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Carl Schmitt on the Friend/Enemy (preview) // 183 · PlasticPills Critical Theory & Philosophy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: They they like Schmidt, Karl Schmidt, which is not the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: best Nazi but not the worst.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Well, he's popular on the left too, like he's you know,
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  Speaker 2: isn't a Gombin's State of Exceptions stuff?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, A Gombin uses him. So does Chantell Mouf and
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  Speaker 3: some other radical Democrats who really like to focus on
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  Speaker 3: kind of radical democracy and conflict. Like I think there's
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  Speaker 3: a I don't know where we want.
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  Speaker 1: To start, but I want to I want to hear
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  Speaker 1: about Mouf specifically, but I just wanted to say we're
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  Speaker 1: skipping from sociology kind of on our sociology kick sociology
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  Speaker 1: and specifically sociology beginning with religion is is Dirkheim basically,
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  Speaker 1: And the connecting line here is someone that we're skipping
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  Speaker 1: but I think we've talked about before, which is Max Weber.
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  Speaker 1: So Max Weber picks up a Dirkheimian line in order
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  Speaker 1: to very famously explain capitalism as a secularized version of
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  Speaker 1: Protestantism or Calvinism, and Schmidt reads Weber. I don't think
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  Speaker 1: he brings them up in this reading specifically, But we're
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  Speaker 1: actually only skipping one link to get from Durkheim to Schmidt,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe we should look at Weber because he talks
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  Speaker 1: a lot about religion in other contexts besides the Protestant
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  Speaker 1: work ethic. But that's the famous one. So we can
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  Speaker 1: always go back. But there's disenchantment or whatever. Everyone knows
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  Speaker 1: the Weber thesis. We're disenchanted. But the thing is we
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  Speaker 1: still act in the same way with the religious customs,
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  Speaker 1: religious rituals. It's just that the name of God has
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  Speaker 1: been taken off it. But pretty much society functions the same.
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  Speaker 1: And Schmid's gonna pick up on that line.
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  Speaker 2: And this secularization thesis comes from Weber too, I think,
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  Speaker 2: or he's heavily associated with that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's secularized. But this is merely changing kind
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  Speaker 1: of trappings on the outside, whereas we still function essentially religiously,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: which is kind of what Durkheim said as well. But
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  Speaker 1: we're doing this is the reason the conservatives like this
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  Speaker 1: at least is it's a critique of liberalism and liberal states.
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  Speaker 1: In Schmid's view and in a lot of the reactionary
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  Speaker 1: right and the reactionary left. At this point these days,
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  Speaker 1: liberalism cannot hold. It's not going to be able to
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  Speaker 1: deal with these cannot hold exactly. The political nation state
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  Speaker 1: is slowly going to wither away because it can't create
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  Speaker 1: the distinction between enemy and friends. And we're depoliticized, so
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  Speaker 1: it's just waiting. Liberalism is just waiting for an overpowering,
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  Speaker 1: real politicized force to take it over. That's the hypothesis. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: we'll see if this is.
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  Speaker 2: There's still that like big background that the earlier sociologists
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  Speaker 2: are still asking about too, is like what defines unity
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  Speaker 2: or cohesion, social cohesion or political cohesion. Now after this
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  Speaker 2: major upheaval of like modernization or modernity, you know, this
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  Speaker 2: break with the past, and so Urkime's kind of thinking,
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  Speaker 2: you know, al Wes say, like the difference is going
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  Speaker 2: from like this religious past to this sort of scientific
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  Speaker 2: rational present, but actually we're still kind of using the
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  Speaker 2: categories that religion is given to us. And then Weber's
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  Speaker 2: sort of thinking about rationalization and the Iron Cage and secularization.
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  Speaker 2: And now after the Germans have lost their monarchy after
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  Speaker 2: World War One and they're transforming into this Weimar Republic
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  Speaker 2: and you can't really take social or political I guess
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  Speaker 2: coherence for granted it anymore because the monarchy and its
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: political apparatus is not around anymore as it was in
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  Speaker 2: the nineteenth century. What what How how does society sort
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  Speaker 2: of actively now integrate itself into a political state. And
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  Speaker 2: so that same big kind of question is a giant upheaval.
