Public lecture: Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political [1927] – John Keane

you as all of you Marta no there's too many academic events during 120 animals Oh chicken would be among them is that we are delighted to in water and we're doing the in scholar public intellectual in the Western world we TV we should be voting with John King to visiting again during Johnson this will be the to Peking University here when he was there and they were four lectures on Western conception of course actually he okay for his comments on for favors Western political caucus Carson is the concept of political ha ha ha Allen's the human condition microfocus the history of sexuality and Nadia movie that is the 2018 democracy today his first lecture about culture with the concept of the political vertical making two lectures maybe could be you don't like kasnia [Music] however will you like or dislike you can't miss him if you are political fodder for students who are really interested in projects why because Kashmir wrote the published in huge numbers of articles essays and books that are deeply influential not only in Germany but in the world events including in China and not only in the 1930s and the 1940s even in nowadays Kashmir is Locarno lightly to be a German to list and political theorists for me first of all he is the protocol philosophy for his most important workers about party's power so many democracy dictatorship Constitution and so on unfortunately cosmetic was German National Socialist series was not a series he joined the Nazi Party on May sure do yes it was appointed the editor-in-chief of who NASA's official newspaper for lawyers the Deutscher Joosten title or in english german to distant German in 1914 in 1945 Carson was captured by American force and after spending one then weigh more than more than one year in an internment camp and then returned to his hometown afterwards Hospital actually lost his job because he refused the area 10 that deep Nassif occasionally function just defeat Nazi potentially soldiers or deep massification so he knows - his job his life has a full of ups and downs but it's very interesting he has a long life well I wanted to say our that yawen Chang how to everybody and I wanted also to say Fei Chong wrong scene Nang lie down Veda - way a little bit and I also wanted to say a very warm CC me to Professor you I also wanted to thank the School of Government for their support and also students and members of the School of Government and also IHSS that has made my visit to made our possible friends and colleagues I want to bring you from the West some feelings for the Shakespearean quality of our times I am not sure if you're very well aware of this but there is a sense that is beginning to deepen in the Atlantic region in particular that these are not normal times that nothing seems certain what will trump do next is a topic that is discussed almost every day by millions of people this is a period in which there is a sense of an end of an era it's as if something new is being born but it is not clear what is being born well whether there will be a return to normality which growing numbers of people think is unlikely this is a period that doesn't make much sense not only to political thinkers but also to many millions of people this is a period in which there are many surprises things are happening that nobody expected would happen these are times that seem out of joint it's not just that political thinking is behind the times having been caught so to say unawares but this is a period in which many strange things are happening that are too strange even to think it's in this context in this Shakespearean moment as I'm calling it that the question of politics of juncture of political life of juncture Shang wall how about that beginning to appear important you may have read in the notes for these lectures that this concern with politics with the political has become deeply controversial of course there are groups organizations and networks that find themselves becoming political this would be the way for example that hashtag me to activists are talking in our times all the way that black lives matter in the United States are talking all the victories for abortion the right of women to freely abort their pregnancies just decided in Ireland activists citizen activists feeling sure that these are the times where one must become political these are also times in which the word politics juncture is a dirty word and this dirtiness of the word politics you can find for example in the politics of all populism Trump brexit mahine lepen in France the cinque stella in italy Duterte audubon cut in ski I mean there are growing numbers of cases of populism where not only the leaders but also the are followers of this new populism denounce politics they say that everything is political that the parties are political that politics is dirty and that for this reason there needs to be a change and finally ladies and gentlemen there are peoples in this period who turn their back on politics there is a very strongly anti political tendency where people put their finger up and say I hate politics I'm sick of politics everything is political you cannot trust the politicians they say one thing they do another they lie they and so on I don't want to be involved in politics in any sense and for example I will not vote and I will concentrate on pleasures shopping family life and other such anti political activities it's this context this embattled context