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March 19, 2004
As we have seen in Roman Catholicism and Political Form Schmitt counterposes Catholicism to the valueless rationality of economic technical reason. Political form refers to a particular Catholic conception of Europe that is counterposed to a Europe ruled by, or under the sway of, an economic-technical rationality. It is a conception of Europe that asserts and represents substantive human valuies.
Schmitt's reason for making the turn to Catholicism is that Catholicism is concerned with human beings as such and with the normative guidance of life.
In Roman Catholicism and Political Form Schmitt writes:
"Catholic argumentation is based on a particular mode of thinking whose method of proof is a specific juridical logic and whose substantive interest is the normative guidance of human life."
It has strict rules as to what people should do; rules that are directed towards furthering what is good.
It is a different kind of rationality to that of economic/technological reason; one that is disturbed by the valuations of the market. This instrumental reason favours numbers over human life; cannot make, or is unable to make a distinction between a silk blouse, poison gas and old growth forests. These are just commodities to be bought and sold. What matters is profit, jobs and economic growth.
Hence an instrumental economic reason that governs public policy arouses fear and loathing.
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