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  Speaker 2: What defines unity? Now?
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  Speaker 1: What's the social glue? And how do we keep a
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  Speaker 1: liberal society together? So with that, Victor, can you uh
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  Speaker 1: outline we're going to everyone knows? I think the friend
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  Speaker 1: enemy distinction more or less, that's what Schmidt's known for.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: How do the how do the Radical Democrats pick this up?
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  Speaker 3: So I think like where the Radical Democrats pick it
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  Speaker 3: up is in a critique of liberalism and liberal democracy
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  Speaker 3: is trying to depoliticize. I would say they share this
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  Speaker 3: kind of resistance against deepoliticization because the way the Radical
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  Speaker 3: Democrats seat is like liberalism in its kind of attempt
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  Speaker 3: to inoculate and neutralize kind of tensions in society through
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  Speaker 3: these procedures, through these procedural mechanisms. And I would say
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  Speaker 3: in a way they're also critical of some versions of
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  Speaker 3: deliberative democracy for the same reason that just wants to
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  Speaker 3: build these Oh, like we can come together and have
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  Speaker 3: like a rational speech to speech situation and like figure
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  Speaker 3: out our differences. And I think where the radical Democrats
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  Speaker 3: and Schmidt kind of agree is no, no, no, Like as
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  Speaker 3: human beings, there are deep disagreements on fundamental issues of
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  Speaker 3: justice that are like deep to our core as human
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  Speaker 3: beings somehow. But you know, the radical Democrats talk about
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  Speaker 3: it in a much less essentialist language, but they would
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  Speaker 3: just say that like these there are irreducible differences. There
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  Speaker 3: are irreducible kind of tensions, and for that reason we
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  Speaker 3: need like contestation. We need like like kind of a
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  Speaker 3: friend enemy distinction where it's like we know who are
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  Speaker 3: adversary is now. The difference is that the radical Democrats,
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  Speaker 3: the left wing ones kind of throw away this like
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  Speaker 3: willing to die thing, right, And in a way I
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  Speaker 3: would say like they kind of depoliticize the friend enemy
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  Speaker 3: distinction in a different kind of way where they say, oh, well,
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  Speaker 3: we need ways of having these like very spirited contestations
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  Speaker 3: in society with these different groups that disagree. That doesn't
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  Speaker 3: depoliticize or try to neutralize it, but in a way
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  Speaker 3: where we don't turn our adversary into an enemy to
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  Speaker 3: be destroyed. Right. It's just like a kind of friendly
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  Speaker 3: enemy where like, so, which is why I find that
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  Speaker 3: the radical democratic answer to like to be unconvincing, because
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  Speaker 3: I just don't really think it's that different than what
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  Speaker 3: like the deliberative democrats want. They just emphasize less on rationalities,
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  Speaker 3: but I don't know if we want to get into that.
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  Speaker 3: I just think it's like, okay, so you have to
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  Speaker 3: somehow figure it a way to make these antagonisms not
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  Speaker 3: be antagonisms. That's where they get the word agonism. They
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  Speaker 3: want it to be an agonism against our political advers
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  Speaker 3: series and we just need social struggle in society. So
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  Speaker 3: they just share this thing really on the depoliticization point,
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  Speaker 3: but certainly not like putting your life on the line
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  Speaker 3: and like, because they would be against violence, whereas Schmidt,
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  Speaker 3: obviously here I think, is like, oh yeah, like these
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  Speaker 3: friend enemy distinctions, these antagonisms will lead to violence or
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  Speaker 3: could lead to violence, or that potential always needs to
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  Speaker 3: be there or it always will be there in a
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  Speaker 3: way because that's the nature of the political.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know why they would ever use him for that.
