M & D Deep Duck Misc.

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

 > And Schmitt's relationship with Leo Strauss? I'm having trouble
understanding that. Complex, to say the least. <


Difficult question. There are those like Heinrich Meier (Carl Schmitt, 
Leo Strauss und 'Der Begriff des Politischen'. Zu einem Dialog unter 
Abwesenden) who are emphasizing it as central, and what's out of 
question is that Strauss' critique of the early version of 'Der Begriff 
des Politischen' helped Schmitt to develop a sharper and decidedly 
anti-liberal notion of the political. Other people think that this 
relation is overrated. Especially Reinhard Mehring, perhaps the leading 
Schmitt scholar these days, has uttered this several times. In the 
debate following a lecture in Prague (which you can watch on youtube) he 
said in this context: "I can name you at once 12 or 15 Jewish 
intellectuals who were more important to Carl Schmitt than Leo Strauss 
was." Or words to that effect. Walter Benjamin is of course one of them. 
Jacob Taubes another.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=29694

On 11.01.2015 14:13, mutualcode at aol.com wrote:
> And Schmitt's relationship with Leo Strauss? I'm having trouble
> understanding that. Complex, to say the least.
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jan 11, 2015, at 4:17 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen 
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de <mailto:lorentzen at hotmail.de>> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 10.01.2015 16:30, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>>> >hints, verbal whiffs
>>>
>>> I finished Empire of Necessity, and Benito Cerreno -- the (white) 
>>> Spanish "captain" whose rebellious slaves actually command the ship 
>>> -- will henceforward be closer in my mind to Weissmann/Blicero than 
>>> ever
>>>
>>
>> That's interesting because Carl Schmitt identified himself with 
>> Benito Cereno strongly.
>>
>>     > Ich bin der letzte, bewußte Vertreter des /jus publicum/
>>     /Europaeum/ [...] und erfahre sein Ende so, wie Benito
>>     Cereno die Fahrt des Piratenschiffs erfuhr.
>>
>>         (Carl Schmitt, /Ex Captivitate Salus/ 75)
>>
>> Carl Schmitt (1888–1985), specialist, as he tells us in the epigraph, 
>> in public and constitutional law, remains the most controversial 
>> figure in the history of German legal scholarship, and one of the few 
>> right-wing intellectuals to continue attracting interest from a 
>> variety of political spectra (Müller 272). He is also the most 
>> literary political thinker of the twentieth century, one who allowed 
>> myth and fiction to shape his ideas about law to create a unique 
>> "political theology," or, to use Ellen Kennedy's term, a "political 
>> expressionism" ("Politischer Expressionismus" 233–51). Kennedy has 
>> also suggested, controversially, that Schmitt's thought had a 
>> far-reaching influence on the theory of the Frankfurt School ("Carl 
>> Schmitt"). Nikolaus Müller-Scholl suggests that several early plays 
>> by Bertolt Brecht were meant to exhibit the aporia of state order 
>> that Schmitt theorized and that led to Nazi totalitarianism 
>> (supported by Schmitt at least through 1936) as its answer. Together 
>> with his friend Ernst Jünger, Schmitt read the American authors 
>> Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe as prophets of the global 
>> situation of World War II and of the postwar period, including, as 
>> the epigraph points out, the waning of the epoch of national 
>> sovereignty. Schmitt's student Armin Mohler claims that Schmitt cited 
>> Herman Melville's novella "Benito Cereno" more than any other work of 
>> world literature. Mohler states further that the title character of 
>> the novella "hat C. S. aufs intensivste beschäftigt" (Mohler and 
>> Schmitt 153 n. 74). Two paradoxes accompany these facts: the first is 
>> that Schmitt, a German nationalist, would use an American piece as 
>> his personal motto; the second is that, despite his fascination for 
>> the story, Schmitt never published a complete essay on the novella, 
>> as he did on Theodor Däubler's /Nordlicht/, Shakespeare's /Hamlet/, 
>> and other works. Schmitt's reading of "Benito Cereno," or, more 
>> accurately, his use of "Benito Cereno" as a political and legal 
>> allegory and as a persona, does not find incorporation into a single 
>> treatise, but rather emerges indirectly from a series of reflections 
>> and diary entries and as an influence on Schmitt's treatment of the 
>> law of the sea. <
>>
>>
>> http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/seminar_a_journal_of_germanic_studies/v042/42.2beebee.pdf
>>
>>

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