeo  de tipo cooperativo-comunitario muy interesante para los estudios de historia comparada.

Socialización política entre imperio y reino: los movimientos nacionales de creyentes

Estos agentes de socialización política serán más bien movimientos religiosos y nacionales, en parte “aglutinados” bajo una identidad negativa (el enemigo francés), pero curiosamente forjados a partir de una sutil “ambigüedad” constitutiva muy particular: una continuidad latente con el Sacro Romano Imperio Germánico. Debido a esta continuidad, al interior de las cuatro tradiciones mencionadas todos los agentes desarrollarán un visión fuertemente a favor del modelo del Reich como unidad indivisible y fuertemente pro-unitaria. Esto último se explica en parte debido a la ausencia misma de una forma estatal. No se olvide que el Sacro Romano Imperio era casi una “forma federal” sui generis, por lo tanto las “partes” hacen referencia a un imperio, no a una forma de estados relativamente autónomos, como afirmaría la actual teoría federal por ejemplo. Tal caracter pro-unitario y pro-imperio no será, entonces, unitario únicamente en terminos de la unidad del “Estado-nación” (que no existía), sino de cada uno de estos agentes en relación a sí mismo y al Reich.  En efecto, la etimología de la palabra alemana “partido” (Partei), tuvo siempre un significado íntimamente negativo para todos los agentes que entraban por primera vez en la area política de la revolución nacional. En esta revolución nacional, no se podía ser egoísticamente “de parte” frente a la comunidad. Se cumple, según las máximas de la ética prusiana de la época, un preciso rol, se brinda un preciso servicio (Dienst), según una precisa llamada (Beruf, profesión), para ejercer una función en un preciso ámbito (Be-Reich) al interior de la comunidad espiritual del Reino (Reich). Estos agentes que las cuatro tradiciones ideológicas canalizan a través de la idea de nación y religión, generarán ese futuro sistema de partidos fuertemente orientado al formato imperial de la comunidad del Reich. Será también la misma peculiaridad que llevará a la fuerte polarización inter-partidaria que se verá después de la Primera guerra Mundial, cuando el modelo configurante del II Reich desaparece.

Esta tendencia religiosa nacional-comunitaria, basada en la defensa del Estado como principio, la comunidad política y la identidad colectiva, no es únicamente una peculiaridad de la tradición alemana católica y conservadora, como se podría imaginar rápidamente. Será también un rasgo emblemático de las otras dos familias idelógicas, la liberal y la socialista, incluída la radicalización posterior de esta última, la comunista (en su ala no internacionalista atención). Esta curiosa convergencia se debió a la tendencia general pro-unificación del Estado en su sentido moderno, que era un objetivo y tendencia transversal a las cuatro familias ideológicas. Sólo el comunismo, variante externa y espuria del socialismo alemán, asumirá una contratendencia crítica a través del internacionalismo (por lo tanto será visto como el primer enemigo). Con la derrota de la primera Guerra, los partidos que representaban estras cuatro tradiciones ideológicas (más la novedad comunista) se verán, entonces, tal cual por primera vez, es decir en términos modernos: simplemente “partidos”, organizaciones “de parte” dentro de un Estado democrático frágil. La respuesta será insólita: Ese elemento partidario fuertemente inclusivo y pro-Reich (más aún en el revanchismo de la  derrota) regresará otra vez con el totalitarismo monopartidario del Nacionalsocialismo. El temor que Schmitt ya habia previsto venir desde antes de la primera Guerra, es decir, la completa eliminación de la distinción entre Estado y cuerpo social, se cumple finalmente. Nuevamente re-emerge, entonces, de sus cenizas la tendencia pro-Reich perdida. Este perfil fuertemente de estado-partido – mutatis mutandis – no desaparecerá después de la guerra. Es el caso del denominado “Estado-de-partidos” del sistema político alemán. Este sistema posee una fuerte hegemonía de coaliciones inter-partídarias (2 partidos centrales+3 satélites) excluyentes (se habla de Alemania actual como una “democracia blindada”).

Pietismo y Reforma

Estos agentes de socialización política se irán forjando entonces al interior de una tradición política nacional-religiosa madura, cuya mencionada “ambigüedad” constitutiva se continuará reflejando especularmente ya sea a nivel de la Liga alemana (1815-16) como del pacto militar de la liga “alemana del norte” (1866), oscilante entre “liga de estados” y el “Estado unitario”. Al interior del elemento religioso mencionado no podemos olvidar un factor histórico decisivo muy anterior obviamente, pero no menos incisivo, no sólo en Alemania: los efectos políticos de la Reforma. A esta se añadirá otro factor silencioso dentro de la Reforma misma, no menos decisivo, sobre todo a nivel de los mencionados agentes de socialización política nacional-religiosos, transformados en el tiempo en  movimientos “nacional-sociales”, en cuanto agentes de socialización política . Esto último debido al increiblemente rapido proceso de modernización industrial (casi a la par sino superior a Inglaterra). Tal factor silencioso interno no menos decisivo es el Pietismus, movimiento de creyentes evangélicos anti-iluministas y anti-dogmáticos que desarrollan una mística comunitaria transversal a la Reforma, en el tiempo convertida en “religión de Estado”. El Pietismus fue una corriente evangélica “transversal”, fuertemente comunitaria (fundaban ciudades (!) de creyentes) al dogma reformista. Su núcleo más íntimo es exquisítamente místico.

El nacional-liberalismo alemán de Carl Schmitt

Dados estos elementos histórico-ideológicos weltanschaulich, se puede deducir entonces que  la tradición del liberalismo alemán que surge de este contexto es una tradición con fuertes elementos religiosos en sus primeras formas sociales, y nacional-comunitarios en su vínculo con el Estado. Este liberalismo alemán no será, por lo tanto, confundido con el liberalismo anglosajón (tal vez con la tradición conservadora whig). No hay ni un “individuo” por defender ni libertades negativas por asegurar ante un Estado (no existía tal cual). Luego de la fundación del Reich (1871) el vínculo del nacional-liberalismo alemán a favor de la forma estatal aumentará más aún: En efecto, la peculiaridad del nacional-liberalismo alemán no es la defensa del individuo, sino la defensa de la relación entre la comunidad política y el Estado. En la historia del liberalismo europeo, el liberalismo alemán será sucesivamente catalogado como una “idealización” (Sartori), a través de Hegel, del Estado moderno. Este liberalismo alemán será considerado finalmente como un modelo “estado-céntrico”, para diferenciarlo del liberalismo inglés (que sería individualista-utilitarista). Bajo esta precisa tradición nacional-liberal se formará Schmitt, no menos que Max Weber. El joven Schmitt recibirá además la influencia del mencionado Pietismus, elemento que lo llevará luego a descubrir el misticismo de Franz v. Baader y los anti-iluministas franceses (Louis Claude de Saint Martin). Tales elementos “esotéricos” no serán tampoco extraños a Max Weber.

primera conclusión (tesis):

1) Como ya intuído por la escuela de Leipzig (H. Schelsky en particular), la crítica de Carl Schmitt al liberalismo es una crítica al liberalismo inglés desde la peculiaridad del nacional-liberalismo alemán (H.Preuss, Von Stein) . En la historia de la doctrinas políticas se tiene limitadamente en mente una tradición liberal anglo-americana y se desconoce la peculiaridad del liberalismo continental alemán. Desde esta perspectiva limitada, cualquier crítica no-comunista al liberalismo pasa entonces como mero anti-liberalismo,  asi como cualquier anti-comunismo, es decir, cualquier crítica no-liberal al comunismo, pasa como Fascismo. lo mismo sucede con la falacia del “anti-liberalismo” de Schmitt a secas. A partir de esta ignorancia (porque ignorancia es), se cataloga a Carl Schmitt como un pensador anti-liberal. Nosotros afirmamos: sí,  Schmitt es un pensador anti-liberal, pero contra el liberalismo inglés. El nacional-liberalismo de Schmitt podría catalogarse como una “tercera vía” hegeliana de derecha, como ya desarrollado en una traducción de un artículo de Schmitt al respecto.

Ordo ordinans: il carattere istitutivo del termine nomos

Ordo ordinans: il carattere istitutivo del termine nomos

Giovanni B. Krähe / Ex: http://geviert.wordpress.com/

Come sappiamo, dalla dissoluzione dell’ordinamento medioevale sorse lo Stato territoriale accentrato e delimitato. In questa nuova concezione della territorialità – caratterizzata dal principio di sovranità – l’idea di Stato superò sia il carattere non esclusivo dell’ordinamento spaziale medioevale, sia la parcellizzazione del principio di autorità (1).

Parallelamente, l’avvento dell’epoca moderna mise in atto un’autentica rivoluzione nella visione dello spazio. Questa fu caratterizzata dal sorgere, attraverso la scoperta di un nuovo mondo, di una nuova mentalità di tipo globale. In questo senso, l’evolversi del rapporto fra ordinamento e localizzazione introdusse un nuovo equilibrio tra terra ferma e mare libero, ‘‘fra scoperta e occupazione di fatto’’ (2). A questo punto ci sembra importante mettere in evidenza la specificità del rapporto che caratterizza un particolare ordine spaziale. Questo non è, come si può dedurre da una prima lettura dell’opera schmittiana, il semplice mutamento dei confini territoriali prodotto dallo sviluppo del dominio tecnico sulle altre dimensioni spaziali (terra, mare, aria o spazio globale complessivo). Ogni mutamento nei confini di queste dimensioni può determinare il sorgere di un nuovo ordinamento, di un nuovo diritto internazionale, ma non necessariamente istituire quest’ordinamento. Qui si colloca il concetto di sfida (Herausforderung) a partire dal quale, per Schmitt, una decisione politica fonda un nuovo nomos, che si sostituisce al vecchio ordinamento dello spazio (3).

Su questa via, possiamo considerare il concetto di ‘politico’ come un approccio teorico in risposta alla sfida aperta lasciata dalla fine della statualità in quanto organizzazione non conflittuale dei gruppi umani. Allo stesso modo possiamo cogliere, attraverso le trasformazioni del concetto di guerra, la proposta teorica schmittiana di una possibilità di regolazione della belligeranza. È vero poi che una decisione politica può anche risolversi in un mero rapporto di dominio egemonico, tutto centrato nella propria autoreferenzialità della sua politica di potenza. Non si può parlare in questo caso dell’emergere di un nuovo nomos in quanto il problema della conflittualità non si presenta più nei termini di una possibilità di regolazione. In questo senso, tale problema, se riferito alla guerra nell’epoca moderna, caratterizzata dalla ambiguità del principio di self-help, diventa fonte interminabile di nuove inimicizie :

“Le numerose conquiste, dedizioni, occupazioni di fatto (…) o si inquadrano in un ordinamento spaziale del diritto internazionale già dato, oppure spezzano quel quadro e hanno la tendenza – se non sono soltanto dei fugaci atti di forza – a costituire un nuovo ordinamento spaziale del diritto internazionale”(4).

Abbiamo detto che dal rapporto fra ordinamento e localizzazione può emergere un determinato ordine spaziale. La possibilità aperta di fondare, nel senso della sfida accennata da Schmitt, un nuovo ordine dipende dal carattere istitutivo della decisione politica. Il potere costituente, che da questa decisione emerge, problematizza nei suoi capisaldi il rapporto considerato implicito fra atti costituenti e istituzioni costituite, fra nomos e lex. Nella scontata sinonimia di queste due categorie fondamentali, l’autore introduce una distinzione radicale. Questa distinzione che considera l’atto fondativo di un determinato ordine spaziale attraverso la specificità pre-normativa della decisione politica è il carattere istitutivo del termine nomos (5). Questa caratteristica pre-normativa del nomos non va intesa nel senso di un diritto primitivo anteriore all’ordinamento della legalità statale, ma all’interno di una pluralità di tipi di diritto. In questa prospettiva, la norma, che c’è alla base del diritto positivo – costituito, a sua volta, sull’effetività materiale di un spazio pacificato – si colloca, all’interno di questa pluralità.

Per Schmitt, tuttavia, il nomos “è un evento storico costitutivo, un atto della legittimità che solo conferisce senso alla legalità della mera legge” (6). Di questa opposizione tra nomos e lex ripresa più volte dall’autore non ci occupiamo in questa sede, in quanto essa puó essere intesa come un unico processo a carattere ordinativo. Questo processo che viene generalmente operato dalla norma, è già, tra l’altro, implicito nello stesso nomos (7) . Piuttosto, ció che ci interessa sottolinerare all’interno di questo processo ordinativo è la collocazione del concetto di guerra. Cosí, in termini moderni, se il carattere istitutivo del termine nomos – nel senso di un ordo ordinans imperiale o federale come accennato da A. Panebianco – determina l’inizio di un unico processo strutturante fra ordinamento e localizzazione, allora la conflittualitá puó essere regolamentata, se collocata all’interno di questo processo. In questo senso, le odierne categorie del diritto internazionale sorte dal principio dello jus contra bellum (come, ad esempio, i crimini di guerra oppure i crimini contro l’umanitá) non solo non risolvono il problema dichiarando la guerra “fuori legge”, ma riducono le regolazioni della belligeranza a meri atti di polizia internazionale.

Note

(¹) La non esclusività risiedeva nella sovrapposizione di diverse istanze politico-giuridiche all’interno di uno stesso territorio. Cfr. John Gerard Ruggie, Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations, in “International Organization”, n. 47, 1, Winter 1993, p. 150.

(2) Carl Schmitt, Il nomos della terra (1950), Adelphi, Milano, 1991, p. 52.

(3) Cfr. ivi, p.75; vedi inoltre Carl Schmitt, Terra e Mare, Giuffrè, Milano, 1986, pp. 63-64 e pp. 80-82; sul concetto di sfida vedi la premessa (1963) a Id., Le categorie del ‘politico’, cit., pp. 89-100 in: Carl Schmitt:  Il concetto di ‘politico’ (1932), in Id., Le categorie del ‘politico’, a cura di G. Miglio e P. Schiera, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1972.

(4)  Carl Schmitt, Il nomos della terra, cit., p. 75; sul ruolo dell’America fra egemonia e nomos cfr. lo scritto Cambio di struttura del diritto internazionale (1943), pp. 296-297 e L’ordinamento planetario dopo la seconda guerra mondiale (1962), pp. 321-343 in Carl Schmitt, L’unità del mondo e altri saggi a cura di Alessandro Campi, Antonio Pellicani Editore, Roma, 1994.

(5) Sulla distinzione schmittiana tra nomos e lex si veda Carl Schmitt, Il nomos della terra, cit., pp. 55-62. La problematicità che introduce questa distinzione, per quanto riguarda l’ordinamento giuridico interno allo Stato, è stata sviluppata dall’autore in Legalità e legittimità, in Id., Le categorie del ‘politico’ cit., p. 223 ss.

(6) Carl Schmitt, Il nomos della terra, cit., p. 63.

(7) Sul carattere processuale specifico del termine nomos si veda Appropiazione/Divisione/Produzione (1958), in C. Schmitt, Le categorie del ‘politico’ cit., p. 299 ss., e Id., Nomos/Nahme/Name (1959), in Caterina Resta, Stato mondiale o Nomos della terra. Carl Schmitt tra universo e pluriverso. A.Pellicani Editore, Roma, 1999.

Carl Schmitt: A Dangerous Man

Carl Schmitt (part IV)

 A Dangerous Man

by Keith PRESTON

 

Ex: http://www.alternativeright.com/

 

 

When Hitler first came to power, Carl Schmitt hoped that President von Hindenburg would be able to control him, and dismiss him from the chancellor’s position if necessary. But within days of becoming chancellor, Hitler invoked Article 48 and began imposing restrictions on the freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Within a month, all civil liberties had essentially been suspended. Within two months, a Reichstag dominated by the Nazis and their allies (with the communists having been purged and subject to repression under Hitler’s emergency measures) passed the Enabling Act, which, more or less, gave Hitler the legal right to rule by decree. The Enabling Act granted Hitler actual legislative powers, beyond the emergency powers previously provided for by Article 48. Schmitt regarded the Enabling Act as amounting to the overthrow of the constitution itself and the creation of a new constitution and a new political and legal order.

The subsequent turn of events in Schmitt’s life remains the principal, though certainly not exclusive, source of controversy regarding Schmitt’s ideas and career as a public figure and intellectual. Schmitt remained true to his Hobbesian view of political obligation that it is the responsibility of the individual to defer to whatever political and legal authority that becomes officially constituted. On May 1, 1933, Carl Schmitt officially joined the Nazi Party.

Despite his past as an anti-Nazi, Schmitt’s prestigious reputation as a jurist and legal scholar heightened his value to the party. Herman Goering appointed Schmitt to the position of Prussian state councilor in July, 1933. He then became leader of the Nazi league of jurists and was appointed to the chair of public law at the University of Berlin. While occasionally including a racist or anti-Semitic comment in his writings and lectures during this time, Schmitt also hoped to strike a balance between Nazi ideology and his own more traditionally conservative outlook.

Schmitt’s hopes for such a balance were dashed by the Night of the Long Knives purge on June 30, 1934. Not only were hundreds of Hitler’s potential rivals within the party killed, but so were a number of prominent conservatives, including Schmitt’s former associate, General Kurt von Schleicher. Even Papen, who had initially been vice-chancellor under the Hitler regime, was placed under house arrest.

In response to the purge, Schmitt published the most controversial article of his career, “The Fuhrer Protects the Law.” On the surface, the article was merely a sycophantic and opportunistic effort at defending Hitler’s brutality and lawlessness. While Schmitt likely regarded the killing of rival Nazis as little more than a dishonorable falling out among thugs, he also included within the article subtle references to unjust murders that had been committed during the course of the purge, meaning the killing of his friend General Schleicher and others outside Nazi circles, and urged justice for the victims. The wording of the article pretended to absolve Hitler of responsibility while dropping very discreet and coded hints to the contrary.

Though Schmitt enjoyed the protection afforded to him by his associations with Goering and Hans Frank, he never exerted any influence over the regime itself. The purge of the SA leadership had the effect of empowering within the Nazi movement one of its most extreme elements, the SS. The SS soon concerned itself with the presence of “opportunists” and the ideologically impure elements, which had joined the party only after the party had seized power for the sake of being on the winning side. These elements included many middle-class persons and ordinary conservatives whose actual commitment to the party’s ideology and value system were questionable.

Schmitt was a prime example of these. His efforts to revise his theories to make them somewhat compatible with Nazi ideology were subject to attacks from jurists committed to the Nazi worldview. Further, former friends, professional associates, and students of Schmitt who had emigrated from the Third Reich were incensed by his collaboration with the regime and began publishing articles attacking him from abroad, pointing out his anti-Nazi past during his association with Schleicher, his prior associations with Jews, his Catholic background, and the fact that he had once referred to Nazism as “organized mass insanity.”

Schmitt attempted to defend himself against these attacks by becoming ever more virulent in his anti-Semitic rhetoric. When the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in September of 1935, he defended these laws publicly. His biographer Bendersky described the political, ethical, and professional predicaments Schmitt found himself in during this time:

No doubt at the time he tried to convince himself that he was obligated to obey and that as a jurist he was also compelled to work within the confines of these laws. He could easily rationalize his behavior with the same Hobbesian precepts he had used to explain his previous compromises. For he always adhered to the principle Autoritas, non veritas facit legem (Authority, not virtue makes the law), and he never tired of repeating that phrase. Authority was in the hands of the Nazis, their racial ideology became law, and he was bound by these laws.

Schmitt further attempted to counter the attacks hurled at him by both party ideologues and foreign critics by organizing a “Conference on Judaism in Jurisprudence” that was held in Berlin during October of 1936. At the conference, he gave a lecture titled “German Jurisprudence in the Struggle against the Jewish Intellect.” Two months later, Schmitt wrote a letter to Heinrich Himmler discussing his efforts to eradicate Jewish influence from German law.

Yet, the attacks on Schmitt by his party rivals and the guardians of Nazi ideology within the SS continued. Schmitt’s public relations campaign had been unsuccessful against the charges of opportunism, and Goering had become embarrassed by his appointee. Goering ordered that public attacks on Schmitt cease, and worked out an arrangement with Heinrich Himmler whereby Schmitt would no longer be involved with the activities of the Nazi party itself, but would simply retain his position as a law professor at the University of Berlin. Essentially, Schmitt had been politically and ideologically purged, but was fortunate enough to retain not only his physical safety but his professional position.

For the remaining years of the Third Reich, Schmitt made every effort to remain silent concerning matters of political controversy and limited his formal scholarly work and professorial lectures to discussions of routine aspects of international law or vague and generalized theoretical abstractions concerning German foreign policy, for which he always expressed outward support.

Even though he was no longer active in Nazi party affairs, held no position of significance in the Nazi state, and exercised no genuine ideological influence over the Nazi leadership, Schmitt’s reputation as a leading theoretician of Nazism continued to persist in foreign intellectual circles. In 1941, one Swiss journal even made the extravagant claim that Schmitt had been to the Nazi revolution in Germany what Rousseau had been to the French Revolution. Schmitt once again became fearful for his safety under the regime when his close friend Johannes Popitz was implicated and later executed for his role in the July 20, 1944, assassination plot against Hitler (though, in fact, Schmitt himself was never in any actual danger.)

When Berlin fell to the Russians in April 1945, Schmitt was detained and interrogated for several hours and then released. In November, Schmitt was arrested again, this time by American soldiers. He was considered a potential defendant in the war crimes trials to be held in Nuremberg and was transferred there in March 1947. In response to questions from interrogators and in written statements, Schmitt gave a detailed explanation and defense of his activities during the Third Reich that has been shown to be honest and accurate. He pointed out that he had no involvement with the Nazi party after 1936, and had only very limited contact with the party elite previously. Schmitt provided a very detailed analysis and description of the differences between his own theories and those of the Nazis. He argued that while his own ideas may have at times been plagiarized or misused by Nazi ideologists, this was no more his responsibility than Rousseau had been responsible for the Reign of Terror. The leading investigator in Schmitt’s case, the German lawyer Robert Kempner, eventually concluded that while Schmitt may have had a certain moral culpability for his activities under the Nazi regime, none of his actions could properly be considered crimes warranting prosecution at Nuremberg.

Schmitt’s reputation as a Nazi, and even as a war criminal, made it impossible for him to return to academic life, and so he simply retired on his university pension. He continued to write on political and legal topics for another three decades after his release from confinement at Nuremberg, and remained one of Germany’s most controversial intellectual figures. For some time, his pre-Nazi works were either ignored or severely misinterpreted. A number of prominent left-wing intellectuals, including those who had been directly influenced by Schmitt, engaged in efforts at vilification.

An objective scholarly interest in Schmitt began to emerge in the late 1960s and 1970s, even though Schmitt’s reputation as a Nazi apologist was hard to shake. Interestingly, the framers of the present constitution of the German Federal Republic actually incorporated some of Schmitt’s ideas from the Weimar period into the document. For instance, constitutional amendments that alter the basic democratic nature of the government or which undermine basic rights and liberties as outlined in the constitution are forbidden. Likewise, the German Supreme Court may outlaw parties it declares to be anti-constitutional, and both communist and neo-Nazi parties have at times been banned.

Schmitt himself returned to these themes in his last article published in 1978. In the article, Schmitt once again argued against allowing anti-constitutional parties the “equal chance” to achieve power through legal and constitutional means, and expressed concern over the rise of the formally democratic Eurocommunist parties in Europe, such as those in Italy and Spain, which hoped to gain control of the state through ordinary political channels.

 

Schmitt’s Contemporary Relevance

 

The legacy of Schmitt’s thought remains exceedingly relevant to 21^st-century Western political and legal theory. His works from the Weimar period offer the deepest insights into the inherent weaknesses and limitations of modern liberal democracy yet to be discussed by any thinker. This is particularly significant given that belief in liberal democracy as the only “true” form of political organization has become a de facto religion among Western political, cultural, and intellectual elites. Schmitt’s writings demonstrate the essentially contradictory nature of the foundations of liberal democratic ideology. The core foundation of “democracy” is the view that the state can somehow be a reflection of an abstract “peoples’ will,” which, somehow, rises out of a mass society of heterogeneous individuals, cultural subgroups, and political interest groups with irreconcilable differences.

This is clearly an absurd myth, perhaps one ultimately holding no more substance than ancient beliefs about emperors having descended from sun-gods. Further, the antagonistic relationship between liberalism and democracy recognized by Schmitt provides a theoretical understanding of the obvious practical truth that as democracy has expanded in the West, liberalism has actually declined. The classical liberal rights of property, exchange, and association, for instance, have been severely comprised in the name of creating “democratic rights” for a long list of social groups believed to have been excluded or oppressed by the wider society. The liberal rights of speech and religion have likewise been curbed for the ostensible purpose of eradicating real or alleged “bigotry” or “bias” towards former out-groups favored by proponents of democratic ideology.

The contradictions between liberalism and democracy aside, Schmitt’s work likewise demonstrates the ultimately self-defeating nature of liberalism taken to its logical conclusion. A corollary of liberalism is universalism, yet liberal universalism likewise contradicts itself. Liberalism, as Westerners have come to understand it, is a particular value system rooted in historic traditions and which evolved within a particular civilization and was affected by historical contingencies (the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and Modernism being only the most obvious.)

Schmitt’s definition of the essence of the political as the friend/enemy dichotomy simultaneously exposes the limitations of liberalism’s ability to sustain itself. Robert Frost’s quip about a liberal being someone who is unable to take his own side in a fight would seem to apply here. The principal weakness of liberalism is its inability to recognize its own enemies. Even in the final months of the Weimar republic, liberals, socialists, and even Catholic centrists held so steadfastly to the formalities of liberalism that they were unable to perceive the imminent destruction of liberalism that lurked a short distance ahead.

This insight of Schmitt would seem to go a long way towards explaining the behavior of many present day zealots of Liberal Democratic Fundamentalism. It is currently the norm for liberals to react with a grossly exaggerated, almost phobic, sense of urgency concerning the supposed presence of elements espousing “racism,” “fascism,” “homophobia,” and other illiberal or ostensibly illiberal ideas in their own societies. In virtually all Western countries, elements espousing the various taboo “isms” and “phobias” with any degree of seriousness are marginal in nature, often merely eccentric individuals, tiny cult-like groups, or politically irrelevant subcultures.

And yet, liberals who become hysterical over “fascism,” typically express absolutely no concern about the importation of unlimited numbers of persons from profoundly illiberal cultures into their own nations. Indeed, criticizing such things has itself become a serious taboo among liberals, who somehow believe that such values as secularism, feminism, and homosexual rights can never be threatened by the mass immigration of those from cultures with no liberal tradition, where theocratic rule is the norm, or where the political and social status of women has not changed in centuries or even millennia, where there is no tradition of free speech, where capital punishment is regularly imposed for petty offenses, and where homosexuality is often considered to be a capital crime.

A related irony is that liberals have embraced “Green” consciousness in a way comparable to the enthusiasm and adulation shown to pop music stars by teenagers, while remaining oblivious to the demographic and ecological consequences of unlimited population growth fueled by uncontrolled immigration.

Schmitt’s steadfast opposition to legal formalism as a method of constitutional interpretation and as an approach to legal theory in general is also interesting when measured against the standard complaints about “judicial activism” found among “mainstream” American conservatives. Schmitt’s view that laws, even constitutional law itself, should be interpreted according to the wider essence or deeper substance of the laws and constitutions in question and according to the concrete realities of specific political situations would no doubt make a lot of American conservatives uncomfortable. Of course, an important distinction has to be made between Schmitt’s seemingly open-ended approach to legal theory and the standard ideas about a “living constitution” found among American liberal jurists. Schmitt was concerned with the very real and urgent question of the need to preserve civil order and political stability in the face of severe social and economic crisis, civil unrest, and threats of revolution, whether through direct violence or cynical manipulation of ordinary political and legal processes. The various legal theories involving a supposed “living constitution” or “evolving standards” advanced by American liberals represents the far more dubious project of simply replacing the traditional Montesquieu-influenced American constitution with an ostensibly more “progressive” democratic socialist one.

That said, one has to wonder if it would not be appropriate for American anti-liberals to initiate an ideological move away from advocating strict adherence to the principle of legal or judicial neutrality towards a perspective that might be called “defensive judicial activism,” e.g. the advocacy of the use of the courts at every level to resist the encroachments of the present therapeutic-managerial-multiculturalist-welfare state in the same manner that liberals have used the courts to impose their own extra-legislative agenda. This would be an approach that is more easily discussed than implemented, of course, but perhaps it is still worthy of discussion nevertheless.

The political theory of Carl Schmitt likewise aids the development of a more thorough understanding of the nature of the state itself. Contrary to the prevailing view that political rule can be rooted objectively in sets of formal legal rules and institutional procedures, or that the state can be a mere reflection of the idealized abstraction of “the people,” Schmitt recognized that ultimately political rule is based on the question of “Who decides?” Ideological pretenses to the contrary, there will be a “sovereign” (whether an individual or a group) who possesses final authority as to what the rules will be and how they will be interpreted or applied.

Schmitt’s friend/enemy thesis likewise contains the recognition that the prospect of lethal violence defines the essence of politics. Political rule is about force, and about possessing the ability to exercise the necessary amount of physical violence to maintain a system of rule. The truth of these observations and of Schmitt’s broader critique of liberalism and democracy do not by themselves eliminate the problematical nature of Schmitt’s own Hobbesian outlook. Clearly, Schmitt’s own life and career illustrate the limitations of such a view. Indeed, after his purge by the Nazis, Schmitt reflected on Hobbes more extensively and modified his views on political obligation somewhat. He concluded that political obligation must be reciprocal in nature. Hobbes taught that the individual was obligated to obey political authority for the sake of his own protection. Schmitt argued in light of the Nazi experience that the individual’s obligation of obedience is negated when the state withdraws its protection. Schmitt’s concern with the primacy of order and stability could well be summarized by the Jeffersonian principle that “prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”

Yet, there is the wider question of the matter whereby the malignant nature of a particular state is such that the state not only fails to provide protection for the individual but threatens the wider culture and civilization itself, a situation for which Dr. Samuel Francis coined the term “anarcho-tyranny.” Clearly, in such a scenario, it will seem that the obligation of political obedience, individually or collectively, becomes abrogated.

Keith Preston

Keith Preston is the chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com and holds graduate degrees in history and sociology. He was awarded the 2008 Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize by the United Kingdom's Libertarian Alliance for his essay, "Free Enterprise: The Antidote to Corporate Plutocracy."

 

Carl Schmitt: The End of the Weimar Republic

Carl Schmitt (part III)

The End of the Weimar Republic

By Keith Preston

Ex: http://www.alternativeright.com/

 

 

 Adolf Hitler Accepts the Weimar Chancellorship From President Paul von Hindenburg, January 30, 1933

Carl Schmitt accepted a professorship at the University of Berlin in 1928, having left his previous position at the University of Bonn. At this point, he was still only a law professor and legal scholar, and while highly regarded in his fields of endeavor, he was not an actual participant in the affairs of state. In 1929, Schmitt became personally acquainted with an official in the finance ministry named Johannes Popitz, and with General Kurt von Schleicher, an advisor to President Paul von Hindenburg.

Schleicher shared Schmitt’s concerns that the lack of a stable government would lead to civil war or seizure of power by the Nazis or communists. These fears accelerated after the economic catastrophe of 1929 demonstrated once again the ineptness of Germany’s parliamentary system. Schleicher devised a plan for a presidential government comprised of a chancellor and cabinet ministers that combined with the power of the army and the provisions of Article 48 would be able to essentially bypass the incompetent parliament and more effectively address Germany’s severe economic distress and prevent civil disorder or overthrow of the republic by extremists.

