The Concept of the Political, Carl Schmitt

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Review essay: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political [1927/1932]. With Leo Strauss’ Notes on Schmitt’s Essay, ed. by George Schwab, Chicago and London, 1996. Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), arguably the most influential yet controversial political thinker of the twentieth century, had long term intellectual influence in post war Europe, and his ideas have attracted the attention of renowned academics such as: Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, and many more. Schmitt is associated with conservative nationalist and authoritarian fascist thought. He is particularly critical of liberalism, and liberal teachings on democracy and the political. He lived through three different political regimes in Germany:, notably supporting political Catholicism in the Weimar Republic, joining the National Socialist party in 1933, and under Nazism Schmitt published ‘The Fuhrer Protects the Law’ 1934 where he justifies Nazi dictatorship in legal theory, thus successfully ensuring his position within the regime. More importantly, Schmitt had become somewhat of celebrity amongst legal scholars and students of political science and philosophy. In ‘The Concept of the Political’ we are informed by the very first sentence ‘the concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political’, his decision to firstly note the importance of defining the political can be linked to his legal training, having dealt with lawyers. For Schmitt the state defines the political, and the political is defined by his distinction of friend and enemy. This antagonism between friend and enemy is uses to suggest the impossibility of perpetual peace, and political actions can be distinguished via this antagonism. The enemy is not ones moral enemy, the enemy is ‘the other’. Important for Schmitt’s, is that one understands that today’s enemy could be tomorrows friend, thus there is no internal enemy. ‘This distinction
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