where the word politics has become controversial that I thought ought to be the topic a good topic for these four lectures at Bader what I want to do is to explore four ways of thinking about politics four different ways of thinking about politics ways of thinking about politics that seem to be contradictory and are often in deep tension with one another the methods that I want to use tonight and in the next three lectures could be called something like an engaged anthropology of these ways of thinking I want to look at authors I want to look at texts such as this by Carl Schmidt dear backer if this politician the concept of the political I want to talk about the contexts in which these texts were written I want to look at their legacies what was the longer term consequences of these texts I want in this engaged anthropology I would like to encourage you to do what Claude lévi-strauss once called expatriation I want you to feel that your own views about politics here in China are made strange that you begin to question your conventional understanding of politics to see that these Western conceptions of politics are other are different they may well overlap with traditions of political thinking in China but they have a certain strangeness to them and all along in these lectures you will see that I reveal slowly but surely something of my own way of thinking about politics and the ways in which my own life's work has been shaped by these four texts tonight as you know my subject is Cal Smith and professor U has very generously set the context has given us something of a thumbnail sketch of Carl Schmitt if we were in Germany imagine now this room would already be full of tension it is actually as I know from my time in Berlin it remains the topic of calm it remains deeply controversial and rooms are divided immediately when the discussion of Carl Schmitt happens so luckily we are in Beijing and we can we can more calmly look at this text think about this text think about the context in which it's written and think about its meaning the context of the book has some similarities with our moment this Shakespearean moment because the context of the book written in the middle of the 1920s revised in 1932 just before May Day 1933 when the Nazis are in power and Schmidt joins the National Socialist Party the period is a period of great disorder in the German context there is not only the Bolshevik Revolution there is not only the ending of World War two and the Treaty of Versailles which is which is received bitterly in important circles in Germany this is a period in which in Munich there has been an attempted revolution the takeover of the city a strike by students and workers this is a period in which ante parliamentarism greatly is on the rise there is much talk about the importance of anarchism anarcho-syndicalism and of course already elsewhere in Europe and beginning in Germany is the beginning of a fascist of fascist movements and the first fascist government formed in in Italy under Mussolini it's in this context that the crown jurist of the Third Reich as Kyle Schmitt is often called writes and publishers this classic text the concept of the political it's a very important text from from it much can be learned I want to try to persuade you tonight it is a text that you may find disagreeable it's a harsh text it has bitter things to say about human nature it is written secretly I think from a Catholic standpoint culture MIT until his early 20s was a devout Catholic he had a Catholic upbringing he subsequently rejected Catholicism but the traces I think of Catholicism you can find in this work as I shall point out in just a moment and this is a book that is passionately engaged with the political times it's a style of political thinking that is not so to say platonic it has a sense of urgency about it it has a sense that writing about politics really matters in this context and can help shape the outcomes of what is perceived by Schmitt to be a crisis so I want to do in the next 40 minutes also what I would like to do is 7 things I would like to introduce you to 7 themes that run through this book I want to say a few words about liberalism I want to say something about the spiritual crisis of liberalism as Schmitt calls it I want to say some remarks about mean true democracy Carl Schmitt understanding of minjoo I want to talk about his concept of the total state not totalitarian but total state I want to speak about in some detail about what he means by the political I want to say a few words about sovereignty and I want finally to say something about dictatorship this is quite a lot fasten your safety belts and let's have some fun thinking this through and of course if I'm if I stick to time we have a chance to have a Q&A let me begin first of all with liberalism liberalism you will find if you read this text which is translated into Chinese yes I think you will find immediately that there is a dislike a deep dislike of liberalism that runs through this work of Carl Schmidt Schmidt has in this book a rough historical narrative once upon a time in the period of monarchy of absolute monarchies in Europe it's very Eurocentric this book once upon a time there were absolutist monarchies where there was a sense that the state was important in the structuring of people's lives then came the ear of liberalism 19th century Europe is seen by Schmitt as the era of the triumph of liberalism and what now is happening according to Schmidt is the slow destruction the decline of liberalism