Heinrich Bruning of the Catholic Center Party was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg. The Reichstag subsequently rejected Bruning’s proposed economic reforms so Bruning set about to implement them as an emergency measure under Article 48. The Reichstag then exercised its own powers under Article 48 and rescinded Bruning’s decrees, and Bruning then dissolved the parliament on the grounds that the Reichstag had been unable to form a majority government. Such was the prerogative of the executive under the Weimar constitution.

In the years between 1930 and 1933, Carl Schmitt’s legal writings expressed concern with two primary issues. The first of these dealt with legal matters pertaining to constitutional questions raised by the presidential government Schleicher had formulated. The latter focused on the question of constitutional issues raised by the existence of anti-constitutional parties functioning within the context of the constitutional system.

Schmitt’s subsequent reputation as a conservative revolutionary has been enhanced by his personal friendship or association with prominent radical nationalists like Ernst Jünger and the “National Bolshevist” Ernst Niekisch, as well as the publication of Schmitt’s articles in journals associated with the conservative revolutionary movement during the late Weimar period. However, Schmitt himself was never any kind of revolutionary. Indeed, he spoke out against changes in the constitution of Weimar during its final years, believing that tampering with the constitution during a time of crisis would undermine the legitimacy of the entire system and invite opportunistic exploitation of the constitutional processes by radicals. His continued defense of the presidential powers granted by Article 48 was always intended as an effort to preserve the existing constitutional order.

The 1930 election produced major victories for the extremist parties. The communists increased their representation in the Reichstag from 54 to 77 seats, and the Nazis from 12 to 107 seats. The left-of-center Social Democrats (SPD) retained 143 seats, meaning that avowedly revolutionary parties were now the second and third largest parties in terms of parliamentary representation. The extremist parties never took their parliamentary roles seriously, but instead engaged in endless obstructionist tactics designed to de-legitimize the republic itself with hopes of seizing power once it finally collapsed. Meanwhile, violent street fighting between Nazi and communist paramilitary groups emerged as the numbers of unemployed Germans soared well into the millions.

In the April 1932 presidential election, Hitler stood against Hindenburg, and while Hindenburg was the winner, Hitler received an impressive thirty-seven percent of the vote. Meanwhile, the Nazis had become the dominant party in several regional governments, and their private army, the SA, had grown to the point where it was four times larger than the German army itself.

Schmitt published Legality and Legitimacy in 1932 in response to the rise of the extremist parties. This work dealt with matters of constitutional interpretation, specifically the means by which the constitutional order itself might be overthrown through the abuse of ordinary legal and constitutional processes. Schmitt argued that political constitutions represent specific sets of political values. These might include republicanism, provisions for an electoral process, church/state separation, property rights, freedom of the press, and so forth. Schmitt warned against interpreting the constitution in ways that allowed laws to be passed through formalistic means whose essence contradicted the wider set of values represented by the constitution.

Most important, Schmitt opposed methods of constitutional interpretation that would serve to create the political conditions under which the constitution itself could be overthrown. The core issue raised by Schmitt was the question of whether or not anti-constitutional parties such as the NSDAP or KPD should have what he called the “equal chance” to assume power legally. If such a party were to be allowed to gain control of the apparatus of the state itself, it could then use its position to destroy the constitutional order.

Schmitt argued that a political constitution should be interpreted according to its internal essence rather than strict formalistic adherence to its technical provisions, and applied according to the conditions imposed by the “concrete situation” at hand. On July 19, 1932, Schmitt published an editorial in a conservative journal concerning the election that was to be held on July 31. The editorial read in part:

Whoever provides the National Socialists with the majority on July 31, acts foolishly. … He gives this still immature ideological and political movement the possibility to change the constitution, to establish a state church, to dissolve the labor unions, etc. He surrenders Germany completely to this group….It would be extremely dangerous … because 51% gives the NSDAP a “political premium of incalculable significance.”

The subsequent election was an extremely successful one for the NSDAP, as they gained 37.8 percent of the seats in the parliament, while the KPD achieved 14.6 percent. The effect of the election results was that the anti-constitutional parties were in control of a majority of the Reichstag seats.

On the advice of General Schleicher, President Hindenburg had replaced Bruning as chancellor with Franz von Papen on May 30. Papen subsequently took an action that would lead to Schmitt’s participation in a dramatic trial of genuine historic significance before the supreme court of Germany.

Invoking Article 48, the Papen government suspended the state government of Prussia and placed the state under martial law. The justification for this was the Prussian regional government’s inability to maintain order in the face of civil unrest. Prussia was the largest of the German states, containing two-thirds of Germany’s land mass and three-fifths of its population. Though the state government had been controlled by the Social Democrats, the Nazis had made significant gains in the April 1932 election. Along the way, the Social Democrats had made considerable effort to block the rise of the Nazis with legal restrictions on their activities and various parliamentary maneuvers. There was also much violent conflict in Prussia between the Nazis and the Communists.

Papen, himself an anti-Nazi rightist, regarded the imposition of martial law as having the multiple purposes of breaking the power of the Social Democrats in Prussia, controlling the Communists, placating the Nazis by removing their Social Democratic rivals, and simultaneously preventing the Nazis from becoming embedded in regional institutions, particularly Prussia’s huge police force.

The Prussian state government appealed Papen’s decision to the supreme court and a trial was held in October of 1932. Schmitt was among three jurists who defended the Papen government’s policy before the court. Schmitt’s arguments reflected the method of constitutional interpretation he had been developing since the time martial law had been imposed during the Great War by the Wilhelmine government. Schmitt likewise applied the approach to political theory he had presented in his previous writings to the situation in Prussia. He argued that the Prussian state government had failed in its foremost constitutional duty to preserve public order. He further argued that because Papen had acted under the authority of President Hindenburg, Papen’s actions had been legitimate under Article 48.

Schmitt regarded the conflict in Prussia as a conflict between rival political parties. The Social Democrats who controlled the state government were attempting to repress the Nazis by imposing legal restrictions on them. However, the Social Democrats had also been impotent in their efforts to control violence by the Nazis and the communists. Schmitt rejected the argument that the Social Democrats were constitutionally legitimate in their legal efforts against the Nazis, as this simply amounted to one political party attempting to repress another. While the “equal chance” may be constitutionally denied to an anti-constitutional party, such a decision must be made by a neutral force, such as the president.

As a crucial part of his argument, Schmitt insisted that the office of the President was sovereign over the political parties and was responsible for preserving the constitution, public order, and the security of the state itself. Schmitt argued that with the Prussian state’s failure to maintain basic order, the situation in Prussia had essentially become a civil war between the political parties. Therefore, imposition of martial law by the chancellor, as an agent of the president, was necessary for the restoration of order.

Schmitt further argued that it was the president rather than the court that possessed the ultimate authority and responsibility for upholding the constitution, as the court possessed no means of politically enforcing its decisions. Ultimately, the court decided that while it rather than the president held responsibility for legal defense of the constitution, the situation in Prussia was severe enough to justify the appointment of a commissarial government by Papen, though Papen had not been justified in outright suspension of the Prussian state government. Essentially, the Papen government had won, as martial law remained in Prussia, and the state government continued to exist in name only.

During the winter months of 1932-33, Germany entered into an increasingly perilous situation. Papen, who had pushed for altering the constitution along fairly strident reactionary conservative lines, proved to be an extraordinarily unpopular chancellor and was replaced by Schleicher on December 3, 1932. But by this time, Papen had achieved the confidence of President von Hindenburg, if not that of the German public, while Hindenburg’s faith in Schleicher had diminished considerably. Papen began talks with Hitler, and the possibility emerged that Hitler might ascend to the chancellorship.

Joseph Bendersky summarized the events that followed:

By late January, when it appeared that either Papen or Hitler might become chancellor, Schleicher concluded that exceptional measures were required as a last resort. He requested that the president declare a state of emergency, ban the Nazi and Communist parties, and dissolve the Reichstag until stability could be restored. During the interim Schleicher would govern by emergency decrees. …

This was preferable to the potentially calamitous return of Papen, with his dangerous reform plans and unpopularity. It would also preclude the possibility that as chancellor Hitler would eventually usurp all power and completely destroy the constitution, even the nature of the German state, in favor of the proclaimed Third Reich. Had Hindenburg complied with Schleicher’s request, the president would have denied the equal chance to an anti-constitutional party and thus, in Schmitt’s estimate, truly acted as the defender of the constitution. … Having lost faith in Schleicher, fearing civil war, and trying to avoid violating his oath to uphold the constitution, Hindenburg refused. At this point, Schleicher was the only leader in a position to prevent the Nazi acquisition of power, if the president had only granted him the authorization. Consequently, Hitler acquired power not through the use of Article 48, but because it was not used against him.

[emphasis added]

The Schleicher plan had the full support of Schmitt, and was based in part on Schmitt’s view that “a constitutional system could not remain neutral towards its own basic principles, nor provide the legal means for its own destruction.” Yet the liberal, Catholic, and socialist press received word of the plan and mercilessly attacked Schleicher’s plan specifically and Schmitt’s ideas generally as creating the foundation for a presidential dictatorship, while remaining myopically oblivious to the immediate danger posed by Nazi and Communist control over the Reichstag and the possibility of Hitler’s achievement of executive power.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler became chancellor. That evening, Schmitt received the conservative revolutionary Wilhelm Stapel as a guest in his home while the Nazis staged a torchlight parade in Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in celebration of Hitler’s appointment. Schmitt and Stapel discussed their alarm at the prospect of an imminent Nazi dictatorship and Schmitt felt the Weimar Republic had essentially committed suicide. If President von Hindenburg had heeded the advice of Schleicher and Schmitt, the Hitler regime would likely have never come into existence.

Carl Schmitt: The Concept of the Political

Carl Schmitt (Part II)

The Concept of the Political

By Keith Preston

 

Ex: http://www.alternativeright.com/

 

Carl Schmitt, circa 1928

It was in the context of the extraordinarily difficult times of the Weimar period that Carl Schmitt produced what are widely regarded as his two most influential books. The first of these examined the failures of liberal democracy as it was being practiced in Germany at the time. Schmitt regarded these failures as rooted in the weaknesses of liberal democratic theory itself. In the second work, Schmitt attempted to define the very essence of politics.

Schmitt's The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy was first published in 1923.^* In this work, Schmitt described the dysfunctional workings of the Weimar parliamentary system. He regarded this dysfunction as symptomatic of the inadequacies of the classical liberal theory of government. According to this theory as Schmitt interpreted it, the affairs of states are to be conducted on the basis of open discussion between proponents of competing ideas as a kind of empirical process. Schmitt contrasted this idealized view of parliamentarianism with the realities of its actual practice, such as cynical appeals by politicians to narrow self-interests on the part of constituents, bickering among narrow partisan forces, the use of propaganda and symbolism rather than rational discourse as a means of influencing public opinion, the binding of parliamentarians by party discipline, decisions made by means of backroom deals, rule by committee and so forth.

Schmitt recognized a fundamental distinction between liberalism, or "parliamentarianism," and democracy. Liberal theory advances the concept of a state where all retain equal political rights. Schmitt contrasted this with actual democratic practice as it has existed historically. Historic democracy rests on an "equality of equals," for instance, those holding a particular social position (as in ancient Greece), subscribing to particular religious beliefs or belonging to a specific national entity. Schmitt observed that democratic states have traditionally included a great deal of political and social inequality, from slavery to religious exclusionism to a stratified class hierarchy. Even modern democracies ostensibly organized on the principle of universal suffrage do not extend such democratic rights to residents of their colonial possessions. Beyond this level, states, even officially "democratic" ones, distinguish between their own citizens and those of other states.

At a fundamental level, there is an innate tension between liberalism and democracy. Liberalism is individualistic, whereas democracy sanctions the "general will" as the principle of political legitimacy. However, a consistent or coherent "general will" necessitates a level of homogeneity that by its very nature goes against the individualistic ethos of liberalism. This is the source of the "crisis of parliamentarianism" that Schmitt suggested. According to the democratic theory, rooted as it is in the ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau, a legitimate state must reflect the "general will," but no general will can be discerned in a regime that simultaneously espouses liberalism. Lacking the homogeneity necessary for a democratic "general will," the state becomes fragmented into competing interests. Indeed, a liberal parliamentary state can actually act against the "peoples' will" and become undemocratic. By this same principle, anti-liberal states such as those organized according to the principles of fascism or Bolshevism can be democratic in so far as they reflect the "general will."

The Concept of the Political appeared in 1927. According to Schmitt, the irreducible minimum on which human political life is based.

The political must therefore rest on its own ultimate distinctions, to which all action with a specifically political meaning can be traced. Let us assume that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable. […]

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. … In so far as it is not derived from other criteria, the antithesis of friend and enemy corresponds to the relatively independent criteria of other antitheses: good and evil in the moral sphere, beautiful and ugly in the aesthetic sphere, and so on. 

These categories need not be inclusive of one another. For instance, a political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly. What is significant is that the enemy is the "other" and therefore a source of possible conflict.

The friend/enemy distinction is not dependent on the specific nature of the "enemy." It is merely enough that the enemy is a threat. The political enemy is also distinctive from personal enemies. Whatever one's personal thoughts about the political enemy, it remains true that the enemy is hostile to the collective to which one belongs. The first purpose of the state is to maintain its own existence as an organized collective prepared if necessary to do battle to the death with other organized collectives that pose an existential threat. This is the essential core of what is meant by the "political." Organized collectives within a particular state can also engage in such conflicts (i.e. civil war). Internal conflicts within a collective can threaten the survival of the collective as a whole. As long as existential threats to a collective remain, the friend/enemy concept that Schmitt considered to be the heart of politics will remain valid.

Schmitt has been accused by critics of attempting to drive a wedge between liberalism and democracy thereby contributing to the undermining of the Weimar regime's claims to legitimacy and helping to pave the way for a more overtly authoritarian or even totalitarian system of the kind that eventually emerged in the form of the Hitler dictatorship. He has also been accused of arguing for a more exclusionary form of the state, for instance, one that might practice exclusivity or even supremacy on ethnic or national grounds, and of attempting to sanction the use of war as a mere political instrument, independent of any normative considerations, perhaps even as an ideal unto itself. Implicit in these accusations is the idea that Schmitt’s works created a kind of intellectual framework that could later be used to justify at least some of the ideas of Nazism and even lead to an embrace of Nazism by Schmitt himself.

The expression "context is everything" becomes a quite relevant when examining these accusations regarding the work of Carl Schmitt. This important passage from the preface to the second edition of The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy sheds light on Schmitt’s actual motivations:

That the parliamentary enterprise today is the lesser evil, that it will continue to be preferable to Bolshevism and dictatorship, that it would have unforeseen consequences were it to be discarded, that it is 'socially and technically' a very practical thing-all these are interesting and in part also correct observations. But they do not constitute the intellectual foundations of a specifically intended institution. Parliamentarianism exists today as a method of government and a political system. Just as everything else that exists and functions tolerably, it is useful-no more and no less. It counts for a great deal that even today it functions better than other untried methods, and that a minimum of order that is today actually at hand would be endangered by frivolous experiments. Every reasonable person would concede such arguments. But they do not carry weight in an argument about principles. Certainly no one would be so un-demanding that he regarded an intellectual foundation or a moral truth as proven by the question, “What else?”

This passage indicates that Schmitt was in fact wary of undermining the authority of the republic for its own sake or for the sake of implementing a revolutionary regime. Clearly, it would be rather difficult to reconcile such an outlook with the political millenarianism of either Marxism or National Socialism. The "crisis of parliamentary democracy" that Schmitt was addressing was a crisis of legitimacy. On what political or ethical principles does a liberal democratic state of the type Weimar establish its own legitimacy? This was an immensely important question, given the gulf between liberal theory and parliamentary democracy as it was actually being practiced in Weimar, the conflicts between liberal practice and democratic theories of legitimacy as they had previously been laid out by Rousseau and others and, perhaps most importantly, the challenges to liberalism and claims to "democratic" legitimacy being made at the time by proponents of revolutionary ideologies of both the Left and the Right.

Schmitt observed that democracy, broadly defined, had triumphed over older systems, such as monarchy, aristocracy and theocracy, by trumpeting its principle of "popular sovereignty." However, the advent of democracy had also undermined older theories on the foundations of political legitimacy, such as those rooted in religion ("divine right of kings"), dynastic lineages or mere appeals to tradition. Further, the triumphs of both liberalism and democracy had brought into fuller view the innate conflicts between the two. There is also the additional matter of the gap between the practice of politics (such as parliamentary procedures) and the ends of politics (such as the "will of the people").

Schmitt observed how parliamentarianism as a procedural methodology had a wide assortment of critics, including those representing the forces of reaction (royalists and clerics, for instance) and radicalism (from Marxists to anarchists). Schmitt also pointed out that he was by no means the first thinker to recognize these issues, citing Mosca, Jacob Burckhardt, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, and Michels, among others.

A fundamental question that concerned Schmitt is the matter of what the democratic "will of the people" actually means, and he observed that an ostensibly democratic state could adopt virtually any set of policy positions, "whether militarist or pacifist, absolutist or liberal, centralized or decentralized, progressive or reactionary, and again at different times without ceasing to be a democracy." He also raised the question of the fate of democracy in a society where "the people" cease to favor democracy. Can democracy be formally renounced in the name of democracy? For instance, can "the people" embrace Bolshevism or a fascist dictatorship as an expression of their democratic "general will"?

The flip side of this question asks whether a political class committed in theory to democracy can act undemocratically (against "the will of the people"), if the people display an insufficient level of education in the ways of democracy. How is the will of the people to be identified in the first place? Is it not possible for rulers to construct a "will of the people" of their own through the use of propaganda?

For Schmitt, these questions were not simply a matter of intellectual hair-splitting but were of vital importance in a weak, politically paralyzed liberal democratic state where the commitment of significant sectors of both the political class and the public at large to the preservation of liberal democracy was questionable, and where the overthrow of liberal democracy by proponents of other ideologies was a very real possibility.

Schmitt examined the claims of parliamentarianism to democratic legitimacy. He describes the liberal ideology that underlies parliamentarianism as follows:

It is essential that liberalism be understood as a consistent, comprehensive metaphysical system. Normally one only discusses the economic line of reasoning that social harmony and the maximization of wealth follow from the free economic competition of individuals. ... But all this is only an application of a general liberal principle...: That truth can be found through an unrestrained clash of opinion and that competition will produce harmony.

For Schmitt, this view reduces truth to "a mere function of the eternal competition of opinions." After pointing out the startling contrast between the theory and practice of liberalism, Schmitt suggested that liberal parliamentarian claims to legitimacy are rather weak and examined the claims of rival ideologies. Marxism replaces the liberal emphasis on the competition between opinions with a focus on competition between economic classes and, more generally, differing modes of production that rise and fall as history unfolds. Marxism is the inverse of liberalism, in that it replaces the intellectual with the material. The competition of economic classes is also much more intensified than the competition between opinions and commercial interests under liberalism. The Marxist class struggle is violent and bloody. Belief in parliamentary debate is replaced with belief in "direct action." Drawing from the same rationalist intellectual tradition as the radical democrats, Marxism rejects parliamentarianism as a sham covering the dictatorship of a particular class, i.e. the bourgeoisie. “True” democracy is achieved through the reversal of class relations under a proletarian state that rules in the interest of the laboring majority. Such a state need not utilize formal democratic procedures, but may exist as an "educational dictatorship" that functions to enlighten the proletariat regarding its true class interests.

Schmitt contrasted the rationalism of both liberalism and Marxism with irrationalism. Central to irrationalism is the idea of a political myth, comparable to the religious mythology of previous belief systems, and originally developed by the radical left-wing but having since been appropriated in Schmitt’s time by revolutionary nationalists. It is myth that motivates people to action, whether individually or collectively. It matters less whether a particular myth is true than if people are inspired by it.

At the close of Crisis, Schmitt quotes from a speech by Benito Mussolini from October 1922, shortly before the March on Rome. Said the Duce:

 

We have created a myth, this myth is a belief, a noble enthusiasm; it does not need to be reality, it is a striving and a hope, a belief and courage. Our myth is the nation, the great nation which we want to make into a concrete reality for ourselves.

Whatever Schmitt might have thought of movements of the radical Right in the 1920s, it is clear enough that his criticisms of liberalism were intended not so much as an effort to undermine democratic legitimacy so much as an effort to confront its inherent weaknesses with candor and intellectual rigor.

Schmitt also had no illusions about the need for strong and decisive political authority capable of acting in the interests of the nation during perilous times. As he remarks,

If democratic identity is taken seriously, then in an emergency no other constitutional institution can withstand the sole criterion of the peoples' will, however it is expressed.

In other words, the state must first act to preserve itself and the general welfare and well-being of the people at large. If necessary, the state may override narrow partisan interests, parliamentary procedure or, presumably, routine electoral processes. Such actions by political leadership may be illiberal, but they are not necessarily undemocratic, as the democratic general will does not include national suicide. Schmitt outlined this theory of the survival of the state as the first priority of politics in The Concept of the Political. The essence of the "political" is the existence of organized collectives prepared to meet existential threats to themselves with lethal force if necessary. The "political" is different from the moral, the aesthetic, the economic, or the religious as it involves, first and foremost, the possibility of groups of human beings killing other human beings.

This does not mean that war is necessarily "good" or something to be desired or agitated for. Indeed, it may often be in the political interests of a state to avoid war. However, any state that wishes to survive must be prepared to meet challenges to its existence, whether from conquest or domination by external forces or revolution and chaos from internal forces. Additionally, a state must be capable of recognizing its own interests and assume sole responsibility for doing so. A state that cannot identify its enemies and counter enemy forces effectively is threatened existentially.

Schmitt's political ideas are, of course, more easily understood in the context of Weimar's political situation. He was considering the position of a defeated and demoralized German nation that was unable to defend itself against external threats, and threatened internally by weak, chaotic and unpopular political leadership, economic hardship, political and ideological polarization and growing revolutionary movements, sometimes exhibiting terrorist or fanatical characteristics.

Schmitt regarded Germany as desperately in need of some sort of foundation for the establishment of a recognized, legitimate political authority capable of upholding the interests and advancing the well-being of the nation in the face of foreign enemies and above domestic factional interests. This view is far removed from the Nazi ideas of revolution, crude racial determinism, the cult of the leader, and war as a value unto itself. Schmitt is clearly a much different thinker than the adherents of the quasi-mystical nationalism common to the radical right-wing of the era. Weimar's failure was due in part to the failure of the political leadership to effectively address the questions raised by Schmitt. 

______________

 

 

*The German title -- Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus -- literally means “the historical-spiritual condition of contemporary parliamentarianism.” The common rendering, “The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy,” is certainly more euphonious, though it is problematic since one of Schmitt’s central points in the book is that parliamentarianism is not democratic.   

Carl Schmitt - Weimar: State of Exception

Carl Schmitt (Part I)

Weimar: State of Exception

By Keith Preston

 

Ex: http://www.alternativeright.com/

 

 

Carl Schmitt, the Return of the German Army Following World War I (photo: BBC)

Among the many fascinating figures that emerged from the intellectual culture of Germany’s interwar Weimar Republic, perhaps none is quite as significant or unique as Carl Schmitt. An eminent jurist and law professor during the Weimar era, Schmitt was arguably the greatest political theorist of the 20th century. He is also among the most widely misinterpreted or misunderstood.

The misconceptions regarding Schmitt are essentially traceable to two issues. The first of these is obvious enough: Schmitt’s collaboration with the Nazi regime during the early years of the Third Reich. The other reason why Schmitt’s ideas are so frequently misrepresented, if not reviled, in contemporary liberal intellectual circles may ultimately be the most important. Schmitt’s works in political and legal theory provide what is by far the most penetrating critique of the ideological and moral presumptions of modern liberal democracy and its institutional workings.

Like his friend and contemporary Ernst Junger, Schmitt lived to a very old age. His extraordinarily long life allowed him to witness many changes in the surrounding world that were as rapid as they were radical. He was born in 1888, the same year that Wilhelm II became the emperor of Germany, and died in 1985, the year Mikhail Gorbachev became the final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Schmitt wrote on legal and political matters for nearly seven decades. His earliest published works appeared in 1910 and his last article was published in 1978. Yet it is his writings from the Weimar period that are by far the most well known and, aside from his works during his brief association with the Nazis, his works during the Weimar era are also his most controversial.

Not only is it grossly inaccurate to regard Schmitt merely as a theoretician of Nazism, but it is also problematical even to characterize him as a German nationalist. For one thing, Schmitt originated from the Rhineland and his religious upbringing was Catholic, which automatically set him at odds both regionally and religiously with Germany’s Protestant and Prussian-born elites. As his biographer Joseph Bendersky noted, Schmitt’s physical appearance was “far more Latin than Germanic” and he had French-speaking relatives. Schmitt once said to the National-Bolshevik leader Ernst Niekisch, “I am Roman by origin, tradition, and right.”

At age nineteen, Schmitt entered the prestigious University of Berlin, which was exceedingly rare for someone with his lower middle-class origins, and on the advice of his uncle chose law as his area of specialization. This choice seems to have initially been the result of ambition rather than specificity of interest. Schmitt received his law degree in 1910 and subsequently worked as a law clerk in the Prussian civil service before passing the German equivalent of the bar examination in 1915. By this time, he had already published three books and four articles, thereby foreshadowing a lifetime as a highly prolific writer.

Even in his earliest writings, Schmitt demonstrated himself as an anti-liberal thinker. Some of this may be attributable to his precarious position as a member of Germany’s Catholic religious minority. As Catholics were distrusted by the Protestant elites, they faced discrimination with regards to professional advancement. Schmitt may therefore have recognized the need for someone in his situation to indicate strong loyalty and deference to the authority of the state. As a Catholic, Schmitt originated from a religious tradition that emphasized hierarchical authority and obedience to institutional norms.

Additionally, the prevailing political culture of Wilhelmine Germany was one where the individualism of classical liberalism and its emphasis on natural law and “natural rights” was in retreat in favor of a more positivist conception of law as the product of the sovereign state. To be sure, German legal philosophers of the period did not necessarily accept the view that anything decreed by the state was “right” by definition. For instance, neo-Kantians argued that just law preceded rather than originated from the state with the state having the moral purpose of upholding just law. Yet German legal theory of the time clearly placed its emphasis on authority rather than liberty.

Schmitt’s most influential writings have as their principal focus the role of the state in society and his view of the state as the essential caretaker of civilization. Like Hobbes before him, Schmitt regarded order and security to be the primary political values and Schmitt has not without good reason been referred to as the Hobbes of the 20th century. His earliest writings indicate an acceptance of the neo-Kantian view regarding the moral purpose of the state. Yet these neo-Kantian influences diminished as Schmitt struggled to come to terms with the events of the Great War and the Weimar Republic that emerged at the war’s conclusion.

Schmitt himself did not actually experience combat during the First World War. He had initially volunteered for a reserve unit but an injury sustained during training rendered him unfit for battle; Schmitt spent much of the war in Munich in a non-combatant capacity. Additionally, Schmitt was granted an extended leave of absence to serve as a lecturer at the University of Strassburg.

As martial law had been imposed in Germany during the course of the war, Schmitt’s articles on legal questions during this time dealt with the implications of this for legal theory and constitutional matters. Schmitt argued that the assumption of extraordinary powers by military commanders was justified when necessary for the preservation of order and the security of the state. However, Schmitt took the carefully nuanced view that such powers are themselves limited and temporary in nature. For instance, ordinary constitutional laws may be temporarily suspended and temporary emergency decrees enacted in the face of crisis, but only until the crisis is resolved. Nor can the administrators of martial law legitimately replace the legislature or the legal system, and by no means can the constitutional order itself be suspended.

Carl Schmitt was thirty years old in November of 1918 when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and a republic was established. To understand the impact of these events on Schmitt’s life and the subsequent development of his thought, it is necessary to first understand the German political culture from which Schmitt originated and the profoundly destabilizing effect that the events of 1918 had on German political life.

Contemporary Westerners, particularly those in the English-speaking countries, are accustomed to thinking of politics in terms of elections and electoral cycles, parliamentary debates over controversial issues, judicial rulings, and so forth. Such was the habit of German thinkers in the Wilhelmine era as well, but with the key difference that politics was not specifically identified with the state apparatus itself.

German intellectuals customarily identified “politics” with the activities surrounding the German Reichstag, or parliament, which was subordinated to the wider institutional structures of German statecraft. These were the monarchy, the military, and the famous civil service bureaucracy, with the latter headed up primarily by appointees from the aristocracy. This machinery of state stood over and above the popular interests represented in the Reichstag, and pre-Weimar Germans had no tradition of parliamentary supremacy of the kind on which contemporary systems of liberal democracy are ostensibly based.

The state was regarded as a unifying force that provided stability and authority while upholding the interests of the German nation and keeping in check the fragmentation generated by quarrelling internal interests. This stability was eradicated by Germany’s military defeat, the imposition of the Treaty of Versailles, and the emergence of the republic.

The Weimar Republic was unstable from the beginning. The republican revolution that had culminated in the creation of a parliamentary democracy had been led by the more moderate social democrats, which were vigorously opposed by the more radical communists from the left and the monarchists from the right.

The Bolshevik Revolution had taken place in Russia in 1917, a short-lived communist regime took power in Hungary in 1919, and a series of communist uprisings in Germany naturally made upwardly mobile middle-class persons such as Schmitt fearful for their political and economic futures as well as their physical safety. During this time Schmitt published Political Romanticism where he attacked what he labeled as “subjective occasionalism.” This was a term Schmitt coined to describe the common outlook of German intellectuals who sought to remain apolitical in the pursuit of private interests or self-fulfillment. This perspective regarded politics as merely the prerogative of the state, and not as something the individual need directly engage himself with. Schmitt had come to regard this as an inadequate and outmoded outlook given the unavoidable challenges that Germany’s political situation had provided.

Schmitt published Dictatorship in 1921. This remains a highly controversial work and subsequent critics of Schmitt who dismiss him as an apologist for totalitarianism or who attack him for having created an intellectual framework conducive to the absolute rule of the Fuhrer during the Nazi period have often cited this particular work as evidence. However, Schmitt’s conception of “dictatorship” dealt with something considerably more expansive and abstract than what is implied by the term in present day popular (or often academic) discourse.

For Schmitt, a “dictatorship” is a situation where a particular constitutional order has either been abrogated or has fallen into what Schmitt referred to as a “state of exception.” As examples of the first kind of situation, Schmitt offered both the Leninist model of revolution and the National Assembly that had constructed the constitutional framework of Weimar. In both instances, a previously existing constitutional order had been dismissed as illegitimate, yet a new constitutional order had yet to be established. A sovereign dictatorship of this type functions to

represent the will of these formless and disorganized people, and to create the external conditions which permit the realization of the popular will in the form of a new political or constitutional system. Theoretically, a sovereign dictatorship is merely a transition, lasting only until the new order has been established.

By this definition, a “sovereign dictatorship” could include political forces as diverse as the Continental Congresses of the period of the American Revolution to the anarchist militias and workers councils that emerged in Catalonia during the Spanish civil war to guerrilla armies holding power in a particular region where the previously established government has retreated or collapsed during the course of an armed insurgency. Schmitt also advanced the concept of a “commissarial dictatorship” as opposed to a “sovereign dictatorship.”

Schmitt used as an illustration of this idea Article 48 from the Weimar constitution. This article allowed the German president to rule by decree in states of emergency where threats to the immediate security of the state or public order were involved. As he had initially suggested in his wartime articles concerning the administration of martial law, Schmitt regarded such powers as limited and temporary in nature and as rescinded by the wider constitutional order once the emergency situation has passed. Contrary to the image of Schmitt as a totalitarian apologist, Schmitt warned of the inherent dangers represented by the powers granted to the president under Article 48, noting that such powers could be used to attack and destroy the constitutional order itself.

