Thread by @ZoharAtkins

The time is nigh for a @threadapalooza on Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), Nazi apologist, romantic, and one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. Schmitt's critique of liberalism remains trenchant and influential on both the right and the left to this day.

Ironically, Schmitt believed the most fundamental political question is who is your friend and who is your enemy; and yet Schmitt himself has become a "friend" at the level of theory to many who do not share his politics. 2

All who follow Schmitt agree with him that liberalism is bad because it deliberately lowers the temperature in the room and attempts to outsource fundamental disagreements to processes to anonymous, administrative processes. 3

Have the hard conversations, even if it means you can't talk any more; even if it means war; at least it's honest. Don't hide behind procedure and think your work is done. To those who just want to get along, the Schmittians say that's not what life is about. 4

"No justice, no peace" is a Schmittian kind of sentiment, not because we know what justice is, or can agree on it, but precisely because we can't. To insist on justice is to insist that we take sides and that the side we're on matters more than anything else. 5

"Tell me who your enemy is and I will tell you who you are." The problem with liberalism is it's hope for a neutral space where we can co-exist in pluralistic difference. Nope. That's just an ideology of those in power to keep it. 6

Pluralism is just code for status quo bias. It favors those in power and turns any dissenter into a "terrorist." "Can't we just get along, lay our disagreements aside, and get rich together, say political liberals. Nope. Because life is an existential battle for one's soul. 7

If you dislike "civility politics" or "respectability politics" you're a Schmittian. If you dislike that some define themselves as apolitical, you're a Schmittian; if you think life is about finding allies and keeping solidarity with those on your team, you're a Schmittian. 8

Schmitt wants us to see that liberalism is itself an ideology, even though it claims that it's above it all. 9

On the right, the Schmittian critique comes for the ideology of secularism, which brackets issues of religious truth and metaphysical conviction; it comes for the ideology of "open borders" which seeks to decouple citizenship from culture. 10

On the left, it comes for the ideology of the free market, for the formalism of free speech (the right to offend). 11

In today's political re-alignment, we find many variations of cross over: there's a new right that is nominally critical of big tech and capitalism & that identifies itself with the working class. There's a new progressive left focused on race, sexuality, and gender. 12

Core to both is a repudiation of the ideal of bipartisanship, or even respect for those who disagree. Schmitt favorably cites the utopian socialist Proudhon ("also famous for saying property is theft"): "whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat." 13

At a formal level, Schmitt's thought cheers on anyone who would puncture the concept of shared humanity, insisting on the need to fight over mutually exclusive, particulars. 14

If you read any ancient story, you'll see there's an external and internal enemy. We accept this, but we also see it as illiberal. 15

Schmitt's claim is that it is likewise unavoidable today, and undesirable to try. A friend to all is a friend to none. We don't like talking about enemies, but if we don't, the enemies comes to us. 16

In his essay, "The Straussian Moment," Peter Thiel turns to Schmitt to help him consider the paradox of the war on Terrorism. 17

If you fight anti-liberals, you risk becoming just like them. If you don't fight them, they win, and liberalism goes away. 18

But fighting anti-liberalism creates cognitive dissonance. What are you fighting to defend? You are righting for the right to peace? The right to put differences aside? 19

It's hard to be impassioned about a culture founded on the separation of church (passion) and state (formal rights). 20

The illiberal side fights a holy war; what do we fight? A rational one? A war for economic prosperity. It doesn't exactly motivate. The illiberal are mission driven. Liberals tend to be mercenary. Few liberals today serve in the military out of obligation or higher purpose. 21

"Freedom" in the sense of the right to be left alone is much harder to rally around than, say, the Kingdom of God on Earth (theocracy). 22

There's also a contradiction in some of the forms it takes, a protesting too much. If you really want to be left alone, why are you trying to impose this right on others, through foreign policy? Just let them be them. Why make the world in your own image? 23

This is the paradox of American interventionism, or the interventionism of liberal countries on illiberal ones: if you're imposing it, or even just trying to influence it, it's not really liberal. 24

But Schmitt would say that liberalism is fake and unsustainable, because everyone has values, and so what's going on in liberal imperialism is self-denial or self-delusion. 25

