Talk:Carl Schmitt

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 13 March 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): J.perales1121.

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Was Carl Schmitt a conservative?[edit]

Carl Schmitt was not a conservative.

The article presents no evidence that Carl Schmitt was a conservative - yet assumes that he was a conservative philosopher. There is no evidence that Carl Schmitt was a supporter of natural law, or was a lover of traditional limits upon government, or that he believed any authority (whether religious or moral) was superior to the ruler or rulers. Yet the author of the article assumes (in Marxist or semi Marxist fashion - although baffling Marxism is sometimes called "liberalism" in the United States, which is absurd) that Schmitt (and all National Socialists) must be conservatives. It is as if such thinkers as Ludwig Von Mises ("Omnipotent Government") and F.A. Hayek ("The Road to Serfdom") had never written a word.5.66.155.30 (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just as you are baffled by the alleged American corruption of the word liberalism, many people outside of the United States will be baffled by your corruption of the word conservatism. For a start, outside of the United States, a subscription to the doctrines of the natural law is not considered a necessary component of conservatism. Secondly, although he may not have been 'a lover of traditional limits upon government' (whatever they are), he did state a clear preference for the substantive legal guarantees present in the second part of the Weimar Constitution (over and above the then-radically value-neutral democratic element in the first part) in the final pages of the conclusion to Legality and Legitimacy in 1932. Thirdly, your comment about Schmitt's irreligious and amoral stance betrays a remarkable ignorance of some of the most recent scholarship on Schmitt's concern with revelation and the Catholic faith (namely the work of Heinrich Meier). To assert that Schmitt was a conservative is not to assert that all National Socialists were conservatives: Schmitt was not an orthodox Nazi (and work like The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes suggests that he was quietly critical of the movement after his fall from their grace), and most of the evidence for Schmitt's conservative impulses are to be found in his opposition to Hitler's rise prior to 1933. Finally, just so you can be corrected on this basic error, Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek were free market libertarians, not conservatives - your assertion to the contrary makes it seem as if such thinkers as F. A. Hayek ('Why I am Not a Conservative', the post-script to The Constitution of Liberty) had never written a word. MichaelOakeshott (talk) 11:21, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Do any of those sources offer concrete proof that Schmitt influenced Bush administration actions. As near as I can figure they mostly say Bush's actions MAY have been influenced by a person who MAY have been influenced by Schmitt. Putting a link to Wikipedia's work on conservatism is Godwins law on its face. Normally connecting philosophies is not very controversial but once you use the word "Hitler" or "Nazi" all nuanced and civil discussion goes out the window. I propose this section be removed and its link to conservative philosophy be severed.Inspectorenjorlas (talk) 21:36, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely sure in which way the term, "conservative" is being used in this article, but it doesn't really matter, since either of them are false. Either its being utilized as a euphemism for that he was more or less a fascist or it is being utilized rhetorically to characterize all conservatives as fascists. Neither of those seem to meet the neutral point of view standards of Wikipedia.
Dictatorship explicitly advocates the suspension of the rule of law and establishment of a state of exception in the form of dictatorship. Anyone can say whatever they will about so-called "conservatism", that is something wildly different from it. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 19:11, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Before any detractors to this line of thought are given the chance at rebuttal, I'd just like to point out that, while, historically, conservatism was colloquially used often synonymously with that a person is a reactionary, particularly in relation to both the liberal democratic revolutions to follow the French Revolution in Europe, as well as in regards to communism, anarchism, or socialism, thereby rendering it possible for someone to, say, support an absolute monarch and also be a conservative, the contemporary usage of the term almost invariably refers to a broad, but also somewhat specified, set of right-wing political philosophies, all of whom do agree with some form of representative democracy or another.
In so far that the person to categorize Carl Schmitt as a "conservative" is not grossly misinformed, they have, in all likelihood, used the archaic "conservative" as either a euphemism or pejorative. Not to level accusations, here, but his classification as such just seems to be indicative of either crypto-fascism in the case euphemism or radical rhetoric in the case of an attempt to categorize all conservatives as fascists, which Carl Schmitt almost certainly was and is what I would recommend for the article to say.
In short, "conservative", is in one of two ways, not neutral, or, at best, misinformed, and what it should say is that he was a "fascist jurist". Daydreamdays2 (talk) 19:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, now that I've reread the opening line of the article and skimmed the Wikipedia article on conservatism, I'm actually kind of fine with it, since, before it says that he was a conservative, it mentions that he was a prominent member of the Nazi party.
The article on conservatism, though, perhaps, could use some sort of concise clarification on how, in the old days, conservatism referred more or less to the maintenance of the status quo, including, for instance, absolute monarchy, whereas when people use the term, "conservative", now, they're more or less talking about a right-wing liberal or republican political philosophy. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 19:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In considering this further, I just feel like "conservative" is ultimately euphemistic, even if it is intended pejoratively.