The following year, in 1922, Schmitt published Political Theology. This work advanced two core arguments. The first of these was a challenge to the legal formalism represented by German jurists of the era such as Hans Kelsen. Kelsen’s outlook was not unlike that of contemporary American critics of “judicial activism” who regard law as normative unto itself and insist legal interpretation should be restricted to pure law as derived from constitutional texts and statutory legislation, irrespective of wider or related political, sociological or moral concerns. Schmitt considered this to be a naïve outlook that failed to consider two crucial and unavoidable matters: the reality and inevitability of political and social change, and exceptional cases. It was the latter of these that Schmitt was especially concerned with. It was the question of the “state of exception” that continued to be a preoccupation of Schmitt.

Exceptional cases involved situations where emergencies threatened the state itself. For Schmitt, the maintenance of basic order preceded constitutional norms and legal formalities. There is no constitution or law if there is chaos. The important question regarding exceptional cases was the matter of who decides when an emergency situation exists. Schmitt regarded this decision-making power as the prerogative of the sovereign. Within the constitutional framework of Weimar, sovereignty was held jointly by the Reich president and the Reichstag, meaning that the president could legitimately declare a state of emergency and temporarily rule by decree if the Reichstag agreed to grant him such powers.

While Schmitt was certainly a thinker of the Right, it is a mistake to group him together with proponents of the “conservative revolution” such as Moeller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Edgar Jung, or Hugo von Hofmannsthal. There is no evidence of him having expressed affinity for the views of these thinkers or joining any of the organizations that emerged to promote their ideas. Schmitt’s conservatism was squarely within the Machiavellian tradition, and he counted Machiavelli, Hobbes, Jean Bodin and conservative counterrevolutionaries such as Joseph De Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes as his influences.

During the Weimar era, Schmitt expressed no sympathy for the mystical nationalism of the radical Right, much less the vulgar racism and anti-Semitism of the Nazi movement. He was closer to the anti-liberal thinkers that James Burnham and others subsequently labeled as “the neo-Machiavellians.” These included Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, and Georges Sorel along with aristocratic conservatives like Max Weber. These thinkers expressed skepticism regarding the prospects of liberalism and democracy and emphasized the role of elites, the irrational, and the power of myth with regards to the political. Though Schmitt never joined a political party during the Weimar era, within the spectrum of German politics of the time he can reasonably be categorized as something of a moderate. He had admirers on both the far Right and far Left, including sympathizers with the Conservative Revolution as well as prominent intellectuals associated with the Marxist Frankfurt School, such as Walter Benjamin, Franz Neumann, and Otto Kirchheimer.

Schmitt’s own natural affinities were mostly likely closest to the Catholic Center Party, which along with the Social Democrats who had led the revolution of 1918 were the most consistently supportive of the republic and the constitutional order, and which represented the broadest cross-section of economic, class, regional, and institutional interests of any of the major parties during Weimar.

Like Hobbes before him, Schmitt was intensely focused on how order might be maintained in a society prone to chaos. Both economic turmoil and political instability continually plagued the republic. Successive political coalitions failed in their efforts to create a durable government and chancellors came and went. The Reichstag was immobilized by the intractable nature of political parties representing narrow class, ideological, or economic interests and possessing irreconcilable differences with one another. Additionally, many of the political parties that formed during the Weimar era, including those with substantial representation in the Reichstag, possessed little or no genuine commitment to the preservation of the republican order itself. Extremist parties, most notably the German Communist Party (KPD) and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), or the Nazis, as they came to be called, openly advocated its overthrow. Terrorism was practiced by extremists from both the right and left. Crisis after crisis appeared during the Weimar period, and the parliament was each time unable to deal with the latest emergency situation effectively. The preservation of order subsequently fell to the president. Article 48 of the constitution stated in part:

If a state does not fulfill the duties imposed by the Reich constitution or the laws of the Reich, the Reich president may enforce such duties with the aid of the armed forces. In the event that public order and security are seriously disturbed or endangered, the Reich president may take the necessary measures in order to restore public security and order, intervening, if necessary, with the aid of the armed forces. To achieve this goal, he may temporarily suspend entirely or in part, the stipulated basic rights in articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153. All measures undertaken in accordance with sections 1 or 2 of this article must be immediately reported to the Reichstag by the Reich president. These measures are to be suspended if the Reichstag so demands.

As an indication of the unstable nature of the Weimar republic, Article 48 was invoked more than two hundred and fifty times by successive presidents during the republic’s fifteen years of existence.

Algo sobre el poder y el poderoso

Algo sobre el poder y el poderoso

Alberto Buela (*)

A Germán Spano, que me lo obsequió

 

Se reeditó recientemente el pequeño Diálogo sobre el poder y acceso al poderoso del iusfilósofo alemán Carl Schmitt, que fuera publicado tanto en Alemania como en España en 1954[1], y que naciera como un diálogo radiofónico, que en un principio tendría el autor y el politólogo francés Raymond Arón o el sociólogo Helmut Schelsky o el filósofo Arnold Gehlen, pero los tres se rehusaron. Claro está la demonización mediática que pesaba sobre Schmitt era tal que cuando en el semanario Die Zeit, su jefe de redacción escribe a propósito del Diálogo: “En la República Federal de Alemania, el gran jurísta Carl Schmitt es una figura controvertida. Sin embargo, incluso sus enemigos deberían prestar atención cuando hace observaciones originales y sagaces…Nadie que se proponga escribir sobre el poder debería abordar el tema sin haber leído el texto de Carl Schmitt”(N° 9 del 2/7/54), al jefe de redacción lo echaron del trabajo y le prohibieron la entrada al edificio.

 

La naturaleza del poder

 

Se trata de hablar específicamente del poder que ejercen los hombres sobre otros hombres, pues el poder no procede ni de la naturaleza ni de Dios, al menos para la sociedad desacralizada de nuestro tiempo.

El poder establece una relación de mando-obediencia entre los hombres que cuando desaparece la obediencia, desparece el poder. Se puede obedecer por confianza, por temor, por esperanza, por desesperación que se busca junto al poder, pero “la relación entre protección y obediencia sigue siendo la única explicación para el poder”.

 

El acceso al poderoso

 

Como todo poder directo está sujeto a influencias indirectas, quien presenta un proyecto al poderoso, quien lo informa, quien lo ayuda o asesora ya participa del poder. Esto ha desvelado a los hombres que en el mundo han ejercido poder directo. Existen cientos de anécdotas al respecto, de cómo los poderosos han tratado de romper el círculo de influencias indirectas que los rodeaban. “Delante de cada espacio de poder directo se forma una antesala de influencias y poderes indirectos, un acceso al oído, un pasaje a la psique del poderoso”. Y cuanto más concentrado está ese poder en una cima, más se agudiza la cuestión del acceso a la cima. Más violenta y sorda se vuelve la lucha de aquellos que están en la antesala y controlan el pasaje al poder directo.

Quienes tienen  acceso al poder ya participan del poder y como consecuencia no permiten u obstruyen el acceso de otros al poder. En una palabra, el poder no se comparte, solo se ejerce.

 

Maldad o bondad del poder

 

Si el poder que ejercen los hombres entre sí no procede de la naturaleza ni de Dios sino es una cuestión de relación entre los hombres ¿es bueno, es malo, o qué es?, se pregunta.

Para la mayoría de los hombres el poder es bueno cuando lo ejerce uno y malo cuando lo ejerce su enemigo. El poder no hace a los hombres buenos o malos sino que cuando se ejerce muestra en sus acciones si el poderoso es bueno o malo, que es otra cosa distinta.

Para San Pablo todo poder viene de Dios, y para San Gregorio Magno la voluntad de poder es mala, pero el poder en sí mismo siempre es bueno.

Pero actualmente la mayoría de las personas siguen el criterio expresado por Jacobo Burckhardt que “el poder en sí mismo es malo”. Lo paradójico que esto fue escrito a partir de los gobiernos de Luís XIV, Napoleón y los gobiernos populares revolucionarios surgidos a partir de la Revolución Francesa. Es decir, que en plena época del humanismo laico, de los derechos humanos del hombre y el ciudadano se difunde la universal convicción de que el poder es malo.

 

A que se debe este cambio de ciento ochenta grados en la concepción del poder que pasó de bueno hasta finales del siglo XVIII, a malo hasta nuestros días.

El avance exponencial de la técnica, transformada luego en tecnología y finalmente en tecnocracia ha hecho que sus productos se desprendan del control del hombre y por lo tanto el poderoso no puede asegurar la protección que supone el tener poder sobre aquellos que le obedecen. Se supera así la relación protección obediencia que caracteriza la naturaleza del poder.

El poder es se ha transformado en algo objetivo más fuerte que el hombre que lo emplea.

El concepto de hombre ha cambiado y es vivido como más peligroso que cualquier otro animal, es el homo homini lupus de Hobbes, autor reverenciado por Schmitt.

 

Nota bene:

Sin cuestionar la excelencia de este brevísimo diálogo, quisiéramos observar que aun cuando Schmitt quiere hablar sobre el poder en general, se limita sin quererlo al poder político pues no tiene en cuenta el poder que nace de la autoridad, esto es el poder que nace del saber o conocer algo en profundidad y que pueda ser enseñado. No es por obediencia, al menos primariamente, que un discípulo se acerca a un verdadero maestro, ni por protección que un maestro ejerce su profesión, sino en busca de la transmisión genuina del saber.

Es que la obediencia a la autoridad se funda en el saber de dicha autoridad, y no en la mayor o menor protección que pueda brindar dicha autoridad.

 

(*) arkegueta- UTN(Universidad Tecnológica Nacional)

[e-mail]

 

---

[1] Revista de estudios políticos N° 78, Madrid, 1954

G. Maschke: ex-gauchiste, schmittien, pessimiste et amoureux de la vie

Archives de SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1997

Günter Maschke: ex-gauchiste, schmittien, pessimiste et amoureux de la vie

 

A l'âge de six ans, Günter Maschke, natif d'Erfurt en Thuringe, s'installe dans la ville épiscopale de Trêves, en Rhénanie-Palatinat. En 1960, il adhère à la Deutsche Friedensunion  (l'Union allemande pour la paix) et, plus tard, à la KPD communiste illégale. Deux tentatives pour échapper à l'étroitesse d'esprit de cette ville provinciale. Après des études secondaires et un diplôme de courtier d'assurances, il décide de devenir écrivain. Dans le cercle qui se réunissait autour de Max Bense et de Ludwig Harig, il fait la connaissance de Gudrun Ensslin (future figure de proue de la Bande à Baader) à la Technische Hochschule de Stuttgart. Accompagné de la sœur de Gudrun, Johanna, il va s'installer à Tübingen pour y prendre en charge la rédaction du journal étudiant Notizen, de concert avec le futur terroriste Jörg Lang.

 

En 1964, Maschke met sur pied un “Groupe d'Action Subversive” à Tübingen, une organisation légendaire qui a préfiguré la fameuse SDS gauchiste, à laquelle ont appartenu Rudi Dutschke et Bernd Rabehl. Un an plus tard, Maschke reçoit son ordre de rejoindre la Bundeswehr: il refuse tant le service armé que le service civil. Il prend la fuite et commence un exil qui l'amènera d'abord à Paris puis à Zurich et finalement à Vienne, où il est collaborateur occasionnel de Volksstimme (d'obédience communiste) et du Wiener Tagebuch. Après une manifestation énergique contre la guerre du Vietnam dans la capitale autrichienne, Maschke est arrêté par la police. Il est déclaré “étranger indésirable” et il risque d'être refoulé en Allemagne où l'attend un mandat d'arrêt pour désertion. Après trois semaines de prison, l'ambassade de Cuba lui propose l'asile politique.

 

Il restera à Cuba du début de 1968 à la fin de 1969. Dans le pays de Castro, Maschke est devenu national-révolutionnaire. Les raisons de cette conversion sont sans doute multiples: les conditions déplorables dans lesquelles végétaient ses amis ou les formes spéciales du “stalinisme tropical”... Ami du poète Padilla, un adversaire du régime cubain, il est impliqué dans cette affaire, arrêté par la police de Castro et renvoyé en Allemagne. Il y passera d'abord treize mois dans les prisons de Munich et de Landsberg.

 

C'est là qu'il passera définitivement à “droite”. Mais le camp de la droite a hérité là d'un allié très critique, trop critique aux yeux de bon nombre de conservateurs bon teint. Ses premières avances sont brusquement repoussées. Beaucoup de droitiers et de conservateurs rejettent aveuglément les idées de gauche, un aveuglement que Maschke n'a jamais compris. Avec la gauche radicale, il s'est révolté contre l'américanisme, contre le parlementarisme et a milité en faveur d'une réforme du droit de la propriété. Mais, par ailleurs, il a toujours plaidé, contre une gauche qui ne cesse plus de s'éloigner du marxisme, pour un Etat fort, modérément autoritaire.

 

Dans sa vie privée aujourd'hui, Maschke traduit et édite les textes de l'Espagnol Juan Donoso Cortés et de Carl Schmitt. Sur le plan scientifique, il travaille dur, il est exigeant et méticuleux, mais quand il reçoit ses amis, il est un hôte jovial et généreux, qui aime les bons plats et les bons vins, qui dissimule son pessimisme notoire derrière des blagues hautes en couleurs, derrière un charme exquis, avec une souveraineté bien consciente d'elle-même.

 

Werner OLLES.

(article paru dans Junge Freiheit, n°26/97).

Carl Schmitt: Auf den Punkt gedacht

Carl Schmitt: Auf den Punkt gedacht

Christoph Rothämel  

http://www.blauenarzisse.de 

 

Man möchte meinen, Carl Schmitt ist als Autor heute weniger wegen seiner Liaison mit dem Nationalsozialismus als wegen der Klarheit seiner Schriften unbeliebt. Seine unermüdliche juristische und philosophische Grundlagenarbeit, mit einem kühlen Kopf den Wörtern ihren Sinn zurückzugeben, hat sich in ein reichhaltiges Reservoir deutscher Denkkraft verwandelt. Dies erhellt dem Nachdenkenden die Struktur der modernen politischen Ideologien, sofern sie mit Begriffen wie Demokratie, Parlamentarismus, Diktatur, Souveränität, Menschheit hantieren. Der Begriff des Politischen und Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus sind nun bei Duncker & Humblot in neuer Auflage erschienen.

 

Die Lüftung des Schleiers über der Jakobinerlogik

Wenn Schmitt die Demokratie erklärt, wird deutlich, dass ein Parlament dafür keine notwendige Voraussetzung ist. Dass die Existenz eines Parlaments von fast allen Demokraten für den Staat dennoch als solche betrachtet wird, beruht auf dem gemeinsamen historischen Siegeszug von demokratischen Idealen und liberalen Ideen und der damit verbundenen denkerischen Fehlleistung einer automatischen Verknüpfung von Demokratie und Liberalismus. Demokratie selbst hat aber zunächst keinen politischen Inhalt, sondern stellt lediglich eine Organisationsform dar.

Ihr Kerninhalt bleibt das Dogma, dass alle politischen Entscheidungen nur für die Entscheidenden gelten sollen, die Identität von Herrscher und Beherrschten. Die überstimmte Minderheit muss ignoriert werden, was aber nicht schwer fällt, da ja nach Rousseau der Wille der überstimmten Minderheit in Wahrheit mit dem der Mehrheit übereinstimmt. Auch John Locke ist der festen Überzeugung, dass in der Demokratie der Bürger auch dem Gesetz zustimmt, das nicht seinem Willen entspricht. Letztlich ist das Gesetz identisch mit der volonté générale. Und weil - ganz rousseauistisch – der Generalwille der wahren Freiheit entspricht, war der Überstimmte nicht frei.

Da jederzeit die Möglichkeit besteht, dass das Volk mithilfe von Suggestionen betrogen wurde, kann der radikale Demokrat auch die Herrschaft der Minderheit über die Mehrheit rechtfertigen, wie sie exemplarisch in den Erziehungsdiktaturen der sozialistischen Revolutionen zutage trat. Der echte Demokrat bleibt, weil er an die Demokratie als eigenen Wert glaubt, weiter Demokrat, muss aber, weil die Regierten noch nicht „reif“ sind, die Demokratie praktisch zeitweilig suspendieren ohne sie theoretisch aufzugeben. Der Kernsatz Schmitts dazu lautet: „Es scheint also das Schicksal der Demokratie zu sein, sich im Problem der Willensbildung selbst aufzuheben.“

Da das Volk, das sich zur Willensbildung nicht mehr an der Dorflinde zum Thing treffen kann, auf Ausschüsse zur Repräsentation angewiesen ist, bleibt die Frage, ob nicht auch ein einziger Vertreter den wirklichen Willen des ganzen Volkes in den Händen halten kann? Bejaht man dies, muss man Adolf Hitler als Demokrat und Diktator anerkennen. Er beanspruchte jedenfalls den Willen des Volkes zu kennen und zur Ausführung zu bringen. Auch die DDR war demnach – ganz ihrem Namen nach - ein grundsätzlich demokratischer Staat. Lediglich für oder gegen die Regierung stimmen zu dürfen ist nicht etwa undemokratisch, es ist illiberal! Das Wahlsystem der DDR war genau genommen plebiszitär. Und ein Plebiszit ist nicht undemokratisch. Die Diktatur ist eben nicht der Gegenbegriff zur Demokratie.

Parlamentarismus

Der Parlamentarismus als Ausprägung einer liberalen Auffassung von Demokratie hat Diskussion und Öffentlichkeit zur Voraussetzung. Das Parlament soll Ausschuss des Volkes sein, in dem die überall verteilten Funken der Vernunft über die Diskussion zu einer politischen Willensbildung führen. Dass dieses Konzept durch die Massendemokratie mit all ihren Konsequenzen in Frage gestellt wird, stellt Schmitt meisterhaft heraus. Weder sind die parlamentarischen Diskussionen wirklich öffentlich, noch ermutigt das politische Personal den Wähler dazu, eine gehaltvolle Diskussion neben den Partikularinteressen der Protagonisten überhaupt noch für möglich zu halten. Es ist für den heutigen Leser leicht einsichtig, dass nach den unnormalen Wiederaufbauleistungen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg diese Erschlaffungstendenzen des Parlamentarismus, die Carl Schmitt in der Weimarer Republik beobachte, zurückkehren.

Die Darlegungen Schmitts gehen aber noch viel weiter. Grundlegend zu wissen ist, dass Demokratie immer eine hinreichende Homogenität voraussetzt. Die zunehmende Gleichsetzung von Staat und Volk mit dem Siegeszug der Demokraten ist mithin kein Zufall, sondern die notwendige Bedingung für die Herstellung handlungsfähiger politischer Einheiten auf demokratischer Basis. Man muss daher zwingend den Schluss ziehen, dass die Demokratie durch die Heterogenisierung des Staatsvolkes, wie wir sie gegenwärtig erleben, erheblichen Gefahren ausgesetzt ist.

Unüberbietbar ist seine Feststellung, dass die Krisis des modernen Staates darauf beruht, dass eine Massen- und Menschheitsdemokratie keine Staatsform, auch keinen demokratischen Staat zu realisieren vermag. In Bezug darauf sind die Selbsttäuschungen der Gegenwart wieder enorm angewachsen.

Politische Theologie und Souveränität

Der Glaube, dass alle Gewalt vom Volke kommt, erhält in der Demokratie eine ähnliche Bedeutung wie der Glaube in der Monarchie, dass alle obrigkeitliche Gewalt von Gott kommt. Dieses Phänomen beschreibt Schmitt in einer gleichnamigen Schrift als Politische Theologie. Für ihn deutet sich an, dass das jeweils vorherrschende Weltbild und die Ausprägung der Staatsform in einem Zusammenhang stehen.

Damit verbunden finden sich die Begriffe Souveränität, als die Fähigkeit über den (politischen) Ausnahmezustand zu entscheiden, und das Politische, als die Fähigkeit Freund und Feind zu unterscheiden, wieder. Denn alles dies mündet zwangsläufig auch in die Politische Theologie, insofern das Weltbild maßgeblich die Erkenntnis der Normalität wie die Freund-Feind-Scheidungen determiniert. Angesichts eines offiziellen Kampfes gegen Rechts ist der Standardvorwurf gegenüber Schmittianern, unbilligerweise an Freund-Feind-Denkweisen festzuhalten, eine einzige an Idiotie grenzende Groteske, seitens derer, die als politischen Feind den Nazi samt seinen Wegbereitern überall zu sehen glauben.

Intellektuelle Vorwegnahme der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Neben den grundsätzlichen Begriffsklärungen, finden sich im Gesamtwerk Schmitts auch Deutungsmuster juristischer Gestaltung imperialer Politik. Am Beispiel der besetzten Rheinlande („Die Rheinlande als Objekt internationaler Politik“ in Positionen und Begriffe, 3. Aufl., D&H) erläutert er, warum Annexionen und Protektoratsbildungen veraltete Mittel der imperialen Machtausübung sind, und wie es dem eingreifenden Staat mithilfe von unbestimmten Rechtsbegriffen wie Schutz fremder Interessen, Schutz der Unabhängigkeit, öffentliche Ordnung und Sicherheit, Einhaltung internationaler Verträge undsoweiter gelingt, die politische Existenz eines vordergründig in die Souveränität entlassenen Staates weiterhin in den Händen zu behalten.

Die herrschende Macht schafft internationale Vertragswerke, deren Auslegung sie kraft ihres Machtstatus letztendlich selbst bestimmen kann. Carl Schmitt hat damit auch die babylonische Gefangenschaft Deutschlands in ihrer heutigen Form lange vorweggenommen. Ein unerschöpflicher Fundus für alle: aber unverzichtbar für Politik- und Jurastudenten.

 

Carl Schmitt: Der Begriff des Politischen. Text von 1932 mit einem Vorwort und drei Corollarien. Broschiert. Duncker & Humblot 2009. 116 Seiten. 22 Euro.

Ders.: Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus. Broschiert. Duncker & Humblot 2010. 90 Seiten. 18 Euro.

An interest in Carl Schmitt

Ex: http://majorityrights.com/

Last month I put up a brief post titled Leviathan Rising.  It speculated on the general policy direction by which the transformation to a Leviathan superstate might be effected.  Of course, the times would be characterised by trauma injury to European societies made raceless, and therefore loveless and powerless - for without love between the people there can be no strength in them.

The approach of this condition we can all surmise from the evidence about us.  We read and write about it every day.  But let’s venture beyond.

In my post I argued that the “detachment into domestic policy blandness and irrelevance, and the shift to action abroad” would be the sign that the totalitarian Rubicon had finally been crossed.  But actually, I’ve just come across a better formulation from Leo Strauss in writings about his teacher, the great German jurist Carl Schmitt: “[It] would be a world of entertainment without politics and the possibility of struggle.” Recognise that?

Now, sixty-three years after the extinction of the system he helped to theorise, Schmitt is still the pre-eminent authority on matters of total dominion?  Addressing the riddle of how to despatch liberal democracy without triggering what Habermas has termed “the legitimation crisis”, he formulated a legal and philosophical legitimisation for dictatorship.  This he did through a number of influential works in the years up to 1933, when he finally joined the Nazi Party.  His thought, however, reduces to four core concepts:-

1. The concept of “Exception” from the normal restraints on state power in the absence of order.

2. The concept of “The Political”, as the dominion or theatre of action for the state (and the state alone).

3. The concept of “friend/enemy”.  In the racial sense applying in National Socialist Germany, this could be seen as the division into in-group/out-group from the standpoint of the state.  In our age, the “enemy” is European Man.  But it need not be racial, of course, and indeed is really just a means of defining the activism of “The Political” (or the interests of the elite).

4. “Nomos” or the historic dynamic out of which grew the European Age or Global Order of the 18th and 19th centuries, which Schmitt idealised and at the summit of which placed the development of the sovereign state.

It should be no surprise that for well over a decade now Carl Schmitt has been an object of study and fascination both on the liberal-left and the Straussian right.  I will explore some of his ideas in greater depth later on.  But to give you a flavour of the man I’m going to end this post with the transcripts from his interrogations at Nuremberg.

He was arrested by the Russians in Berlin in April 1945, interrogated and then released.  But six months later he was arrested by the Americans at the instigation of German Jews in OMGUS (Office of Military Government, United States), and interned until March 1947.  He was then interrogated by a prosecutor for the War Crimes Trials, Robert M. W. Kempner, on three occasions.  Here are the full transcripts of those interviews:-

Kempner: You do not have to testify, Professor Schmitt, if you do not want to, and if you think you are incriminating yourself. But if you do testify, then I would be grateful if you would be absolutely truthful, would neither conceal nor add anything.  Is that your wish?
Schmitt: Yes, of course.
Kempner: And if I come to something you might find self-incriminating, you can simply say you prefer to remain silent.
Schmitt: I have already been interrogated by the C.I.C. [U.S. Army counter-intelligence] and in the camp.  I would be glad to tell you all I know.  However, I would like to know what I am being blamed with. All previous interrogations ultimately ended in academic discussions.
Kempner: I do not know why anyone else has questioned you.  I will tell you quite candidly what I am interested in: your participation, direct and indirect, in the planning of wars of aggression, of war crimes and of crimes against humanity.
Schmitt: Planning wars of aggression is a new and very broad concept.
Kempner: I take it for granted that, as a professor of public law, you know exactly what a war of aggression is.  Do you agree with me on the fact that Poland, Norway, France, Russian, Denmark, Holland were invaded? Yes or no?
Schmitt: Of course.
Kempner: Did you not provide the ideological foundation for those kinds of things?
Schmitt: No.
Kempner: Could your writings be so interpreted?
Schmitt: I do not think so - not by anyone who has read them.
Kempner: Did you seek to achieve a new international legal order in accordance with Hitlerian ideas?
Schmitt: Not in accordance with Hitlerian ideas and not sought to achieve but diagnosed.
Kempner: What is your attitude toward the Jewish Question, in general, and how it was handled by the Third Reich?
Schmitt: It was a great misfortune and, indeed, from the very beginning.
Kempner: Did you consider the influence of your Jewish colleagues, who were teachers of international law, a misfortune?
Schmitt: With the exception of Erich Kaufmann, there were no Jewish legal scholars there [in Nazi Germany].  He was a belligerent militarist.  He originally coined the phrase “The social ideal is the victorious war,” in “Die Clausula rebus sic stantibus.”
Kempner: Now, however, Erich Kaufmann is not here, but you are.
Schmitt: I do not want to incriminate him.  I also would not like to create the impression of incriminating this man.
Kempner: Would you say there was a definite discussion between international and constitutional law influenced by Jews and that which you taught and advocated?
Schmitt: The standpoint of Jewish colleagues was not sufficiently homogeneous for that.
Kempner: Have you ever written such things?
Schmitt: I wrote only once that Jewish theorists have no understanding of this territorial theory.
Kempner: Where did you write that?
Schmitt: In a little essay in the Zeitschrift fur Raum-Forschung, 1940-41.
Kempner: What was that essay called?
Schmitt: I cannot recollect the title.
Kempner: Who published the journal?
Schmitt: The Reich Office for Raum Research.
Kempner: How long is the essay?
Schmitt: Volkerrechtliche Grossramordnung had 50 large octavo pages.
Kempner: How many editions?
Schmitt: I believe 5 or 6.  The essay was reprinted there from the Zeitschrift fur deutsche Raumforschung, published by Deutscher Rechtsverlag, a press of the National Socialist League of Jurists.
Kempner: It had a swastika on its publisher’s insignia?
Schmitt: Yes, of course.
Kempner: Reading your writings creates a completely different impression from the one you are now providing.
Schmitt: If one reads them completely, they have very little to do with the Jewish Question.
Kempner: You admit, however, that it [Volkerrechtliche Grossramordnung] is clearly an international legal theory of Lebensraum?
Schmitt: I call it Grossraum.
Kempner: Hitler was also for Grossraum.
Schmitt: All of them were probably for it, including the citizens of other countries.
Kempner: A reading of this essay shows it was written in the purest Hitler syle.
Schmitt: No.  I am proud of the fact that since 1936 I had nothing to do with that.
Kempner: Previously, therefore, you wrote in the Hitlerian style.
Schmitt: No, I did not say that.  Until 1936 I considered it possible to give meaning to these catchwords.
Kempner: You assumed the editorship of various journals, which previously you had not.  Die deutsche Juristenzeitung, for example?
Schmitt: From 1934 to 1936.
Kempner: Would it not have been better to have avoided becoming involved with that?
Schmitt: Yes, now one can say that.
Kempner: The accused is confronted with his publication Volkerrechtliche Grossramordnung, 4th Edition, and the following passage from page 63 is read to him: “The Jewish authors had, of course, as little to do with the previous development of Raum theory as they had with the creation of anything else.  They were also here an important cause of the dissolution of concretely-determined territorial orders.” Do you deny that this passage is in the purest Goebbels-style?  Yes or no?
Schmitt: I do deny that the content and form of that is in Goebbels’ style.  I would like to emphasize that the serious scholarly context of that passage should be taken into consideration.  In its intent, method, and formulation it is a pure diagnosis.
Kempner: Do you want to say anything else?
Schmitt: I am here as what?  As a defendent?
Kempner: That remains to be determined.
Schmitt: Everything I stated, in particular this passage, was intended as scholarship, as a scholarly thesis I would defend before any scholarly body in the world.
Kempner: Here, however, we are before a criminal court.  You were the directing, one of the leading jurists of the Third Reich.
Schmitt: Someone who in 1936 was publicly defamed in Das Schwarze Korps [the S.S. journal] cannot be described in that fashion.
Kempner: How does your interpretation fit with the fact that, after 1936, you delivered lectures financed by the Nazi Reich in Budapest, Bucharest, Salamanca and Barcelona; in the notorious espionage and propaganda institute, “The German Instiute in Paris,” and other places.  Did you deliver lectures?  Yes or no?
Schmitt: Yes, I did deliver lectures.  They were not paid for.
Kempner: Who paid for the trip?
Schmitt: Part [was paid] by the inviting societies, part by German agencies.
Kempner: Therefore: the Nazi Reich.
Schmitt: That was a forum for me; I had no other.
Kempner: You see that there is in this fact of your defamation, on the one hand, and your lectures, on the other, a certain contradiction very difficult for me to comprehend.
Schmitt: If you are interested in an explanation, I would be pleased to give you one.  This is the first conversation I have had about it since 1933.  I would like to discuss that.
Kempner: It is related to what extent you provided the scholarly foundation for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the forceful expansion and widening of Grossraum.  We are of the opinion that the executing agencies in the administration, the economy and the military are not more important than the men who conceived the theory and the plans for the entire affair.  Maybe you would like to write down what you have to say.  To what extent did you provide the theoretical foundation for Hitlerian Grossraum policy?
Schmitt: I will write it down.  This is thus the question to be answered.

