A constant struggle
Schmitt’s criticism of liberalism was directly tied to his unique understanding of “the political” as the constant possibility of struggle between both friends and enemies. He anticipated this struggle at both the international level – with feuding nations – and the domestic level – with feuding individuals. Schmitt disagreed with Thomas Hobbes’s vision of nature as being a state of “all against all”, and its implication that co-existence is impossible without the rule of law. On the other hand, he argued that liberals had done humanity, and the nation-state in particular, a disservice by promoting the possibility of a perpetually peaceful world. He saw World War I as a consequence of liberalism’s failure to recognize the possibility of enmity, and blamed liberals for both misunderstanding the true nature of politics and being insincere with regards to the true nature of the political. Under an assumption of perpetual peace and friendliness, he said, states are less likely to be prepared for the exceptional, and so risk the lives of their citizens.
"The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything."
Carl Schmitt
Schmitt argued instead that the possibility of enmity always exists alongside the possibility of alliance and neutrality. He envisioned the individual as potentially dangerous; and consequently this provides a constant political danger, with the ever-present possibility of war. Schmitt considered that this constant possibility should be the ultimate guide for the sovereign, who must at all times be prepared for it. The political sphere is necessarily an antagonistic world, not merely an independent domain in which citizens interact, like the realms of civil society or commerce. The law might work adequately through the courts and their associated bureaucracy under normal conditions, but in politics, exceptional conditions – even chaos – can erupt, and the courts are not equipped to make good or rapid judgements under these conditions. Someone must be entitled to suspend the law during exceptional circumstances. Schmitt claimed this was part of the sovereign’s role: he or she possesses the ultimate authority to decide when times are “normal” and when they are “exceptional”, and as such, can dictate when certain laws are to be applied and when they are not.
By placing life above liberty, Schmitt argued that the legitimacy of the sovereign relies not upon his application of the law, but upon his ability to protect the state and its citizens. Schmitt thought that the true power of a sovereign emerges in exceptional circumstances, when decisions need to be based entirely on new grounds. It is only in these circumstances that the sovereign becomes a true law-maker as opposed to a law-preserver, and is thus able to mobilize the population against a designated enemy. Schmitt concluded that sovereign power, in its full form, requires the exercise of violence, even when not otherwise legitimate under the law.
According to Schmitt, it is up to the sovereign to decide whether circumstances are normal (when the rule of law suffices) or exceptional (when the sovereign must take ultimate authority).
Defending Hitler
The limits of Schmitt’s theory became apparent with his defence of Hitler’s policies and rise to power. Schmitt justified “the Night of the Long Knives” – when around 85 of Hitler’s political opponents were murdered – as “the highest form of administrative justice”. In Schmitt’s eyes, Hitler was acting as a true sovereign, taking matters into his own hands under exceptional circumstances that threatened the very existence of the German state. Violence against the left-wing arm of the Nazi party, as well as Jews, was justified in Schmitt’s eyes by the supposed threat they posed to the state.
"The state of exception is not a dictatorship… but a space devoid of law."
Giorgio Agamben
Schmitt’s personal support for the Nazi regime strongly suggests that, for him, the survival of the state was more important than the liberty of the individuals within it – and sometimes more important than the lives of the citizens of the state. However, this prioritization of the preservation of the state at all costs fails to take into account the fact that, just like individuals, the state also changes; it is not a monolithic entity whose character is set and forever perfect. It can – and many would say should – be questioned at any point in time.
Contemporary exceptions
Schmitt’s inability to see the radical effect of his theory, or that genocide is not an acceptable form of violence under any circumstances, led to his being shunned by the academic and intellectual world. However, in the late 20th century, a revival of interest in his work was led by various authors who saw Schmitt’s contribution to legal and political philosophy as significant, despite his shortcomings. Schmitt’s understanding of the “political”, the “friend–enemy distinction”, and the “exceptional” was used by these writers to better understand the conditions under which modern states operate and political leaders make decisions.
US philosopher Leo Strauss built on Schmitt’s critique of liberalism, arguing that it tended towards extreme relativism and nihilism by completely disregarding the reality “on the ground” – it focuses not on what is, but on what ought to be. Strauss distinguished between two forms of nihilism: a “brutal” nihilism, as expressed by the Nazi and Marxist regimes, which seeks to destroy all previous traditions, history, and moral standards; and a “gentle” nihilism, as expressed in Western liberal democracies, which establishes a value-free and aimless egalitarianism. For Strauss, both are equally dangerous in that they destroy the possibility for human excellence.
Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben argues that Schmitt’s state of exception is not a state where the law is suspended – hiding somewhere until it can be re-established – but rather a state completely devoid of law, in which the sovereign holds ultimate authority over the lives of citizens. Considering the Nazi concentration camps created during World War II, Agamben argues that the prisoners in these camps lost all human qualities and became “bare life” – they were alive, but stripped of all human and legal rights. He sees the creation of a state of exception as particularly dangerous, because its effects compound in unpredictable ways: the “temporary” suspension of the law is never really “temporary”, because it leads to consequences that cannot be undone upon the restoration of the law.
Schmitt’s concept of the exception became particularly pertinent after 9/11, when it was used by conservatives and left-wing political thinkers to justify or denounce anti-terrorist measures such as the Patriot Act in the United States. The conservatives used the idea of exceptionality to justify violations of personal liberties such as increased surveillance and longer detention times without trial. Left-wing scholars argued against these very same practices, pointing out the dangers of suspending protections against human rights violations.
The existence of camps such as those at Guantánamo Bay serves to demonstrate the dangers of labelling an event “exceptional” and apportioning it exceptional measures, in particular the re-writing of rules by the executive without any checks in place. More than 10 years later, the state of exception declared after 9/11 remains more or less in place, with worrying consequences that show no signs of abating.
Leading Nazis were put on trial at Nuremberg at the end of World War II. Schmitt was investigated for his role as a propagandist for the regime, but eventually escaped trial.
CARL SCHMITT
Born into a devout Catholic family in Plettenberg, Germany, Carl Schmitt later renounced his faith, although elements of his understanding of the divine remained in his work. He studied law and later taught at several universities. In 1933, he joined the Nazi party and was appointed State Councillor for Prussia. However, in 1936 he was denounced by the SS and expelled from the Nazi party.
Schmitt continued to work as a professor in Berlin, but at the end of World War II, he was interned for two years for his Nazi connections. In 1946 he returned to Plettenberg, where, shunned by the international community, he continued to study law until his death, aged 95.
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Key works
1922 Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty
1928 The Concept of the Political
1932 Legality and Legitimacy
See also: Niccolò Machiavelli • Thomas Hobbes • Giovanni Gentile • José Ortega Y Gasset • Adolf Hitler
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Post-colonialism
FOCUS
Conservative pan-Africanism
BEFORE
1895 The protectorate of British East Africa emerges from British trading interests in East Africa.
1952–59 Kenya is in a state of emergency during a pro-independence rebellion by the Mau Mau.
1961 In Belgrade in modern-day Serbia, the Non-Aligned Movement is founded for countries wishing to be independent of superpowers.
AFTER
1963 The Organization of African Unity (OAU) is founded to oppose colonialism in Africa.
1968 Britain’s last African colonies gain independence.
Jomo Kenyatta was one of the leading figures in Kenya’s independence from British colonial rule, becoming its first prime minister and president in the post-colonial era. A political moderate, he pursued a programme of gradual change, rather than dramatic revolution.
External threats
Kenyatta’s ideas melded anti-colonialism and anti-communism. He was fiercely opposed to white rule in Africa, and promoted the idea of Kenyan independence through the establishment of the Kenyan African National Union. Pursuing a mixed-market economic programme, Kenya was opened up to foreign investment and developed a foreign policy that was pro-Western and anti-communist.
Post-colonial nations, Kenyatta believed, were in danger of becoming exploited by external forces in order to consolidate the position of other nations on the world stage. To secure genuine independence, it would not be possible to tolerate the external influence that came hand-in-hand with Soviet communism. In this sense, the threats posed by communism could be as restrictive to Kenyan self-determination as colonial rule.
Leaders of newly independent East African states – Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika, Milton Obote of Uganda, and Kenyatta – met in Nairobi in 1964 to discuss their post-colonial future.
See also: Manabendra Nath Roy • Nelson Mandela • Frantz Fanon • Che Guevara
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Marxism
FOCUS
Cultural hegemony
BEFORE
1867 Karl Marx completes the first volume of Capital, in which he analyses the capitalist system and the ways in which the masses are exploited by the rich.
1929 José Ortega y Gasset laments the demise of the intellectual as the working class grows in power.
AFTER
1980 Michel Foucault describes the ways in which power is distributed across society in institutions such as schools and the family.
1991 The Lega Nord (Northern League) is founded on a platform of greater autonomy for the industrialized north of Italy.
Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, while exposing the imbalances between the industrialized north and rural south of Italy, identified that the struggle to tackle the dominance of the ruling classes was a cultural battle as much as a revolutionary one.
