Carl Schmitt and the Idol of the State
In the debates over the Iraq War, one of the things I have noted time and time again is that Catholic defenders of that war have often said that it was the sovereign of the state who determines when the standards for when the requirements for a just war have been met. This is because it is the sovereign who decides when to go to war. The assumption, of course, is that if a sovereign decides when to go to war, it is because they are looking at just war standards, recognize them as significant, and seek to follow them out. Obviously, as history has shown, this is not the case. Nonetheless, what is interesting is that this line of thinking is strikingly similar to that of Carl Schmitt with one distinction: Schmitt denies the just war tradition. In other words, he reveals the real nature of these debates — that the whole concern is to help defend the state over and against all rivals, including morality, and so that when the state becomes sovereign, just war doctrine must be put aside.
Schmitt bases his understanding of politics on the division between friend and fiend (foe). The point is that every state defines for itself who it sees as its friend, and who it sees as its foe. The foe must be one who is, in some fashion or another, working against the state’s interests. The state, to Schmitt, then has a right to act upon its self-interests, and so must oppose the foe.[1] From here, it is clear where and how war comes into the situation: war is one of the primary means to protect the state’s interests, and since the state’s interest is what matters, the state must be free to engage war when it sees the need. “War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy. It is the most extreme consequence of enmity. It does not have be common, normal, something ideal, or desirable. But it must nevertheless remain a real possibility for as long as the concept of enemy remains valid.”[2]And it must not be hampered by the idea of the just war. Either one sees one’s war as just and so the rules are met because the state is defending itself, or else, the call for a just war is merely enemy political provocation trying to undermine the power of the state:
The notions which postulate a just war usually serve a political purpose. To demand of a politically united people that it wage war for a just cause only is either something self-evident, if it means that war can be risked only against a real enemy, or it is a hidden political aspiration of some other party to wrest from the state its jus belli and to find norms of justice whose content and application in the concrete case is not decided upon by the state, but by another party, and thereby it determines who the enemy is.[3]
If a state does this, then “it is no longer a politically free people and is absorbed into another political system.”[4] The whole point of war is that it is a struggle against an enemy. Justice is not a concern, because it is war. The only thing which counts is the political entity and its continued self-determination. “The justification of war does not reside in its being fought for ideals or norms of justice, but in its being fought against a real enemy.”[5] The state protects its people, and therefore obliges them to follow its demand.[6] And it is for this reason no one but the sovereign has the power to determine war, and no external figure, such as the pope, has any authority to override the sovereign’s decision.[7]
What is striking here is that Schmitt puts the foundation of the state within the dualistic “with us or against us” notion that we see in many current political debates. He even sees this is the necessary consequent of evil in humanity. This evil is part of what it means to be human, that humanity can, in one fashion, be said to be innately evil. This, he says, must lead us to reject liberalism and its ideals of the innate goodness of humanity.[8] And like such debates, Schmitt silences objections to war based upon justice as being merely enemy propaganda. Indeed, the recognition of a domestic enemy is important: when the group is large, the state itself is threatened and can dissolve into civil war, and so for this reason, it too must be overcome before such a threat to the state can come about.[9]
It might be asked, does the friend-enemy distinction remain as necessity in the world; can there be, for example, some universal humanity which overrides this distinction? Schmitt clearly and in several places says no. The foundation for this is the belief that the friend-enemy distinction will arise due to the fact that the evil within humanity ends up creating such political hostility. And if this is recognized, then the political state is recognized and must be given the freedom to establish its own self-preservation and interests against its opposition. While evil is a factor in the creation of the world as it is, it is clear that he believes that questions of morality fall to the side when the struggle becomes intense. The enemy need not be seen as evil, just the one you are in conflict with — he is someone utterly foreign to yourself which leads to that conflict:
But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third part.[10]
Schmitt, we see, has provided a rather concrete way to justify conflict and war. He also has given an understanding where such conflict can come from: radical difference. It is not surprising that this form of radical differentiation and fear of the other is indeed a normative position within the classical right. Hobbes, to be sure, has played a strong role in this development, because he established political sovereignty as the one who protects against the onslaught of natural evil in the world. It is this fight against evil and the fear of the other which finds itself as the central justification of all kinds of actual evil in the world — because natural evil is seen as needing to be controlled by any means necessary, and morality is no longer the concern in such control. War is hell and unjust, but it is for the sake of self-preservation, which is why anything the sovereign desires can be permitted (and indeed, as the struggle continues, the more likely the conflict will spiral out of control and fall into graver evils, each side justifying such a spiral by the actions of the other). It is not difficult for us to see how this ideology has been used. It establishes the unity between the preservation of the state with the radical destruction of the enemy. Genocide bases itself on these notions. Fascists, though they would be critical of some of what Schmitt said, nonetheless accorded him great respect (and he himself gave that respect back to the state, becoming an adherent of the Nazi Party).[11] And if we look at various groups within the United States, such as the Project of the New American Century, we can see these same values are behind the United States and her current actions in the world at large. It is the politics of state-preservation by means of power and control. This explains the heightened sense of propaganda we get about our so-called enemies, how they are always made to look radically different from us –for this helps keep them strange and seen as a hostile force ready to destroy us and our own ways of life.
