Chapter Twenty-Eight Continued: The State of Exception

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

I had written in an earlier chapter about Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, in their historical context, but I believe after studying the actions of the Bush administration, I think they were influenced more by Schmitt, than Strauss.

This wouldn't be unusual, given the relationship of the two men, but many Straussians argue that he would not have supported the war in Iraq or the torture. Schmitt on the other hand, had very finite views on these topics as well as dictatorial power.

And at the end of WWII, when he was captured by the Americans, he refused every attempt at de-nazification, even though it barred him from positions in academia.

Understanding Carl Schmitt

According to Eugene Sheppard, Strauss's devotion to Schmitt was "because Strauss perceived him as not only a senior ally en­gaged in the critique of liberalism, but as a fellow searcher on the quest to dis­cover an alternative political cosmos. At the same time, Schmitt is important as a thinker outside the German-Jewish subculture who conferred legitimacy on Strauss's abilities and scholarly project." (1)

He thought of them as being on an even keel. Elitists who saw something that others were incapable of seeing. And when Strauss's suggestions for revisions to Schmitt's most famous work; The Concept of the Political, were adopted and included in future versions, it truly was his legitimacy as a political philosopher, not a Jewish philosopher.

Schmitt's theories are also suggestive of a theocracy, because he relates a dictatorship as being "the fundamental godlike character of sovereignty."

Sovereignty is not defined by governing conventions and norms, but rather emerges in full clarity at the fateful moment when the suspension of legal and constitutional norms is authorized. Rather than view the imposition of martial law and the suspension of political procedural norms as an excep­tional case, applying only to emergency situations, Schmitt conceives this ex­traordinary moment of an emergency (Ernstfall) as defining the fundamental basis of rule. The state of exception in politics is analogous to the miracle in the­ology. God's majesty over the world used to be clearly determined by his decisive ability to suspend the ordinary laws of nature. (1)

Sheppard states that this was an awakening for Strauss, because it provided clarity. He also then felt he understood what was wrong with liberal political systems, and that they failed "because of their principled embrace of tolerance and pluralism."

It's easier to understand this in the time period before the Nazis took power. Many countries were in disarray, after WWI. Author Richard Bessel suggested that it was also a time when monarchies had crumbled and without a central figure to pin their hopes on, many people felt lost. (2)

Monarchs had ruled by 'divine right' and many citizens still accepted that they had been ordained by God, so Schmitt may have recognized that a godlike figure was needed to make them feel secure again. And power had to be centralized, so decisions could be made immediately, without the slow down of Parliament.

And if individual rights were taken away they were being pooled for the common good. And if the leader claimed that someone was the enemy of the state, they were your enemy and you trusted your leader to do what was necessary to keep you safe. "Ultimately, subjects must decide their political loyalties based upon the real possibility of killing and being killed. How could—and why would a citizen of a state stake everything on the basis of agnosticism?" (1)

One religion, one state, one leader, one God. What could be clearer?

Thomas Hobbes on Steroids

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) political theories were formulated during the Civil War in England, so he too was looking for a "strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war."

To escape this state of war, men in the state of nature accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede their natural rights for the sake of protection. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace ... the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers.

His theories formed the basis of materialism.

But Strauss argued that liberals and socialists had forgotten that human beings are inherently evil and politics must take that into account.

The problem with these theories is that they were devised during a different time in history, when the need for a central authority was necessary. And I don't believe that all human beings are inherently evil. I prefer to think that all human beings are basically good, made evil by illness or circumstance.

But what is interesting, is how the Bush administration used the teachings of Leo Strauss and the Chicago school. Did they create a "different time"?

The Bush Administration and the "Evil Doers"

Just before 9/11 George Bush's approval rating was 55%, with a full 41% disapproval rating. Immediately after 9/11 he had a 92% approval rating with only 6% of Americans disapproving of his handling of the country. Why was that? He didn't do anything special. In fact he stayed in the classroom reading a book to children, instead of evacuating the school. He stood on the steps of the White House singing patriotic songs.

If the nation was under attack these actions seemed strange at best.

But the nation needed a strong central figure, and they turned to their leader for guidance, and even if they had doubts about his ability, they were willing to hand him their basic liberties in exchange for 'protection'.

And he was able to sell them on the need to invade a country based on what most people knew was flawed logic and the notion of "an enemy." And he kept them in a constant state of fear with colourful alerts.

And as more people turned to religion during that uncertain time, he was able to create the state of Carl Schmitt's vision.

We may never know what really happened on 9/11. But just as the time of Nazi Germany will always be viewed under the dark shadow of Hitler, the Bush Administration will be remembered under the dark shadow of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and other human atrocities.

Sources:

1. Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile, the making of a Political Philosopher, By: Eugene R. Sheppard, Brandeis University Press, 2006, ISBN: 978-154865-600-5, Pg. 44-47

2. Germany After the First World War, By: Richard Bessel, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993, ISBN: 0-19-821938-5

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Leo Strauss, The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Forty-four years old was Handsome Adolf Hitler last week and Germany went wild. Not even the Kaiser or Old Paul von Hindenburg ever had such a birthday. Despite his expressed desire to spend the day quietly in his little Alpine cottage near Berchtesgaden he could not avoid the attentions of his delirious followers. They roused him with flowers, they roused him with telegrams, bottles of wine, boxes of cigars (Chancellor Hitler does not smoke, drinks nothing stronger than beer), Easter eggs, Westphalian hams, lumps of sugar for his police dogs. Back in the Chancellery in Berlin the presents came in by the carload. Sofa cushions were the most popular, there were over 1,000 of them; also clocks, books, pictures, rugs, clothes, a birthday cake weighing 170 lb., dogs, canaries, parrots, and a saddle horse (Chancellor Hitler does not ride). Most appealing was a box of pretzel mice from the children of Hameln, labeled YOU ARE NOW OUR PIED PIPER.