Schmitt advanced that sovereign decision over the state of exception, i.e. the rule by decree over what the sovereign had abandoned to being outside of the sphere of law, which, in the case of the Third Reich, which he helped to establish, was a radically new form of governance, one that, in retrospect, is often characterized as having been totalitarian, which marked a point of departure from, say, authoritarian theories of sovereignty, such as an absolute monarchy. In the case of the latter, though the rule of law is more or less subject to the whims of its leader, the monarch still has some form of constituted power, i.e. the laws which guarantee their rule, and constituting power, i.e. their edicts and whathaveyou, which delimit a rule of law and not a zone of indistinction where the law does not apply. Effectively, an absolute monarch is still, at the very least, responsible for the laws that they create, whereas what grants Schmitt's sovereign power is precisely their capacity to decide in which cases the law can be suspended, which is to say, that it does not apply. This distinction would become relevant within the Third Reich, who never abrogated the Weimar Constitution, but merely suspended it four consecutive times, particularly in consideration of bare life, most emphatically indicated by the status of victims of the Holocaust.
I don't know enough about the legal history of the Russian Empire to speak with authority on this, as well as that I wouldn't, per se, accuse the aristocracy of the kind of so-called "radical evil" characteristic of the Third Reich, but one could suggest that things like the pogroms in tsarist Russia never approached the catastrophic excess of the Final Solution because they were still, at the very least, subject to some rule of law, and not identified as a place "outside of the law", namely where it just simply does not apply, thereby, apparently, justifying the systemic elimination of millions of people.
In both cases, you have a kind of bare life, and, so, I'm not entirely sure that this holds, but I'm just thinking that Nazi legal philosophy was unique to a point of not being able to be characterized as a return to a pre-existing order. If you read Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, his archaeology, if you will, more or less of Schmitt's legal philosophy and its application by the Third Reich, he identifies the state of exception as an originary form of law, and, so, there is some sense of continuity between ancient Roman law and that of the Third Reich, with a lot of theories of sovereignty in between, but, if we are to characterize Nazism as a "totalitarian" political philosophy, that is, something unique to the end of modernity and distinct from authoritarianism, and, if we are to agree that Schmitt was, in point of fact, "the crown jurist of the Third Reich", then I do not, in good faith, believe that this article should state that he was a "conservative", as, though certainly "reactionary", he sought not to preserve existing forms of power, but, rather, to establish something entirely new.
With all that being said, given the contemporary usage of the term, "conservative", within politics, i.e. to refer to a right-wing of a political spectrum that is limited to representative democracy, calling Carl Schmitt a "conservative jurist", when both his legal philosophy and role as a jurist were instrumental in the establishment of the Third Reich, just seems wildly euphemistic, if not grossly misleading in ways that, if they were intentional, are nothing but patently crypto-fascist.
So, basically, for all of the reasons mentioned above, I am, again, recommending for the article to be changed. I'm not sure if there's an article on fascist theories of law, but, since it is quite clear that Schmitt explicitly advocated in favor of dictatorship and, for the reasons mentioned in the above argument, his theory of dictatorship marks a point of departure from traditional theories of sovereignty, one that directly facilitated the rise of Nazism, I would recommend that the article state that he was a "fascist" jurist and not a "conservative" one. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As per the article on conservatism, I just changed "A conservative theorist" to "An authoritarian conservative theorist", which, is no longer euphemistic, but I still think kind of misleading, as Schmitt presents the point of departure where reactionary conservatism becomes something else, namely fascism. I'm not much of an editor, though, and, so, if anyone has better ideas on how to improve this article in this regard, as well as the article on conservatism or fascism, that would be welcome.
I suppose there was no real reason to promote the injunction to change the article, when, as I just have, clearly I could've just done so myself, but I was just afraid that doing this without a second would result in some kind of edit war, and, so, was hoping that someone else would take up the initiative. Anyways, more or less all of the above is as to why I edited the article. If anyone has better ideas or suggestions, then I would go ahead and go for it, though I do still contend that "conservative", all by itself, read as wildly euphemistic, even if it was not intended that way. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 18:58, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Blegh. Sorry to drone on about this indefinitely, particularly since I don't intend to edit the article again, as, at the very least, it no longer seems like he was some kind of unsuspecting fellow-traveler, but I do genuinely think that it should say that he was a "fascist" political theorist. I'm not editing it to say that, as to make the edit, I think that the article on conservatism needs a section to distinguish it from fascism, the article on fascism needs a section on fascist legal theory, one that should probably cite Schmitt, and, though I'm sure I could figure it out, I don't even know how include a link to another article with an edit, which is how I don't want to mess up a bunch of articles with various edits. Since I have gone on about this so much, though, if anyone should like to take up that torch, I have put this out there in the hopes that they will.
In a way, I think that Schmitt's Dictatorship actually marks the point of departure from archaic conservatism to fascism proper, particularly in consideration of jurisprudence, and, so, not only do I think that he was a fascist, but, also that he sort of begins fascist legal philosophy.
It makes sense that someone would mistake him as a conservative, with this in mind, as, up until the publication of that text, that is how people similar to him would've been categorized, but I would argue that he was a, if not the, seminal fascist in re jurisprudence.
Basically, Dictatorship originates fascist legal philosophy. To do so, it departs from conservatism.
For it all to make sense, though, for any-old reader of this encyclopedia, I feel like that's all going to require more edits and technical know-how than I realistically have the time for, and, so, I'm just kind of putting this out there in case anyone else is game.
I will say no more. Thanks for reading all of this, if you have, anyways. Again, sorry to basically just ramble. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 19:37, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Dugin[edit]