(2)
Kempner: Were you so kind to write your answers?
Schmitt: It took a long time, because I was given a table so late.  May I give it to you?
Kempner: I must, of course, read through this later.  Who invited you to the German Institute in Paris?
Schmitt: The director, Dr. Epting, on the suggestion of certain gentlemen whom he knew.  The lecture was a pretext for the trip.  I was accompanied by Pierre Linn, a Jewish friend and his wife.
Kempner: I am interested in the German Institute.
Schmitt: I had very little to do with that.  The director was Epting.  The motivating force behind my invitation was Dr. Bremer.  He had many friends, including Frenchmen such as Alfred Fabre-Luce.
Kempner: Would you be so good as to sign the pages with your initials C.S.?  Are all the facts correct?  Then please write: The truth of the above statements is pledged on my word of honour.
Schmitt: Yes.  May I ask something else?
Kempner: What questions do you still have?
Schmitt: You wanted to lend me Volkerrechtliche Grossramordnung.
Kempner: You still have not received it?
Schmitt: No, I still have no answer from my wife.  May I request that my wife send me the manuscript of the lecture on the “Lage der europaischen Rechtswissenschaft”?  The manuscript is still with the publisher.  The lecture was basically intended for a Fetschrift for Popitz.  I have not said anything that is not contained in the manuscript.  That provides perhaps the best account of the remarks I made in Bucharest, Budapest, Madrid, Barcelona Coimbra.
Kempner: Have you now been able to reconcile yourself in any way to the role you played in the Third Reich and in the preparation of criminal offenses, as I interpret them?
Schmitt: Here we are not really disputing facts.  I accept them.  It is a question of interpretation and legal evaluation.  As a long-standing professor of jurisprudence, I cannot stop thinking.
Kempner: Nor should you.  To clarify again what the theory of the public prosecutor is: Did you participate in the preparation, etc. of wars of aggression and in other punishable offenses related to these at the point of decision-making?  What is your answer to that?  Could you state it concisely in a single sentence?
Schmitt: I neither served in a decision-making capacity, nor did I participate in the preparation of wars of aggression.
Kempner: Our theory about the term “point of decision-making” is as follows: is not one of the leading university professors in this field as least as important in the decision-making-process as other high state or party officials?
Schmitt: Also in a totalitarian state?
Kempner: Yes, particularly in a totalitarian system.  And furthermore: what we understand by wars of aggression is very clearly expressed in the decision of the IMT [International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg], with which you are familiar.
Schmitt: Yes, it would be good if I could have the complete text.  I have no material at all.  I have one final question, which is not connected with the preceding.  You mentioned the name Radbruch.  I hardly know him.  If you want to inquire about my activity as a professor during the last 10 years, I would request that you question colleagues who really have known me.
Kempner: Who, for example?
Schmitt: Carl Brinkmann.  He was in Berlin until 1944 and is now in Erlangen.
Kempner: I will be glad to question him.  Was he a party member?
Schmitt: No, otherwise he would not now be a professor in Erlangen.  I do not believe he was a party member.  It may not be pleasant for him to do that.  The Dr. Carl Schmitt myth is pure myth.  Carl Schmitt is quite a peculiar individual, not just a professor; he is also a composite of various other individuals.  I observed this when I was interrogated by Dr. Flechtheim.  You can inquire about that.
Kempner: I have my sources.
Schmitt: Radbruch is a politician.  He sees things in a particular way and does not understand that a person can sit quietly at a desk.
Kempner: Did Rousseau leave his desk?
Schmitt: No.
Kempner: Who else did not leave his desk?
Schmitt: Thomas Hobbes.
Kempner: It is very difficult to render a criminal judgment.
Schmitt: May I speak frankly?  I have now been in solitary confinement for 3 weeks ...
Kempner: You do not want to be alone?
Schmitt: I would like to be even more alone.  All possible questions were asked of me at the time I was placed under arrest.  I said then only: I would like to be able to speak about my case from my own perspective.  I desire only to clarify things to myself.  But my name, my physiognomy is too famous for me to be left alone.  I had hundreds of students in all countries, thousands of listeners.
Kempner: To the extent that it relates to audience, your reputation vacillates in history.
Schmitt: That will always be the case when someone takes a position in such situations.  I am an intellectual adventurer.
Kempner: You have the blood of an intellectual adventurer?
Schmitt: Yes, that is how thoughts and knowledge develop.  I assume the risk.  I have always accepted the consequences of my actions.  I have never tried to avoid paying my bills.
Kempner: If, however, what you call the pursuit of knowledge results in the murder of millions of people?
Schmitt: Christianity also resulted in the murder of millions of people.  One does not know unless one has experienced it oneself.  I by no means feel, as do many others, an innocent victim to whom something horrible has happened.
Kempner: But this is no comparison.  And is it not, simply stated, a criminal investigation of your personal make-up?
Schmitt: I can tell you a great deal about that.  If I were asked, I would be glad to express my honest opinion.
Kempner: I would like to ask you something without touching on your own matters.  Let us for a moment consider a case from another area.  You are familiar with Mr. Lammers and, as a constitutional lawyer, his position.  You know what a Reich Minister is?
Schmitt: Personally, I have only seen him once, in 1936.  He was Chief of the Reich Chancellery, where everything was concentrated.
Kempner: How do you explain psychologically that a man like Lammers, as an old professional civil servant, signed hundreds of horrible things?
Schmitt: I do not understand that.  I have not done that.
Kempner: That does not relate to you, you avoided such things?  How do you explain that a diplomat like von Weizsacker, as a state secretary, signed hundreds of such things?
Schmitt: I would like to give you a nice answer.  The question has great significance, a distinguished man like von Weizsacker… Only I must protect myself…
Kempner: This theme could get us into constitutional matters.  At present, I am not questioning you about Lammers personally, but about the position of Chief of the Reich Chancellery in a totalitarian state.  I am asking you neither as a defendent nor as someone accused or as a witness, but as a constitutional lawyer.  I am asking you here purely as an expert, why this position is more important than that of another Reich Minister?
Schmitt: Perhaps Bormann was more important.
Kempner: That is not completely correct.  The position of Bormann first became important in 41-42.
Schmitt: I would like to formulate this for you as best as possible in writing.
Kempner: In the Bismarckian Reich I would have stated: Lammers had the key to lawmaking in his hand.  In the dictatorship he had more in his hand: the handle to the door of the dictator.  Does this explain the significance of his position?
Schmitt: Yes.
Kempner: Write that up in a small essay.

(3)
Kempner: How are you, Professor Schmitt?  Have you written something?
Schmitt: Yes.  I have brought along both written elaborations and have signed them.  I no longer recall the exact wording of your question: “Did you participate in the preparation of wars of aggression, etc.”
Kempner: Do you pledge the accuracy of your statements on your word of honour?
Schmitt: On my word of honour I pledge the accuracy of the statements from pages 1-17.  That is a written elaboration, a legal opinion.
Kempner: Please write at the end of your elaboration: I pledge that I have given the above legal opinion according to the best of my knowledge and conscience.
Schmitt: Yes.  The legal opinion is on pages 1-15.
Kempner: I will examine this very closely.
Schmitt: I am happy to have found a reader once again.  In general, my writings have been read very poorly.  I fear the superficial reader.
Kempner: I will read through it not only form the standpoint of criminal law, but also from the standpoint of constitutional law.
Schmitt: I have written it with great interest.  Can it be indicated that I did not do that on my own initiative?
Kempner: Professor Carl Schmitt made the assessment of the constitutional position of the Reich minister and chief of the Reich chancellery at the instigation of the interrogator.  Are you afraid of doing that on your own initiative?
Schmitt: Not that.  Maybe it is improper in my circumstances.
Kempner: Prof. Carl Schmitt submits, in addition, his own comments on the subject of participating in wars of aggression.  Were you a member of the SS?
Schmitt: No.
Kempner: To what extent did you participate in the ideological preparation of SS ideology?
Schmitt: Not at all.  I was an opponent of the SS.  I was publicly assaulted and defamed in Das Schwarze Korps.
Kempner: Do you know Gottlob Berger?
Schmitt: I have never seen him.
Kempner: Were you not the idol of SS professors such as Boehm, etc.?
Schmitt: When a state concillor in a totalitarian system is publicly spat at by the Schwarze Korps, that cannot be said.
Kempner: After you were spat at, did you not travel to Salamanca, Paris, Madrid, etc.?
Schmitt: That occurred in 1943 on special invitation from the faculties.
Kempner: You had nothing to do with the SS?
Schmitt: I was strongly opposed to it.  I was secretly observed and controlled by the SS.
Kempner: Did you state that German legislation and the German administration of justice must be carried out in the spirit of National Socialism?  Yes or no?  Did you state that between 1933 and 1936?
Schmitt: Yes.  I was from 1935 to 1936 head of the professional organization.  I felt superior at that time.  I wanted to give the term National Socialism my own meaning.
Kempner: Hitler had a National Socialism and you had a National Socialism.
Schmitt: I felt superior.
Kempner: You felt superior to Adolf Hitler?
Schmitt: Intellectually, of course.  He was to me so uninteresting that I do not want to talk about that at all.
Kempner: When did you renounce the devil?
Schmitt: 1936.
Kempner: Are you not ashamed to have written these kinds of things at that time, such as, for example, that the administration of justice should be National Socialist.
Schmitt: I wrote that in 1933.
Kempner: Do you deserve good or poor grades for that?
Schmitt: It was a thesis.  The National Socialist League of German Jurists extracted it, so to speak, from my mouth.  At that time there was a dictatorship with which I was not yet familiar.
Kempner: You were not familiar with any dictatorship.
Schmitt: No.  This total dictatorship was actually something new.  Hitler’s method was new.  There was only one parallel, Lenin’s Bolshevik dictatorship.
Kempner: Was that something new?
Schmitt: Yes, certainly.
Kempner: In your own library you have writings about totalitarian dictatorship.
Schmitt: Not totalitarian.
Kempner: Are you not ashamed that you wrote these kinds of things at that time?
Schmitt: Today, of course.  I do not consider it appropriate to continue to rummage around in the disgrace we suffered at that time.
Kempner: I do not want to rummage around.
Schmitt: Without question, it was unspeakable.  There are no words to describe it.
Kempner: I consider it better if we converse about such matters outside, not here in custody.
Schmitt: That would be agreeable to me for reasons of health.  I also consider it better in the interest of the case.  This professional opinion suffers from this situation.
Kempner: I want to see that you return home.
Schmitt: My wife gave up the apartment in Berlin.  We have no other lodging than with my sisters in Westphalia.  Could you see that I go there and not automatically be sent to Berlin?
Kempner: That will be taken care of today.
Schmitt: I would appreciate it.

25 anos después: pensar a Carl Schmitt como método

El varón consumado, sabio en dichos, cuerdo en hechos,
es admitido y aun deseado del singular comercio de los discretos.

Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de la prudencia, 6, 1647

25 años después: pensar a Carl Schmitt como método

Giovanni B. Krähe / http://geviert.wordpress.com/

A modo de introducción

Hoy se cumplen 25 años de la muerte de Carl Schmitt. ¿Qué se puede decir sobre el interés por Schmitt a 25 años de su muerte? Compartimos algunas reflexiones “prácticas” para un “buen” uso de la obra del jurista, de manera que siga resistiendo al tiempo como lo ha hecho hasta ahora.

Todo lector interesado en conocer las implicaciones prácticas del pensamiento schmittiano sabe que debe abandonar, en primer lugar, la mera lectura en perspectiva histórica de la obra del jurista (ese Schmitt “de Weimar”). Esta lectura histórica debe ser siempre preliminar y necesaria, por lo mismo debe saber que se limita a un esfuerzo interpretativo-descriptivo que no irá más allá de la narración de eventos del pasado. Se trata de una estrategia  hermenéutica que, si no es hábil en organizar y ponderar bien su recursos heurísticos, su propia pregunta, su análisis final, termina entonces simplemente en un docto anacronismo. En segundo lugar, para recuperar un Schmitt más práctico y actual, referido al presente que nos ocupa, digámoslo así, se debe abandonar también la lectura monotemática y  circular de las obras de Schmitt: se trata de esa lectura trivial (porque retórica, vieja y no sustancial) de ese Schmitt “de la dictadura”, el Schmitt teórico “de la excepción” y demás combinaciones con la primera perspectiva mencionada.

Leer a Carl Schmitt o a autores alemanes afines (Heidegger por ejemplo), significa dejar ese vicioso prurito bibliófilo de los temas intelectuales favoritos de café. Significa, en otras palabras, abandonar ese mito inmóvil, porque completamente incapacitante (la metáfora es de Tarchi-Benoist), alrededor del pensamiento “reaccionario”. Se trata de esa adolescente hagiografía “tradicional” de pensadores conservadores, “monárquicos”, todos seguidores de reyes muertos sin nombre ni espada. ¿Para qué es necesario superar este voluntario mito incapacitante?Para pretender una clara y robusta perspectiva realista de método y aplicación, de programa político si se quiere, donde la mirada hacia el pasado se convierte siempre en la justa medida de algo que será aplicado en el presente puntual. Este es, después de todo, el significado del pensamiento conservador: un pensamiento completamente arrojado en el presente fáctico.

Frente a esta necesidad, todo lo bueno que las dos perspectivas mencionadas sobre Schmitt (la histórica y la monotemática) pueden aún darnos sobre la vida, la obra y el pensamiento del autor a 25 años de su muerte, se demuestra como un ejercicio preliminar que debe dirigirse hacia el método, hacia el método schmittiano. Si conocemos el método, podemos prescindir completamente del autor-Schmitt, de cualquier autor (y purgarnos de nuestro vicio bibliófilo de paso). Podemos liberarnos de los temas intelectuales recurrentes y dialogar con el autor frente a frente a partir de la pregunta que nos plantea. Una pregunta  que puede mantenerse válida más allá de su autor. Este es el verdadero significado de estos 25 años para nosotros. Se reflexione bien que no se trata de una metáfora hermenéutica al estilo de cualquier otro manierismo postmoderno. Para lograr este objetivo práctico-aplicativo de la obra del jurista, en este post intentaremos una lectura de la Teología política como método. Esto quiere decir que no nos limitaremos a la enésima exégesis del libro (que ya hay muchas buenas). Este ejercicio partirá más bien desde el libro como instrumento y como medio, no como fin.

El método de la politische Theologie: la analogía

El método que denominaremos método político-teológico es desarrollado por Schmitt en el tercer capítulo de su Politische Theologie I (de ahora en adelante abreviado con PT I). Un ejemplo aplicativo de este método se encuentra en el texto de Schmitt sobre Donoso cortés. Para poder colocar el método que vamos a presentar sumariamente, es necesaria la lectura de los dos textos mencionados.

El principio a la base del método político-teológico que Schmitt nos presenta en el tercer capítulo de su PT I parte preliminarmente del principio jurídico de la analogía. Como sabemos, la analogía ocupa un lugar preciso en la doctrina jurídica. La analogía “atribuye a un caso o a una materia que no encuentra una reglamentación expresa en el ordenamiento jurídico, la misma disciplina prevista por el legislador para un caso y para una materia similar” (Bobbio). El objetivo es evitar la la laguna, el “vacío” del derecho en un caso no previsto. La analogía adquiere evidencia y aplicabilidad únicamente en el ámbito de la ratio juris. Con esto queremos decir que la analogía jurídica no va entendida en los términos filosóficos de la analogia entis, o según la perspectiva lingüistico-cultural de la analogía lógico-semántica. La analogía en Schmitt va entendida preliminarmente en términos lógico-jurídicos, (recht-logisch). Si queremos hacernos una idea de este tipo de analogía lógico-jurídica, deberemos pensar en sus ámbitos aplicativos y los límites de la misma, por ejemplo en el caso de la analogia legis (ampliación del alcance de una norma o parte de ella) o la misma analogía juris (aplicación de toda la norma a un caso no previsto. Este tipo de analogía generalmente está prohibido en el derecho penal por ejemplo). El ámbito aplicativo de este tipo de analogía lógico-jurídica que Schmitt utiliza en su método, prescribe un determinado ámbito de validez y un vínculo material inmediato que incluye en su interior a la analogía lógico-semántica. Tengamos en mente esto último. Observaremos a continuación cómo Schmitt aplica el principio de la analogía a su teología política.

Analogía jurídica e isomorfismo material político-teológico: la estructura esférica

La analogía jurídica presupone la unidad y la coherencia del orden jurídico. Aquella no cubre una “laguna” o un “vacío” en sentido general o dogmático (de lo contrario el orden jurídico no sería unitario y coherente), más bien aplica técnicamente una determinada norma a dos hechos A y B (Sachverhalt) que son plausibles de comparación en su aspecto material (Sachzusammenhang). La similitud o la diferencia entre los dos hechos sigue un criterio (el tertium comparationis) que no se basa en la relación meramente lógica entre los dos supuestos materiales. El caso (Sachverhalt) al cual debemos aplicar la analogía, no representa un vacío para el sistema en sentido estricto, sino un hecho (Tatbestand) que exige una extensión o aplicación analógico-jurídica.

¿Para qué nos sirve comprender la analogía jurídica? para lo siguiente: la analogía político-teológica de Schmitt presupone una unidad coherente entre un orden político-jurídico y un orden político-religioso cualquiera, más allá de la formas históricas que ambos  órdenes posean: se trata de una unidad entre un vínculo material y un vínculo espiritual, un vínculo que adquiere únicamente diferentes formas históricas en el tiempo. No se trata de una unidad “ontológico-metafísica”, o una nueva “filosofía de la historia”, puesto que el vínculo de esta unidad material-espiritual está permanentemente expuesto a la contingencia. Se trata, en la teoría schmittiana, de la figura del enemigo y del caso excepcional (ver más adelante). Es precisamente esta componente de permanente y contingente apertura de la mencionada unidad hacia lo impredecible (en sentido realista), hacia aquello que puede poner en juego su integridad, lo que permite ver dicha unidad material-espiritual de ambos órdenes como una identidad, una identidad ontológico-política.

Para ver esta unidad con más claridad, Schmitt  primero radicaliza ideal-típicamente (en el sentido de llevar a la raíz) la  componente material de los conceptos jurídicos, con el objetivo de mostrarnos el fundamento político-decisorio “detrás” de ellos en el tiempo. Según Schmitt, este nexo entre la analogía y su vínculo político-decisorio se puede observar si analizamos con atención, en el tiempo, la formas últimas de los conceptos jurídicos, es decir,  la relación entre el vínculo político-material que introduce una norma y el vínculo ideo-lógico que la vuelve legitima en el tiempo como orden social precisamente.

Se trata de un método hermenéutico ideal-típico que puede aplicarse a cualquier periodo histórico y que ha sido desarrollado con éxito (por el lado histórico-semántico) por un alumno de Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck.  En el fondo se puede notar un concepto muy peculiar de ideo-logía, de análisis ideo-lógico. Se trata de un análisis que no es marxista, si vemos bien (pre-marxista más bien): entre dos hechos A y B, como en el caso de la analogía ordinaria mencionada, la analogía schmittiana no observa dos ordenamientos que se relacionan causalmente (una estructura económica y una superestructura “cultural”, digamos ilustrativamente), sino dos “estructuras” instituidas, dos concretos status quo A y B, uno material y el otro espiritual (no sólo cultural), que se relacionan isomorficamente y se conservan en el tiempo a través del permanente superamiento del vacío de la excepción y la exclusión del enemigo (Katechon). Contingencia, isomorfismo y mantenimiento entonces, o en los términos de Niklas Luhmann si se quiere: variación, selección, estabilidad (1). Veamos un ejemplo gráfico para poder ser más claros. El gráfico se refiere al tercer capítulo de la PT I (material interno del Geviert-Kreis):

Del cristal de Hobbes a la esferas de Schmitt

Podemos observar dos esferas unidas horizontalmente por un vínculo de identidad analógico entre ellas (analogische Identitat). El vínculo es horizontalmente analógico porque determina dos identidades homogéneas cada una con el propio fundamento institutivo, ordenador. En el ejemplo, se pueden ver dos realidades espirituales: la axiomática, referida a la lógica clásica, fundamento de la epistemología moderna (Axiomatik), y el dogma cristiano. Se note que, desde el método Schmittiano, ambas realidades son complementarias (tarea para los que creen todavía weltanschaulich en la separación entre religión y ciencia). Pero observemos primero la relación externa a las esferas. Podemos notar que este vínculo horizontal de identidad analógica está fundado en un vínculo material vertical que es la existencia política concreta (konkret-politisches Dasein). Se note que el vínculo material es exterior a las esferas. Esta existencia es concreta porque se basa en una decisión (Entscheidung) a partir de un espacio territorial determinado (Erde). El momento decisorio (Entscheidung) tiene  una función axial precisa que permite la re-producción permanente de la decisiones colectivas vinculantes erga omnes en el tiempo, ya sea verticalmente como re-presentación política (Repraesentation), que horizontalmente como autoridad (politisches Symbole). A esta dinámica virtuosa se añade la legitimidad, que es legitimidad procedural, técnica (Technik). Esta triple dinámica alrededor del eje decisorio, entre el símbolo político, la técnica y la representación política (ver rectángulo inferior),  está a la base misma del vínculo de identidad analógico entre las dos esferas superiores (ver flecha central). Se note ahora a la izquierda, completamente externo a la triple dinámica axial,  al enemigo (Feind). El enemigo es el posesor del poder contingente, aquel que determina esta triple dinámica decisoria en su estricto y unívoco sentido político-ontológico: el enemigo determina, desde la contingencia, la existencia misma de toda la relación dinámica mencionada, convirtiendo el vínculo analógico identitario entre las esferas, en un vínculo político-ontológico concreto. Veamos ahora la relación isomórfica, esférica, que se crea a partir de este vínculo político-ontológico.

Observemos ahora el interior de las esferas. Un determinado orden histórico-político o status quo (por ejemplo la monarquía o la liberal-democracia) determina siempre, como fundamento de su mantenimiento en el tiempo, un isomorfismo entre un aspecto material y un aspecto espiritual. Esto quiere decir que un determinado status quo político-social (la monarquía, la democracia liberal) y un orden metafísico-teológico (Dios en la monarquía; el individuo o sujeto abstracto en el deismo liberal neo-humanista respectivamente) se fundan entre sí especularmente de manera autológica y autoreferencial (Spiegelindetitat). Se trata de dos realidades concretas en relación isomórfica en dos momentos históricos diferentes, no se da una “base” o “estructura” y una “sobre”estructura entre ambos. Se note además que estamos al interior de la esfera: tanto el lado material (el ordenamiento político-jurídico, material, la juristische Gestaltung)  como el espiritual (los conceptos y categorías jurídico-teológicas, die lezte jur. Begrifffe) son relacionalmente lo mismo finalmente. Estamos lejos de cualquier “teoría del reflejo” o concepto de ideología marxista. Estamos mucho más cerca, sin duda, de los primeros idéologues franceses (destutt de Tracy), que veían un nexo orgánico y concreto entre las ideas, los contenidos ideacionales y un determinado orden político-social. Justamente por este nexo orgánico entre lo espiritual y lo material, pensamos que la representación adecuada para esta lectura de Schmitt sea una esfera.

Resumiendo: 1) dos esferas o identidades espirituales perfectamente isomórficas (geistliche Identität 1 y 2). En nuestra interpretación, una de ellas se funda (Grund), por ejemplo, en el dogma y la otra en la axiomática lógico-racional clásica (Aristóteles, Descartes). 2) al interior de cada esfera espiritual encontramos un principio de identidad y causa estrictamente especular (Spiegelindentität) entre dos concepciones, aparentemente distintas. Se trata de esa aparente dualidad completamente moderna, por lo tanto espuria, entre una “esfera material” y una “esfera espiritual” que  se fundan y se auto-legitiman en la negación de la otra y viceversa. En el esquema vemos los ejemplos que introduce Schmitt, es decir, la realidad histórico-política con su “base” económico-social (la “estructura” marxiana) y su respectiva “sobreestructura” ideológica. La lucha aquí es aparente. 3) Tales analogías de caracter autoreferente y autológico se representan recursivamente y permanentemente en la historia al interior de cada esfera, cuyo isomorfismo fundamental (dogma religioso y lógica clásica) es inmóvil. La inmovilidad no se funda en un principio abstracto, sino en la forma precisa de una causa agente que modifica o introduce tal estado, en nuestro caso, la decisión (Entscheidung). La representación del acto decisorio se da en un lugar preciso, su ordenamiento (la tierra, die Erde). Instrumentos de este orden son la técnica y el simbolismo político-religioso (la  re-presentación). La decisión determina el equilibrio isomórfico entre las dos esferas. Este es el tertium comparationis de Schmitt entre un momento histórico y el otro, lo que le permite observar similitudes y diferencias en dos momentos históricos: la decisión. El ámbito de la decisión es el ámbito de la existencia concreta, que es ortogonal a las dos esferas y siempre expuesto al enemigo.

En otro post veremos más de cerca un ejemplo concreto a partir del mencionado texto sobre Donoso.

Nota

(1) Ver Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft de N. Luhmann.  Como en el caso de la teoría luhmaniana, se notará una implícita perspectiva neo-evolucionista detrás de este método schmittiano, muy afín al actual análisis de la evolucionary economics (pero que Schmitt extiende originalmente al campo de los contenidos ideacionales (Mannheim), en sentido  ideo-lógico no-marxista) y la teoría político-institucional de la Path dependence.

Amor, milagro, excepcion: la Rosa mistica en Dante y Schmitt

Amor, milagro, excepción: La Rosa mística en Dante y Schmitt

Giovanni B. Krähe - Ex: http://geviert.wordpress.com/

Advenimiento como ordo ordinans: Amor como accidente in sustanzia

La Vita nuova (1292-1293) de Dante  es el canto que prepara a la  recta lectura de la Divina commedia. El lector atento sabe que el ejercicio necesario para la compresión del Amor dantesco en términos impersonales y político-religiosos, depende del soneto de la Vita nuova. Se trata, en este breve libro, de la compresión del dogma del Milagro como evento del Automaton (la casualidad), como la realización del evento excepcional  en el accidente. En Dante el Automaton es la inmediatez ineluctable y subitánea del advenimiento en su Ahora perpetuo bajo la forma del saluto. Il saluto (saludo) irrumpe en el tiempo (lo crea más precisamente) para imponer su Salud: Beatrice (1). Se trata, en otras palabras, del advenimiento de un nuevo orden bajo la forma del acontecimiento fortuito: se trata del orden necesario de lo excepcional (genitivo subjetivo). El advenimiento necesario de lo excepcional como (nuevo) orden es  un problema que Carl Schmitt en su politische Theologie resuelve invirtiendo radicalmente el principio de lo accidental en Aristóteles (Schmitt, PT: 21). En efecto, Schmitt y Dante saben que el Automaton era considerado por los antiguos como un principio extrínseco que afecta a los entes. La causa era un principio necesario, por lo tanto, intrínseco. En vez de observar una regularidad procesual aparente en los acontecimientos y luego una irregularidad en tal proceso como eventual excepción, Dante y Schmitt observan más bien la realización en el evento de la analogía entre necesidad y casualidad. Se podría hablar de un isomorfismo, de un único principio en acto que irrumpe en la Physis y que se refleja tanto en la forma de los entes (la belleza por ejemplo), como en todo lo que le toca y le tocará vivir al ente como posibilidad. Frente a tal irrupción indeterminada, el ser humano tiene únicamente dos posibilidades, dos polos donde puede expresar su capacidad de deliberación y vivirla como libertad prescrita: imitar la irrupción paraclética del Automaton en la Physis como rito (mímesis religiosa) o enfrentarse a ella con su Techne. Se reflexione cómo los antiguos y la sociedades tradicionales logran colectivamente un equilibrio entre estos dos polos. En efecto, las virtudes antiguas – con excepción de las teologales, es decir, la caridad, la esperanza, la fe – son principios de equilibrio entre Automaton y Techne, o modernamente expresado, entre contingencia y técnica. Para Dante y Schmitt toda la teleología aristótelica, como la finalidad del ente, se realiza completamente en el momento constitutivo e inicial de su orden como advenimiento: un orden que se reproduce  una y otra vez en su Ahora (Jeweiligkeit) como acontecimiento, determinando una identidad que se realiza intrínsecamente una y otra vez (jeweils) entre la esencia del ente y lo que esta manifiesta  como tiempo y forma. Dicha relación intrínseca es (west) la identidad del ente (2).

En Dante, más evidente que en Schmitt sin duda, toda la finalidad del acontecer del ente se realiza completamente en un advenimiento sutil, al parecer inocuo: il saluto, el saludo de Beatrice. Se podría afirmar que en Dante lo excepcional muestra además un aspecto de carácter salvífico completamente indeterminado, no por esto menos ineluctable: es, en efecto, el encuentro completamente fortuito con Beatrice lo que permite la visión de la Salud (Dante, Vita nuova: 3). Si consideramos, entonces, esta inversión de Aristóteles a partir de ambos autores, debemos concluir rectamente que cualquier acontecimiento exterior, no sólo aquello que no se da como regular-procesual, debe ser considerado como excepcional. No se trata de una inversión meramente lógica. No todo acontecimiento adviene (!) en su finalidad última completamente, como no todo acontecer es salvífico o logramos notar la Salud que nos muestra y ofrece (3). Es precisamente esta (aparente) “latencia” en el telos del ente como tiempo lo que determina toda su posibilidad y toda su necesidad ya escrita. Para poder comprender esto, necesitamos introducir, además del Automaton, un ulterior principio extrínseco al ente, que define precisamente la irrupción de lo excepcional como posible momento salvífico o como completo fracaso: la Tyche (fortuna). Con estos dos principios podemos notar que el tiempo del ente (genitivo subjetivo) es tiempo dramático, es drama permanente. En Dante y Schmitt, la excepción, lo excepcional, se convierten en la regla porque “lo excepcional se explica a sí mismo y explica lo general… lo excepcional piensa lo general con enérgica pasión” (Schmitt citando a Kierkegaard, PT: 21).

Del advenimiento al acontecimiento: el acontecimiento como ordo ordinatur

A diferencia de Dante, Schmitt concentra su interés en la compresión de un aspecto específico del advenimiento, es decir, el acontecimiento en su irrupción dada en el tiempo. Es la comprensión de la mencionada latencia télica como ordo ordinatur, como orden constituido que crea el tiempo de los hombres (el Estado por ejemplo). Se trata de la compresión del orden constituido que (se) realiza kathechontisch (“kathechonticamente”) una y otra vez, (en) su finalidad. Este orden constituido se realiza en el ámbito (Be-Reich) completamente contingente y paraclético de lo excepcional: se trata de la permanencia, conservación y realización del destino del ente en el ámbito (Reich) del mencionado Automaton. Es el mismo ámbito contingente desde donde surge, victorioso o derrotado, el enemigo, “nuestra única forma” dirá Schmitt. Para Schmitt (y los Románticos), aquello que denominamos corrientemente “naturaleza” o ambiente “externo” (Um-welt) es comprendido en los términos de abismo (Ab-grund), o más modernamente como contingencia. El término Um-Welt, (ambiente), es todo aquello indeterminado que rodea (um) el mundo (Welt) (4). La metafísica dantesca nos muestra, en cambio, el otro lado especular del mismo evento: nos enseña el acontecimiento como advenimiento, es decir nos muestra la inversión schmittiana de Aristóteles sin ninguna mediación temporal, ni procesual, ni final en su sentido moderno: nos muestra todo el acahecer de un único evento puntualmente como accidente amoroso in sustanzia (Dante, Vita Nuova, XXV). El soneto dantesco nos permite, entonces, comprender el mismo evento que Schmitt estudia, pero como el advenimiento que crea el tiempo, que crea su tiempo: como ordo ordinans, como orden constituyente. Es pues legítimo indagar próximamente el nexo entre Dante y Schmitt como el nexo analógico entre Amor (evento), milagro (advenimiento) y excepción (acontecimiento). En este Orden, el Amor es la gnosis (política y religiosa) que le es propia a la relación entre milagro y excepción: la Rosa mística.

Notas

(1) En la simbología dantesca il saluto, (el saludo) mantiene la misma raíz etimológica con el saludo beato o bienaventurado, la Salute (Salud).