Catholics must not accept this radical politicization of humanity. While Catholics are to recognize the authority of their secular leaders, that authority must not be made absolute. It is relative and must always be put under a moral critique. To argue that the state is the one who decides when a war is just is to place the state outside of the realm of morality. This cannot be. This runs contrary to the Church’s teaching on morality, as the Catechism points this out:[12]
Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, ‘authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse’ (CCC 1903).
This is why one must resist one’s sovereign when they override morality and ask someone to commit a great evil like genocide:
Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.
Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide (CCC 2313).
There can be no better answer to Schmitt or many contemporary politicians than these words. The state is not absolute. The state, though it has authority, is only relative. The absolutizing of the authority of the state, though understandable, is idolatry. Wherever it is found, it must be rejected.
Footnotes
[1] “Emotionally the enemy is treated as being evil and ugly, because every distinction, most of all the political, as the strongest and most intense of the distinctions and categorizations, draws upon other distinctions for support,” Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political. Trans. George Schwab (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 27.
[2] ibid., 33.
[3] ibid., 49.
[4] ibid., 49.
[5] ibid., 49.
[6] see ibid., 52. Hobbes is referenced here to support this proposition.
[7] see ibid., 43.
[8] Both sides of the debate are a bit off here. While it is true that sin and evil have entered the world, and the human experience has been corrupted by this, it is not human nature which is evil (for the nature is good), it is the mode of our existence which is fallen and corrupt. So while he is right in saying sin should be considered in the engagement of the world, his understanding of humanity contains an unhealthy ontological error.
[9] see ibid., 46-7.
[10] ibid., 27.
[11] The argument here is not that because Schmitt was a Nazi, therefore everything he said was wrong, or that anything which is similar to his thought is necessarily wrong. It is, however, to show the way his thought leads when put into action.
[12] For a further examination of this subject via the Catechism, read Bishop Botean’s acceptance speech for the Saint Marcellus Award of the Catholic Peace Fellowship Fall Conference in 2003.
Comments are closed.
While I agree with your overall analysis of Schmitt, I would question your assumption in this article that we as Catholics have anything but a provisional obligations to the powers that be. We are not true citizens of the world, but are God’s spies, sent into the land of Canaan to prepare for the conquest of the new Joshua, to whom all power in heaven and earth has been given, and who shall break with a rod of iron the kings of the earth like a potters vessel.
Red Maistre:
When you say, “I would question your assumption in this article that we as Catholics have anything but a provisional obligations to the powers that be,” I think that is similar to the point of:
While Catholics are to recognize the authority of their secular leaders, that authority must not be made absolute. It is relative and must always be put under a moral critique.
There would be a few differences — because when you say “we are not true citizens of the world,” I would say yes and no, depending upon what you mean by that. This world is created by God and will be in the eschaton, which is why we pray for the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”
But you treat as a given, for practice through not admittly for future eschatological hope, that Caesar must always reign on earth, though you may qualify it all you want as a relative sovereignty or not. The second conquest of the Promised Land has already begun: We must overthrow Gog and Magog wherever we can, not bargain with them.
When I say that we are not true citizens, I mean that citizenship is a providential disguise, a mask, that should be used only insofar as the aim of the establishment of the kingdom may be achieved. I am free to throw it away at any time when the moment is ripe to assassinate Caesar, not to praise him.
RedMaistre,
The big difference is for me is that we are to be bearers of grace, to perfect nature not destroy it. I strong disagree with a violent revolutionary system, but see the true path is the path of the cross, which is of self-giving and servitude, not assassination.