I am adding Alexander Dugin to the list of people Schmitt influenced.

Dugin himself states he " came to the Theory of a Multipolar World, which I eventually developed myself, precisely through superimposing geopolitical dualism, Carl Schmitt’s theory of the Grossraum, and John Hobson’s critique of Western racism and the euro-centrism of IR."

http://www.theory-talks.org/2014/12/theory-talk-66.html

Of course, the list should not become overpopulated with everyone of note that happened to be influenced by him, but considering Mr. Dugin's relevance both in Russian internal politics and reaching out to his global audience/readership, I posit that he be included.

68.192.161.211 (talk) 11:45, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sources on Eliade and Schmitt[edit]

Hi, I have access to the sources on Eliade and Schmitt, I don't find what could justify the so-called influence. Please give here the sentences involved. Thank you. Matunga-mumbai (talk) 16:56, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

from the Portugal Journal: "We talked a long time. He has just come from Paris. ... He believes René Guénon is the most interesting person of our time. (I don’t believe this always, but often I do. Although I consider Aurobindo Ghose more “perfected.”)" --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 18:54, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I said previously. I know perfectly both references, I used them for my Master. There is absolutely nothing in these refs that states of an influence. Only that Schmitt was "interested", and the author acknowledges himself of a "personnal hypothesis". There is no possibility of an intellectual derivation of ideologies from these sources. This is WP:OR. Matunga-mumbai (talk) 20:29, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry my short answer above, I have not much time this week. Both sources can be found online, and they show an influence on Schmitt. I don't think that you have fully read them. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 00:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Schmitt and Eliade again[edit]

