The truth is, as an intellectual matter, I think Schmitt has long since run out of steam in terms of what he offers to American political and social theory. This is possibly because I was intimately involved at Telos in the Schmitt revival from the beginning, felt like I absorbed what seemed important to me, and moved on by the 90s. For example, the notion of emergency in Schmitt is both deeper but more alien to American political thought than, I suspect, many American theorists think — they really mean something that just is regular old consequentialism pushed hard, whereas for Schmitt, such notions are part of a far deeper and more committed system. And although I once wrote a paper not long after 9/11 with a section carrying the very Schmittian title, “Criminals and Enemies,” what I meant by that had little to do with Schmitt and I was amazed at how quickly it was cast in Schmittian terms. Far, far more important than Schmitt in contemporary American social theory — if there were such a thing outside the cul-de-sac of identity politics — is the revival of New Class theory in the American contempory context, and a theory of elites.
Kenneth is correct insofar as his comment addresses the state of Schmitt scholarship on the left and among "critical theorists" who have generally only focused on Schmitt's terse definitions of the political and sovereignty. To the extent that American scholars continue to focus on the two or three pamphlets and lectures that provide brief sketches of concepts that Schmitt developed elsewhere at length, I believe it is accurate to conclude that Schmittian thought has "run out of steam" in America.
However, I believe that there is still a great deal of interesting scholarship left to be done that will concern Schmitt's much more nuanced and historical understanding of the relationship between the state and law (which has been obscured by Kelsen-like conflations of the two). One example of this type of scholarship is the work of Professor Adrian Vermeule at Harvard; Vermeule has published fascinating articles on the more analytical content of Schmitt's work (see for example "Our Schmittian Administrative Law").
I agree. There is nothing more simple and easy than to reduce a thinker to two or three slogans. It shows not that the writer is empty, but maybe the reader.
ReplyDeleteLike Lichtenberg said: if one strikes a book against a head and it sounds empty, is always the book?
I like the Lichtenberg quote!
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to say that the continual misunderstanding of Schmitt is partially his own fault.
ReplyDeleteA good read is Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue in which the author at one point states that Strauss and Schmitt both wrote with double meanings. Strauss did so because ideas about truth could be dangerous to unlearned readers. Schmitt did so because certain things should not be said to unbelievers.
Schmitt's project is not concerned with the day-to-day politics of his or our time. In that sense, people reading him to find arguments about the day-to-day will inevitably misunderstand him. Schmitt's project is also not friendly to most living academics, and certainly not the left. Therefore most living academics and anyone on the left (yet I repeat myself) will also misunderstand him.
I've read Meier's excellent book and I agree with your conclusion that Schmitt is partially responsible for the pervasive misunderstanding of his works.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the esoteric content of Schmitt's works cannot be entirely blamed for the numerous superficial readings submitted by certain members of academia. The analytical and historical content of his texts, which are often obscured and misrepresented, can be ascertained with little more than the sober reading any author might expect of his readers.