To summarize Schmitt: we can't and shouldn't separate religion and politics, any more than we should economics and politics, art and politics, culture and politics. Everything is political and everything should be politicized. 26

Whether you agree with that or not, I think you'll find Schmitt to be descriptively prescient of today's polarization (a phenomenon of which Schmitt would approve). 27

I haven't read the "bad art friend" article that's been trending, but from what I gather Schmitt would be happy with the conflict over a kidney donation--no donation is neutral. The problem began when the one gave the kidney to someone from another group; why assist an enemy? 28

As much as some of you might think Schmitt is terrible, ask yourself how often you'll tweet or share something true or insightful when it comes from "the other side." Most of us, most of the time, are tribal. 29

Even cosmopolitans belong to a place, even if it's the cloud or TSA pre-check or Davos, Aspen, TED. 30

As @tylercowen noted, even the Harper's Letter folk, defending free speech and debate, implicitly (and possibly deliberately) excluded certain signatories, especially on the right. We're more homogenous than we think, even when we think we're defending "diversity." 31

When John Gray writes that "wokeness" is an American and Neo-imperial export, he's making the (Schmittian) point that the U.S. does stand for some bedrock (and contentious) values, even when it pretends not to. 32

newstatesman.com/uncategorized/…

In short, Schmitt and his followers tell us that the real battle isn't between the neutrals and the activists, but between Social Justice Warriors and White Nationalists (internally). 33

Or internationally, it's between the Judaeo-Christian West and Islam. 34

Critically, though, Schmitt would not like the slur "Islamo-fascism," as he would have no problem with "Catholico-fascism." The problem for him isn't the political form, but the value content. 35

I'll admit it: writing about Schmitt makes me uncomfortable; I'm a Jew and a rabbi, he's my enemy, by his lights, and by my own. And yet, I hope that in part my tribute to him is itself a kind of liberal gesture, an acknowledgment of gratitude that I don't live in his world. 36

If you want to defend liberalism, you must read Schmitt. If you want to know the weaknesses of liberalism, and the cognitive dissonance required to be a liberal and have dual loyalty to something else that's more romantic (as I do), read Schmitt. 37

Jacob Taubes recounts that in 1948, one of Schmitt's books on constitutional theory was ordered by an Israeli academic at Hebrew U and had to be brought through a warzone. Yet the reader felt it was that urgent to read Schmitt in that moment, that it couldn't wait. 38

Schmitt is most famous for saying that "sovereign is the one who decides on the state of exception." 39

It's helpful to know what he's arguing against: the sovereign is not someone who applies rules or discerns prudentially how to weigh competing values. 40

The sovereign is not a high-status cog at the top of a social pyramid who is bound to the legal order. The sovereign is himself an extra-legal figure. To pretend otherwise is an abnegation of responsibility. 41

There's a normative and descriptive element to Schmitt's definition of sovereignty. 42

Descriptively: if you want to know who is boss, don't look for the CEO or the person with the title. Look for the person who actually has the ability or influence to suspend the rules. 43

As Marty Linsky teaches, in a more watered down version, "leadership is not authority." The leader (in German the word is Führer), is not the person speaking at the front of the stage, but the one who gets things done, often by being inconspicuous . 44

Normatively: the best leaders aren't technocrats, but charismatics. Yep, it's dangerous to give them so much power. Lots of room for abuse, corruption. But don't think that constraining their power isn't going to be catastrophic either. 45

Schmitt predicted the collapse of Weimar and the failure of parliamentary democracy. His claim is that the failure is inevitable when you have a weak government, a failure to attain majoritarian consensus and an unwillingness to confront hard choices head on. 46

If Schmitt was or is wrong about the inherent faultiness of Hobbe's Leviathan (the bureaucratic state), ironically he might have made a good business coach. He'd certainly agree with @bhorowitz that "hard things are hard." Social life is a wicked problem, not a simple hack. 47

But Schmitt would have seen this as a kind of degradation, since the highest calling is to political life; liberals get it wrong in venerating the economic realm as a life apart. The political is 24/7, not what I do outside my 9-5. 48

I have to tell you a funny thing a student told me when I introduced Schmitt's idea that a meaningful life is a conflictual one. She said, "that's incredibly privileged."