the crisis of liberalism what does he mean by liberalism liberalism according to Schmidt has a dislike of state power yes it sees the need for Parliament's it sees the need for judiciary's it sees the need for bureaucracy all of this you can find for example in John Stuart Mill's writings the great English liberal of the middle of the nineteenth century but the point of these institutions Seche MIT is to protect the individual the property owning individual the bourgeois he has almost in this text a Marxian understanding of liberalism what is liberalism it is a way of political thinking an ideology so to say that is about the private individual who enjoys property and freedom from the state in Isaiah Berlin's classic distinction liberalism is a doctrine of negative liberties of freedom from the state during the course of this text you will see that Schmitt speaks about Bentham and Gazoo and Benjamin constant who he thinks is perhaps the classic the classic scoundrel the person most responsible for spreading inventing and spreading the doctrine of liberalism and he wants to say in this text that liberalism actually thinks that life can be structured by money and talk money because the bourgeois the liberal is a possessive individualist someone who likes property who knows about business about commodity production and exchange and for whom money is all-important there is a kind of worshipping of money by liberals says Schmitt and liberalism also believes that when it comes to resolving disputes talk free discussion open discussion is the best means of resolving disputes among human beings in this respect Schmitt says Hegel was right when Hegel in the philosophy of right speaks about liberals and liberalism about the bourgeois he correctly says Schmitt portrays them as someone hiding away from violence and death hiding away from struggle believing that a minimal state that the rule of law that Parliament which is a place where discussion happens and where decisions are taken that all of this can in effect are produced the good society that protects the individual in this respect Parliament Parliament's are a very important institution to liberalism because the essence of liberalism is negotiation as Schmitt says what happens in a parliament there is much talk there is negotiation about laws and there are agreements that are struck not using weapons not using force but using words so liberalism outside Parliament is in love with money and inside Parliament it is in love with words with the freedom of communication discussion leads to truth at one point Schmitt quotes Jeremy Bentham who says that inside Parliament's there are a sparks of discussion and out of these sparks alike electrical sparks of discussion appears the truth so it is through it is through open free and fair discussion that the truth of things is revealed here I would point out that Jurgen Habermas and the whole idea of deliberative democracy would be seen by Schmitt if he were still alive he would be he would be a hundred and I don't know 145 or something like this would see that this doctrine of Jurgen Habermas of rational communication and this version of democracy deliberative democracy are actually rooted in 19th century liberalism it would be his critical way of understanding what liberalism is and its continuing influence he points out that on Parliament's have a number of mechanisms a number of procedures to ensure the force of the better argument prevails there are rules of parliamentary discussion there are such mechanisms as the right of a conscience vote there is the freedom of political parties inside the Parliament to organize and to negotiate deals and there are he doesn't mention this there are strange customs such as are the principle of stranger in the house I don't know if you know this principle it was invoked by Churchill a number of times when a parlor in Parliament someone a politician calls out there is a stranger in the house it means there is someone in the public gallery who should be removed from the house because they are not see or they are somehow you know they don't belong in the house these are strange customs and what Carl Schmidt teaches us in this book is that these parliamentary procedures are part an important part of 19th century liberalism in action and they are fueled so to say by the spirit of money of private property of individualism of possessive individualism and of the belief in the force of the better argument in rational discussion this is the first point I think there are criticisms to be made of this representation of liberalism but we can discuss them during question-and-answer period the second point in this text schmidt and in a couple of subsequent texts points to what he calls a spiritual crisis of liberalism and parliamentary procedures his use of the word spirit is actually I think taken from Montesquieu Montesquieu the great French political thinker some say one of the earliest political scientists in Europe argued that every form of government is infused with founded on a spirit you know monarchy is founded on the spirit of belief in kings and queens and the unbroken continuity of of royalty liberalism is founded says Schmitt on money and and words what he wants to say is that this is a period writing in the 1920s where liberalism is beginning to collapse and he was right about this surely his argument is that there are several sources of his crisis he thinks that for instance the clash of political parties which is becoming intense this is a period