Hi,

Two sources are given by Dekacarandaebonelm (another sprout of indef banned user Hkelkar by the way): Grottanelli Cristiano and Mircea Eliade’s The Portugal Journal. They are easily accessible: the first one is on the internet: see here. The first develops on the relations between Schmitt, Jünger and Eliade: Guénon is presented as representative for Eliade, not for Schmitt (section 2.3). Nowhere throughout the text is written an "influence". Same for the second one, (also accessible through digital librairies). 82.98.7.229 (talk) 17:18, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I'm afaid that I really don;t understand your comment. Can you explain it again with more detail? It would be appreciated. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Beyond My Ken. These two references were introduced to show a so-called Guénon influence on Schmitt. But none of these refs say it. Even worse, the first of these references has been misinterpreted: page 330, the text reads: "Ernst Jünger écrivait le 15 novembre 1942 que Carl Schmitt lui avait donné des « informations détaillées » sur Eliade et « son maître René Guenon » which translates into "Ernst Jünger wrote on November 15 1942 that Carl Schmitt has given to him "detailed information" on Eliade and his "master René Guénon"". But in french this refers to Eliade's master, not Schmitt's !! Nowhere in the text it is mentioned of an "influence". This adds to what I have written before. Don't hesitate to ask me if you need more explanations. Best, 82.98.7.229 (talk) 19:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, thank you, that was very clear. My appreciation for taking the time to explain to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:50, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Political theologian"?[edit]

The category Category:Political theologians is being added to this article, and there is a dispute over it. I do not believe it is appropriate, since Schmitt was not a theologian, he was a jurist and a legal theorist. He may have written about political theology, but that doesn't make him a "political theologian". Look at everybody else in that category - they are all obviously theologians who have specialized in political theology. Schmitt's writing on that top to do not him a political theologian any more than if Kim Kardashian writing about politics would make her a political scientist. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:29, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

False comparison. Being a jurist and a legal theorist does provide one with professional background to write about a subject called "political theology". FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:00, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
How so? So every jurist and legal theorist is automatically qualified to be a "political theologian"? Wouldn't is be necessary to -- you know -- study theology? Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:03, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But writing a book titled "political theology" does not make one a theologian.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:04, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I initially added the category. Clearly, he literally wrote the book on the subject. Does this make him a theologian? Perhaps not if we were to think of him as articulating Christian theological formulae about the nature of God and His relationship with the world. But as is shown in the article on theology, this is not the explicit nature of the term as we know it. Schmitt's work interpreted his contemporary politics using theological framework. Though he may not have seen himself as a theologian, classically understood within the Christian tradition, he is perceived by others as the seminal figure in the discourse on political theology. That was my rationale and why I think it makes sense to include the category. --Caorongjin (talk) 10:17, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond My Ken, this edit violates WP:3RR. I suggest that you self-revert. I am happy to stop reverting given the lack of consensus for or against including the category, but you need to stop reverting as well. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:57, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Since FKC was edit warring to keep the category in on the false grounds that there was a consensus to do so (i.e. 1 editor added it, 1 (FKC) restored it = 2, while only 1 (me) removed it), with Maunus's comment, it's now 2 to 2, so there's no longer a consensus as FKC defines it, so I've reverted it again.
The reason FKC's criteria is false is that WP:BRD calls for the article to remain in the status quo ante during discussion (i.e. no category), and consensus is not determined on a minute-by-minute basis. Please leave the article as it is until a real consensus is determined in this discussion, at which time the category can be re-added, if that's what consensus says. Beyond My Ken (talk)
Even if there is a sound rationale for removing the category you should not have violated WP:3RR to do so. Again, you should consider self-reverting. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:03, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The point of having categories called "theologian" is to be able to find people who are theologians (i.e. have a theological degree or have contributed to the field of theology enough that other theologians consider them to be so). Schmitt's book "Political theology" is not as far as I can see a contribution to theology at all, but rather a contribution to political theory. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:24, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Maunus: We have not added the category "theologian" to this article. The term "political theology" as conventionally understood is chiefly associated with Schmitt, which would make this categorization more than appropriate. Your opinion about whether a book you haven't read is a contribution to one or another discipline is irrelevant. I have chosen to revert because the previous user violated 3RR. Endymion.12 (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Political theologians" is a subcategory of "theologians".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:59, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Endymion: Please provide a citation from a reliable source to support the contention that "The term 'political theology' as conventionally understood is chiefly associated with Schmitt". Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:32, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Endymion.12: Fix ping. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:33, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Further reading[edit]

