June 29, 2010
Some of Carl Schmitt's ideas are currently being introduced into Australian conservatism as part of a critique of liberalism. This includes his conception of politics as the existential conflict based on the friend and enemy distinction and the ever present possibility of combat.
Liberalism, for Schmitt desires to dissolve the political, and to eliminate political violence in favour of peace and humanity. The liberal utopia is the the market that is represented by liberalism as a non-political, neutral area that peacefully generates universal prosperity. Schmitt argues that ultimately, the bourgeois liberal:
Does not want to leave the apolitical riskless private sphere. He rests in the possession of his private property, and under the justification of his possessive individualism he acts as an individual against the totality. He is a man who finds his compensation for his political nullity in the fruits of freedom and enrichment and above all in the total security of its use. Consequently he wants to be spared bravery and exempted from the danger of violent death. (The Concept of the Political, 62-3).
|