where there are mass parties for the first time in the modern world that resemble battle machines that begin to tear apart parliamentary institutions that begin to produce great divisions in public discussion he is speaking here of course about the rise of organized labor movements and Social Democratic parties and of course with the Bolshevik Revolution the birth of communist parties and also anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist trends so the belief of liberals that politics can be removed from public life that harmony can come from the free market and from open public discussion breaks down under these pressures and this leads a Schmitt to concentrate in this text for some pages thirdly this is my third topic on minjoo on democracy his understanding of democracy is unusual we could say what he wants to say is that democracy is a way of thinking a style of action that pays respect to the people that talks about the importance of equality that produces great leaders who speak about the people who speak about the importance of equality and the need to develop a homogeneous society this is not for example Alexi two top fields understanding of democracy but let's put this aside for discussion it is rather that according to Schmidt there is a clash between the spirit of democracy and the spirit of liberalism liberalism is committed to the individual to freedom from the state to private property to freedom of speech and assembly democracy is committed according to Schmidt in this book democracy is committed to the use of state power to empower the people for example this is evident in the demand for unemployment insurance for pensions for the working class for the right to a job the right to full employment backed by the state and what Schmidt wants to say is that these democratic pressures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and of the 1920s these Democratic pressures are working in favor of the building up of state power and this building up of state power is against liberalism because liberalism is for the weak state liberalism is for the small state according to Schmidt and in his definition of democracy you will find that Schmidt draws upon Aristotle Aristotle says that in democracies justice is considered to mean equality so equality principle very important for democracy it means equality but Aristotle observes equality for some but not for others here there is a strange twist in the thinking of Carl Schmitt and it's important to understand this twist because it helps to explain why it is that he joined the Nazi Party according to Schmidt the Democrat is someone who believes in the Equality of a political community and the exclusion of others for example at the territorial state level democracy means that all those who are citizens of that state are equals this is a struggle against the rich in support of the poor but democracy means the exclusion of others outside that territorial state this is a strange paradox of democracy according to Smith and it helps to explain some passages where for example he says that the British Empire is democratic the British Empire is democratic it has extended democratic rights at home and to some colonies like Italia and Canada but it rules as a colonial power over others and he says that this is perfectly consistent with democracy because if the principle of equality was extended for example to colored people then the Empire could not last it's a very strange way of thinking but it is in this sense Smits characteristic understanding of democracy which he draws also from jean-jacques Rousseau so when Rousseau says that the perfect democracy the pure democracy is where all citizens are equal and where all are guided by love voluntary Nahal the general will they're guided by the rule that there should be unanimity they should be agreement mutual agreement in the polity this is democracy this Schmidt says is indeed correct and it helps explain why Schmidt is prepared to say that the Jacobin period in France was democratic and why he says that Bolshevism is democratic and why he would soon see and say that fascism is democratic these are all forms of democracy that praise the people that that that yearned for homogeneity for equality through a strong leader a strong leader is perfectly compatible with democracy I should mention here that there are today thinkers of populism who claim that Kyle Schmidt remains alive and well that couch mitt is in a way of the theorists of the new populism we can discuss that during Q & A so under pressure from democracy same it liberalism declines it decays it enters a spiritual crisis and institutions such as Parliament begin no longer to function and what appears and here I come to the fourth point is what Schmitt calls in the concept of the political book the totosh that the total state the total state this has often been misunderstood as his defense of totalitarianism a word which is invented in the early 1920s and for example used freely by Mussolini watch MIT instead understands is that thanks to democracy are the German Reich other polities are moving towards the building up of state power in support of welfare policies laws that can protect workers and the people and this produces a new kind of state more total than for example absolute monarchy more total than the world has ever seen before the total state is now the future according to Smith and in this respect um it finds this exciting he is a champion of this total state and he says in this text when you