Two of the sources recommended here (that I know of) are by far right authors—Alain de benoist and Paul gottfried. OK, maybe they belong here given the subject, but it seems sketchy to me. It’s not mainstream scholarship. 72.95.130.125 (talk) 10:50, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Schmitt "excommunicated"[edit]

[Moved from above] -BMK

Persons attempting a second marriage while a spouse lives are not usually described as 'excommunicated' -- at least not in Queensland (where I am) today, so far as my experience goes.

People who attempt such a marriage would have been told in the !930s 'Don't come to the sacraments even if you are not involved in marital relations, since your coming to the sacraments would bring grave scandal (except, of course, in the hour of death.) Nick_cool (talk) 07:44, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a good idea to use the way things are done now as a guide to the way they were done in other historical periods. Schmitt's second marriage took place almost 100 years ago. The Roman Catholic Church certainly does not change its rituals and policies at the drop of a hat, but it does change them nonetheless. If a WP:Reliable source says that Schmitt was excommunicated because he remarried without having his first marriage annuled, then that's what we report. What the Church does today is really not relevant to this article.
If you believe that the source cited (The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz, page 57) is not a reliable source by our definition (unlikely, as -- according to our article -- she is a historian specializing in Nazi Germany), or that the book does not say that Schmitt was excommunicated, please present evidence to support that conjecture. which is not based on your personal experience. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:34, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

significance[edit]

I cite "but its value and significance are controversial, mainly due to his intellectual support for and active involvement with Nazism".

If Schmitt's value is indeed controversial, I don't see how his significance could be controversial, it's factual and Schmitt's relations with Nazism don't change the significance of his thought. 62.211.90.151 (talk) 10:28, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you are getting at here. If Schmitt's work has value, it is presumably significant. If it doesn't have value, it might be significant anyway, or it might not. E.g. the flat earth theory is scientifically wrong and maybe of not much value, but one can say it is historically significant. So the sentence you quote seems ok to me. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 23:33, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Potentially misleading introductory sentence?[edit]

I've just witnessed a conversation between people who were discussing something Carl Schmitt said and one of them hadn't heard of him before. That person looked up his name and the first thing they saw was "Carl Schmitt... was a German jurist, political theorist, geopolitician and prominent member of the Nazi Party." After this, they stopped reading and discredited everything the other person was saying.

I worry that for people who are just looking at this article in a relatively brief glance, referring to Schmitt as simply "a prominent member of the Nazi Party" within the first sentence sells him short and doesn't take note of the fact that he was disgraced from the party later on, as further elaborated elsewhere in the article. It also does not take into account that many historians across the political spectrum value his analysis far more than they would some bog standard raving antisemite. I think this sentence should be rewritten with less strong language so laymen aren't prone to respond the way that person did. 47.36.253.211 (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean but it's hard to say that the lede should be changed. If someone mentally shuts down when they see the word "Nazi" (or any other word), they are going to miss some stuff. Do you have a proposed rewrite? The SEP quote at the end of the lede section seems suitably nuanced to me. It says basically that Schmitt made some interesting points even though his conclusion (Naziism) was quite bad. I heard of Schmitt through the Boston Review article linked below, which I could interpret in about the same way. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 23:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Boston Review article[edit]

[1] This was interesting so I'm posting the link here in case anyone wants to use it in the article. It's way outside my area so I won't attempt this myself, at least for now. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 11:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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