I suppose it is, but, if "privileged" is your bad word for Schmitt...the dude defended dictatorship. 49

Although Schmitt's work as a whole is unified around the history and possibilities of political life, his range is remarkable. 50

In Political theology, which he wrote in the early 1920s, he gave us the incredible concept that all political ideas have their analogue to and basis in theological concepts. 51

In so doing, he showed us that 1) we are not so secular as we think. 2) that secularism is itself a kind of variation of religion (namely, Protestantism), not a rejection of it. 3) that the resources for new political imagination can come from the study of religious texts. 52

In my own work, I have found this both useful and insightful. And all of a sudden it hits you. The Talmud imagines heaven as a courtroom. Meanwhile, it figured the Sanhedrin or earthly court as the "navel of the world," an image that inspired an essay by Levinas. 53

God studies the Torah? Is this because God is a lonely sovereign, suspended in a state of exception, included in a law from which God is also excluded? 54

On the left, Agamben is one of the foremost readers of Schmitt, especially in his books "The State of Exception" and "Homo Sacer." For Agamben, we live today in a permanent state of exception. 55

Agamben is prone to catastrophize; he doesn't travel to the US because he doesn't want to give away his biometric data (this for another thread) 56

But one of the cool insights in Agamben is how the most vulnerable person in society, the refugee, or the person in a concentration camp, is a mirror image of the sovereign. They are like conceptual twins, both of whom stand at the outskirts of the law. 57

There is, paradoxically, a power that comes to those at the very bottom of society, and there is an immense loneliness and despair to the one who stands at the top. Neither of whom fits into the rules. 58

The victim is the exception that proves the rule, while the ruler is the one whose decision making is not bounded and therefore not guided by the rules. 59

There's a religious reading of Schmitt that sees him as wanting to bring theology into politics, to make metaphysics great again. 60

I see it the opposite way. Schmitt's veneration of politics is itself quite modern. He's not politically engaged because he's metaphysically illiberal, he's politically anti-liberal and therefore he picks a metaphysics. 61

In other words, the problem isn't that he wants a politics of truth; but that he wants a politics of politics, and so chooses a truth. 62

In some ways this is Leo Strauss's critique: Schmitt is more concerned with fighting liberalism than making a case for a real specific alternative. He's a grumpy liberal in spite of himself at the end of the day, not a pre-modern pre-liberal. 63

Schmitt's heresy, if you will, is his subordination of religion to politics. In this, he still shares much in common with Dewey and James. 64

Strauss opposes Schmitt. He proposes philosophical life as a realm apart from and in tension with politics. For Strauss, & especially for East Coast Straussians, the good life is one of moderation, fine wine and good books with friends, certainly not "tearing it all down." 65

As a refresher, here's my Strauss thread

https://twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/status/1353430770086535169

Schmitt's Political Theology, likewise, is the polar opposite take from Strauss's in that it's about the interdependence of Athens and Jerusalem. There is no way to avoid the claim of Revelation, in the broad sense. 66

All politics is religious, is dependent on religion. For religion is just another way of saying passion rooted in polarizing and unverifiable beliefs and values. 67

For Schmitt, the fact that progressive politics appears religious--a kind of New Awakening or Awokening, as folks like @antoniogm @DouthatNYT and @sullydish have written about--would be unsurprising. Religion is here to stay. 68

Religion in one form or another is certainly more 'Lindy' than liberalism, we might add. 69

Recall that this is a conflicting view from @FukuyamaFrancis which I wrote about here twitter.com/i/timeline 70

If Fukuyama is liberal democracy bull, Schmitt sees it as a self-defeating heresy. 71

Are you long or short liberal democracy, as a general trend? Are you with Fukuyama or with Schmitt? Are you a progressive, broadly, or are you apocalyptical, seeing liberal democracy as a kind of Anti-Christ, the storm before the restoration of benevolent theocracy? 72

That's probably an uncomfortable question. Maybe you deal with it more probabilistically. Well, there's a 20 percent chance liberal democracy will fail, etc. How do you price that option? 73

My favorite book of Schmitt's is his lesser known Hamlet or Hecuba, one of the most outstanding works of literary criticism I've read and an absolutely brilliant read of Shakespeare as both a work of scholarship and theory. 74

Schmitt claims that Shakespeare's play glosses over the core problem in the Hamlet story, namely, Gertrude's guilt. Is she a victim of an accomplice? 75

sorry, a victim or* an accomplice.