"A human mass does not ‘distinguish’ itself, does not become independent…without organizing itself: and there is no organization without intellectuals."
Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci developed the notion of “cultural hegemony”, referring to the ideological and cultural control of the working classes that goes beyond coercion to the development of systems of thought – reinforcing the position of the powerful through consent.
The role of intellectuals
For Gramsci, no government, regardless of how powerful it is, can sustain its control by force alone. Legitimacy and popular consent are also required. By viewing the functions of the state as a means of educating and indoctrinating society into subservience, Gramsci radically altered Marxist thought. He saw that in order to tackle the grip of cultural hegemony on society, education was vital. Gramsci had a particular view of the role of intellectuals in this context. He felt that intellectuals could exist at all levels of society, rather than solely as a traditional elite, and that the development of this capacity among the working class was necessary to the success of any attempt to counter the hegemony of the ruling classes.
See also: Karl Marx • Vladimir Lenin • Rosa Luxemburg • Michel Foucault
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Marxism-Leninism
FOCUS
Modernization of China
BEFORE
1912 The Republic of China is established, bringing to an end more than 2,000 years of imperial rule.
1919 The May Fourth Movement politicizes events in China, leading directly to the foundation of the Communist Party of China in 1921.
AFTER
1966–76 Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the suppression of supposedly capitalist, traditional, and cultural elements in China, leads to factional strife and huge loss of life.
1977 Deng Xiaoping implements a programme of economic liberalization, leading to rapid growth.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese students and intellectuals, including the young Mao Zedong, began to learn of the socialist ideologies on the rise in Europe, and apply them to China. At the time, Marxism was not as compelling to these young Chinese as Mikhail Bakunin’s theory of anarchism and other schools of Utopian socialist thought. Marx had stipulated that a sound capitalist economy was the necessary basis for a socialist revolution, but China was still primarily agrarian and feudal, with no modern industry or urban working class.
Revolutionary inspiration
Before the Russian Revolution in 1917, there was little to encourage disaffected Chinese intellectuals in Marx’s conviction that the processes of capitalist production must achieve critical mass before a workers’ revolution could succeed. Looking back on the immense changes he had carved out on the Chinese political landscape, Mao would later assert that the Bolshevik uprising struck political thinkers in China like a “thunderbolt”. Events in Russia were now a matter of intense interest because of the perceived similarities between the two backward giants. Travelling to Beijing, Mao became the assistant and protégé of the university librarian Li Dazhao, an early Chinese communist who was studying, holding seminars, and writing about the Russian revolutionary movement.
Mao took Marxist and Leninist ideas and adapted them to resolve the problem of a workers’ revolution in a land of peasants. Lenin’s theory of imperialism envisaged communism spreading through developing countries and gradually surrounding the capitalist West. Mao believed that countries still mired in feudalism would skip the capitalist stage of development and move straight into full socialism. An elite vanguard party with a higher class “consciousness” would instil revolutionary values and a proletarian identity in the peasantry.
Rice farmers and other peasants handed over their land to cooperatives in a collectivization programme that would form a key part of Mao’s drive to reform China’s rural economy.
Politicization of the people
The excitement generated by the Russian Revolution might have been confined to university discussion groups had it not been for the Western Allies’ heedless betrayal of Chinese interests following World War I. More than 140,000 Chinese labourers had been shipped to France to support the war effort of the Triple Entente – Britain, France, and Russia – with the understanding that, among other things, the German protectorate of Shandong on the northeast coast of China would be returned to Chinese hands after the war. Instead, the Allies gave the territory to Japan at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919.
"It is very difficult for the labouring people… to awaken to the importance of having guns in their own hands."
Mao Zedong
Students across China protested against their country’s “spineless” capitul
ation. City workers and businessmen in Shanghai joined them, and a coalition of diverse groups united as the May Fourth Movement to force the government to accede to their demands. China’s representatives at Versailles refused to sign the peace treaty, but their objections had no effect on the actions of the Allies. The real significance of the May Fourth Movement was that vast numbers of Chinese people began to think about their precarious lives and the vulnerability of their country to threats from the outside world. It was a significant turning point for Chinese political thought, in which Western-style liberal democracy lost much of its appeal, and Marxist-Leninist concepts gained traction.
Mao was one of the radical intellectuals who came to the fore at this time and went on to organize peasants and workers in the Communist Party. He would never forget the lesson of Shandong: to negotiate from a position of weakness was to lose. The ultimate power in politics is the power of armed force. Mao would be ruthless both in seeking armed power and in his willingness to use it.
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