(2) No es casual que Heidegger use el sustantivo alemán Wesen (esencia) como verbo: es decir, wesen. Tal vez “existente” sea su traducción más apropiada en castellano, es decir, como participio presente, no como su sustantivación: lo existente. Se haga el ejercicio de declinar el verbo heideggeriano wesen rectamente  y se comprenderá inmediatamente a Heidegger, sin necesidad de mucho manierismo hermenéutico postmoderno á la Gianni Vattimo.

(3) Algo que impone necesariamente una gnoseología (barroca) que remplace completamente el mirar por el admirar (El reflejo).

(4) se haga el ejercicio de redefinir completamente ( o interpretar rectamente), bajo esta definición de Umwelt, el término Lebenswelt.

Günter Maschke: Der Fragebogen

Günter MASCHKE: Der Fragebogen

 

◊ Wo möchten Sie jetzt am liebsten sein?

 

Ich bin, wo ich bin.

 

◊ Wofür lassen Sie alles stehen und liegen?

 

Für ein bestimmtes Antiquariat.

 

◊ Was bedeutet Heimat für Sie?

 

Die Möglichkeit, arglos zu sein.

 

◊ Was ist Ihnen wichtig im Leben?

 

Lesen.

 

◊ Was haben Ihnen Ihre Eltern mitgegeben?

 

Vom Vater hoffentlich Durchblick.

 

◊ Welches Buch hat Sie nachhaltig beeinflusst?

 

Von Adorno „Minima Moralia“ und von Carl Schmitt „Der Begriff des Politischen“.

 

◊ Welches Ereignis ist für die Welt das einschneidendste gewesen?

 

Die Entdeckung Amerikas.

 

◊ Was bedeutet Musik für Sie?

 

Der frühe Udo Lindenberg, Chansons.

 

◊ Was möchten sie verändern?

 

Die Mentalität der Deutschen.

 

◊ Woran glauben Sie?

 

An Gott.

 

◊ Welche Werte sollen wir unseren Kindern weitergeben?

 

Resistenz gegenüber der veröffentlichten Meinung.

 

◊ Welche Bedeutung hat der Tod für Sie?

 

Er wirkt im Voraus erzieherisch,und er hält zur Bescheidenheit an.

 

(Erst im Heft Nr. 24/1998 der „Jungen Freiheit“ (Berlin) erschienen).

 

Piet Tommissen: een krasse tachtiger

Piet Tommissen : Een krasse tachtiger

Peter Logghe - http://www.peterlogghe.be/

Professor dr. Em. Piet Tommissen staat helemaal achter het principe dat men nooit te oud is om actief te blijven, ook intellectueel. Op zijn 82ste presteert deze oud-academicus het om een bundeling bijdragen te publiceren. Bedenkingen en interessante achtergrondinformatie onder andere bij het ontstaan en de evolutie van een tijdschrift als Golfslag, een kort essay over Wies Moens als heraut van de ‘konservatieve revolutie’ in Vlaanderen. Een bedrage over de zogenaamde Politieke Academie als tussenoorlogs conservatief vormingsinstituut, en over ‘De Gemeenschap’ van pater Bonifaas Luykx tot de wet van Brück.

Voor wie professor Tommissen niet zou kennen, hij gaat de wereld rond als dé Carl Schmitt-kenner bij uitstek, die gans Europa ons trouwens benijdt. Derhalve kunnen we niet om de vaststelling heen dat zowat elke grote natie zijn Schmitt-renaissance heeft gekend, met uitzondering van dit dwergenlandje België. Terwijl juist hier…inderdaad!

Maar niet alleen de jurist Carl Schmitt behoort tot de geprefereerde onderzoeksdomeinen van Piet Tommissen. Zo behoren ook de Italiaanse topintellectueel Vilfredo Pareto tot zijn lezerslijstje. Professor Tommisssen moet trouwens ook een van de eersten zijn geweest die het Mohleriaans begrip ‘konservatieve revolutie’ in de Lage Landen binnenbracht en enkele Vlaamse en Nederlandse jongeren een fascinatie voor het onderwerp zou meegeven dat een leven lang zou blijven duren.

Op 82-jarige leeftijd publiceren en dat dan de titel “Buitenissigheden” als titel meegeven: prachtig gewoon. Met bijzondere interesse heb ik kennis genomen van de wet van Brück – waarbij het aardmagnetisme als verklaringsgrond wordt gebruikt voor het cyclische geschiedenisverloop – en van de studie over Wies Moens, die ik in een Duitse versie ook al ergens kon lezen. Vooral boeide mij zijn studie over het ontstaan van het Vlaamse tijdschrift Golfslag. Dit kwam tot stand uit de vruchtbare samenkomsten van jongeren tijdens en na de jongste Wereldoorlog. Bijeenkomsten in Knokke-Heist en later in Antwerpen en waarbij steeds dezelfde namen terugkomen: Manu Ruys, Ivo Michiels, Adriaan De Roover, Hugo en Arnold Van der Hallen. Volgens historicus Etienne Verhoeyen een “extreem rechts tijdschrift”, maar het onderzoek van professor Piet Tommissen legt toch heel wat andere accenten bloot. De doelstelling van Golfslag bijvoorbeeld had weinig of geen extreem rechtse kleur: het wilde ‘jong, durvend en gelovend’ zijn. En een van de initiatiefnemer, Hugo Van der Hallen, verwoordde het bijvoorbeeld zo: “Golfslag wilde provoceren, uitdagen, progressief, niet conservatief, niet berustend maar durvend”. Of iets verder in het gesprek liet Van der Hallen zich ontvallen: “Golfslag was dus niet een project van jongeren die zich tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog van de officiële VNV-koers hadden gedistanciëerd. Ik was bij mijn weten de enige van het groepje die zich tijdens de oorlog enigszins politiek had geëngageerd. Het was in eerste instantie ene project van katholieke studenten die in het achterhoofd meer aan een soort heropbloei van het AKVS dachten”.

Een oplage van ongeveer 2.000 exemplaren: niet mis voor een blad dat in de moeilijke en zware naoorlogse repressietoestand verscheen; Professor Tommissen kon meticuleus een lijst van medewerkers, losse en vaste, bijeenbrengen en daar zitten veel interessante namen bij, dat moet gezegd. Golfslag zou uiteindelijk ten onder gaan onder invloed van verschillende factoren. Verschillende kernmedewerkers werden voor opslorpende professionele taken geplaatst, de tijdsgeest verplaatste zich gedeeltelijk naar andere interessedomeinen en een louter cultureel tijdschrift bleek minder aan een behoefte te beantwoorden. In 1949 stopte de redactie er mee, maar andere initiatieven waren ondertussen al opgestart en zagen op een andere plaats het levenslicht.

Deze “Buitenissigheden” geven de geïnteresseerde zeer aangename leesmomenten, vooral omdat de stijl van professor em. Piet Tommissen zeer soepel gebleven is, ondanks (of juist door) de hoge leeftijd van de auteur. Piet Tommissen publiceerde in 2007 al over Georges Sorel en zou dit jaar een werk over Hugo Ball op de markt brengen. Nouvelle Ecole, het Franse tijdschrift (of jaarboek) van Alain de Benoist, brengt in november een speciaal nummer uit over Georges Sorel, met daarin een tekst van de onvermoeibare Piet Tommissen. Wij kijken alvast met veel interesse uit naar volgende buitenissigheden en roepen de auteur toe: ad multos annos!

Tommissen, P., “Nieuwe Buitenissigheden”, 2007, Apsis S.A., La Hulpe, 188 pag.
ISBN 2 – 9600590 – 3 – 4.

(P.L.)

La excepcion en Carl Schmitt - Una exposicion introductoria

La excepción en Carl Schmitt

Una exposición introductoria

Christian Reátegui / Ex: http://la-coalicion.blogspot.com/


La previsión de una dictadura comisarial en los dos últimos textos constitucionales peruanos ha pasado inadvertida. Para comenzar, la positivización del concepto jurídico de medida en dichos textos constitucionales ha pasado sin mayores comentarios. Tanto en la Constitución peruana de 1979 como en la de 1993 podemos leer textos similares:

Constitución de 1979“Artículo 211º.- Son obligaciones y atribuciones del Presidente de la República:
...
18.- Adoptar las medidas necesarias para la defensa de la República, la integridad del territorio y la soberanía en caso de agresión.”

Constitución de 1993

"Artículo 118º.- Corresponde al Presidente de la República:
...
15.- Adoptar las medidas necesarias para la defensa de la República, de la integridad del territorio y de la soberanía del Estado".

Se ha dicho que los constituyentes peruanos de 1979 adoptaron la fórmula de la empleada en el artículo 16 de la Constitución francesa de 1958, que fue a su vez recogida del texto del famoso artículo 48 de la Constitución de Weimar (1919). Lo que es menos conocido es que este artículo 48 fue el centro de un debate jurídico rico e intenso en la Alemania de esos años acerca de sus alcances y, en última instancia, acerca del concepto de Constitución, debate en el que el concepto de medida (maßnahme) desempeñó un papel central. Para el jurista alemán Carl Schmitt dicho artículo sustentaba la posibilidad de una Dictadura del Presidente del Reich. Es más, dicho artículo devenía en el referente interpretativo de toda la Constitución:

“Artículo 48. Si un Land no cumpliese con sus obligaciones conforme a lo dispuesto en la Constitución o en una Ley del Reich, el Presidente del Reich podrá hacérselas cumplir con ayuda de las Fuerzas Armadas.
Si la seguridad y el orden públicos se viesen gravemente alterados o amenazados, el Presidente del Reich podrá adoptar las medidas necesarias para el restablecimiento de la seguridad y orden públicos, utilizando incluso las Fuerzas Armadas si fuera necesario. A tal fin puede suspender temporalmente el disfrute total o parcial de los derechos fundamentales recogidos en los artículos 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 y 153.
El Presidente del Reich está obligado a informar inmediatamente al Reichstag de la adopción de todas las medidas tomadas conforme a los párrafos 1º y 2º de este artículo. Las medidas deberán ser derogadas a petición del Reichstag.
En caso de peligro por demora, el Gobierno de cualquier Land podrá aplicar provisionalmente medidas de carácter similar a las referidas en el párrafo 2º de este artículo. Las medidas deberán ser derogadas a petición del Reichstag o del Presidente del Reich.
Una ley del Reich desarrollará el resto"

Para Schmitt el párrafo 2º, primera parte, de este artículo contiene el fundamento constitucional de un apoderamiento para una comisión de acción ilimitada, en términos precisos, una dictadura comisarial. Sobre la verificación o no del presupuesto (alteración o amenaza de la seguridad y del orden públicos) para dicho apoderamiento, decide de por sí el Presidente. De acuerdo a Schmitt, el párrafo 2º, en su parte primera, constituía derecho vigente y no requería la ley que desarrollara el estado de excepción que preveía el 5º párrafo. Ante el acaecimiento de alteración o amenaza de la seguridad y del orden públicos, el Presidente podía adoptar todas las medidas necesarias (nötigen Maßnahmen), cuya necesidad era evaluada de acuerdo a las circunstancias y al solo arbitrio del propio Presidente. En consecuencia la dictadura Presidencial cuya posibilidad preveía la Constitución de Weimar, se concretizaba en la adopción de medidas.

Para Schmitt una medida era una acción individualizada o una disposición general, adoptada frente a una situación concreta que se considera anormal, y que es, por lo tanto, superable, con una pretensión de vigencia por tiempo no indefinido. Una medida se caracteriza por su dependencia de la situación objetiva concreta. Ello supone que la magnitud de la medida, su procedimiento y su eficacia jurídica dependen de la naturaleza de las circunstancias. El aforismo latino rebus sic stantibus preside su adopción y ejecución. Ahora bien, la dictadura comisarial desarrollada por Schmitt no significaba la disolución del orden jurídico existente ni que el Presidente deviniese en soberano, ya que las medidas era sólo de naturaleza fáctica y no podían ser equiparadas con actos de legislación ni de administración de justicia, sin que ello significase que no se pudiesen tomar medidas que se aproximaran por sus resultados y consecuencias prácticas a fallos judiciales, decisiones administrativas conseguidas tras un procedimiento previamente establecido o a normas generales (leyes y/o reglamentos), pero que jurídicamente no serían equiparables en significado ni en eficacia jurídicas. Esto porque una medida no podía reformar, derogar o suspender preceptos constitucionales, pero sí podía desconocerlos, separándose de ellos para un caso concreto o una generalidad de casos concretos, en lo que Schmitt llamaba “quebrantamiento” (durchbrechung) de la Constitución. Hay que apuntar que, de acuerdo a Schmitt, hay que distinguir entre Constitución y leyes constitucionales. La Constitución sería la decisión de conjunto de un pueblo acerca de la forma y modo de su unidad política, mientras que las leyes constitucionales serían los preceptos o normas que, por una razón u otra, han sido recogidas en el texto constitucional. Entonces para nuestro autor la Constitución es intangible, mientras que las leyes constitucionales (preceptos o normas) no, por lo que pueden ser “quebrantadas” por las medidas para un caso determinado o casos determinados, y ello sólo en defensa de la propia Constitución en estados de excepción. Hay que precisar que cualquier ley constitucional podría ser desconocida puntualmente por las medidas (o “quebrantada”) y no sólo las que contienen derechos fundamentales, como sucede con lo permitido por la norma de la segunda parte del párrafo 2º como más adelante veremos.

Un ejemplo para clarificar la diferencia entre medida y decisión administrativa, sería la que da el propio Schmitt a propósito de lo establecido en el artículo 129º de la Constitución de Weimar. Este artículo preveía una serie de garantías a favor de los funcionarios, así, sólo podrían ser privados de su cargo mediante un procedimiento conforme a Derecho, tenían la posibilidad de interponer recursos impugnatorios, el respeto a sus derechos adquiridos, etc. A pesar de ello, a través de una medida se podría suspender a determinados funcionarios y confiar su cargo a otras personas. Tales medidas tendrían efectos o resultados jurídicos, pero no la eficacia de una decisión adoptada tras un proceso disciplinario que concluyese con la separación definitiva del cargo del funcionario. Esto significa que el funcionario suspendido continuaría disfrutando (jurídicamente) de su status de funcionario, situación que no se daría con el separado jurídicamente del servicio. Asimismo, la persona encargada, mediante una medida, del cargo y de sus tareas públicas no conseguiría, por ello, alcanzar la situación jurídica de funcionario.

Para Schmitt no escapó que esta comisión para una dictadura presidencial, entraba en contradicción con lo establecido en la segunda parte de ese mismo 2º párrafo, que para él contenía otra norma que, junto al apoderamiento general de su primera parte, determinaba que para conseguir el restablecimiento de la seguridad y el orden públicos, el Presidente del Reich también podía suspender (suspension), es decir, poner temporalmente fuera de vigencia, en todo o en parte, a los derechos fundamentales contenidos en las leyes constitucionales de los artículos 114º (libertad personal), 115º (inviolabilidad del domicilio), 117º (secreto de la correspondencia y de correo), 118º (libertad de prensa), 123º (libertad de reunión), 124º (libertad de asociación) y 153º (propiedad privada). Esta contradicción, que, por un lado, permitía suspender toda el ordenamiento jurídico existente y, por otro, sólo permitía suspender una serie de derechos enumerados taxativamente, se debía, según Schmitt, a la confusión entre dictadura soberana y comisarial, que supone el considerar que el Presidente del Reich podía emitir ordenanzas con fuerza de ley sin considerar la distinción entre ley y medida y la asignación de competencias que conformaba la Constitución del Reich, y a la creencia ingenua que, en el Estado de Derecho burgués, la seguridad sólo podría ser puesto en peligro por individuos o grupos de individuos en tumultos y motines, no por organizaciones políticas, colectivos o agrupaciones solidarias, ya que los grupos intermedios y gremios de este tipo habían desaparecido.

Esta misma contradicción, entre la existencia del establecimiento de una dictadura presidencial (artículos 211 numeral 18 de la Constitución de 1979, y 118 numeral 15 de la Constitución de 1993) con la de un régimen de excepción limitado (artículos 231 de la Constitución de 1979, y 137 de la Constitución de 1993) se ha dado, a nuestro entender, tanto en la Constitución peruana anterior como en la actual. Basta con leer el artículo 231º de la Constitución de 1979 y el 137º de la que nos rige actualmente:

Constitución de 1979

"Artículo 231.- El Presidente de la República, con acuerdo del Consejo de Ministros, decreta, por plazo determinado, en todo o parte del territorio y dando cuenta al Congreso o a la Comisión Permanente, los estados de excepción que en este artículo se contemplan:

a.- Estado de emergencia, en caso de perturbación de la paz o del orden interno, de catástrofe o de graves circunstancias que afecten la vida de la Nación. En esta eventualidad, puede suspender las garantías constitucionales relativas a la libertad y seguridad personales, la inviolabilidad del domicilio, la libertad de reunión y de tránsito en el territorio, que se contemplan en los incisos 7, 9 y 10 del artículo 2º y en el inciso 20-g del mismo artículo 2º. En ninguna circunstancia se puede imponer la pena de destierro. El plazo del estado de emergencia no excede de sesenta días. La prórroga requiere nuevo decreto. En estado de emergencia, las Fuerzas Armadas asumen el control del orden interno cuando lo dispone el Presidente de la República.

b.- Estado de sitio, en caso de invasión, guerra exterior, o guerra civil, o peligro inminente de que se produzcan, con especificación de las garantías personales que continúan en vigor. El plazo correspondiente no excede de cuarenta y cinco días. Al decretarse el estado de sitio el Congreso se reúne de pleno derecho. La prórroga requiere aprobación del Congreso”


Constitución de 1993

“Artículo 137.- El Presidente de la República, con acuerdo del Consejo de Ministros, puede decretar, por plazo determinado, en todo el territorio nacional, o en parte de él, y dando cuenta al Congreso o a la Comisión Permanente, los estados de excepción que en este artículo se contemplan:

1.- Estado de emergencia, en caso de perturbación de la paz o del orden interno, de catástrofe o de graves circunstancias que afecten la vida de la Nación. En esta eventualidad, pueden restringirse o suspenderse el ejercicio de los derechos constitucionales relativos a la libertad y la seguridad personales, la inviolabilidad del domicilio, y la libertad de reunión y de tránsito en el territorio comprendidos en los incisos 9, 11 y 12 del artículo 2º y en el inciso 24, apartado f del mismo artículo. En ninguna circunstancia se puede desterrar a nadie.

El plazo de emergencia no excede de sesenta días. Su prórroga requiere nuevo decreto. En estado de emergencia las Fuerzas Armadas asumen el control del orden interno si así lo dispone el Presidente de la República.

2.- Estado de sitio, en caso de invasión, guerra exterior, guerra civil, o peligro inminente de que se produzcan, con mención de los derechos fundamentales cuyo ejercicio no se restringe o suspende. El plazo correspondiente no excede de cuarenta y cinco días. Al decretarse el estado de sitio, el Congreso se reúne de pleno derecho. La prórroga requiere aprobación del Congreso".

El que el artículo 55 de la Constitución actual, que prescribe que los tratados celebrados por el Estado, y que se encuentren en vigor, forman parte del derecho nacional, y la 4º Disposición Final y Transitoria que dispone que las normas relativas a los derechos y a las libertades que la Constitución reconoce se interpretan de conformidad con la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos y con los tratados y acuerdos internacionales sobre dichas materias ratificadas por el Perú, pueden dar la impresión que el problema jurídico se ha zanjado. Ello puede ser considerado efectivamente así, pero pasa por alto que toda disciplina jurídica que pretende tener vigencia en el tiempo, es decir, eficacia social, no puede responder a autoengaños a partir de visiones ideologizadas de experiencias pasadas. Sobre ello queda mucho por abundar aún.

Revoluçao Conservadora, forma catolica e "ordo aeternus" romano

Revolução Conservadora, forma católica e “ordo aeternus” romano

A Revolução Conservadora não é somente uma continuação da «Deutsche Ideologie» romântica ou uma reactualização das tomadas de posição anti-cristãs e helenistas de Hegel (anos 1790-99) ou uma extensão do prussianismo laico e militar, mas tem também o seu lado católico romano. Nos círculos católicos, num Carl Schmitt por exemplo, como nos seus discípulos flamengos, liderados pela personalidade de Victor Leemans, uma variante da Revolução Conservadora incrusta-se no pensamento católico, como sublinha justamente um católico de esquerda, original e verdadeiramente inconformista, o Prof. Richard Faber de Berlim. Para Faber, as variantes católicas da RC renovam não com um Hegel helenista ou um prussianismo militar, mas com o ideal de Novalis, exprimido em Europa oder die Christenheit: este ideal é aquele do organon medieval, onde, pensam os católicos, se estabeleceu uma verdadeira ecúmena europeia, formando uma comunidade orgânica, solidificada pela religião.Der Glanz, die Macht ist dahin» [«Estamos no fim, a Áustria está morta. O Esplendor e o Poder desapareceram»].

Depois do retrocesso e da desaparição progressiva deste organon vivemos um apocalipse, que se vai acelerando, depois da Reforma, a Revolução francesa e a catástrofe europeia de 1914. Desde a revolução bolchevique de 1917, a Europa, dizem estes católicos conservadores alemães, austríacos e flamengos, vive uma Dauerkatastrophe. A vitória francesa é uma vitória da franco-maçonaria, repetem. 1917 significa a destruição do último reduto conservador eslavo, no qual haviam apostado todos os conservadores europeus desde Donoso Cortés (que era por vezes muito pessimista, sobretudo quando lia Bakunine). Os prussianos haviam sempre confiado na aliança russa. Os católicos alemães e austríacos também, mas com a esperança de converter os russos à fé romana. Enfim, o abatimento definitivo dos “estados” sociais, inspirados na época medieval e na idade barroca (instalados ou reinstalados pela Contra-Reforma) mergulha os conservadores católicos no desespero. Helena von Nostitz, amiga de Hugo von Hoffmannstahl, escreve «Wir sind am Ende, Österreich ist tot.

Num tal contexto, o fascismo italiano, contudo saído da extrema-esquerda intervencionista italiana, dos meios socialistas hostis à Áustria conservadora e católica, figura como uma reacção musculada da romanidade católica contra o desafio que lança o comunismo a leste. O fascismo de Mussolini, sobretudo depois dos acordos de Latrão, recapitula, aos olhos destes católicos austríacos, os valores latinos, virgilianos, católicos e romanos, mas adaptando-os aos imperativos da modernidade.

É aqui que as referências católicas ao discurso de Donoso Cortés aparecem em toda a sua ambiguidade: para o polemista espanhol a Rússia arriscava converter-se ao socialismo para varrer pela violência o liberalismo decadente, como teria conseguido se tivesse mantido a sua opção conservadora. Esta evocação da socialização da Rússia por Donoso Cortés permite a certos conservadores prussianos, como Moeller van den Bruck, simpatizar com o exército vermelho, para parar a Oeste os exércitos ao serviço do liberalismo maçónico ou da finança anglo-saxónica, ainda mais porque depois do tratado de Rapallo (1922), a Reichswehr e o novo exército vermelho cooperam. O reduto russo permanece intacto, mesmo se mudou de etiqueta ideológica.
Hugo von Hoffmannstahl, em Das Schriftum als geistiger Raum der Nation [As cartas como espaço espiritual da Nação] utiliza pela primeira vez na Alemanha o termo “Revolução Conservadora”, tomando assim o legado dos russos que o haviam precedido, Dostoievski e Yuri Samarine.

Para ele a RC é um contra-movimento que se opõe a todas as convulsões espirituais desde o século XVI. Para Othmar Spann, a RC é uma Contra-Renascença. Quanto a Eugen Rosenstock( que é protestante), escreve: «Um vorwärts zu leben, müssen wir hinter die Glaubensspaltung zurückgreifen» [Para continuar a viver, seguindo em frente, devemos recorrer ao que havia antes da ruptura religiosa]. Para Leopold Ziegler (igualmente protestante) e Edgard Julius Jung (protestante), era preciso uma restitutio in integrum, um regresso à integralidade ecuménica europeia, Julius Evola teria dito: à Tradição. Eles queriam dizer por aquilo que os Estados não deviam mais opor-se uns aos outros mas ser reconduzidos num “conjunto potencializador”.
Se Moeller van den Bruck e Eugen Rosenstock actuam em clubes, como o Juni-Klub, o Herren-Klub ou em círculos que gravitam em torno da revista de sociologia, economia e politologia Die Tat, os que desejam manter uma ética católica e cuja fé religiosa subjuga todo o comportamento, reagrupam-se em “círculos” mais meditativos ou em ordens de conotação monástica. Richard Feber calcula que estas criações católicas, neo-católicas ou para-católicas, de “ordens”, se efectuaram a 4 níveis:

1) No círculo literário e poético agrupado em torno da personalidade de Stefan George, aspirando a um “novo Reich”, isto é, um “novo reino” ou um “novo éon”, mais do que a uma estrutura política comparável ao império dos Habsbourg ou ao dos Hohenzollern.

2) No “Eranos-Kreis” (Círculo Eranos) do filósofo místico Derleth, cujo pensamento se inscreve na tradição de Virgílio ou Hölderlin, colocando-se sob a insígnia de uma “Ordem do Christus- Imperator”.

3) Nos círculos de reflexão instalados em Maria Laach, na Renânia-Palatinado, onde se elaborava uma espécie de neo-catolicismo alemão sob a direcção do teólogo Peter Wust, comparável, em muitos aspectos, ao “Renouveau Catholique” de Maritain na França (que foi próximo, a dado momento, da Acção Francesa) e onde a fé se transmitia aos aprendizes particularmente por uma poesia derivada dos cânones e das temáticas estabelecidas pelo “Circulo” de Stefan George em Munique-Schwabing desde os anos 20.

4) Nos movimentos de juventude, mais ou menos confessionais ou religiosos, particularmente nas suas variantes “Bündisch”, bom número de responsáveis desejavam introduzir, por via das suas ligas ou das suas tropas, uma “teologia dos mistérios”.

As variantes católicas ou catolizantes, ou pós-católicas, preconizaram então um regresso à metafísica política, no sentido em que queriam uma restauração do “Ordo romanus”, “Ordem romana”, definida por Virgílio como “Ordo aeternus”, “ordem eterna”. Este catolicismo apelava à renovação com esse “Ordo aeternus” romano que, na sua essência, não era cristão mas a expressão duma paganização do catolicismo, explica-nos o cristão católico de esquerda Richard Faber, no sentido em que, neste apelo à restauração do “Ordo romanus/aeternus”, a continuidade católica não é já fundamentalmente uma continuidade cristã mas uma continuidade arcaica. Assim, a “forma católica” veicula, cristianizando-a (na superfície?), a forma imperial antiga de Roma, como assinalou igualmente Carl Schmitt em Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form (1923). Nessa obra, o politólogo e jurista alemão lança de alguma maneira um duplo apelo: à forma (que é essencialmente, na Europa, romana e católica, ou seja, universal enquanto imperial e não imediatamente enquanto cristã) e à Terra (esteio incontornável de toda a acção política), contra o economicismo volúvel e hiper-móvel, contra a ideologia sem esteio que é o bolchevismo, aliado objectivo do economicismo anglo-saxónico.

Para os proponentes deste catolicismo mais romano que cristão, para um jurista e constitucionalista como Schmitt, o anti-catolicismo saído da filosofia das Luzes e do positivismo cienticista( referências do liberalismo) rejeita de facto esta matriz imperial e romana, este primitivismo antigo e fecundo, e não o eudemonismo implícito do cristianismo. O objectivo desta romanidade e desta “imperialidade” virgiliana consiste no fundo, queixa-se Faber, que é um anti-fascista por vezes demasiado militante, em meter o catolicismo cristão entre parênteses para mergulhar directamente, sem mais nenhum derivativo, sem mais nenhuma pseudo-morfose (para utilizar um vocábulo spengleriano), no “Ordo aeternus”.

Na nossa óptica este discurso acaba ambíguo, porque há confusão permanente entre Europa e Ocidente. Com efeito, depois de 1945, o Ocidente, vasto receptáculo territorial oceânico-centrado, onde é sensato recompor o “Ordo romanus” para estes pensadores conservadores e católicos, torna-se a Euroamérica, o Atlantis: paradoxo difícil de resolver, porque como ligar os princípios “térreos” (Schmitt) e os da fluidez liberal, hiper-moderna e economicista da civilização “estado-unidense”?

Para outros, entre o Oriente bolchevizado e pós-ortodoxo e o Hiper-Ocidente fluido e ultra-materialista, deve erguer-se uma potência “térrea”, justamente instalada sobre o território matricial da “imperialidade” virgiliana e carolíngia, e esta potência é a Europa em gestação. Mas com a Alemanha vencida, impedida de exercer as suas funções imperiais pós-romanas uma translatio imperii (translação do império) deve operar-se em beneficio da França de De Gaulle, uma translação imperii ad Gallos, temática em voga no momento da reaproximação entre De Gaulle e Adenauer e mais pertinente ainda no momento em que Charles De Gaulle tenta, no curso dos anos 60, posicionar a França “contra os impérios”, ou seja, contra os “imperialismos”, veículos da fluidez mórbida da modernidade anti-política e antídotos para toda a forma de fixação estabilizante (NdT. Daqui presume-se uma distinção entre imperialismo e imperialidade, daí o uso dos dois conceitos).

Se Eric Voegelin tinha teorizado um conservantismo em que a ideologia derivava da noção de “Ordo romanus”, ele colocava o seu discurso filosófico-político ao serviço da NATO, esperando deste modo uma fusão entre os princípios “fluidos” e “térreos” (NdT. naturalmente esta dicotomia que o autor usa recorrentemente no texto é uma referência à tradicional oposição entre ordenamentos marítimos e terrestres), o que é uma impossibilidade metafísica e prática. Se o tandem De Gaulle-Adenauer se referia também, sem dúvida, no topo, a um projecto derivado da noção de “Ordo aeternus”, colocava o seu discurso e as suas práticas, num primeiro momento (antes da viagem de De Gaulle a Moscovo, à América Latina e antes da venda dos Mirage à Índia e do famosos discursos de Pnom-Penh e do Quebeque), ao serviço de uma Europa mutilada, hemiplégica, reduzida a um “rimland” atlântico vagamente alargado e sem profundidade estratégica. Com os últimos escritos de Thomas Molnar e de Franco Cardini, com a reconstituição geopolítica da Europa, este discurso sobre o “Ordo romanus et aeternus” pode por fim ser posto ao serviço de um grande espaço europeu, viável, capaz de se impor sob a cena internacional. E com as proposições de um russo como Vladimir Wiedemann-Guzman, que percepciona a reorganização do conjunto euro-asiático numa “imperialidade” bicéfala, germânica e russa, a expansão grande-continental está em curso, pelo menos no plano teórico. E para terminar, parafraseando De Gaulle: A estrutura administrativa acompanhá-la-á?

Robert Steuckers

 

Entretien avec G. Maschke: le mensonge de la guerre permanente pour la paix perpétuelle

 

 

Entretien avec Günter Maschke:

Le mensonge de la guerre permanente pour la paix perpétuelle

 

Propos recueillis par Sven Beier

 

Q.: Monsieur Maschke,vous venez de publier récemment un vaste recueil d’écrits de Carl Schmitt sur le droit des gens, sous un titre apparemment paradoxal: “Frieden oder Pazifismus?” (= “La paix ou le pacifisme?”). Les pacifistes seraient-ils des acteurs politiques qui ne veulent pas la paix?