For Schmitt, Shakespeare doges this deliberately because he lives in a society where a real version of the hamlet story played out, with half of England divided about Mary Stuart's (the soon to be King James's mother's) guilt or innocence. 76

So Shakespeare’s play is about real world politics above all. It’s not just about the Oedipus complex or the genre of the revenge play. 77

The play within the play that Hamlet puts on is thus a clue about what Shakespeare himself is doing—putting on a play within the play of political life, trying to tell the truth but tell it slant. 78

Schmitt also shows that the question of whether ghosts are to be believed was itself a question that was highly contentious at the time of the play. So that Hamlet's ability to trust the ghost of his father is a function of his politics. 79

Shakespeare, in avoiding death by avoiding taking a stand on fundamental questions, gives us an image of himself in the figure of Hamlet. 80

Hamlet isn't paralyzed, if you will, by neurosis, but by his liberalism, his inability to decide if he's a Catholic or a Protestant, whether he believes in ghosts or not. 81

If Hamlet believes his mother to be guilty, he will have to kill her. If he does not, he will have to avenge his father's death, with her help. But Hamlet does neither. 82

His uncertainty is ours. And it's understandable. It's the impulse to survive in a time of danger. 83

But the tragedy for Schmitt, perhaps, is the avoidance of the fight, even when you get it wrong. Nondecision is also a decision. 84

Schmitt defends as core to the whole play, the play within the play, where Shakespeare steps out of the play and addresses us. 85

He writes: "the poet can and must invent a lot, but he cannot invent the reality core of a tragic action." The play, Hamlet, rests on a historical and political reality outside the play, which encompasses it. 86

Lots of things are sad, but tragedy is a situation that engulfs us, says Schmitt. The playwright responds to the tragic, but doesn't fabricate it. 87

The artist is at the mercy of the life in which her art appears--she can acknowledge this or not. 88

On the one hand, Schmitt's argument that we should read Shakespeare esoterically maps onto Strauss's in Persecution and the Art of Writing. 89

But the greatness of Shakespeare for Schmitt isn't his evasion of the political, but his allowance of it into the play, his acknowledgment that there is no escape from politics, that the beating heart of art is social reality, social conflict. 90

I don’t know what Schmitt was like as a person, though Jacob Taubes, who was a Jewish student of Gershom Scholem, says he was a great study partner for the study of Paul’s letters (after WWII). 91

You might think he was a jerk given his love of conflict at the theoretical level. As a scholar, Schmitt is remarkably generous, a person who seems most at home in books, not a street fighter.

Schmitt’s Nomos of the Earth displays a creative but insightful application of etymology and genealogical method to find our basic relation to land and land appropriation at the heart of law. 94

I wrote about it here in my weekly essay on the Torah: etzhasadeh.substack.com/p/time-to-land

Schmitt realizes that law presupposes land, just as Heidegger sees being to rest on time, and Gadamer sees perception to rest on tradition.

The idea that we can’t see the ground on which we stand and stand on it is a hallmark of both traditionalism and postmodernism. 95

We are indebted—indebted to conditions that come before us and make us possible. 96

Whether our response is gratitude or resentment we cannot ignore that the self does not stand on itself but on something beyond it. 97

You don’t have to be religious to see the problem with Cartesianism. Schmitt and Foucault, Heidegger and Strauss, Rosenzweig and Freud, all get there.

But the question is not are we dependent or independent, but what do we do about our dependence? What do we do when we realize that reason stands atop a sea that is itself pre rational and maybe non rational, “the given”?

Schmitt says this choice is a political one. Whether it is or isn’t, it is a choice. Let us make the choice and accept that obligation is not enemy of choice, but its condition. Right or wrong, we Hamlets have already made a decision. Let us, at least, decide to decide.
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