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Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty Paperback – January 15, 2006
| Carl Schmitt (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Focusing on the relationships among political leadership, the norms of the legal order, and the state of political emergency, Schmitt argues in Political Theology that legal order ultimately rests upon the decisions of the sovereign. According to Schmitt, only the sovereign can meet the needs of an "exceptional" time and transcend legal order so that order can then be reestablished. Convinced that the state is governed by the ever-present possibility of conflict, Schmitt theorizes that the state exists only to maintain its integrity in order to ensure order and stability. Suggesting that all concepts of modern political thought are secularized theological concepts, Schmitt concludes Political Theology with a critique of liberalism and its attempt to depoliticize political thought by avoiding fundamental political decisions.
- Print length70 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
- Publication dateJanuary 15, 2006
- Dimensions8.48 x 6.72 x 0.41 inches
- ISBN-100226738892
- ISBN-13978-0226738895
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- Publisher : University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (January 15, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 70 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0226738892
- ISBN-13 : 978-0226738895
- Item Weight : 6.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.48 x 6.72 x 0.41 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #134,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #166 in European Politics Books
- #269 in Political Philosophy (Books)
- #566 in History & Theory of Politics
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We will not allow Germany . . .
A few years later, Political Theology by Carl Schmitt was published in the original German. An English translation was published in 1985, when there was less reason for Americans to panic. Then in 2005 Tracy B. Strong had some comments to add about key themes that make death camps one of the ideas which made Germans seem so weird to ordinary people. Understanding whiplash is easiest for those who can picture the collective thinking of millions of people weho profoundly hate anything that is not ordinary. At this point, the worst thing that could happen to this book would be a result of falling into the hands of readers who imagine that a confederacy will be able to make its way from Gettysburg to a green zone by clinging to a flassh bang gravy train monetary incestuality.
As a holy Samson anachronism, for a thousand years I have been resisting therapy whenever those who have been victorious in a political matter wish to turn my life around. I believe Carl Schmitt is concerned about the collective thiking of society when he considers a radical party taking over a government which attempts to have security and order by declaring that anyone who does not conform to the norms of a legal system is criminal and needs to be wiped out for domestic peace to prevail. Concentration camps were designed for millions of people within the lifetime of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) and certain aspects of death camps have remained as an option for a pismire empire lurking in monetary incestuality over electronic financial transactions.
Character is fate, according to Heraclitus, or funny, if you can believe the aspects of Sex and Character (1903) by Otto Weininger that Freud attributed to the unconscious.
Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles
Psychopathology of Everyday Life
To update how weird law can become as a norm, ask yourself: who ever knows the reasons when we are having a war on drugs because being stoned is like sturdy turds flying standby?
Carl Schmitt was concerned about law as a norm that did not specify whose decision whould be competent on matters that have interesting exceptions. This book quotes Repetition by Kierkegaard on the intensity of these matters for those who do not drift helplessly on rivers of drivel:
Endless talk about the general
becomes boring. . . .
The exception, on the other hand,
thinks the general with intense passion. (Schmitt, p. 15).
Hollywood is a better indication of how people picture dynamic changes of circumstance for which no law has prepared society to render a competent decision. The Cranberries might even be considered political when they sing a song about Hollywood . The index of Political Theology does not mention Hollywood, which was not as important as Hobbes to Carl Schmitt in Germany in 1922, or later in November, 1933, when he added a few comments about the interests fully recognized within the law:
in addition to the normativist
and the decisionist types there
is an institutional one. (p. 2, Preface).
And whereas the normativist in
his distortion makes of law a
mere mode of operation of a state
bureauracracy, and the decisionist,
focusing on the moment, always runs
the risk of missing the stable content
inherent in every great political
movement, an isolated institutional
thinking leads to the pluralism
characteristic of a feudal-corporate
growth that is devoid of sovereignty. (p. 3).
The formless mixture, unsuitable for any
structure, was no match for any serious
problem concerning state and constitution. (p. 3)
I like finding comments in Political Theory about how Max Weber expected bureaucracy to take over all the things that could be directed as a matter of administrative routine, but secularization was whiplash when people were tired of hearing leaders talk about great things that never happened, as always came to mean never for actuality in place of virtuality.
Secularization of theology, trying to transfer a raging desire for psychotic multiplicity in all things into a rule that can govern hundreds of millions of people by exposing them only to information for home entertainment purposes, with heavy fines and jail time for individuals who copy and distribute files without owning the right to make the big bucks that are wished for with popularity, seems like a weird form of purity or unity for my holy Samson anachronism and the Martin Luther Stonehood of rock and roll. As a routine, law has become as ossiferous as the contrast between a person and an idea:
. . . all conceptions of personality were aftereffects of absolute monarchy. (p. 30).
In a few pages at the end, the rational kinds of thinking Max Weber promoted for American financiers and industrial technicians are considered a success. The free markets that make the marginal thinking of millionaires and billionaires what government can function as a lavatory cleaning up only surfs on waves of social splatology when the world is up against:
the biased rule of politics over
unbiased economic management be
done away with. There must no longer
be political problems, only
organizational-technical and
economic-sociological tasks. (p. 65).
I am still resisting therapy. The notion of legitimacy has been dissolved, and no exacting moral decision can ever be expected to be created out of nothingness.
Ideas
Political Theology, like many of his most famous works, was written during a prolific period of his life in Weimar Germany. Indeed, this book bears the marks and concerns of the fragile political system in which he lived. Disenchanted with parliamentary democracy and the legal reasoning of his time, Schmitt develops in this book a devastatingly sharp critique of liberal democracy and legal normativism--a critque which has become very pertinent to our current political climate (2006).
In place of this, Schmitt probes into the historical and ideological framework of the state and politics so as to discover its essential characteristics, which he argues is defined and circumscribed by the exception. In short, the exception is a moment of true decision by a soveriegn, by which the legal norm is created. For, as the famous opening lines of the book proclaim, "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception."
Translation and Introduction
Now, George Schwab has done an excellent translation of this work so as to make it clear and readable. As such, I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in Carl Schmitt, early 20th century political theory, Weimar Germany, or recent political works by Giorgio Agamben and Chantal Mouffe. Moreover, I also recommend reading the foreword and introduction, which provide a clear and succint overview of Schmitt's political theory.
Lastly, Schmitt's works are not very accessible to a quick reading. I recommend going over this book very carefully and thoroughly--best not before bedtime. I would also recommend his other works. I have found Schmitt to be terribly and sometimes frightfully insightful and believe that his ideas are essential to understanding modern political institutions, practices, and ideology.
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thanks
quick postage too