 

GM: Aucune des variantes du pacifisme n’aspire à la paix en tant que non recours à la guerre, aucune d’entre elles n’aspire à une paix qui serait conclue après une guerre menée contre un ennemi que l’on reconnaîtra comme tel; les pacifistes dans toutes leurs variantes veulent abolir la guerre, dans la mesure où ils nient son droit à exister. Ils considèrent que la guerre est un crime et entendent l’interdire par le droit; le pacifisme armé, qui détermine le droit des gens depuis le Diktat de Versailles de 1919, rend possibles les sanctions, les mesures de maintien de la paix,  les occupations pacifiques, les mandats solidement étayés, les interventions humanitaires, ce qui équivaut, quels que soient les concepts camouflants utilisés, à des actions militaires contre tous ceux qui “brisent la paix”, contre les “agresseurs”. Par conséquent, tous les acteurs de l’échiquier doivent veiller à ne pas passer pour “agresseurs”. L’agresseur apparent doit pouvoir être montré comme tel, être littéralement construit de toutes pièces, ce qui signifie qu’il faudra provoquer l’ennemi pour qu’il commette des actes d’agression. De ce fait, le véritable agresseur est celui qui, en vertu de sa force et de sa position géographique, est en mesure de provoquer l’acte d’agression. “L’agresseur est celui qui force son adversaire à recourir aux armes”, disait déjà Frédéric le Grand. Celui qui se laisse provoquer se laissera passer un corde autour du cou, une corde qui n’est pas seulement d’ordre juridique, car il devra inévitablement songer aux conséquences de sa défaite éventuelle (c’est-à-dire celle qu’il devra accepter après une “capitulation sans condition”) et, subséquemment, luttera jusqu’à ce qu’il sera saigné à blanc. Ensuite, comme autre conséquence de ce pacifisme, nous repérons la tendance à éliminer toutes les règles du droit de la guerre; contre celui qui a eu recours à la guerre, tout sera dès lors permis. Quant aux autres, les crimes qu’ils auront commis n’entreront pas en ligne de compte. Le chemin qui mène du pacifisme, en tant que négation du droit à faire la guerre, à la guerre “totale” et “juste” est très court: “perpetual war for perpetual peace” (“guerre permanente pour la paix perpétuelle”). Or les notions de guerre et de paix sont en corrélation; le concept de paix présuppose toujours qu’il y a eu des hostilités préalables. Mais ceux qui pensent que ces hostilités sont par définition d’ordre criminel et que tout ennemi est, par voie de conséquence, un criminel, ne peuvent jamais faire de paix véritable. Car, justement, opérer une telle discrimination à l’encontre de la guerre et de l’ennemi, revient à ôter l’un des deux piliers qui soutiennent le droit des gens, en l’occurrence le pilier de la guerre, pour ne laisser que le pilier de la paix, ce qui ne permet évidemment aucune stabilité, donc aucune paix véritable. On ne peut faire la paix qu’avec un ennemi que l’on reconnaît(ra). La paix est un “état de droit”, une “situation de droit” et, en tant que telle, ne peut être obtenue que si la guerre, à son tour, possède un statut juridique. Le pacifisme s’avère ainsi un obstacle à la paix, tandis qu’un monde sans guerre ne serait pas pour autant un monde de paix, mais aurait besoin de s’auto-décrire à l’aide de tout nouveaux concepts.

 

Q.: Affirmeriez-vous que Carl Schmitt est un théoricien mobilisable aujourd’hui pour expliciter le droit des gens actuellement en vigueur ainsi que la situation internationale?

 

GM: Le droit des gens moderne ferait bien mieux de se préoccuper de savoir s’il doit ou non se mettre à la remorque de Carl Schmitt et non le contraire, chercher à mettre Carl Schmitt à la remorque du monde actuel. Ce droit des gens n’est pas innocent dans tous les désastres qui se sont succédé depuis 1919. Après chaque catastrophe, les doctrinaires du droit des gens moderne ont accentué encore plus la discrimination qui frappe la guerre et octroyé à la politique de puissance en vigueur  —et toujours en place—  la possibilité de déployer des manoeuvres de diversion et des “voilements”, des occultations, de plus en plus subtils; il suffit de songer aux innombrables possibilités qui existent d’interpréter le Pacte Kellogg de 1928 et la Doctrine Stimson de 1932. La belligérance proprement dite est dès lors devenue de plus en plus brutale, surtout parce qu’une défaite finale s’avèrerait encore plus terrible qu’auparavant. Entre 1919 et 1939, on a cherché à pallier l’interdiction de faire la guerre car on craignait les sanctions; on a dès lors procédé à des “occupations pacifiques”, à des “représailles”, etc. Typique de cette façon de procéder: le conflit sino-japonais. L’abolition du concept de “guerre” et son remplacement par celui de “conflit armé”, suivi de l’interdiction générale de tout recours à la violence, n’ont rien amélioré; on a simplement utilisé à profusion et à satiété le concept d’“auto-défense”. Les Etats-Unis prétendent “se défendre” en Irak, laquelle petite puissance les aurait menacé de manière décisive. L’impuissance possible du droit des gens face à certaines réalités est une chose; accorder à ces réalités l’apparence du droit ou célébrer des massacres par le truchement de la haute technologie comme des “mesures préventives” ou comme des “préludes” à l’avènement d’un droit civil universel (comme le veut le grand prêtre de l’humanisme actuel, Jürgen Habermas) en est une autre.

 

Q.: Dans quelle mesure est-ce réaliste de parler d’un rapport direct entre espace (Raum) et droit (Recht), comme le fait Carl Schmitt,  de façon à ce que la guerre et la paix soient des réalités qui visent la réalisation d’un “ordre naturel”? A notre époque de flux migratoires et de flux de marchandises, où la population est devenue “multiculturelle”, on ne peut pas faire grand chose sur base de ce rapport espace/droit, pour régler la coexistence entre de telles “populations”, du moins si cette coexistence est encore organisée par un Etat?

 

GM: Les flux migratoires et les flux de marchandises se portent vers des espaces précis, organisés politiquement; ils ne s’écoulent pas au petit bonheur la chance sur une Terre qui ne serait pas subdivisée en entités étatiques. Dans certains cas jugés urgents, on va même jusqu’à construire des barrières, que ce soit sur la frontière entre les Etats-Unis et le Mexique ou sur celle qui sépare les zones de peuplement juif des zones administrées par l’autorité palestinienne. C’est justement à cause de ces flux que le contrôle politique et militaire d’espaces s’avère aujourd’hui plus important qu’hier. D’autres facteurs le prouvent également: la lutte de plus en plus âpre pour l’accès aux matières premières, la militarisation de l’espace circumterrestre, les tentatives d’encercler la Russie ou de fractionner certains Etats en en détachant des composantes par le truchement de l’idéologie des droits de l’homme. Il y a déjà longtemps que l’on parle du “retour de l’espace” et les jours de la géographie politique et de la gépolitique ne sont pas encore comptés, loin de là! Même si les cercles les plus conventionnels et les plus conformistes de l’université allemande le souhaiteraient!

 

Q.: Le modèle d’ordre, que préconise Schmitt dans sa vision du droit des gens, avec sa fixation sur la notion de sol et sur l’idéal d’un peuple homogène, qui s’est approprié ce sol et l’a rentabilisé, n’est-il pas désormais archaïque parce que “folciste” (= “völkisch”), comme on l’a souvent reproché à Schmitt; “folciste” et donc aujourd’hui obsolète?

 

GM: Le droit des gens selon Schmitt a essuyé pas mal de critiques sous le national-socialisme, justement parce qu’il présentait, disaient ses adversaires partisans du régime, un déficit de “folcicité”. Par ailleurs, l’idée de “folcicité” ne me paraît pas obsolète aujourd’hui, vu l’agressivité de la globalisation: elle devient au contraire de plus en plus importante. J’en veux pour preuve la tendance actuelle à constituer de plus en plus souvent des Etats nouveaux et petits, n’englobant, si possible, qu’une seule ethnie. On évite bien entendu d’utiliser les termes “folciste” ou “ethnique”, voire “racial”, parce qu’ils sont chargés de connotations historiques, mais cela n’empêche pas que l’on lutte plus âprement aujourd’hui qu’hier pour faire triompher l’idéal “folciste”. Schmitt, lui, ne se préoccupait pas de la question “folciste” mais visait la constitution de “grands espaces” (Grossräume) contre la notion de “One World”, qui est issue de l’idéalisme désincarné et ne cherche pas à faire advenir un monde où les sujets du droit des gens seraient mis sur pied d’égalité mais, au contraire, seraient tous soumis à une et une seule superpuissance impérialiste. Le droit des gens de Carl Schmitt, que l’on accuse à tort d’être un “étatiste”, se place résolument au-delà de tout étatisme et repose surtout sur l’observation attentive d’un fait bien patent, que Washington veut ignorer: que le monde sera toujours plus grand que les Etats-Unis et ne pourra pas sempiternellement être taillé à la mesure des idées et des conceptions bizarres qui sont nées dans des cerveaux américains.

 

Q.: L’idéal schmittien du droit des gens semble avoir été plus ou moins réalisé dans le petit univers des Etats européens entre la Paix de Westphalie et la première guerre mondiale, avec des Etats souverains, délimités chacun par des frontières, se livrant quelques fois des “guerres de forme”, sorte de duels guerriers qui se terminaient par des traités de paix aux effets finalement restreints. N’a-t-on pas affaire, ici, à un mythe personnel cultivé par Schmitt, avec lequel il est parti en guerre contre la guerre totale qui sévissait au 20ème siècle? En partant du principe que les guerres-duels ont réellement existé, Schmitt n’a tout de même pas imaginé sérieusement qu’on pouvait y retourner? Et vous-même, y voyez-vous davantage qu’une réminiscence historique, une simple alternative à la tentative de fonder une paix sur les valeurs de l’universalisme de la “révolution mondiale démocratique”, à laquelle appelait George W. Bush en novembre 2003?

 

GM: La guerre limitée, ou “guerre des formes”, a bel et bien existé: elle repose sur la distinction claire entre guerre et paix, entre intérieur et extérieur, entre combattant et non combattant, etc. Même si l’on ne peut plus revenir à de telles distinctions, peut-on pour autant soutenir la notion de “guerre totale” ou l’état de “perpetual war for perpetual peace”, en propageant le mensonge d’une “paix indivisible” et en affirmant tout de go que toute guerre particulière concerne le monde tout entier, c’est-à-dire cette “communauté des peuples” (Völkergemeinschaft), qui existe soi disant réellement mais qui est, dans les faits, une “société d’Etats” (Staatengesellschaft)? En raisonnant de la sorte, peut-on contribuer à préparer pour l’avenir une sorte de “soft law” pour faciliter et légitimer l’interventionnisme impérialiste? Quand un sot prononce une phrase stupide, dans le genre “la liberté allemande (sur l’essence ou sur la réalité présente de laquelle, je refuse de m’exprimer ici pour demeurer poli) se défend aussi dans l’Hindou Kouch”, ou quand un autre handicapé de la dure-mère nous déclare que les Etats-Unis seraient davantage “sécurisés”, si l’Irak était sauvé tout en étant détruit, je constate que de telles assertions sont possibles uniquement parce que l’on croit aux principes du droit des gens tel qu’il s’applique depuis 1919. Et pire: même ceux qui critiquent les deux types d’assertion que je viens d’énoncer, pour m’en moquer, croient à ces principes de 1919! Ces gens peuvent, par exemple, critiquer le Traité de Versailles, mettre en doute la validité du Tribunal de Nuremberg, condamner les motivations qui ont conduit à la guerre du Vietnam, tout en célébrant l’avènement des droits de l’homme ou la défense préventive des “valeurs occidentales” ou toute autre sublime philosophade de cet acabit! Beaucoup de ceux qui s’insurgent contre les entorses faites au droit des gens par le gouvernement des Etats-Unis, oublient simultanément que ces entorses ne sont que la conséquence logique de l’évolution même de la pensée juridique aux Etats-Unis, une évolution qui a commencé plus ou moins vers 1880 et qui a donné pour résultat, in fine, le droit des gens de 1919. Mais cela donnerait quoi, cette “démocratie mondiale” ou ce qui en tient lieu? Une “démocratie” est par définition le “kratos”, le pouvoir, détenu par un “demos”, par un peuple particulier, et ne peut donc pas s’étendre au “monde” ou à l’humanité. Ensuite, la démocratie n’est qu’une méthode pour produire le droit et, en tant que méthode, ne présuppose aucun contenu; tout contenu éventuel, qui viendrait l’étoffer, s’ajouterait ultérieurement. L’Occident parle sans cesse de “démocratie”, mais ôte à cette même “démocratie” toute valeur quand les résultats d’une consultation démocratique lui déplaisent; dans cette optique, songeons simplement à la victoire électorale du “Front Islamique du Salut” en Algérie en décembre 1991; l’Occident a constaté, avec une joie à peine dissimulée, qu’un putsch a mis un terme à l’ascension du FIS. Songeons aussi aux élections iraniennes de 2005. La “révolution démocratique mondiale” est-elle une révolution fabriquée et imposée de force par les dirigeants des lobbies pétroliers qui lisent Leo Strauss pendant leurs temps de loisir? Mais qui agissent selon la devise de Schumpeter: “La démocratie, c’est le pouvoir par le mensonge”?

 

Q.: Vu les efforts que déploie la dernière superpuissance en piste, les Etats-Unis, pour faire advenir le “One World”, ne peut-on pas dire que le “nomos de la Terre”, espéré par Carl Schmitt, avec son pluriversum de “grands espaces” (Grossräume), est à reléguer au département des antiquités?

 

GM: Les Etats-Unis peuvent briguer l’avènement d’un “One World” mais, à l’évidence, on sait depuis longtemps qu’ils ne réussiront pas l’opération. Les tentatives de construire réellement de “grands espaces” sont patentes aujourd’hui, notamment en Amérique latine. Les pertes enregistrées par les Etats-Unis dans les secteurs de la production et de la finance sont incontestables. A cela s’ajoute, l’endettement pharamineux (et absurde) des Etats-Unis vis-à-vis de l’étranger et les risques que comporte cet endettement. Sur le plan militaire, les Etats-Unis se heurtent rapidement à leurs limites: ils ne disposent pas de troupes étrangères en suffisance, qui, elles, seraient prêtes à mourir pour une cause. On pourrait approcher l’idéal d’une paix mondiale, si les Etats-Unis devenaient à leur tour l’objet d’un “containment”, d’un endiguement, et si la volonté unie de tous les autres mettait un terme à leurs tentatives de contrôler l’espace arabe (et, par là même, une bonne part des sources d’approvisionnement de l’Europe), de pénétrer la “Terre du Milieu” ou l’espace centre-asiatique et d’encercler la Russie. Cet endiguement des Etats-Unis et l’union des volontés alternatives n’est pas un projet sans perspective...

 

Q.: La tentative d’empêcher par tous les moyens l’avènement de cet “Etat mondial” n’est-elle pas un combat à la Don Quichotte, contre des moulins à vent, vu la dynamique à l’oeuvre aujourd’hui et que l’on appelle la “globalisation”, laquelle procède par la constitution de plus en plus dense de réseaux économiques et communicationnels? Et cette lutte inutile à la Don Quichotte n’était-elle pas déjà obsolète du temps de Carl Schmitt lui-même?

 

GM: Un “Etat mondial”? Cela ne peut aboutir. Tout au plus arrivera-t-on à une “Fédération mondiale” fonctionnant selon le principe de subsidiarité, mais c’est assez utopique. Si l’on aboutit un jour à une “unité du monde”, sous quelle que forme que ce soit, alors nous aurions sûrement un résultat d’ores et déjà prévisible: les guerres, ou les “conflits armés”, continueront à exister mais sous la forme de guerres civiles. On peut déjà clairement entrevoir ce que cela signifie, en observant les simulations actuelle d’une “unité mondiale”, où les Etats-Unis jouent un rôle qu’on ne leur a pas demandé de tenir: celui de “policier global”. L’augmentation ininterrompue de la mise en réseau de l’économie ne constitue pas une garantie de paix; souvenons-nous que l’intégration économique de l’Europe était bien plus avancée en 1914 qu’aujourd’hui! L’intégration croissante de l’économie et du droit ne génère pas d’ordre politique. Si l’Etat perd de la légitimité, alors, simultanément, l’intégration économique et l’interdépendance croissante ont des effets déstabilisants voire bellogènes. On peut affirmer que le droit international actuel est l’enfant morbide d’une alliance fatidique: celle qui unit les idéaux de la révolution française aux conceptions anglaises du droit maritime. Et qui donne les maux suivants: impérialisme des droits de l’homme et rééducation d’une part, pan-interventionnisme couplé aux propagandes haineuses, étranglement de l’économie de l’adversaire et estompement de la distinction entre guerre et paix, d’autre part. On croit donc aujourd’hui, sur la planète entière, que par l’application des principes de la révolution française et de ceux du thalassocratisme anglais, qui ont pourtant eu pour résultat de déstabiliser le monde, on finira par faire éclore la stabilité de demain. Vous allez me dire que je simplifie à outrance! Et vos questions alors, ne procèdent-elles pas de simplifications pires encore?

 

Q.: Joschka Fischer, qui exerce encore actuellement les fonctions de ministre des affaires étrangères en Allemagne, a récemment osé un pronostic sur le développement du nouvel ordre mondial: ou bien les Etats-Unis réussissent, dans le cadre de l’ONU, à créer une “république mondiale” dominée par eux-mêmes et par l’UE, leur partenaire; ou bien, ils entreront dans une concurrence accrue avec la Chine, ce qui n’exclut pas, à terme, une confrontation sino-américaine future pour l’hégémonie globale. Pour éviter cela, l’avènement d’un “One World” sous domination américaine n’est-il pas la voie vers un avenir de paix?

 

GM: Les Etats-Unis n’entendent pas agir dans le cadre de l’ONU, comme on le sait. Quant à l’Europe qu’ils contrôlent et qui est divisée, ce n’est pas pour eux un partenaire mais un idiot utile. La concurrence avec la Chine sera de plus en plus aigüe, c’est inévitable. Une “république mondiale” par la grâce des Etats-Unis? Que cela signifierait-il? Poursuivre des actions criminelles comme l’agression américaine contre l’Irak et les soutenir? Participer à des guerres de prédation, pardon, à des guerres privatisées? Soutenir des Etats si proches des “valeurs occidentales” comme l’Egypte, le Pakistan ou l’Arabie Saoudite, voire la Colombie, ou aller y jouer un rôle médiateur pour faire croire urbi et orbi qu’on y respecte les droits de l’homme? Rendre plausible le projet de premières frappes nucléaires “préventives”?

 

Q.: Mais l’esprit du temps, le “Zeitgeist”, n’est-il pas un allié puissant de tous les projets qui promettent une “paix mondiale”, esprit du temps que l’on retrouve in nuce dans les esquisses d’un “Etat mondial” proposées par David Held ou Otfried Höffe? Toute critique basée sur Carl Schmitt ne s’avère-t-elle pas impuissante, si elle se borne à dénoncer de telles promesses de paix comme de simples travestissements juridiques, humanitaires et idéologiques d’un interventionnisme  impérialiste?

 

GM: Kierkegaard aimait à dire: “Celui qui épouse le Zeitgeist deviendra vite veuf”. La “paix mondiale”, l’ “Etat mondial”, la “Fédération mondiale” (avec subsidiarité), ou quelle que soit la dénomination dont peuvent se parer ces rêves, qui ne sont pas si beaux (laissons de côté ici les distinguos), ne sont que des impossibilités, qui, de plus, sont incongrus sur le plan éthique. “Le futur, c’est le massacre”, et le massacre n’est pas anobli parce qu’il est “high tech” ou perpétré au nom de la “démocratie”. En politique, il faut s’en tenir aux probabilités et non aux voeux pieux. Première probabilité: après le 20ème siècle, nous en aurons encore pour notre argent! Au lieu de fantasmer sur un “Etat mondial”, ou sur quelque dérivation vermoulue du même genre, nous devrions, nous les Allemands, nous rappeler qu’après 1991, nous avons payé 13 milliards de DM pour que 150.000 Irakiens soient tués et que 300.000 enfants d’Irak meurent de faim ou de privations à cause de l’embargo imposé à leur pays, alors que l’Irak ne nous a jamais menacés, ni nous ni l’Occident. Evidemment, nous les Allemands, nous nous y connaissons en matière de refoulement... Le tableau de désolation que nous offre l’Irak aurait tout de même dû nous faire réfléchir aux conséquences de nos alliances, nous indiqué une nouvelle manière d’agir. Il est bien possible qu’une critique basée sur l’oeuvre de Schmitt s’avère impuissante face à certaines réalités actuelles, mais elle demeure néanmoins percutante contre l’idéologie qui les recouvre. Et j’ajouterais ceci: la destruction d’une réalité commence toujours par une attaque contre sa superstructure! Par vos questions, vous suggérez que rien ne peut s’opposer à un impérialisme interventionniste. Comment en arrivez-vous à une telle conclusion? Pour mourir, on a toujours bien le temps, mais certaines formes de “sacrificio dell’intellettto” (de sacrifice de l’intelligence) sont incurables!

 

(entretien paru dans “Junge Freiheit”, n°38/2005; traduction française: Robert Steuckers; avec l’aimable autorisation de G. Maschke)

 

A lire:

 

Günter MASCHKE (Hrsg.), “Carl Schmitt. Frieden oder Pazifismus? Arbeiten zum Völkerrecht und zur internationalen Politik 1924-1978”, mit einem Vorwort und  mit Anmerkungen versehen. Duncker u. Humblot, Berlin, 2005, XXX  u. 1010 seiten, gebunden, 98 euro.

G. Maschke: "Der subventionierte Amoklauf"

 

Dossier "Günter Maschke"

 

Der subventionierte Amoklauf

Raphael Gross: Carl Schmitt und die Juden

Günter Maschke - http://www.jungefreiheit.de/

Nullus est liber tam malus, ut non aliqua parte prosit – Kein Buch ist so schlecht, daß es nicht in irgendeiner Beziehung nütze, pflegte Plinius d. Ä. (23–79) seinem Neffen und Adoptivsohn, dem jüngeren Plinius (61–113) tröstend zu sagen. Doch dank der nie genug zu preisenden Gnade unser aller Sterblichkeit ward es dem rastlos lesenden Gelehrten nicht vergönnt, Raphael Gross‘ "Carl Schmitt und die Juden" aufzuschlagen, und blieb es dem Admiral der Römischen Flotte versagt, vor den Untiefen dieser nicht auszulotenden Seichtigkeit zu erschaudern.

Wir sind einiges gewohnt und wissen, daß, wer sich die Füße an Carl Schmitt abstreift, gute Gesinnung beweist und es deshalb auf Kenntnisse und Genauigkeit nicht ankommt, handelt es sich doch um "ein politisch-moralisches Integrationsritual". Dem Pingeligen wird an dieser treffenden Bemerkung Vilmos Holczhausers das Wort "Ritual" stören. Denn so einig sich die zahllosen Schmitt-Verfolger waren, sind und sein werden – bisher streifte ein jeder seine Füße auf die eigene, gar zu individuelle Manier ab. Ein mächtig-weiser Ordner mußte kommen, auf daß sich das üppig geförderte, volkspädagogisch so erfreuliche Gewusel in ein wirkliches Ritual verwandele, auf daß aus dem Chaos Schöpfung werde. Nun ist er da, der große Liturgiker, der in genialer Einfachheit, mit einer einzigen Position und keinem Begriff, die Wirrnis beendet und gelassen sein Fiat lux spricht: überlebensgroß Herr Gross.

Herr Gross weiß etwas, das alle wissen, doch bringt er‘s nicht übers Herz, diese seine Sonderstellung zu verschweigen: Carl Schmitt war Antisemit. Das war er tatsächlich, wenn es auch für geraume Zeit (oder für immer) unklar bleiben wird, wie sein Antisemitismus funktionierte bzw. wie er sich zusammensetzte. Vor 1933 lassen sich keine antisemitischen Bemerkungen Schmitts finden, sieht man von dem harmlosen Spott auf Walther Rathenau in den "Schattenrissen" (1913) ab, der gleichwohl Gross erzürnt. Gross aber schließt aus dem Fehlen antisemitischer Bemerkungen auf deren "stillschweigende Allgegenwart" (so Thomas Wirtz in einer glänzenden Kritik in der FAZ vom 31.7., die ihren Gegenstand zu ernst nimmt). Sei vor 1933 ein antisemitisches Bekenntnis "einfach unklug" gewesen, so habe sich 1933 der wahre Schmitt entpuppt. Dessen Antisemitismus aber könne nicht reduziert werden auf einen mit nationalsozialistischen Girlanden umdekorierten, christlichen Anti-Judaismus. Doch gab es genug Professoren, auch Juristen, wie etwa Axel Freiherr von Freytagh-Loringhoven, die vor 1933 aus ihrem Antisemitismus keinen Hehl machten, ab 1933 es jedoch vorzogen, zu schweigen (der Vergleich fällt hier nicht zugunsten Schmitts aus). Wie es aber um Schmitts Antisemitismus auch stand, wie sehr man von Schmitts "Glossarium" aus den Jahren 1947/51 auch schockiert sein mag: die entsprechenden Textstellen und Fakten lassen sich auf wenigen Seiten ausbreiten. Wir kennen auch längere Aufsätze über die von Schmitt geleitete "Judentagung" (3. bis 4. Oktober 1936 in Berlin) und es sind auch ausführliche Studien, etwa über die Hintergründe dieser Tagung, denkbar.

Doch eine solche Arbeit leistet Gross nicht. Er will statt dessen das gesamte Werk Schmitts, das 1910 mit "Über Schuld und Schuldarten" einsetzt und erst 1983 mit dem Interview des italienischen Juristen Fulco Lanchester, "Un giurista d‘avanti a se stesso" (Quaderni costituzionali, 1/1938, Seite 5–34), endet, als bloßen Ausfluß, als getarnte Anwendung, als fachwissenschaftlich nur verbrämte Polemik wider den /die Juden verstehen. Gross möchte uns weismachen, er verfüge über den Universalschlüssel zu einem Haus, dessen Türen er noch nicht einmal von weitem gesehen hat. Denn Schmitts Werk ist in erster Linie Staatstheorie, Völkerrecht und Politikwissenschaft, es ist eng verbunden mit damaligen konkreten Problemen, und es bleibt verbunden mit weiter andauernden Fragen; was Schmitt von den Juden dachte, ist für ein Verständnis seiner Schriften nicht einmal von tertiärer Bedeutung. Selbst die beliebt gewordene Debatte um seine "Politische Theologie" führt zu nichts, verkennt man, daß sie im bloß Metaphorischen verharrt, – sie wird nur für soo wichtig erachtet, weil sie zu Spekulationen reizt, die sich inzwischen als Karikaturen fort und fort reproduzieren. Achselzuckend bemerkt Thomas Wirtz: "Der Jude als Artfremder (ist) der einzylindrige Motor, der Schmitts Werk über mehr als sechs Jahrzehnte am Laufen gehalten habe; ihn zu vernichten sei der Antrieb seiner langen und weit gestreuten Produktion gewesen." Weshalb ist noch niemand auf die Idee gekommen, das Werk Jean Bodins als eine Camouflage seines Hasses auf die Hexen und seiner Forderung, diese zu foltern und zu töten, zu deuten?

Solche Methode ist wissenschaftlich unsinnig (eigentlich sollte hier stehen "irrsinnig", aber was tue ich nicht alles für meinen Redakteur?) und nicht unverwandt der Verfahrensweise des Herrn Omnes, Napoleon aus seiner Körpergröße zu erklären. Für Gross sind alle Begriffe Schmitts, auch die so typischen Gegensatzpaare Nomos–Gesetz, Legalität–Legitimität, Land–Meer, Norm –Befehl, Macht–Recht, aber auch Beschleunigung, Katechon, Antichrist substantiell antisemitische Begriffe, die stets den Feind Schmitts, die Juden, im Visier haben. (Wie steht es mit "Verfassung-Verfassungsgesetz" oder mit "institutioneller Garantie"?). Wer der Moderne ablehnend oder auch nur skeptisch gegenübersteht (die bei Gross wenig mehr ist als die jüdische Emanzipation, ansonsten aber als schnurstrackser Weg zum Heil erscheint), der sollte sich vorsehen. Denn wenn es stimmt, daß die Juden besonders begabte Agenten der Moderne sind, sprich der Beschleunigung, Abstrahierung, Quantifizierung, Entortung, dann hat man auf derlei Hirnwebereien gefälligst zu verzichten. Da die jüdischen Juristen besonderem Wert auf die "formale" Legalität legen, ist schon jede Kritik an deren Alleinherrschaftsanspruch und jede Suche nach einer tragfähigen Legitimität verdächtig und gehört in den Orkus. Da die Vorstellungen vom Kommen des Antichrist antisemitisch getönt sein können, ist jedes Erschrecken vor dem Pax et securitas, mit dem der Mensch dem Menschen ausgeliefert wird, ist jedes Entsetzen vor einer rein quantitativen, nihilistischen Ordnung würgender Immanenz "böse" und "gefährlich".

"Gefährlich" ist übrigens ein Lieblingswort Gross‘, der sich hier gänzlich dem gouvernantenhaften Wissenschaftsbetrieb der BRD eingliedert. Und da der Nomos auch die Kritik des jüdischen Gesetzes beinhaltet (und weil es ihm um die Erhaltung der konkreten Völker als "Gedanken Gottes" zu tun ist?), ist er letztlich nichts als eine aufgetakelte antisemitische Spekulation. Wie fruchtbar und aufschließend ein Gedanke auch sei, – wenn er zu einer antisemitischen Conclusio führen kann, hat man sich seiner zu entschlagen. Am grauenvollsten ist für Gross natürlich das "Feinddenken", die Unterscheidung von Freund und Feind. Diese banalité supérieure impliziert jedoch auch zwingend, daß man nur mit einem Feind Frieden schließen kann, – solch simple Einsicht Schmitts, die auch das Urteil spricht über eine Welt, in der es keine Feinde mehr geben soll und die gleichzeitig vom Frieden schwätzt, entgeht Gross wie so vielen anderen. Über die Struktur, die Entwicklung, die lignes de force von Schmitts Werk, über deren Zusammenhang mit den Fragen, die die Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts quälen und ängstigen (und die die des 21. Jahrhunderts noch ganz anders quälen und ängstigen werden!), erfährt man selbst bei Jürgen Fijalkowski, Mathias Schmitz oder Graf Krockow mehr.

Gross verplempert statt dessen seine Seiten mit schülerhaften Nacherzählungen, sei es der Deutung des Erbsündendogmas, einiger Thesen Kelsens, der Vorstellungen vom Nomos bei Albert Erich Günther und Wilhelm Stapel (die flugs mit denen Schmitts ineinsgesetzt werden), der Überlegungen de Maistres und Donoso Cortés‘ usw. Schwupp sind wieder 20–30 Seiten geschrieben, die das Herz des linksliberalen Bildungsspießers erfreuen (weil dieser meint, sich der Lektüre der betreffenden Autoren entschlagen zu können, da er wähnt, Gross habe diese wirklich sorgfältig gelesen: "Echo kommt vor jedem Wort"). Dieses hilflose Proseminaristen-Verfahren verwehrt es Gross, Schmitt dort zu kritisieren, wo es angebracht ist. Weil Schmitt sich lobend über de Maistres angebliche Thesen zur "Souveränität" und zur "Entscheidung" äußert, entgeht es Gross, daß der Savoyarde stets an "Wahrheit" interessiert war, daß für ihn die "Entscheidung" nur effektiv war im Dienste dieser einen, zwar bedrohten, jedoch unbezweifelbaren Wahrheit: Wichtig war, wie entschieden wurde, nicht, wie Schmitt gerne schrieb, daß. De Maistre war weder ein "Dezisionist", noch glaubte er, daß es nur auf eine "Entscheidung" ankomme, gleichgültig, wie diese beschaffen sei. (Ob mit letzterem Schmitt während seiner dezisionistischen Phase wirklich erfaßt ist, muß hier auf sich beruhen). Ähnliches gilt für Schmitts Deutung von Donoso, der nicht, wie Schmitt erklärte, die Diktatur forderte, weil er die Legitimität für erledigt hielt, sondern nur die Diktatur im Namen der Legitimität bejahte. Schmitt hat sich diese (und andere!) Autoren aufs Bedenklichste zurechtgeschnitzelt und sie gewaltsam zu seinen Vorläufern ernannt; dies zu demonstrieren (was freilich schon geschah), wäre ein sinnvolles Unterfangen gewesen.