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  Speaker 1: When he addresses that specifically, he says liberalism tries to
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  Speaker 1: turn conflicts into agonistic conflict. Yeah, and he's like, well
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  Speaker 1: this will never work. Yes, it's kind of this is
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  Speaker 1: kind of I think we should bring this back. Politics
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  Speaker 1: is something you're willing to die for, because when all
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  Speaker 1: these like Christian supremacists or whatever they're they're bringing up
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  Speaker 1: Schmidt too, like are you going to die to stop
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  Speaker 1: people from getting bottom surgery?
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  Speaker 3: Are you?
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  Speaker 1: Are you going to put that on the line, because
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I'll see it.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this, and I don't think the
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  Speaker 2: people propounding these sorts of things are literally going to
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  Speaker 2: be the ones going to war, Like obviously they're going
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  Speaker 2: to get the young men and women to go to
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  Speaker 2: war for them. I mean it's a rhetorical power, right,
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  Speaker 2: It's like if you have it's like what the common
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  Speaker 2: sort of line about the States after the USSR, Right,
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  Speaker 2: they need a new enemy, right, because if they don't
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  Speaker 2: have this sort of external enemy boogeyman, then how can
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  Speaker 2: there be any kind of like unity. There's some kind
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  Speaker 2: of fear that it'll like actually dissolve into some kind
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  Speaker 2: of civil war or even you could just go back
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  Speaker 2: to like what the function of the like crusades were, right,
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  Speaker 2: like have this external enemy promote like internal political unity
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  Speaker 2: through having this out outside threat and so now everyone
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  Speaker 2: by necessity has to sort of come together to combat
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  Speaker 2: this threat. And clearly, like the politicians benefit from that
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  Speaker 2: kind of narrative, whereas like the people who have to
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  Speaker 2: go off to war and the enormous amount of resources
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  Speaker 2: that have to be diverted into that is like bad
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  Speaker 2: for everybody. But you know, it's a political necessity. We
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  Speaker 2: have to say, because it's a matter of existence. You know,
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  Speaker 2: all these internal squabbles can be put aside because it's
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  Speaker 2: more our existence, our very existence is under threat, and
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  Speaker 2: that's the most important thing.
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  Speaker 1: And we also have Dugan who's got a lot of nice,
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  Speaker 1: nice things to say about Schmidt. Here is he gonna
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  Speaker 1: Is he gonna put his life on the line for Eurasia?
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe or maybe we'll remains to be seen. But we've
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: been looking into behind the scenes. We've been looking into
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: some of this Maga calm shit kind of just because
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's been blown into our face via Twitter. But uh, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna get there. We got to at least deep
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: our toe because what's going on over there with the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Maga communists because you could say, well they're disruptors. Yeah,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you got to disrupt to get clout. We have to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: accept that. But all of us gay SOI academics who
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: read Heidiger have come to a sort of agreement along
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  Speaker 1: the way that you read this stuff at the beginning
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty eight, and you read this stuff at the end,
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  Speaker 1: and then you forget about the middle bit because well
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: it's kind of fucked up. And Idiger himself said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that was kind of fucked up. But now I've got
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Hammer and Sickle accounts that are telling me, no, you're
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: forgetting the best shit of this Nazi, which is his
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: most Nazi shit, the blood and soil. That's what Marx
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  Speaker 1: was really missing. And I, uh, yeah, I'm open. I
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  Speaker 1: remain to be convinced. So maybe we're gonna have to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: create some enemies, I hope so well.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: We could do that by doing an episode on like
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the Black Notebooks or something.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I do want to talk about the Mega cons cons
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: to be honest, I think it's very interesting, you know,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: thinking about our you know, friend of the show Dreg's
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: whole horseshoes theory thing, right, I feel like that's that kind.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Of the opposites coming together exactly mega Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: The past is the Pascal's wager. No, it's going to
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  Speaker 1: be who who actually puts their life on the line
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: for their stupid theory that they're using to get attention. Yeah,