Carl Schmitt

German jurist and political theorist (1888–1985), author of Politische Theologie (1922), Die Diktatur (1921), Der Begriff des Politischen / The Concept of the Political (1927/1932), Der Nomos der Erde (1950), Theorie des Partisanen (1963), among many others. The 20th-century decisionist theorist of sovereignty whose work is the immediate background for BS-I's engagement with the state of exception, the friend/enemy distinction, and the humanitarian-war critique. Derrida engages Schmitt seriously but does not endorse him; the most important Derridean move is to take seriously Schmitt's diagnosis of humanitarian universalism as a ruse of imperial sovereignty (BS-I S3 pp. 71–76) without accepting Schmitt's reactionary axiomatics.

Key Points

  • Sovereignty as decision on the exception. Schmitt's Politische Theologie (1922) opens: "Souverän ist, wer über den Ausnahmezustand entscheidet" (Sovereign is he who decides on the exception). The sovereign is structurally outside-or-above the law because he is the one who can suspend it. This is the immediate structural source of BS-I's analysis of sovereignty-as-outside-the-law topology. BS-I S1 p. 18; S2 pp. 45–46.
  • Friend/enemy as the concept of the political. Schmitt's Der Begriff des Politischen defines the political through the friend/enemy distinction (Freund/Feind). The enemy (hostis, not inimicus) is foreign-other, the one against whom the political-collective constitutes itself. The wolf-figure (see wolf-and-werewolf) is structurally the hostis.
  • Protego ergo obligo — the cogito ergo sum of the state. Schmitt's formula (in Der Begriff des Politischen) describes the protection-obedience axiom as the foundation of political authority. The sovereign's claim to obedience rests on the protection it provides; protection grounds obligation. BS-I S2 pp. 43–44.
  • Humanitarian universalism as imperialist ruse. Schmitt's diagnosis (in Der Begriff des Politischen): "the concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion." When a particular state wages war "in the name of humanity," it treats its enemies as hors la loi (outside the law) and hors l'humanité (outside humanity), i.e., as beasts/werewolves. The state that does this becomes itself the worst werewolf by the rhetorical structure of the appeal. BS-I S3 pp. 71–76.
  • Schmitt as decisionist theorist of the fabular sovereign — without Schmitt naming this himself. Derrida engages Schmitt as having identified the structural position of sovereignty (the decision on the exception, the Diktat) but as having celebrated this position rather than deconstructed it. The decisionist exception is, for Derrida, the site where sovereignty's prosthetic-fictional character becomes visible — not the site of its triumph.
  • The complicated reception in BS-I. Derrida partially refuses Schmitt: the operation of treating-the-enemy-as-beast-in-the-name-of-humanity is structurally real (evidenced post-9/11), but Schmitt's reactionary anti-humanism is not the position to draw from this diagnosis. Derrida's "deconstruction is not depoliticization" (BS-I S3 pp. 76–77) is in part directed at Schmittian objections.

Role on the Wiki

Schmitt is BS-I's principal 20th-century interlocutor on the conceptual structure of sovereignty (alongside Hobbes as the 17th-century foundational figure). The wiki's sovereignty master concept page draws on Schmitt for: the topology of being-outside-the-law (the exception); the friend/enemy as structural source of the wolf-figure's political force; the humanitarian-war critique (BS-I arg #14).

Schmitt appears on the wiki only via this BS-I ingest. Future ingests (Agamben's reading of Schmitt; Derrida's Voyous / Rogues 2003 which extends BS-I's humanitarian-war critique; Politiques de l'amitié / Politics of Friendship) would expand the page.

Sources

  • derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i — Sessions 1 (decisionism / exception), 2 (protego-ergo-obligo), 3 (humanitarian war / Bodin-vs-Schmitt; werewolves against werewolves). Engaged seriously but not endorsed.

Connections

  • is engaged by derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i — partially endorsed (humanitarian-war critique) and partially refused (decisionist celebration of the exception)
  • inherits thomas-hobbes — De Cive's wolf-state and contract-grounded sovereignty
  • anchors the decisionist register of sovereignty (BS-I S1 + S2)
  • appears in wolf-and-werewolf — the friend/enemy distinction and hostis as wolf-figure
  • is implicated in fable-political — Schmittian decisionism reads as celebration of the as-if sovereign; Derrida reads it as the site where the fabular operation of sovereignty becomes visible
  • is criticized for the reactionary anti-humanism that BS-I's "deconstruction is not depoliticization" gesture is directed against

Critique / Limitations

  • The wiki has only BS-I as source on Schmitt. The reactionary political-historical context of Schmitt's career (Nazi-affiliation during 1933–36, lifelong ambivalence after) is not represented on this page. Future ingests should add the contextual register.
  • Schmitt's later international-law work (Der Nomos der Erde 1950, Theorie des Partisanen 1963) is not engaged by BS-I and is not on the wiki.
  • The contemporary Schmitt-reception (Agamben, Mouffe, Strauss-Schmitt correspondence, Meier on Schmitt-Strauss) is not on the wiki.

Open Questions

  • The relation between Derrida's BS-I engagement and his prior Politiques de l'amitié / Politics of Friendship (1994, with extended Schmitt readings) is not developed in BS-I. Open for Politics of Friendship ingest.
  • The relation between Schmitt's decisionism and Agamben's "state of exception" (in Stato di eccezione 2003) is not engaged by BS-I directly — BS-I's anti-Agamben polemic in S12 is on the bios/zōē distinction, not on the exception. Open.
  • The relation between Schmitt's Concept of the Political and BS-I's fable-political thesis: Schmitt's friend/enemy could be re-read as a fabular operation (a making-known of the enemy as wolf). BS-I does not pursue this. Open.