In the city twelve Nazi standard bearers tramped with flags flying to the high altar of Berlin's Protestant Cathedral while the choir sang, "Thus Far God Has Guided Us." Nazi peddlers did a land-office business selling wooly imitation edelweiss, Hitler's favorite posy, for ten pfennigs each, the proceeds to go to charity so that, in the Chancellor's own words, "No one should go hungry on this day." Restaurants, beer gardens and Nazi headquarters who had promised to distribute free food ran out of supplies early, but it was a wonderful feast while it lasted. Soldiers, police, storm troopers and Stahlhelm members paraded all day long. Proudly officials at the Chancellery displayed a birthday message from the Reichspräsident, signed "In loyal comradeship, believe me, your devoted VON HINDENBURG." (1)

And on the day that the article appeared in Time magazine, though probably inspired by the actual event and not the reporting of it; two men who played an important role in the philosophies of Leo Strauss, would join the National Socialist German Worker's Party of Adolf Hitler: Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.

Strauss, however, was already living in Paris, after Schmitt, the infamous Nazi jurist, and Christian Catholic, arranged for Strauss, the Jew, to obtain a Rockefeller scholarship to study there. No doubt, Strauss would have preferred to join in the festivities in his homeland, and would later tell a girlfriend, Hannah Arendt, that "he wanted to join a party which would not have him because he was a Jew." (2)

Martin Heidegger and a Sense of Being

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a professor at Marburg University, and Leo Strauss attended several of his classes. Other students included Hannah Arendt as mentioned above, and Strauss's good friend Jacob Klein or "Jasha", a renowned interpreter of Plato.

Strauss would often eagerly discuss "Heidegger's innovative interpretive prowess", (3) though he wasn't part of his circle.

Heidegger's philosophy dealt with the concept of "being", and he worried that technology could become "dehumanizing". I know it was much more complicated than that, but he seemed to have opposed modernism and liberalism, as did Leo Strauss.

I try to avoid judging individuals simply because they joined the Nazi Party, as Strauss would warn viewing them "under the shadow of Hitler." However, Heidegger did remain with the party through to the end and according to a book written by Chilean Scholar Victor Farias, did not change his views as others have claimed.

Although scholars have long known about Heidegger's early flirtation with National Socialism, he was generally thought to have become disenchanted with Hitler well before the outbreak of World War II. With new documentation, Farias charges that Heidegger, who died in 1976, was a lifelong anti-Semite and a devoted, dues-paying party member until the end of the war. Farias also notes that Heidegger went out of his way to praise Hitler to his colleagues and failed even after the war to criticize Nazi atrocities and genocide. (4)

What's important is the role he played in Strauss's life and his influence on neoconservative theories. I do often wonder though how he justified it in his own mind.

Another philosopher who challenged Strauss, and whom he would often discuss Heidegger's theories, was Franz Rosenzweig (1887-1929), who was a Jewish theologian. He died of ALS before Hitler came to power. But up until the day he died, he continued his work, dictating one letter at a time to his wife, through the use of eye blinks or by touching the letter on an old typewriter. I love that story.

I'm going to continue with the relationship between Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, but I wanted to share the opening story, that reveals the sentiment at the time. Adolf Hitler had become a god to the German people.

We have the luxury of knowing his evil history, but to the German people then, he was their saviour. The Weimar republic that replaced the Royal house of Hohenzollern, did not work. The German people had suffered more than a decade of civil unrest and I think they missed having a central figure they could count on to lead them. And the propaganda genius, Joseph Goebbels gave them the image of a strong leader in Adolf Hitler.

No one can really say with any certainty that they wouldn't have fallen prey to the hysteria. Unless of course you were Jewish. But in 1933 few could have predicted the horrific outcome. When the U.S. began sounding the alarm, based on stories of those who managed to escape, and nations began to boycott German goods, Hitler countered:

"America, which of all other lands has taken it upon itself to set up a movement against our methods of self-defense, has the least excuse for such action. The American people were the first to draw practical and political conclusions from differences among races and from the different value of different races.

"Through its immigration laws it has prevented the entry of those races which seemed unwelcome to the American people. And America today is by no means ready to open its doors to so-called refugee Jews from Germany, whereby we must emphasize that in reality not a hair of any Jewish head has been touched."

So last week spoke Adolf Hitler before a meeting of the German Medical Federation. Under his hand Germany proceeded openly to reduce her Jewish inhabitants to the social and political position occupied by Negroes in the southern U. S. and Orientals in the West. (5)

So I will continue with the story of Carl and Leo without "the shadow of Hitler".

Chapter Twenty-Eight Continued: The State of Exception

Sources:

1. GERMANY: Birthday, Time Magazine, May. 01, 1933

2. Enmity and Tyranny, By: Alan Gilbert, March 5, 2010

3. Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile, the making of a Political Philosopher, By: Eugene R. Sheppard, Brandeis University Press, 2006, ISBN: 978-154865-600-5, Pg. 44

4. Nazis: Heil, Heidegger? Time Magazine, February 15, 1988

5. GERMANY: Co-ordination, Time Magazine, April 17, 1933