read it that the total state renders obsolete those political thinkers especially the English he doesn't like how Lasky Neville figures gdh Cole who was based at Oxford for many years Schmidt so to say spits at them he doesn't like them because during the early 20th century these thinkers proposed an end to sovereignty the need to think about the state as only one Association among others I mean that life could be conducted in complex societies through churches through trade unions and through States but States had no primacy Schmitt says that the times are against this way of thinking and he is in particular critical of Otto von Gierke one of the great German political thinkers of association Schmidt says that these dreams of the end of sovereignty of the dismantling of state power are merely dreams that are coming to an end because the specter that confronts the societies of Europe and elsewhere is the specter of the total state of the total state which will of course put an end to class struggle and will put an end to liberalism fifth point we come to the concept of of the political of junk truth what exactly does Schmidt mean by juncture he wants to say that this tendency towards the total state highlights the importance of the juncture of the political so what does he mean by the political what you will find in this text is a critique of what Schmitt calls anthropological optimism he is not a believer in the goodness of human nature actually according to Schmitt Machiavelli was right secretly they he doesn't say this the Pope and the Catholic tradition is right men and women are born evil human beings are wolfish creatures we have the capacity of course to cooperate but when pushed and under certain circumstances we become devilish creatures we lie we maneuver we compete against others and in the extreme situation here is the shocking the shocking part of this text in extreme situations we are violent towards one another and war war is the ultimate act of violence of course he is reflecting on the first global war that has just happened what Schmitt says is that you have to understand that human nature is wolfish that humans are capable of committing devilish acts and at one point in the text he says it's very interesting you know the stories that we teach children fables about animals tell us a lot about human beings for example you know the the story of the wolf and the lamb that sit down together be care if you're a lamb with a wolf he tells us about the stories of the big fish that devour the small fish and he quotes Churchill even in a speech in October 1928 where Churchill speaks against disarmament you know this is a period where there is a public discussion going on in Europe about the meaning of the Great War that has just happened and what to do about it and there are pacifists who are calling for the voluntary reduction of armaments and actually the giving up of weapons and Churchill says that every animal likes to look at its teeth and to say these are simply these are simply instruments for maintaining peace it's a Churchill sarcastic way of saying that even war mongers those who make war pry themselves on being peaceful so Schmidt says we can learn from these fables from these stories because they teach us the essence of juncture of the political the essence is the distinction between friend and enemy in Chinese friend enemy friend and enemy enemy is us is a hard word enemy not just opponent for example you know in in football you have an opponent but enemy is stronger yes ok so essential to politics as a way of living is the distinction between friend and enemy the distinction between friend and enemy is central to the human condition whether you like it or not love charity cooperation can never ultimately prevail Schmidt has this ontology Schmidt has this view of human nature as wolfish as devilish he quotes Machiavelli and others and what he wants to say is that there is in every Association in every organization in every sphere of life the possibility of the friend enemy principle being activated he doesn't say it exactly like this but this is true among friends friends become can become enemies it's true within families it's true within trade unions it's true within churches it's true within other associations and it's certainly true in the field of government so the distinction between friend and enemy is not only ontological it's built into the being of individuals in any polity but it's also so to say phylogenetic that is it is part of the human condition all human beings at any in any time and space context are potentially caught up entangled in this friend enemy distinction and for this reason in this text Schmidt is sarcastic about those people who speak about humanity you know humanity if he had been if he had lived longer when confronted with talk of human rights it Schmitt I think would have laughed human rights what is this you know the belief that humanity is good or that we all have a common humanity this way of thinking sir Schmidt is anti political because the political is centrally concerned with the division between friend and me and it means that the political can ultimately manifest itself it can be displayed in the ultimate act of violence namely war now this way of thinking about this way of thinking about the political has some implications and they are not so obvious and I want to say a few words about these about these implications and there are probably are five implications of this way of thinking about politics first of all