More on Schmitt … in the discussion on another post in the Schmittposium, Anthony writes on Schmitt’s Concept of the Political, “I recollect Schmitt very pointedly saying that the political is historical. In fact, looking ove rmy notes, it’s his discussion that follows page 19: “The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political.” Without the state there is no political (humanity not having an enemy as such) and so a stateless, global society is a post-political reality, albeit one that Schmitt doesn’t see happening any time soon.”
Anthony is responding to Gabriel, who writes “For Schmitt, the political is total…end of story. It is (…) the characteristic of human life.”
I started to write a comment in response but it got unwieldy. Here it is.
I think I disagree with Anthony. I think it’s the other way around - without the political there’s not state, at least no concept of the state. It’s been a little while since I’ve read the Concept of the Political but looking over my copy and notes just now, here’s what I come up with. Schmitt says on 19 that the state is defined by the political, as Anthony quotes. Then on 26 he defines the political by the friend/enemy distinction. I remember thinking Schmitt unclear on this. I’d have to re-read the book to really work this through, but that’s my sense glancing again now. He’s unclear as to whether he means here that the political is a matter of or the name for the possibility of there being a friend/enemy grouping or if its a matter of an actual grouping. He says on 35 “every political concept (…) is subject to the ultimate presupposition of a real possibility of a friend-and-enemy grouping” and that “the political can be understood only in the context of the ever present possibility of the friend-and-enemy grouping”.
I think there’s an ambiguity here. On the one hand, this could be read this to say that the relationship of the political to the friend-enemy grouping is the same as that of the state to the political, on Schmitt’s characterization. That would mean the two are not the same, and would entail some or all of the following: the second term defines the first conceptually and is perhaps conceptually broader such that the second is an example of the first (in the sense that “human” is an example of “oxygen breather” but not vice versa, this would mean there can be nonstate forms of the political though Schmitt’s version of the political may have the same qualities that make some of us object to the state. that is, the state may be objectionable because it has the qualities of being political in Schmitt’s sense) - and the second term precedes the first in time/history (is the cause of the first). On the other hand, I remember having the impression that “political” and “friend/enemy grouping” were more like synonyms, which is not the case with the relationship of the state to the political.
Leaving that aside, Schmitt’s “ever present possibility” is interesting. I think Schmitt’s saying that there will always be some actual friend/enemy distinction (something akin to “the poor will always be with you”), such that while any specific friend/enemy distinction might be eliminated, that does not eliminate friend/enemy distinctions as such.
He writes on p35 that every political concept is bound up with a possible friend-enemy distinction. He writes on p30 that “all political concepts (…) have a polemical meaning. They are focused on a specific concept and are bound to a concrete situation. The result is a friend-enemy grouping.” (This latter is a possible friend-enemy grouping by definition, because everything actual must be possible, but the important part is that) the grouping is not just possible, but actual.
Schmitt also writes on p35 “A world in which the possibility of war is utterly eliminated (…) would a world without the distinction of friend and enemy and hence a world without politics.” My earlier terminological question recurs about this “hence”: is it like Spinoza’s “or” (”sive”), when he writes “God, or Nature”, basically equivalent to “also known as”, such that political=friend/enemy grouping? Or something else? Again to bracket that, it’s interesting to note that Schmitt doesn’t here talk about eliminating the possibility of the friend-enemy distinction, but of the friend-enemy distinction. Granted, to eliminate the possibility of something is to eliminate its actuality (if one were to eliminate the possibility of my existence, that would entail the elimination of my actuality), but I don’t think that’s Schmitt’s point, or not all of it. He’s not saying “a world without the possibility of a friend-enemy distinction would be a world without the possibility of a friend-enemy distinction”, the line means that a world without an actual friend-enemy distinction would be a world without an actual politics. Politics, then, is (or requires) an actual friend-enemy grouping.
As already quoted, Schmitt holds the friend-enemy grouping to be ineliminable. He writes about the world without war that it is “irrelevant whether such a world without politics is desirable as an ideal situation.” I take this to be because for Schmitt this world is impossible. This is the sense of Schmitt’s closing to the book: “State and politics cannot be exterminated.” For Schmitt, “politics continues to remain the destiny”. (78.) He continues, attacking Joseph Schumpeter’s claim that economic superiority is not warlike. The economic can be political, for Schmitt. Invoking again a pacified globe like that invoked on p35, he writes that “this allegedly nonpolitical and apparently even antipolitical system serves existing or newly emerging friend-and-enemy groupings and cannot escape the logic of the political.” (79.)
The relationship between war and politics/friend-enemy distinction is also unclear but suggestive. The elimination of the possibility of war would be the elimination of friend/enemy distinctions. As I read him, war is an intensity, a level of a friend-enemy distinction (”the most extreme possibility”, 35). He calls it “an ever present possibility” that serves as “the leading proposition which determines in a characteristic way human action and thinking and thereby creates a specifically political behavior.” (34.) I want to read this as saying that war, as a level of intensity of a friend-enemy grouping, is always possible because there will always be a friend-enemy grouping. (The friend-enemy grouping is the possibility of war.) Acting upon the friend-enemy grouping is to act politically.
I want to see all of this along the lines of Schmitt’s remark on p58 that “One could test all theories of state and political ideas according to their anthropology” and that “all genuine political theories presuppose man to be evil, (…) a dynamic and dangerous being.” (61.) And again: “Because the sphere of the political is in the final analysis determined by the real possibility of enmity, political conceptions and ideas cannot very well start with an anthropological optimism. This would dissolve the possibility of enmity and, thereby, every specific political consequence.” (64.)
He adds on 65 that “the fundamental theological dogma of the evilness of the world and man leads, just as does the distinction of friend and enemy, to a categorization of men”. I want to see this as categorization into friends and enemies. I want to read the claim here to be, again, about the ineliminability for Schmitt of friend-enemy groupings (that is, for the impossibility of a condition wherein there would be no actual friend-enemy distinction, this is Schmitt’s theological dogma.) This move, or presupposition, is I think bound up with what Angela calls Schmitt’s mos maiorum, his rendering ex nihilo at the level of concepts. I’d want to see this as also an ontologizing, and as itself a depoliticalization.