Liberalism Versus Democracy 2

Schmitt is a Liberal

Leo Strauss begins his commentary as follows:

The Treatise by Schmitt serves the question of the order of the human things, that is, the question of the state. In view of the fact that in the present age the state has become more questionable than it has been for centuries or more, understanding state requires a radical foundation, a simple and elementary presentation of what the basis of the state is, which means the basis of the political.

I'm intensely skeptical of calls for less polarization for this reason. Social harmony is a particular order of things and a particular metaphysics. Theoretically, you could see a philosophical case for female-type social harmony made explicit. It never is. It is always implicit. A B-plot of this essay series is the deconstruction, exposition, and rejection of female-type social harmony.

The phrase “polarization is good for its own sake” is often attributed to me. Understanding how much human values differ in intrinsic values, it becomes possible to believe in universal salvation without universal consensus. Universal consensus ⇔ universal social harmony, is impossible without tyranny.

Precisely by the negation of the political, if liberalism has already become implausible, if it accordingly must be countered by another system, then the first word against liberalism must in any case be the position of the political.

Here liberalism is referring to a kind of proceduralism, highly characteristic of modern, bureaucratic liberalism. This is discussed at length in Political Theology.

Here, Strauss recapitulates my description of Schmitt's task challenge to liberalism.

Liberalism negated the political, yet liberalism has not thereby eliminated the political from the face of the earth, but only hidden it. Liberalism led to politics being engaged in by means of an anti political mode of discourse. Liberalism has thus killed not the political, but only understanding of the political.

This should add color to what I mean by “polarization is good for its own sake.” Polarization is not changing people, or changing their values, to hate each other. Instead, polarization is revelation. It is revealing the true nature of man to each other. People actually just disagree. Social harmony is an aggressively enforced egalitarian structure. We are seeing what happens when that structure no longer has power over man.