[The angel standing in the sun said]“Come,gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who sits upon the horse and against his army…[After the Final Battle] And the rest [the kings of the earth and their armies] were slain by the sword of him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
Revelation 19:17-22
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword!”
Matthew 10:34
Who said the way of the Cross must be separated always from the Sword ? The Church does knowledge the existence of Just Wars; why not then Just Wars for the establishment of the Kingdom ? The Church has canonized soldiers as Saints (most notable St.Joan) and acknowledged the righteousness of their calling (in the Catechism, among other places); why then can one not be a Christian and a armed revolutionary ? Finally, you imply that I advocate the destruction of nature, not its perfection; why is destroying the power of exploitative, arrogant, and oppressive ruling classes not perfecting nature ?
Would you say that if the people of China, to take an example that cries to the high heavens, were to finally take up the sword and fight for their freedom from the dominion of the ruling party , they should be condemned as not being servile enough ?
RedMaistre
We could get into a large discussion on peace, interpretation of Scripture verses, etc. This would take a lot of time and energy. I would recommend you look at some of my posts on war and peace on here, and you would begin to see how I would respond to this. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. We must remember he does not come to bring peace the same way as “the world” sees peace — but how does the world see peace is brought? Through power, i.e., the sword. This goes with various prophets who contend against the rules of Israel for their belief that weapons of warfare are soteriological. As for the sword, a patristic interpretation is that Christ has come for us to put to the internal sword the passions, to cut off sin.
I am familiar with the Patristic interpretation of the “sword” you mentioned, as well as many of the others which interpret it as anything else except an actual sword. And I agree with all them, for the meanings of Scripture are endless, as several Fathers and theologians would attest to. However, my reading of it as a validation of armed struggle for the kingdom is also true, as is validated by the Scriptural interpretation of it provided by the Apocalypse of John, a key passage of which I quoted in my prior postings (Which is the return of the repressed legacy of militant opposition to all challengers to the true Kingdom of Israel which a constant theme of the Old Testament).
Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and His peace will be radically different from that of the world. But how it is achieved is up to our prudential judgement as the church, his body, depending on the circumstances facing us. Sometimes pacificism is the way, sometimes the sword. “All things are permitted, but not all things are equally useful” in all times and places.This hold true of war just as must as peace, I grant that much, but the advocate of peace should acknowledge as much as well.
“A time for peace a time for war”.
RedMaistre
As I said, I do not plan to go back and forth with Scriptural interpretation — but I would suggest a fundamentalist-literalist interpretation of the Apocalyse!
Sorry, can you explain what you mean by suggesting I be more of literalist and fundamentalist in reading the Book of Revelation ? Unless you are being sarcastic, in which case I would like to emphasis I do not subscribe to fundamentalism as a school of Scriptural interpretation. If you think that I am being a defacto follower of it, direct me to where I can be disabused of my “literalist” illusions.
And my apologies if I have been or come across as rude or overbearing in my postings on your article.
Again, it is not here nor there to get into a Scripture debate, but look to how you took the passage from the Apocalypse. You seem to take it at face value without contemplating the spiritual message behind the text; as St Paul said, we war not with flesh and blood — that must be put into the equation when interpreting texts such as the Apocalypse, which is, as a text, symbolic about the ever-present conflict between light and darkness. It is not calling us to battle, indeed, Scripture consistently says otherwise, and early Christians said otherwise. No one took arms against Rome. The path is not the path of the literal sword.
Not to, as you say, get into a Scripture debate here, but I want to make it clear that I subscribe fully to the spiritual interpretations you gesture towards; I simply do not view them as incompatible with an ontic meaning, the interpretion of the sword as the (possibility) of armed struggle with the kings of the world.
The fact that the early Christians pursued one strategy of combating the worldly culture that surrounded them, is simply to say they lived out one strategy of living out the way of the Cross. Other strategies are possible, Other strategies are necessary, in different times and circumstances.
The early Christians followed the strategy of life as shown through the cross; what happened is that the world, which is what you are contending against, convinced many to follow the path of the world against the world. That is the problem. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. The text is not meant as a call to arms. Of course how we approach the world might require prudence; but that does not open up all things as possible.
One can use the sword, and not live by it, if one lives instead by the grace of Christ. And to those who live by the grace of Christ, all things are permitted, though not all are equal useful, according to the times, places, and circumstances.