Talk:Carl Schmitt
From Academic Kids
A high-quality encyclopedia wouldn't debase itself by engaging in partisan polemics. There is no reason why this biased author should self-righteously impose his silly moralistic unction on the reader merely looking for FACTS AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS, not ideological opinion.
The previous commentator's faith in FACTS AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS is fascinating, if a little quaint and outdated. This article is full of FACTS regarding chronology, and the summary of Schmitt's political theses is not unfair considering that no summary of a few paragraphs can ever really capture the complexity of a notable thinker. Speculating about motives is perfectly legitimate historiography and the author openly admits the inconclusiveness of the evidence. As far as I can see the only sentence that is obviously critiquing (rather than simpliy expositing) Schmitt's thought and life is the final sentence, which is easily pegged as authorial voice.
New Comment::::
It seems the author of the original entry presents a very selective assessment of the work of Carl Schmitt. To concentrate only on the two books "Die Diktatur" and "The Concept of the Political" ignores his other important works, "Political Theology", "The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy", and his later works, "Land and Sea" and "The Nomos of the Earth". The entry seems determined to associate Schmitt with the Nazi party, which he joined after they came to power in 1933. What is not mentioned is that Schmitt was very aware of the dangers of Nazi Fascism, which is why he had actively and vehemently opposed them before they came to power, going so far as to advise that Hindenburg suspend the constitution in order to arrest and imprison the Nazi (and Communist) leadership. He did this because almost alone among Weimar right-wingers he understood the power of Hitler, describing him as having a "shem" which needed to be understood in order to be combatted. The rest of the right, Schleicher, von Papen, et al. did a deal with Hitler which brought him to power, mainly because they wanted to use his popular appeal, but also because they didn't take him that seriously. They thought he was a clown.
What is also not mentioned is that when Schmitt described the night of the long knives as "the highest form of adminstrative justice" this can easily be read (in a sophisticated academic sort of way) as a perjorative, and it should be remembered that many of those killed were his friends. It showed pretty effectively what might happen to him if he didn't tow the line.
Schmitt was quite clear about what kind of "dictatorship" he was talking about and it bore no resemblance to Nazi ideas on the subject. He never elided the state with the will of one man, but instead theorised the existential qualities of sovereign acts. He never believed in some millenarian apocalypse, nor indeed did he believe in, or advocate, race war as the basis for foreign and domestic policy. Any reading of Schmitt makes this abundantly clear.
If one accepts that even democracies contain some element of dictatorship, then one can extend Schmittian characteristics to all American Presidents, and British Prime Ministers (by virtue of their extensive emergency powers). But perhaps, interestingly enough, the figure of Pierre Trudeau exhibits the most Schmittian characteristics of any one figure (from a supposedly liberal and democratic setting). He enacted emergency powers to suspend the constitution and arrest militant separatists, he clearly possessed a charismatic legitimacy at a time of existential crisis in Canadian history, and had the personal authority to shift the constitutional consensus and partially reinvent an understanding of Canada (which remains an unresolved problem). Had it not been for these Schmittian interventions, it is quite probable that Canada would not exist today.
Schmitt is a far more complex and interesting political theorist than can be encompassed by consideration only of the years 1933 to 1936, however controversial and unhappy they must have been.
"Although decisiveness may have its virtues in the exceptional case, it can also lead to hasty choices based on hope and faith, which can be so much more dangerous than deliberate choices based on reason and discussion." This passage is non-NPOV, so I'm excising it.--XmarkX 09:12, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Comparing against the German article
No disputes about the polemical nature and rather less than comprehensive ambition of the article in its current form. The German article is well-developed — I'll give a shot at translating it for a rip and replace. I'll also try to put together a reasonable bibliography of Schmitt, including translations, and selection of scholarship that lists some of the more prominent English-language work. Buffyg 12:32, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