Schmitt says you know in political life and in scholarship all words all concepts are political I happen to think he's right about this that is all words all images all concepts all terms have a polemical quality to them words like state republic class sovereignty constitutional state individualism economic planning the total state absolutism all of these key words civil society all of these key words democracy all of them are caught up in power relations and potential conflicts between friends and enemies and I would say that in this respect Schmidt's own text is self-consistent that is what Schmitt is saying is that I am doing battle with my opponents namely liberals and I am making a case for rethinking what politics means and I am making a case for the return of politics that liberalism's attempt to put an end to politics is a failure so there's a polemical quality there's a it's as if about his writing is as if his writing is a weapon a weapon against his opponents second it's a very challenging principle I think it suggests that in political thinking neutrality abstraction from the world pure thinking isn't possible that all thinking that all imagery that all language is itself entangled in the political second he wants to say second implication is that the state the modern territorial state is itself the expression of the political rather than around the other way so the state is not the essence of politics the essence of politics is the friend enemy distinction of which state institutions are an expression a manifestation and he makes the same point when he refers in this text to fajn clouds of its from clouds of its the great German thinker of war said that war is the continuation of politics by other means Schmitt says no this is not this is not a correct way of thinking war is actually an expression of politics it's the ultimate expression of politics third implication is that for Schmitt to repeat the state the modern territorial state happens to be the most important institution of our times it is the most important institution because it is the protector of people against enemies here there is pure Hobbes at work the so-called protection obedience rule in other words the function of the state and those who govern through state institutions is to protect the population and the price of this the condition of this is the obedience of this population because if the population is disobedient if the population rebels against the state then the friend enemy principle comes to work and what happens is there is violence in the extreme case civil war and civil war is to be avoided because of the loss of life so the state is the main guarantor of the friend enemy principle fourth implication you may already be wondering where the couch mitt is it is attracted to any ethics you know what what what are the important ethical principles in life Schmitt does not tell us and he doesn't tell us because he doesn't actually believe that there are any absolute Universal ethical truths or principles the only universal principle is the principle of friend enemy this means that what we say in English we have this expression might makes right that is those who are powerful those who control the state those who have weapons against their enemies are the ones who define what morality is might makes right marked get through erect is the note marked geared for hecht is the german expression power Trump's power goes goes before any talk of moral or ethical right and so um Schmitt says that what counts is good in political life depends on the configuration of the balance of forces between friends and enemies and that's it what is cold good is called good by a certain group a certain cluster of people who to be defining good against enemies and finally fifth implication you should have seen this already violence is an ever-present possibility in human affairs war the existential negation of the enemy is to be expected in politics the thought that politics could put an end to violence that could put an end to friend enemy distinction is unthinkable it's a contradiction in terms this brings this brings me to the sixth point to such one sovereignty so to an not bad okay sovereignty is a very important concept that runs through Schmidt's work it's developed in this text elsewhere it becomes a very made of major importance to Schmidt's political thinking the question is what happens what happens when there are deep disputes in any political system moments of crisis where there are deep disagreements Schmidt says that the function of the state is to put an end to these disagreements if necessary through the exercise of its own sovereignty so trap in this book and elsewhere you will find the very famous principle of Carl Schmitt that sovereignty is the ability to decide in a crisis what is to be done sovereignty is not a pleasant experience sovereignty is the experience of taking tough decisions that may involve the destruction of other's lives in the extreme this is a moment for instance from the question of sovereignty is a moment when in the May 68 developments in France and shall de Gaulle is reported as saying I think it's time that actually we begin to shoot them this is this is a reference to the students and the workers who are on strike in order to deceive the French Republic that is sovereignty in action sovereignty is also an important principle in cases of conflict with foreign enemies when war threatens then sovereignty consists in the ability to threaten war and to go to war and