Gross‘ in der Regel unholde Unwissenheit verrät sich auch, weist er dem Katechon eine zentrale Bedeutung für die katholische Theologie zu, – als wäre dieser in den Dogmatiken und Handbüchern nicht beinahe inexistent und als hätte nicht der schärfste katholische Kritiker Schmitts, Alvaro d‘Ors, die Entbehrlichkeit dieses Begriffes für ein christliches Geschichtsbild dargelegt: der Christ muß wollen, daß Sein Reich komme und darf gar nicht um Aufschub bitten. Gross hat keine Ahnung von Katholizismus, weiß aber, daß Schmitt "eigentlich" kein Katholik war.

Besonderes Augenmerk widmet Gross Hans Kelsen. Die Kontrapunktik Kelsen–Schmitt ist in der Sekundärliteratur beliebt und gibt ja tatsächlich einiges her. Sieht man jedoch von Schmitts "Politischer Theologie" (1922) und von Kelsens Polemik "Wer soll der Hüter der Verfassung sein?" (Die Justiz, 1930/31, Seite 576–628) gegen Schmitts "Der Hüter der Verfassung" (als Aufsatz zuerst 1929) ab, so bezieht sich Schmitt sehr selten auf Kelsen, Kelsen auf Schmitt so gut wie nie. Was Schmitt angeht, so ist die Ursache bekannt: er hielt Kelsens Werk schlicht für langweilig und banal und sprach allenfalls abfällig von den "ewigen Trivialitäten Kelsens".Laut Gross aber hat Schmitt Kelsen fanatisch verfolgt. Beklagte sich dieser 1934, im Vorwort zur "Reinen Rechtslehre", über die "schon an Haß grenzende Opposition gegen die ‚Reine Rechtslehre‘, so fingiert Gross, daß sich dies auf Schmitt beziehe, von dem in Kelsens Schrift nirgendwo die Rede ist.

Gross sieht nur Antisemiten und Antisemitisches

Viel schärfer als von Schmitt wurde Kelsen von dem Wiener Völkerrechtler Hold v. Ferneck oder von dem protestantischen Antinazi Rudolf Smend attackiert, geradezu brutal aber von Hermann Heller (vgl. dessen "Die Souveränität", 1927), der nota bene Jude, Sozialist und Emigrant war. Über diese und andere Kritiker Kelsens schweigt Gross. Jeder Zweifel jedoch, der gegenüber der "Reinen Rechtslehre" geäußert wird, die für Gross eine potenzierte Heilige Schrift ist, verrät schurkischen Antisemitismus, so daß – folgt man der Logik Gross‘ – der Jude Heller ein weitaus bösartigerer Antisemit sein muß als Schmitt. Kurz darauf erfahren wir, daß Kelsen "sich der Gefahr bewußt (war), die seiner relativistischen Weltanschauung von seiten der politisch-religiösen Theorie Schmitts" drohe und werden auf Kelsens "Staatsform und Weltanschauung" (1933, S. 29 f.) verwiesen, wo es jedoch um Jesus und Barabas geht und die "Volksabstimmung" (sich äußernd in der Forderung des jüdischen Pöbels, daß Pilatus Jesus kreuzigen lassen solle und nicht den Barabas) Kelsen nur dann als "ein gewaltiges Argument gegen die Demokratie" erscheint, "wenn die politischen Gläubigen (...) ihrer Wahrheit so gewiß sind wie der Sohn Gottes"; von Schmitt ist auch hier nirgendwo die Rede. Gross verfährt noch einmal so und macht den Leser glauben, daß Kelsen mit einer Passage aus "Der soziologische und der juristische Staatsbegriff" (Ausgabe 1928) auf eine Kritik Schmitts antworte, – doch gibt es weder diese Kritik noch einen von Kelsen auch nur erwähnten Carl Schmitt.

Eine weitere, noch üblere Methode Gross‘ darf man "assoziatives glissando" nennen: Wenn "selbst ein liberaler Theologe, wie Adolf v. Harnack" den Alten Bund mit dem Neuen für unvereinbar hält (als wenn vom Christentum aus etwas anderes möglich sei, Dialog hin, Hans Küng her!), so ist dies für Gross die Vorstufe zu Ernst Jüngers und Carl Schmitts Sorge, daß "durch die Exterminierung der Juden deren Moral nun frei und virulent" geworden sei. Von Sympathie für die Juden zeugen derlei Aussagen nicht, aber sie stehen in einem strikten Gegensatz zur Forderung, daß man sie ausrotte – Gross aber rückt sie in die Nähe dieser Forderung. Aufweis der Unvereinbarkeit von Altem und Neuem Bund und Ablehnung des Allgemeinwerdens der jüdischen Moral ist für ihn gleichbedeutend mit klammheimlicher Bejahung des Massenmordes!

So wie Antisemiten einer bestimmten Spezies nur Juden und Jüdisches sehen, so sieht Gross nur Antisemiten und Antisemitistisches. Wo Gross auch hintapert: Der Antisemitismus war schon da und hat die Landschaft vermint. Wenn aber dem der Grosschen Prosekution Unterworfenen gerade mal keine antisemitischen Gedankengänge nachzuweisen sind, so hat er sich ihnen doch hingegeben, "trotzdem" und "eigentlich": Hoch leben die Moskauer Trotzkistenprozesse! Gleichwohl schimpft Gross auf "Verschwörungsphantasien" und "-theorien" und vergißt, daß ohne Verschwörungen, die weder in Biarritzer Hotels noch auf Prager Friedhöfen stattfinden müssen, das Politische und die Politik gar nicht denkbar sind und daß "Verschwörung" seit Jahrzehnten ein seriöses Thema der Geschichtsschreibung und politischen Wissenschaft (nicht nur) in den romanischen Ländern ist.

Man mag erwarten, daß Gross etwas über die Ursachen des Antisemitismus sagt, d. h. über die Realitäten, die ihn provozierten; daß diese Realitäten verzerrt wahrgenommen werden können, kann nur bewiesen werden, wenn man sie untersucht. Doch Gross sieht nur jahrtausendealtes Vorurteil, ewigen Wahn, ein permanentes Kopfkino, eine geheimnisvolle, sich unaufhörlich aus dem Nichts erneuernde Urzeugung. Die ausgedehnte, jüdische Selbstkritik nicht nur vor und nach 1933, der Kampf der assimilierten deutschen Juden gegen die einströmenden Ostjuden zwecks Eindämmung des Antisemitismus u. a. m., – dies alles gibt es für Gross nicht. Bei Theodor Herzl lesen wir: "In den Bevölkerungen wächst der Antisemitismus täglich, stündlich und muß weiter wachsen, weil die Ursachen fortbestehen und nicht behoben werden können. – Die causa remota ist der im Mittelalter eingetretene Verlust unserer Assimilierbarkeit, die causa proxima die Überproduktion an mittleren Intelligenzen, die keinen Abfluß nach unten haben und keinen Aufstieg – nämlich keinen gesunden Abfluß und keinen gesunden Aufstieg. Wir werden nach unten hin zu Umstürzlern proletarisiert, bilden die Unteroffiziere aller revolutionären Parteien und gleichzeitig wächst nach oben unsere furchtbare Geldmacht". (Herzl, "Gesammelte zionistische Werke", Band I, 1923, Seite 39 und 41) Ein Vertreter dieser furchtbaren Macht bemerkt derweil zu einem anderen: "Was die antisemitischen Sympathien betrifft, so sind die Juden selbst hieran schuld und haben die Aufregung ihrem Dünkel, ihrer Überhebung und namenlosen Frechheit zuzuschreiben". (Meyer Carl Rothschild an Gerson von Bleichröder, 16. September 1875, zitiert nach: Fritz Stern, Kulturpessimismus als politische Gefahr, 1963, Seite 92). Friedrich Meinecke kam 1946 in "Die deutsche Katastrophe", gedruckt mit Erlaubnis der US-Besatzer, zu dem Ergebnis: "Zu denen, die den Becher der ihnen zugefallenen Macht gar zu rasch und gierig an den Mund führten, gehörten auch viele Juden. – Die Juden, die dazu neigen, eine ihnen einmal lächelnde Gunst der Konjunktur unbedacht zu genießen, hatten mancherlei Anstoß erregt seit ihrer vollen Emanzipation. Sie haben viel beigetragen zu jener allmählichen Entwertung und Diskreditierung der liberalen Gedankenwelt, die seit dem Ausgange des 19. Jahrhhunderts eingetreten ist" (Seite 53 und 29). Wer nicht von den Ursachen des Antisemitismus reden will, sollte auch von diesem schweigen, und schweigen sollte auch der, der sich weigert, dessen Realitätskern zu untersuchen, weil wahnhafte Reaktionen möglich sind. La verdad es siempre deliciosa.

Daß gerade "der assimilierte Jude der wahre Feind" sei, diese Wendung Peter F. Druckers aus seinem Buche "The end of economic man" (New York 1939) schreibt Gross Schmitt zu: Dieser hatte in seinem "Glossarium" (Seite 17/18) den Satz Druckers nicht klar genug als Zitat gekennzeichnet. Das Motiv für seinen Amoklauf findet Gross also in der sachlichen Feststellung eines jüdischen Intellektuellen! Schmitts oft verblüffende Nachlässigkeit im Umgang mit Zitaten, auch mit historischen Herleitungen, biographischen Behauptungen oder angeblichen Nachzeichnungen der Ideen anderer, die in Wirklichkeit Verzeichnungen sind, – hier wird sie rüde abgestraft, wobei sich der Abstrafer freilich selbst disqualifiziert: Gross warf keinen einzigen Blick in das von Schmitt immerhin deutlich genannte Buch Druckers.

Zweifel am Zustand der akademischen Welt

Die groben Schnitzer, die oft kleinen, dann aber Gross‘ Ignoranz und stultitia offenbarenden Irrtümer, die Nichtkenntnis selbst der Literatur, die ihm bei seinem Feldzug zupaß käme, – man findet kein Ende. Schreibt Schmitt etwa über Hitler: "Er wollte sich mit Gewalt in die weltbeherrschende Schicht und in ihr Arcanum eindrängen; er wollte es ihnen nicht entreißen, sondern nur daran beteiligt werden; er wollte aufgenommen werden in den feinen Club, endlich einmal ein ganz großer Herr sein, ein Lord. Jenes Arcanum aber lag tatsächlich in der Idee der Rasse" (Glossarium, Seite 157; bei Gross, Seite 358), so "beschrieb Schmitt sich damit selbst als einen Verführten des nationalsozialistischen Arcanums"! Gross kennt gar einen Bruder Schmitts namens "Georg", von dem selbst das schlaue Carlchen nichts wußte. Einen Aufsatz jedoch, dessen Autor Gross‘ Bösartigkeiten nicht erreicht, ihn aber wegen seiner Konfusion anregen könnte, straft er mit Nichtachtung: Jean-Luc Evrard, Les juifs de Carl Schmitt, in: Les Temps Modernes, November/Dezember 1997, Seite 53–100.

Der Text hat Gross "viele Jahre beschäftigt", – die tropisch wuchernde Fülle an Fehlern, Verschleifungen, Insinuationen, ganz zu schweigen von der grundsätzlichen Unergiebigkeit des Themas, lassen sich vielleicht auch damit erklären. Doch der Skandal liegt nicht darin, daß wieder einmal ein miserables Buch über Schmitt geschrieben wurde (unter den ca. 200 Monographien liegt die Gross‘ wohl im untersten Vierzigstel), sondern daß Gross eine ganze Heerschar von Beratern, Hinweisgebern, Helfern zur Seite stand, ganze 45, so ich richtig zählte. Hier finden sich bedeutende Gelehrte, wie Reinhart Koselleck, leidliche Kenner wie Dirk van Laak, ein Anti-Schmitt-Maniaque wie Bernd Rüthers. Einige dieser 45 Leute aus Deutschland, Österreich, Israel, Frankreich, den USA sollen sogar das Manuskript gelesen haben. Man muß also einmal mehr am intellektuellen wie am moralischen Zustand der akademischen Welt verzweifeln.

Gross wurde auch über Jahre hinweg von mehreren Stiftungen gefördert. In den deutschsprachigen Ländern fließen für jüdische Stipendiaten keineswegs Milch und Honig – sie stürzen vielmehr kataraktartig auf die Antragsteller herab. Jacob Taubes‘ Diktum, daß die jüdische Intelligenz in der BRD sich in einer Situation befinde, in der sie bis auf die Knochen korrumpiert werde, bewahrheitet sich ein weiteres Mal. Na also! Etwas kann man immer lernen, hätte der ältere Plinius gejauchzt. Ein jiddisches Sprichwort weiß es noch: Gott bewahre uns vor jüdischer Chuzpe, jüdischen Mäulern und jüdischem Köpfchen.

 

Raphael Gross: Carl Schmitt und die Juden. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt/M. 2000, 441 Seiten, geb., 54 Mark

La figure du "Katechon" chez Carl Schmitt

 

La figure du “Katechon” chez Schmitt

 

 

(intervention du Prof. Dr. Fabio Martelli - Université d'été de la FACE, 1995)

 

Dans sa Théologie politique (1922), la figure du katechon est celle qui, par son action politique ou par son exemple moral, arrête le flot du déclin, la satanisation totale de ce monde de l'en-deçà. Catholique intransigeant, lecteur attentif du “Nouveau Testament”, Schmitt construit sa propre notion du katechon au départ de la Deuxième Lettre aux Thessaloniciens de Paul de Tarse. Le Katechon est la force (un homme, un Etat, un peuple-hegemon) qui arrêtera la progression de l'Antéchrist. Schmitt valorise cette figure, au contraire de certains théologiens de la haute antiquité qui jugeaient que la figure du katechon était une figure négative parce qu'elle retardait l'avènement du Christ, qui devait survenir immédiatement après la victoire complète de l'Antéchrist. Schmitt fonde justement sa propre théologie civile, après avoir constaté cette différence entre les théologiens qui attendent, impatients, la catastrophe finale comme horizon de l'advenance de la parousie, d'une part, et, ceux qui, par le truchement d'une Theologia Civilis tirée en droite ligne de la pratique impériale romaine, veulent pérenniser le combat contre les forces du déclin à l'œuvre sur la Terre, sans trop se soucier de l'avènement de la parousie. Les sociétés humaines, politiques, perdent progressivement leurs valeurs sous l'effet d'une érosion constante. Le katechon travaille à gommer les effets de cette érosion. Il lutte contre le mal absolu, qui, aux yeux de Schmitt et des schmittiens, est l'anomie. Il restaure les valeurs, les maintient à bout de bras. Le Prof. Fabio Martelli a montré comment la notion de Katachon a varié au fil des réflexions schmittiennnes: il rappelle notamment qu'à l'époque de la “théologie de la libération”, si chère à certaines gauches, où un Dieu libérateur se substituait, ou tentait de se substituer, au Dieu protecteur du statu quo qu'il avait créé, Schmitt sautait au-dessus de ce clivage gauche/droite des années 60-70, et aussi au-dessus des langages à la mode, pour affirmer que les pays non-industrialisés (du tiers-monde) étaient en quelque sorte le katechon qui retenait l'anomie du monde industriel et du duopole USA/URSS. Finalement, Schmitt a été tenté de penser que le katechon n'existait pas encore, alors que l'anomie est bel et bien à l'œuvre dans le monde, mais que des “initiés” sont en train de forger une nouvelle Theologia Civilis, à l'écart des gesticulations des vecteurs du déclin. C'est de ces ateliers que surgira, un jour, le nouveau katechon historique, qui mènera une révolution anti-universaliste, contre ceux qui veulent à tout prix construire l'universalisme, arrêter le temps historique, biffer les valeurs, et sont, en ce sens, les serviteurs démoniaques et pervers de l'Antéchrist.

(résumé de Robert Steuckers; ce résumé ne donne qu'un reflet très incomplet de la densité remarquable de la conférence du Prof. Fabio Martelli, désormais Président de Synergies Européennes-Italie; le texte paraîtra in extenso dans  Vouloir).

 

 

A propos du décisionnisme

 

 

ARCHIVES DE SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1995

A propos du décisionnisme

 

Le décisionnisme est, comme son nom l'indique, une pensée en termes de décision. Le décisionniste est l'homme politique qui veut décider, aboutir à une décision, c'est-à-dire à un acte de volonté qui a ses res­sorts en lui-même et qui est vierge de toute compromission. Le décisionniste, en conséquence, s'oppose à toutes les formes de compromis que permet le libéralisme. Carl Schmitt, catholique et conservateur, est sans nul doute celui qui, parmi les tenants de la “révolution conservatrice”, a pensé le décisionnisme de la manière la plus conséquante. Chez les penseurs nationaux-révolutionnaires de la même époque, on trouve également des décisionnistes.

 

Pour Carl Schmitt, ce qui est important, c'est «que dans la simple existence d'une autorité réellement au­toritaire, il y ait de la décision, et que toute décision soit valable et valide, car dans les choses les plus essentielles [du politique], il est plus imoportant de savoir que quelqu'un décide, que de savoir comment cette décision est décidée» (1). Il s'agit donc de poser une “décision” en soi, en pleine souveraineté. L'Etat, à l'époque de Carl Schmitt, du moins dans le domaine du politique, est le moyen le plus approprié pour poser de telles décisions; c'est lui qui incarne la souveraineté qui est, en fait, rien d'autre que le “monopole de la décision” (2). Il s'agit de reconnaître le bien-fondé, l'utilité pratique, l'excellence, de la décision absolue, c'est-à-dire de la décision pure, non raisonnée, qui n'est pas le produit d'une discus­sion, qui n'a nul besoin de se justifier, qui jaillit du néant (3). L'essence de l'Etat apparaît ici clairement, parce qu'il est le vecteur premier de la décision, devient de la sorte le moyen le plus précieux pour contrer, à l'intérieur, la guerre civile que déclenchent les idéologies et les intérêts contradictoires. «L'essence de l'Etat réside en ceci, qu'il y ait [par lui] une décision» (4).

 

La particularité de Carl Schmitt, dans le cadre de cette “révolution conservatrice” mise en exergue par Armin Mohler, c'est, qu'en tant que penseur catholique, il voit toujours Dieu trôner au-dessus de tout. D'où son constat: «Tous les concepts prégnants des doctrines modernes de l'Etat sont des concepts théolo­giques sécularisés» (5). Toutefois, le Règne de Dieu n'est pas de ce monde, où c'est l'homme qui gou­verne, où c'est l'homme qui est le fondateur des valeurs. Mais comment réalise-t-on concrètement les valeurs, comment établit-on les lois? Schmitt ne cesse de citer l'Anglais Thomas Hobbes, en acceptant ses théorèmes: «Auctoritas, non veritas facit legem» (6). L'autorité est la source des lois, car le pouvoir lui en donne la force, c'est elle qui pose les décisions qui génèrent les lois. C'est au départ de cette con­ception de Hobbes, que la “révolution conservatrice” allemande a opté pour les systèmes autoritaires, parce qu'ils éliminent les querelles intérieures et les bannissent de la “communauté organique”.

 

Chez les nationaux-révolutionnaires, que Mohler classe aussi dans la “révolution conservatrice”, il y a donc aussi des décisionnistes. Le concept de décision a fasciné cette gauche non-conformiste, si bien que l'hebdomadaire du mouvement “Widerstand” (= Résistance) d'Ernst Niekisch portait le titre d'Entscheidung (= Décision). Ce n'est pas un hasard. Chez Niekisch, par d'arrière-plan théologique, au contraire de Schmitt. Le décisionnisme de Niekisch découle d'une position fondamentaliste absolue. Niekisch exige la “décision permanente”, car l'“idéologie de Widerstand” équivaut à une “protestation al­lemande” contre le “romanisme”, à une option pour l'Est contre l'Ouest, pour l'éthique prussienne du ser­vice contre le libéralisme (7). Cette protestation tous azimuts, incessante, permanente, exige, selon Niekisch, une “nouvelle attitude humaine”, une promptitude à accepter et à supporter un “destin hé­roïque”. Pour généraliser cette attitude contestatrice permanente, il faut recruter des hommes qui soient “déjà saisis par l'esprit du futur” (8). Niekisch accuse et brocarde l'éternelle indécision allemande: «Il existe une lenteur, une lourdeur, une faiblesse typiquement allemandes, qui, sans cesse, cherche, en louvoyant, à échapper à la décision nécessaire» (9). Mais le devoir éthique de trancher, donc de décider, de prendre littéralement le taureau par les cornes, personne ne peut l'éviter, le refuser.

 

Sur le plan littéraire, l'exigence de décision se retrouve, à un degré de radicalité encore plus élevé, chez Ernst Jünger, qui, à cette époque, appartenait encore aux cercles nationaux-révolutionnaires, et était une figure de proue du “nouveau nationalisme”. Il écrivait: «C'est pourquoi cette époque exige une vertu entre toutes: celle du décisionnisme. Il s'agit de pouvoir vouloir et de pouvoir croire, sans se référer au contenu que cette volonté et cette foi se donnent» (10). Cet appel de Jünger est un appel à la “décision en soi”. Chez Jünger, la décision est couplée à un désir ardent de nouveauté, au désir d'une révolution, d'où les éléments de nihilisme ne sont pas totalement absents. Chez lui, la décision est toute imprégnée de l'esprit des “orages d'acier”: elle est quasi synonyme de “mobilisation totale”. «Notre espoir repose sur les hommes jeunes, qui souffre de fièvre, parce qu'ils sont dévorés par le pus verdâtre du dégoût, notre es­poir repose dans les âmes saisies par la grandezza, dans les âmes que nous voyons errer dans les si­nuosités de l'ordre des auges. Notre espoir repose en une révolution qui s'opposerait à la domination du confort, en une révolution visant à détruire le monde des formes, en une révolution qui a besoin d'explosifs pour nettoyer et vider notre espace vital, afin qu'il y ait la place pour une nouvelle hiérarchie» (11).

 

Le décisionnisme est en tant que tel une méthode, plus exactement une méthode de critique sociale, une méthode finalement assez proche de la théorie critique utilisée par les gauches nouvelles. Mais il peut bien entendu étoffer l'arsenal d'une nouvelle droite, qui devrait en être l'héritière et la continuatrice, car de larges segments de la “neue Rechte” allemande sont d'ores et déjà influencés par Carl Schmitt. En effet, la critique du déclin du politique à l'ère du libéralisme, formulée par Carl Schmitt en 1922, reste d'une éton­nante actualité: «Aujourd'hui rien n'est plus moderne que la lutte contre le politique. Les financiers améri­cains, les techniciens de l'industrie, les socialistes marxistes, les révolutionnaires anarcho-syndica­listes, s'unissent pour exiger que soit éliminée la domination immatérielle du politique sur la matérialité de la vie économique. Il ne devrait plus y avoir que des tâches organisationnelles, techniques, économiques et sociologiques, mais il ne pourrait plus y avoir de problèmes politiques. Le mode aujourd'hui dominant de la pensée économico-technique n'est déjà plus capable de percevoir la pertinence d'une idée politique. L'Etat moderne semble être vraiment devenu ce que Max Weber voyait se dégager de lui: une grande en­treprise. En général, [dans ce contexte libéral], on ne comprend une idée politique que lorsque ses te­nants sont parvenus à prouver à une certaine catégorie de personnes qu'elles ont un intérêt économique direct et tangible à l'instrumentaliser à leur profit. Si, dans ce cas d'instrumentalisation, le politique dispa­raît et sombre dans l'économique, ou dans le technique ou l'organisationnel, par ailleurs, il s'épuise dans les intarissables discours ressassant à l'envi les banales généralités que l'on ne cesse d'ânonner sur la “culture” ou sur la “philosophie de l'histoire”, discours définissant au nom de critères esthétiques l'air du temps tantôt comme classique, tantôt comme romantique ou comme baroque, en hypnotisant les “beaux esprits”. Ce basculement dans l'économique ou ce discours [“cultureux”], passe à côté du noyau réali­taire de toute idée politique, de toute décision qui, en tant que décision, est toujours d'une plus haute élé­vation morale. La signification réelle que revêtent en fait les philosophes de l'Etat contre-révolutionnaires, réside entièrement dans la dimension conséquente de leur démarche, laquelle repose sur la décision, [baigne dans l'incandescance de la décision]. Ces philosophes contre-révolutionnaires mettent si fort l'accent sur l'instant intense de la décision qu'ils annulent finalement l'idée de légitimité, à partir de la­quelle, pourtant, ils avaient amorcé leurs réflexions» (12).

 

Le déclin du politique découle de l'évitement systématique des décisions. La modernité passe de fait à côté de la décision essentielle, de la décision qui fonde le concept du politique, c'est-à-dire de la décision qui aboutit à la désignation de l'ami et de l'ennemi. «C'est ainsi que Carl Schmitt définit la modernité: elle est oublieuse du politique. Dans cette perspective, le communisme et le capitalisme apparaissent pour ce qu'ils sont: les deux pôles complémentaires d'une même positivité impolitique, qui constitue le terminus ad quem d'une objectivisation mécaniciste du social, à l'œuvre depuis le XVIIième siècle» (13).

 

Jürgen HATZENBICHLER.

(traduction française: Robert STEUCKERS).

 

Notes:

(1) Carl SCHMITT, Politische Theologie, Berlin, 1990, p. 20.

(2) Ibid., p.71.

(3) Ibid., p.83.

(4) Ibid., p.71.

(5) Ibid., p.49.

(6) Ibid., p.44.

(7) Ce nom dérive de celui du mensuel Widerstand, dirigé par Niekisch.

(8) cf. Uwe SAUERMANN, Ernst Niekisch und der revolutinäre Nationalismus, München, 1985, pp. 173 & ss.

(9) Ernst NIEKISCH, cité par Friedrich KABERMANN, Widerstand und Entscheidung eines deutschen Revolutionärs, Köln, 1973, p. 165.

(10) Ernst NIEKISCH, Widerstand, Krefeld, 1982, p. 164.

(11) Ernst JÜNGER, Das abenteurliche Herz - Erste Fassung, Stuttgart, 1987, p. 110.

(12) E. JÜNGER, ibid., pp. 113 & ss.

(13) C. SCHMITT, ibid., pp. 82 & ss.

Vriend en vijand als politiek criterium

Vriend en vijand als politiek criterium

Ex: http://www.janlievens.org/

De Duitse politieke filosoof en rechtsgeleerde Carl Schmitt (1888 - 1985) is een van de meest briljante critici van het liberalisme. Ten tijde van de Weimarrepubliek (1918-1932) was hij een vurig verdediger van een versterking van de grondwet én van een verbod op Verfassungsfeindliche politieke partijen; in die dagen de communisten van Ernst Thaelmann (KPD) en de nationaal-socialisten van Adolf Hitler (NSDAP). Schmitt is tevens de auteur van een omvangrijk oeuvre dat zich niet eenduidig laat beoordelen: zijn eerste boek verscheen in 1910, zijn laatste artikel in 1978.

De betekenis van Carl Schmitt

Schmitt's meest invloedrijke werk en één van de belangrijkste werken van de politieke theorie van de twintigste eeuw is Der Begriff des Politischen1. Hierin ontwikkelde hij zijn vriend-vijand theorie. Typerend voor het complexe denken van Schmitt is dat het decisionistische karakter aanwezig in zijn denken drie onderscheidende subcategorieën bevat: soeverein decisionisme2, antagonistisch decisionisme en constitutioneel decisionisme3. Decisionisme is algemeen beschouwd een term die aanduidt dat de contextuele beslissing van het individuele subject een centrale positie inneemt als de bron van politieke/existentiële waarmerking en bekrachtiging m.a.w. het is de concrete beslissing die van belang is. Ten onrechte wordt het antagonistisch decisionisme in Der Begriff des Politischen als representatief beschouwd voor zijn volledige oeuvre. Schmitt's werk wordt vooral gekenmerkt door een gefundeerde kritiek op de liberale (parlementaire) democratie. Parlementaire democratie is, volgens Schmitt, een contradictio in terminis. De wil van het volk kan niet vertegenwoordigd worden door een technische orde van parlementair debat en compromissen. Voor Schmitt heeft het parlement de waarde van een verzekeringshuis voor de economische kapitalistische machthebbers. De vorming van het algemeen belang is in een moderne democratie niet waarachtig democratisch want door belangen gefragmenteerd alvorens deze nog maar gevormd kan worden. Liberale democratie, argumenteert Schmitt, kan aldus nooit een waarachtige democratie zijn aangezien het slechts een instrument is die de private belangen van machtige kapitalistische groepen inbrengt in de uitvoerende macht. Daardoor kan een liberale democratie nooit een werkelijk legitieme regering voortbrengen. Het kan in het beste geval overheidsinstellingen voortbrengen die zichzelf rechtvaardigen door de inferieure criteria van legaliteit.

Tezamen met Oswald Spengler, Ernst & Friedrich Georg J�nger, Hans Bl�her en de vroege Thomas Mann behoort Carl Schmitt tot die figuren uit de conservatieve revolutie die de categorie�n Nationalrevolution�r, V�lkisch, Jungkonservativ & B�ndische⁴ overstijgen⁵. Ten onrechte wordt vaak gewezen op deze heterogene stroming als een wegbereider voor de nationaal-socialistische dictatuur. De verdiensten van Carl Schmitt op het vlak van de politieke theorie overstijgen echter al deze verdachtmakingen. Zelfs niemand minder dan J�rgen Habermas (o.a. van de postmarxistische Frankfurter Schule) heeft zijn invloed erkend en meer bepaald zijn kritiek op de technische aard van de parlementaire vertegenwoordiging overgenomen.

Der Begriff des Politischen

Vooraf dient men er rekening mee te houden dat Der Begriff des Politischen6 verschillende versies heeft gekend7. Enige betrachting van deze bijdrage is Schmitt's gedachtegang getrouw weer te geven en hier en daar enkele bijzonderheden aan te stippen. In het bestek van dit artikel dienen we ons te beperken tot de essentie voor een goed begrip van het vriend-vijand criterium en laten we de beschouwingen van Schmitt over de antropologische basis van politieke theorie�n (iedere werkelijke politieke theorie vooronderstelt dat de mens in geen geval onproblematisch maar een "gevaarlijk" en dynamisch wezen is), de pluralistische staatstheorie�n (als invraagstelling van de politieke eenheid van de staat) en de depolitisering door de polariteit van ethiek en economie (door de invloed van het liberalisme) achterwege. Voorts dient nog verduidelijkt dat Schmitt het niet heeft over de politiek (functie, bestel) maar over het politieke (handeling)8.