defeat the enemy this is of course Thomas Hobbes and it has been often pointed out that Carl Schmitt is the Thomas Hobbes of the twenty early twentieth century and in this respect I think that is correct so what's important for Carl Schmitt is that the total state that I've spoken of the total state this new kind of state which is comprehensive which which has police and armies which has bureaucracies that provide welfare payments and our social policies for the population that maintain order at home and protect a population against foreign enemies this total state is a state that enjoys sovereignty this brings me finally to the question of Sawant channel dictatorship what happens we can say we can ask what happens when a sovereign state is threatened by internal conflict how should this be resolved can it be resolved through money can it be resolved through words can it be resolved democratically schmitz answer is no the resolution of serious conflicts inside a polity requires dictatorship the kind of dictatorship that armed lasted in Taiwan for the longest recorded period from the end of the 1940s until into the 1980s the kind of emergency laws that are now in place in France these are examples of what Schmitt calls dictatorship and he's not afraid of this term he's a friend of this term he thinks that dictatorship is an important part of political life because if politics is about the making of friends against enemies and protecting friends against enemies then there are moments when tensions become so sharp within any political system within any state that dictatorship is required according to Schmitt there are two kinds of dictatorship and by the way I haven't used my powerpoint at all this is terrible so I we just run through this just to remind you where we have been I am clearly living in the 20th century and finally these two forms off of dictatorship these are strange terms sovereign and commissar oil dictatorship let me just briefly describe them and then I stop sovereign dictatorship is the kind of dictatorship that was put in place exercised by the Bolsheviks it's the kind of vision of dictatorship that you find in Marx and Engels writings about the tork of a dictatorship of the proletariat what is a sovereign dictatorship a sovereign dictatorship is a power grab when a power group within a state changes the Constitution it changes the rules of the game and imposes these rules on the population so a sovereign dictatorship is active transformative it seeks to change the world of politics and according to to Schmitt this sovereign dictatorship which he is not in favor of is always dangerous it can fail it can produce civil war but it nevertheless is a type of dictatorship there is a second type of dictatorship which he's calls commissary all this is Roman Republican language when you hear the word commissar you may think of of Bolsheviks in uniform but that's not what Schmitt has in mind a commis aerial dictatorship is the temporary dictatorship so sovereign dictatorship is more permanent its transformative it wants to change the rules of the political game commissar you'll dictatorship wants to protect the state against political upheaval of social unrest so for example just before the Nazis came to power Schmidt was employed by the then government to be the main legal advisor the main jurist for abolishing are the Prussian the Prussian province of the of the Reich we can talk about the details but basically watch MIT thought is that there are emergency situations where opponents have to be destroyed in order to protect the state and this he calls a commissar riyal dictatorship he says at one point that these that commissary all dictatorships are like a miracle it's a it's a theological idea of Auschwitz they're like a miracle in the sense that out of the chaos comes a power group that uses the police and the army and the courts to institute order and it rescues it rescues the state from self destruction they're familiar as states of emergency and Schmitt thinks that Commissario dictatorships are necessary because they are the best way to protect a sovereign state and therefore to protect people against the disorder that comes from a breakdown of the state I think that here ladies and gentlemen we come to the end of of Schmidt's attack on liberalism because what could be more anti liberal than this idea of a commis aerial dictatorship it is of course his attachment to the whole idea of a commis aerial dictatorship to a temporary dictatorship that protects the state is the reason why on May the 1st 1933 he joins the Nazi Party and within week he begins to act as the jurist of the third break his claim is that this is a new kind of state which has been established and therefore his job as a political thinker as a jurist is to protect this state and it's also the reason why couch MIT as Professor you pointed out in his introduction why it is that Couchman refused d-nut suffocation he never confessed to being a Nazi he never said sorry because he believed that during this period of chaos that Germany had gone through including a second total war that the main function of the state of the Nazi state was to maintain its sovereign power to protect its population to ensure obedience of that population I think this is enough about cosmid she see me [Applause]

Channel: Sydney Democracy

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Keywords: democracy, politics

Id: gEyFKWZFq2U

Length: 65min 10sec (3910 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 09 2018