Politiek en staat

"Der Begriff des Staates setzt den Begriff des Politischen voraus". Het politieke gaat de staat vooraf, zo begint Schmitt zijn werk. Hij ziet de staat als de politieke status van een in een gesloten territorium georganiseerd volk. De staat is in het beslissende geval de ultieme autoriteit. Het politieke wordt vaak willekeurig gelijkgesteld met de staat of tenminste ermee in verband gebracht. De staat verschijnt dan als iets dat politiek is, het politieke als iets dat betrekking heeft op de staat, ongetwijfeld een onbevredigende vicieuze cirkel. De vergelijking staat = politiek wordt onjuist en bedrieglijk op het ogenblik dat staat en maatschappij zich wederzijds doordringen zoals dat zich noodzakelijkerwijze in een democratisch georganiseerde gemeenschap voordoet. "Neutrale" domeinen zoals cultuur, religie, onderwijs, economie, houden dan op "neutraal" te zijn. "Neutraal" in die zin dat ze geen verband hebben met de staat en het politieke.

Als polemisch concept tegen zulke neutraliseringen en depolitiseringen van belangrijke domeinen verschijnt de - potentieel elk domein omvattende - totale staat⁹. Dit resulteert in de identificering van de staat met de maatschappij. In de totale staat is alles - ten minste potentieel - politiek en in verwijzing naar de staat is het niet meer mogelijk een specifiek onderscheidingskenmerk met het politieke te handhaven. Schmitt bemerkt verder dat democratie zich moet ontdoen van alle typische onderscheidingen en depolitiseringen van de liberale negentiende eeuw. De totale staat kent niets meer dat absoluut niet-politiek is. In het bijzonder moet een einde gesteld worden aan de apolitieke (staatsvrije) economie en de economievrije staat.

Vriend en vijand

Een begrip van het politieke rust op het ultieme onderscheid tot dewelke alle politieke handelingen zich laten herleiden. Laat ons aannemen, argumenteert Schmitt, dat in het domein van de moraal het ultieme onderscheid goed en kwaad is, in de esthetica mooi en lelijk, in de economie nuttig en schadelijk of rendabel en niet-rendabel. De vraag is dan of er ook voor het politieke een specifiek onderscheid is dat kan dienen als eenvoudig criterium. Het specifieke politieke onderscheid tot dewelke politieke handelingen en motieven zich laten reduceren, stelt Schmitt, is het onderscheid tussen vriend en vijand. Schmitt beklemtoont dat het om een criterium gaat en niet om een inhoudelijke definitie. Het heeft dus dezelfde waarde als de andere criteria. De antithesis vriend-vijand is onafhankelijk, niet in de zin van een onderscheiden nieuw domein maar in die wijze dat ze niet kan gebaseerd of afgeleid worden van ��n van de andere antitheses of enige combinatie van andere antitheses. Het onderscheid tussen vriend en vijand duidt de uiterste intensiteitsgraad aan van een verbinding of scheiding, van een associatie of dissociatie. Concreet betekent dit dat de politieke vijand niet noodzakelijkerwijze moreel gezien slecht of esthetisch gezien lelijk moet zijn. Deze hoeft niet als een economische concurrent te verschijnen en het mag zelfs voordelig zijn met hem zakelijke relaties aan te gaan. Maar hij is, desondanks, de andere, de vreemde. In een concrete conflictsituatie is het aan de betrokkene om te oordelen of het anders zijn van de vreemde de negatie van de eigen levenswijze betekent en bijgevolg afgeweerd of bevochten dient te worden.

Publieke en private vijand

De begrippen vriend en vijand moeten verstaan worden in hun concrete en existenti�le zin, niet als metaforen of symbolen en niet vermengd of afgezwakt met morele, economische e.a. voorstellingen, allerminst als uitdrukking van persoonlijke gevoelens en tendensen. Het maakt tevens niet uit of men het nu verwerpelijk vindt of beschouwt als een atavistisch overblijfsel van barbaarse tijden dat naties zich blijven groeperen volgens vriend en vijand of hoopt dat dit onderscheid op een dag zal verdwijnen. Het gaat hier niet om abstracties of normatieve idealen maar om de inherente werkelijkheid en de re�le mogelijkheid tot dit onderscheid. De vijand is dus niet een concurrent of een tegenstander in algemene zin. De vijand is ook niet de private vijand die men haat. De vijand bestaat alleen wanneer de re�le mogelijkheid van een vechtende (k�mpfende) collectiviteit van mensen een gelijkaardige collectiviteit confronteert. De vijand is enkel de publieke vijand, omdat alles wat verband houdt met zo'n collectiviteit van mensen, in het bijzonder een volk, daardoor publiek wordt.

Schmitt neemt het voorbeeld van het gekende Bijbelcitaat "Bemint uw vijanden" (Mat. 5:44, Luc. 6:27) aangezien de Duitse en andere talen geen onderscheid kennen tussen publieke en private vijand. In het Latijn heet het "diligite inimicos vestros" en niet "diligite hostes vestros". De vijand is in het Latijn hostis (publieke vijand) en niet inimicus (private vijand) in bredere zin. Van politieke vijand is geen sprake. Nooit is het bij de modale christen tijdens de duizendjarige strijd tussen islam en christendom opgekomen om uit liefde voor de Saracenen of Turken, Europa uit te leveren aan de islam i.p.v. het te verdedigen. Het Bijbelcitaat betekent dus zeker niet dat men de vijanden van zijn eigen volk zou moeten liefhebben of ondersteunen.

Oorlog als manifestatievorm van vijandschap

Oorlog is gewapende strijd tussen georganiseerde politieke eenheden, burgeroorlog is gewapende strijd binnenin een, en daardoor ook problematisch wordende, georganiseerde eenheid. De begrippen vriend, vijand en strijd verkrijgen hun zin precies omdat ze verwijzen naar de werkelijke mogelijkheid tot fysische doding. Oorlog volgt uit de vijandschap, zij is de existenti�le negatie van de andere: de vijand. Oorlog is slechts de uiterste realisering van vijandschap. Het is niet zo dat het politieke enkel bloedige oorlog inhoudt en elke politieke handeling een militaire actie. Deze begripsbepaling van het politieke is oorlogszuchtig noch militaristisch, imperialistisch noch pacifistisch. Het is ook geen poging de zegerijke oorlog of de succesvolle revolutie als "sociaal ideaal" voorop te stellen aangezien oorlog noch revolutie iets sociaal of ideaal zijn. De militaire strijd is op zich niet de "voortzetting van politiek met andere middelen" zoals het beroemde citaat van Clausewitz meestal verkeerd geciteerd wordt¹⁰. Oorlog heeft zijn eigen strategische, tactische en andere regels en zienswijzen, maar zij vooronderstellen dat de politieke beslissing, nl. wie de vijand is, reeds genomen is. Oorlog is niet doelbestemming en doeleinde of tevens niet de eigenlijke inhoud van het politieke maar als een altijd aanwezige mogelijkheid is het de immer voorhanden zijnde vooronderstelling (Voraussetzung) die het menselijke handelen en denken op karakteristieke wijze determineert en daardoor een specifiek politiek gedrag cre�ert.

Het criterium van het vriend-vijand onderscheid betekent helemaal niet dat een bepaald volk voor eeuwig de vriend of vijand moet zijn van een ander specifiek volk of dat neutraliteit niet mogelijk of politiek niet zinvol kan zijn. Het gaat hier om een dynamisch criterium. Belangrijk is de mogelijkheid van het extreme geval, de werkelijke strijd, en de beslissing of deze situatie er is of niet. Dat dit extreem geval eerder uitzondering (Ausnahmefall) is, heft zijn beslissend karakter niet op doch bevestigt het des te meer. Een wereld waarin deze mogelijkheid tot strijd ge�limineerd en verdwenen is - ultieme wereldvrede - is een wereld zonder onderscheid van vriend of vijand en bijgevolg een wereld zonder politiek.

Niets kan de logische conclusie van het politieke ontsnappen. Indien de wil tot verhindering van de oorlog zo sterk is dat het de oorlog niet meer schuwt, dan is het een politiek motief geworden, m.a.w. het bevestigt de extreme mogelijkheid tot oorlog en de zin tot oorlog. De oorlog wordt dan beschouwd als de ultieme laatste oorlog van de mensheid. Zulke oorlogen zijn noodzakelijkerwijze bijzonder intens en onmenselijk aangezien ze het politieke overstijgen en de vijand tegelijkertijd tot morele en andere categorie�n degraderen en er een onmenselijk monster van maken die niet alleen verslaan maar ook definitief vernietigd moet worden. De mogelijkheid van zulke oorlogen maakt duidelijk dat oorlog als re�le mogelijkheid vandaag nog steeds voorhanden is en cruciaal is voor het vriend-vijand onderscheid en de betekenis van het politieke.

De beslissing over oorlog en vijand

Aan de staat als politieke eenheid komt het jus belli toe, het recht tot oorlogvoeren. Dat betekent de werkelijke mogelijkheid om in een concrete situatie te beslissen de vijand te bepalen en te bestrijden. Aldus heeft de staat als politieke eenheid een enorme macht: de mogelijkheid oorlog te voeren en daarmee te beschikken over de levens van mensen. Het jus belli impliceert de dubbele mogelijkheid: het recht om van de leden van zijn eigen volk de bereidheid tot sterven en doden (Todesbereitschaft und T�tungsbereitschaft) te verlangen. Maar de taak van een normale staat bestaat echter daarin binnenin de staat en zijn territorium de volledige vrede te garanderen. Rust, veiligheid en orde cre�ren en daardoor de normale toestand bewerkstelligen is de vereiste om rechtsnormen te doen gelden. Elke norm vooronderstelt een normale situatie en geen enkele norm kan geldig zijn in een voor deze volledig abnormale situatie.

Indien een volk niet meer de kracht of de wil heeft zich te handhaven in de politieke sfeer, dan zal het politieke niet verdwijnen uit de wereld. Enkel een zwak volk zal verdwijnen.

De wereld is geen politieke eenheid doch een politiek pluriversum

Uit het begripskenmerk van het politieke volgt het pluralisme van de statenwereld. De politieke eenheid vooronderstelt het re�le bestaan van een vijand en daardoor co�xistentie met een andere politieke eenheid. Zolang een staat bestaat zal er in de wereld dus meer dan ��n staat zijn. Een wereldstaat die de volledige aarde en de volledige mensheid zou omvatten kan niet bestaan. De politieke wereld is een pluriversum, geen universum. De mensheid kan aldus geen oorlog voeren want het heeft geen vijand, tenminste niet op deze planeet. Het begrip mensheid sluit het begrip vijand uit aangezien de vijand ook een mens is en daarin geen specifiek onderscheid ligt. Dat er oorlogen gevoerd worden in de naam van de mensheid doet niets af van deze eenvoudige waarheid. Integendeel, het heeft een bijzondere intensieve politieke betekenis. Wanneer een staat in naam van de mensheid een politieke vijand bestrijdt, is dit geen oorlog voor de mensheid maar een oorlog waarin een staat een universeel begrip gebruikt tegen zijn militaire tegenstander om zich, ten koste van de tegenstander, te identificeren met de mensheid op dezelfde wijze waarmee ook vrede, gerechtigheid, vooruitgang, beschaving misbruikt kunnen worden en door deze zich eigen te maken, ze ontzegt aan de vijand.

Het begrip mensheid is een bijzonder bruikbaar ideologisch instrument van imperialistische expansie en in zijn ethisch-humanitaire vorm is het een specifiek instrument van economisch imperialisme. Schmitt herinnert aan het woord van Proudhon: wie mensheid zegt, wil bedriegen. Het monopoliseren van het begrip "mensheid" heeft bepaalde consequenties zoals het de vijand ontzeggen een mens te zijn en hem hors-la-loi en hors l'humanit� te verklaren en daardoor de oorlog tot de extreemste onmenselijkheid te voeren. Afgezien van deze hoogst politieke bruikbaarheid van het niet-politieke begrip mensheid zijn er op zich geen oorlogen om de mensheid.

Gevaarlijkste boek

Uit een enqu�te die Filosofie Magazine (december 2004) hield onder hoogleraren, schrijvers en journalisten bleek dat "Het begrip politiek" van Carl Schmitt is gekozen tot het gevaarlijkste werk uit de wijsbegeerte. Er werd gevraagd een top-drie van gevaarlijke boeken samen te stellen en te motiveren. Boeken die de schaduwzijde van het menselijk bestaan of van de moderne samenleving openbaren of de censuur van de goede smaak aanvallen. Boeken waarvan het gevaarlijker zou kunnen zijn ze te negeren dan ze te bestuderen.

Een van de ondervraagden, de filosoof Theo de Wit, die doctoreerde op de soevereine vijand in de politieke filosofie van Carl Schmitt (De onontkoombaarheid van de politiek), doorprikt in zijn motivering de liberale illusie van een conflictvrije samenleving: "Het verschijnen van een vijand maakt spoedig een einde aan de liberale droom waarin er wereldwijd alleen maar economische concurrenten of dialoogpartners bestaan. Een droom die alleen via een langdurig, mondiaal exces van geweld gerealiseerd kan worden."

Carl Schmitt - Het Begrip Politiek Inleiding: Theo de Witt Vertaling:George Kwaad/ Bert Kerkhof Boom/ Parr�sia, Amsterdam, 2001. ISBN 90 5352 725 7. 160 blz. 17.95 euro.

[e-mail]

---

---

Herwerkte versie (december 2004) van een artikel uit Breuklijn - november 2001.

---

Carl Schmitt, Aristotle and the Concept of the Political

Carl Schmitt, Aristotle and the concept of the political

 

Ex: http://faustianeurope.wordpress.com/

Carl Schmitt, besides being one of the thinkers of the ‘conservative revolution’ of the interwar Germany, was also notoriously infamous for being a ‘Hitler’s jurist,’ thus one of those important intellectuals who provided the necessary legal framework for the brutish Nazi regime. Yet, our world is seldom such that individuals can be so simply categorized as ‘good’ or ‘evil,’ and Carl Schmitt, has an interesting concept of the political which might give, and gives, contemporary political students and academics a completely new perspective on the sphere of politics.

Indeed, what is politics and its area of interest - the political? I might well continue by countless common definitions like ‘the political is what concerns the state,’ or I might mention the argument of many radical feminists or some of the scholars as Colin Hay (2002, pp. 69) who suggest that ‘everything has the potential to become political’ - even what was considered to be solely a domain of the ‘private’ - as was a few years ago shown in the infamous ‘fox hunting case’ in Britain.

Thus, the ‘classical’ definition of the political perceives politics as an arena - as Politics with the capital ‘P’ (by equating politics with places where is politics being created ~ usually the state, the government. However, many scholars including the ‘communitarians’ Charles Taylor, Michael Walker, Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre would certainly argue that politics is today also, or even primarily, created outside the national borders of the state - for instance in INGOs, QUANGOs, TNCs and in economic and financial organizations associated with them such as WTO or Bretton Woods institutions). Nevertheless, the second, ‘less traditional’ definition of politics perceives it as a process. When conceived as a process, in terms of application of power, or as of ‘transformatory capacity’ as Anthony Giddens formulates (1981), politics has the potential to emerge in every social location.

Colin Hay specifies:

‘Power … is about context-shaping, about the capacity of actors to redefine the parameters of what is socially, politically and economically possible for others. More formally we can define power … as the ability of actors (whether individual or collective) to “have an effect” upon the context which defines the range of possibilities of others’ (Hay, 1997, p. 50; quoted in Hay, 2002, p. 74)

Therefore, politics as a process is about power relations between various social actors. By the moment when one actor is able to shape the destiny - behaviour - of another, one talks according to the feminists and Hay about politics. For instance, the fox hunting in Britain was by these terms initially a social activity just as any other (such as for example going shopping, or eating in a restaurant), but by the moment the Labour government issued the ban on hunting the foxes, it pushed it from the social sphere onto the political agenda. Power relations suddenly emerged between the actor (the government in this case) and the British people and interest groups concerned. The whole-national discussion that emerged, with various groups formulated arguing on pros and cons of the ban on fox hunting was thus an excellent example of a process of creating from a formerly ‘innocent’ aspect of social life highly controversial political topic involving heated discussion of many individuals and organizations.

So far, however, these definitions of the political as either what ‘happens in the government’ or as a ‘process of application of power’ are very standard, or even ‘boring.’ Boring in a sense that these conceptions of what politics is, of what the political contains, have become almost universally accepted, and underline many other academic works without even being contested from any different perspective.

Now enters Carl Schmitt, who poses a cardinal question - ‘what is all that for?’ Indeed, what is the aim, the goal, of politics? Aristotle mentions in theNicomachean Ethics is the ‘master art’ (Book I, §2) since it uses knowledge of all other arts and hence its fundamental goal - the goal of a politician - should be to produce ‘good citizens’ (Book I, §13), while the law of a polis should be the framework to show what this good is. Again, argument being that a politician is someone who has achieved experience and knowledge in all aspects of life besides being endowed with the best abilities. Aristotle tells that only such a ‘mature’ person can engage in politics and thus be able to judge ‘what the good is.’ (Book I, §3) Hence, according to Aristotle, the laws of a polis are also moral laws, and to act according to these laws is equated to being ‘just.’

Very interestingly, the reader will see how close Aristotle and Carl Schmitt in their argument on the political are. Aristotle’s fundamental content of politics is as mentioned above to distinguish between the ‘right and wrong.’ On the other hand Carl Schmitt, in the Concept of the Political, postulates that every domain of life rests on its own distinctions; for economics it is ‘profitable and unprofitable,’ or for morality it is ‘good and evil.’ Schmitt then continues that for the political its fundamental activity is to distinct between ‘friend and enemy’ (1996, p. 27). Schmitt in his book develops a powerful theory and he states that if one empirically studies history the striking fact is that every political grouping can be distinguished as such because it organizes itself on the basis of the friend-enemy distinction.

In this sense, first human associations as primitive tribes of our ancestors, were the first political organizations because they organized people into a unit - a tribe - and their allies (’friends’) against other such groupings - other ‘tribes’ - which might pose a threat to their existence. It is irrelevant whether one conceives of this as of form of ‘contract’ between tribesmen in the sense of Locke or Hobbes or in the Nietzschean or Spenglerian sense where the organizers of this political association are the members of a warrior caste. The important fact is that behind the idea of any political organization - behind the organized political community - is the necessity to distinct in the concrete sense between friend and enemy. The similarity between the ‘right and wrong’ of Aristotle and Schmitt’s ‘friend-enemy’ dichotomy is now obvious and Schmitt is also very close to Spengler, who equated the emergence of first  communities with the necessity to form a group united in achieving one common goal (1976, Ch. 4).

Note that it is interesting that Colin Hay is unfamiliar or does not mention Carl Schmitt in his Political Analysis, since their line of thought is very reminiscent of each other. Schmitt just as Hay develops his argument by stating that every social aspect - religions, morality, economics, arts can become the political. However, while Hay equates the shift from the social to political with the ability to make a specific issue a topic of the national discussion or of a governmental debate, Schmitt specifies this by arguing that what every grouping in fact does is to specifying its enemies and organizing its friends.

The feminists therefore group themselves into various interest groups and draw support for their arguments from various think tanks, academics (’friends’) in order to ’struggle’ against their perceived enemies - masculine social institutions perhaps. In similar vein, while workers doing their job in a factory do no belong to the political sphere, by the moment they organize themselves into a labour union, they become a political organization. They form a collectivity of ‘friends’ as against what is the other, the alien - the enemy - in this case, entrepreneurs or the state, in order to reach their goal - again, the increase of wages perhaps. Similarly, for Schmitt religion communities are not political when they worship their saints and go to pray into churches, but when they organize themselves to fight against other religion communities (immediately, the Christian crusades against the ‘infidels’ comes to mind) they become the political by the very nature of forming the friend-enemy distinction.

Every such grouping has its own means how to fight ‘traitors’ in its own ranks who do not accept the group’s idea of friend-enemy. Again, the best example is provided by mentioning the Roman Church, where those who do not ‘believed in God’ were marked as witches and burned by the Inquisition.

Implications of Schmitt’s definition of the political on the basis of ‘friend and enemy’ distinction are tremendous. Using this concept of the political it is immediately possible, just as Schmitt notes, to distinguish that supposedly ‘apolitical’ liberal society is political in its very nature. Even though that in liberal society one is supposedly able ‘to live a life one chooses’ in fact one has to live a life in the liberal free market society. Thus, indigenous people whose land and local businesses is being taken away by transnational companies, is not obviously burned at stakes of the Inquisition, but the liberal society has other means to fight these ‘infidels’ who prefer to live their life in their community, do not want to watch TV, and do not want to shop in the Wal-Mart. Simply, these can either accommodate or they are left to starve.

In liberal thought, the friend is the one who accepts the implication that the society is one gigantic free market, atomic community of people who fight all against all and only the ‘best’ is able to survive (but in fact, it is necessary to understand that this the ‘best’ only in one sense - in the Liberal sense - as formulated by Adam Smith and daily repeated by neo-liberals - the best is according to it ‘the most economic’). Traditions, agriculture, companies, or even fairy tales of local communities and indigenous people all around the world is thus taken away by what was supposed to be found the ‘best’ by the market. Thus, today for everyone the best traditions are the traditions that ‘proven to be’ the best by the rising global market - i.e. consumerism, the best agriculture ‘is’ to cease one’s lands to foreign trans-national corporations, let your own neighbours to be employed for laughtable wages and import barley from countries which produce ‘the best barley in the world.’ Similarly the ‘best companies’ are not local companies, the ‘best companies’ are gigantic trans-national corporations who are able to destroy every competition by their aggressive prize policy. And ultimately, regional and national myths and stories are being supplanted by the ‘best fairy tales’ from Disney or Warner Bros.

Implications of the world conceived by Liberal thinkers, global financial institutions and large businesses could thus well be rather sarcastically summarized as ‘compete, export or die.’

The political entity ceases to one only if it renounces its claim to choose friend and enemy and how they should be treated. Most importantly, Schmitt, continues, the universalist tendencies of Liberalism to announce that it fights for the ’cause of humanity,’ do not presuppose the end of politics and friend-enemy distinctions. Indeed, this even leads to even more extreme forms of friend-enemy dichotomy, even to the ‘total war,’ since those who fight against Liberal universalist tendencies supposedly fight against humanity itself.

Schmitt explains:

‘When a state fights its political enemy in the name of humanity, it is not a war for the sake of humanity, but a war wherein a particular state seeks to usurp a universal concept against its military opponent. At the expense of its opponent, it tries to identify itself with humanity in the same way as one can misuse peace, justice, progress, and civilization in order to claim these as one’s own and to deny the same to the enemy.’ (1994, p. 54)

The extreme form can be most notably perceived in Kant, who famously formulated his ‘categorical imperative,’ thus identifying his cause with the cause of humanity itself. The word humanity, or any other similar concepts as justice, freedom, peace, progress can be thus easily used to justify imperialist expansion. But in fact, as De Maistre mentioned:

‘(…) there is no such thing as man in the world. In my lifetime I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; thanks to Montesquieu, I even know that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare that I have never in my life met him; if he exists, he is unknown to me.’ (1994, p. 53)

To argue that one’s ideas are universally applicable as the ideas of enlightened thinkers did, and as of other contemporary Liberal do, is according to Carl Schmitt to create the ultimate dichotomy between friend and enemy. It leads to extreme forms of opposition against those who deny their applicability. Schmitt summarizes in the following words:

‘To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects, such as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme inhumanity.’ (1996, p. 54)

Those who oppose are thus ‘monsters,’ they oppose their ‘own kind,’ they oppose ‘humanity’ itself, and are thus ‘unworthy’ of any human treatment.

But ultimately, what does Liberalism fights for, who are its ‘friends’?

‘Every encroachment, every threat to individual freedom and private property and free competition is called repression and is eo ipso something evil. What this liberalism still admits of state, government, and politics is confined to securing the conditions for liberty and eliminating infringements on freedom.’ (1996, p. 71)

Thus as Dr. Karl Polanyi showed in Great Transformations (1967), the modern liberal state and the interest of business goes hand in hand, indeed, they are inseparable. To conclude, one has to put Liberalism into a historical perspective, which offers a full justification for its friend-enemy dichotomy. Liberalism, and its enlightened predecessors stood in opposition to the feudal system and absolutism of the 18th century. They represented the ideals of the rising middle class - merchants and businessmen whose interests and economic activities were being threatened by the power of the state. Therefore ‘friends’ - bourgeoisie - middle class of merchants and and first entrepreneurs stood against its enemy - the aristocracy and absolutist state.

This is obviously not to say that Liberals are ‘evil,’ quite contrary, they had proven at the time to be the most powerful political force which was able to form the most powerful political grouping of ‘friends’ supported by the Liberal thought. Thus, the argument that they represent an ‘apolitical force’ is from this perspective fundamentally flawed. But as was mentioned earlier, life is diversity, it is dichotomy of people, groups and interests. Interests of some groups are not the interests of others. The claim that Liberalism represents the interests of all humanity is thus only a ‘noble lie’ in the Platonian sense, which has as its purpose to secure such interests in power or to elevate them into such position.

The belief of this author is that the interests of peoples - of cultures - of their traditions and daily life - cannot be equated with the interests of large business. It is thus necessary to refute the universalist tendencies of Liberalism and portray them in the perspective which clearly shows them as one of many ideas how the social life should be organized and as representing only the interests of the particular class and not of ‘humanity.’

******

Bibliography:

Aristotle. (1999) Nicomachean Ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Kitchener: Batoche Books.

Giddens, A. (1981) A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. London: Macmillan Press.

Hay, C. (1997) ‘Divided by a Common Language: Political Theory and the Concept of Power,’ Politics, 17(1), pp. 45-52.

Hay, C. (2002) Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Maistre, J. d. (1994) Considerations on France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Polanyi, K. (1967) The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.

Schmitt, C. (1996) The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Spengler, O. (1976) Man and Technics. New York: Greenwood Press.

Zum 120. Geburtstag von Carl Schmitt / Der "Partisan" - wieder aktuell

 

 

Zum 120. Geburtstag von Carl Schmitt / Der »Partisan« – wieder aktuell

Vor 120 Jahren wurde am 11. Juli 1888 im westfälischen Plettenberg der deutsche Staatsrechtstheoretiker und politische Philosoph Carl Schmitt als Sohn eines Kaufmanns geboren. Grund genug, sich seiner wieder einmal zu erinnern.

Nach seinem Studium der Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften in Berlin, München und Straßburg promovierte der junge Schmitt 1915 an der Universität Straßburg. Eine Berufung an die Universität Greifswald erfolgte 1921, er veröffentlichte die Abhandlung »Die Diktatur«, in der er die staatsrechtlichen Grundlagen der Weimarer Republik untersuchte.

Schmitt wurde 1922 Professor an der Universität Bonn. In seiner Schrift »Politische Theologie« arbeitete er seine Staatstheorie, von seinem katholischen Glauben ausgehend, weiter aus. 1923 schrieb er die Analyse: »Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus«. 1926 wurde er Professor der Rechte an der Handelshochschule in Berlin.

1932 kam es dann zur Berufung an die Universität Köln, und Schmitt schrieb sein grundlegendes Werk: »Der Begriff des Politischen«. Diese Staatsrechtslehre beschäftigte sich überwiegend mit der Unterscheidung von Freund und Feind.

Im Dritten Reich nicht straffällig geworden

Am 1. Mai 1933 dann ein folgenschwerer Schritt: der Eintritt in die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). Im gleichen Jahr folgte die Ernennung zum preußischen Staatsrat durch Hermann Göring und im November 1933 zum Präsidenten der »Vereinigung nationalsozialistischer Juristen«. Zwischen 1933 und 1945 war Schmitt Professor der Rechte an der Universität zu Berlin.

Im Juni 1934 wurde er zum Hauptschriftleiter der Deutschen Juristen-Zeitung ernannt. Zwei Jahre später, im Oktober 1936, führte er den Vorsitz auf einem in Berlin stattfindenden Kongreß akademischer Rechtslehrer. Von 1937 an zog sich Schmitt zunehmend aus seiner herausgehobenen Stellung als führender nationalsozialistischer Rechtsgelehrter in die innere Emigration zurück.

1945 wurde Schmitt seines Lehramts enthoben und zeitweise verhaftet, zu einer Anklage kam es jedoch nicht, weil eine Straftat im juristischen Sinne nicht festgestellt werden konnte. Ab 1950 widmete sich Schmitt nunmehr völkerrechtlichen Studien und veröffentlichte seine Memoiren. Schmitt starb am 7. April 1985 in seiner Geburtsstadt Plettenberg.

Wegen seiner klaren »Feind«bestimmung in der Politik kommt man auch heute nicht um Carl Schmitt herum. Für Carl Schmitt ist ein grundlegendes Kennzeichen des Politischen die Fähigkeit zur Unterscheidung zwischen Freund und Feind. Außerdem macht er in seiner Schrift über den »Begriff des Politischen« deutlich, welche Art von Politik heute wichtig erscheint: »Sind innerhalb eines Staates organisierte Parteien imstande, ihren Angehörigen mehr Schutz zu gewähren als der Staat, so wird der Staat bestenfalls ein Annex dieser Parteien, und der einzelne Staatsbürger weiß, wem er zu gehorchen hat. Das kann eine ›pluralistische Staatstheorie‹ rechtfertigen … In außenpolitischen und zwischenstaatlichen Beziehungen tritt die elementare Richtigkeit dieses Schutz-Gehorsam-Axioms noch deutlicher zutage: das völkerrechtliche Protektorat, der hegemonische Staatenbund oder Bundesstaat, Schutz- und Garantieverträge mannigfacher Art finden darin ihre einfachste Formel.

Es wäre tölpelhaft zu glauben, ein wehrloses Volk habe nur noch Freunde, und eine krapulose Berechnung, der Feind könnte vielleicht durch Widerstandslosigkeit gerührt werden. Daß die Menschen durch einen Verzicht auf jede ästhetische oder wirtschaftliche Produktivität die Welt z.B. in einen Zustand reiner Moralität überführen könnten, wird niemand für möglich halten, aber noch viel weniger könnte ein Volk durch den Verzicht auf jede politische Entscheidung einen rein moralischen oder rein ökonomischen Zustand der Menschheit herbeiführen. Dadurch, daß ein Volk nicht mehr die Kraft oder den Willen hat, sich in der Sphäre des Politischen zu halten, verschwindet das Politische nicht aus der Welt. Es verschwindet nur ein schwaches Volk.«

Im Jahre 1963 veröffentlichte Schmitt die Abhandlung zur »Theorie des Partisanen«. Schmitts Interesse an der Figur des Partisanen ist rein theoretischer Natur. Er sieht ihn als das letzte wirklich politische Wesen der Gegenwart. In seiner »Theorie des Partisanen« läßt Schmitt nicht außer acht, daß »der autochthone Partisan agrarischer Herkunft in das Kraftfeld des unwiderstehlichen technischen-industriellen Fortschritt hineingerissen wird. Seine Mobilität wird durch Motorisierung so gesteigert, daß er in Gefahr gerät, völlig entartet zu werden. In der Situation des Kalten Kriegers wird er zum Techniker des unsichtbaren Kampfes, zum Saboteur und Spion …

»Motorisierter Partisan«

Ein solcher motorisierter Partisan verliert seinen tellurischen Charakter und ist nur noch das transportable und auswechselbare Werkzeug einer mächtigen Weltpolitik treibenden Zentrale … Der Theoretiker kann nichts mehr tun, als die Begriffe wahren und die Dinge beim Namen nennen. Die Theorie des Partisanen mündet in den Begriff des Politischen ein, in die Frage nach dem wirklichen Feind und einem neuen Nomos der Erde.«

Schmitts Werk findet heute wieder weltweite Beachtung. Kein Wunder im Zeitalter des Krieges gegen den »Terror«.

Günter Kursawe