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Review: Schmitt ReconsideredAuthor(s): Donald SchoonmakerSource: The Review of Politics, Vol. 50, No. 1, Special Issue on German Politics (Winter, 1988),pp. 130-132Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of PoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1407595 .

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THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

SCHMITT RECONSIDERED

Carl Schmitt: PoliticalRomanticism.ranslated with an introduction by GuyOakes. (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1986. Pp. 177. $20.00.)

The mosaic which represents the writing and political life of the polit-ical and legal theorist, Carl Schmitt, has been incomplete for some time,

especially for the English-reading public. This translation of one of his

earliest works (originally published as PolitischeRomantik, 1919, 1925, byDuncker & Humboldt, Berlin) provides us with a valuable piece of themosaic: the basic cultural and philosophical assumptions which informed

his critique of the liberal bourgeoisie and parliamentary democracy. Con-struction of this mosaic has not been an easy task. Schmitt's recent death

(1888-1985) brought forth commentaries that praised his brilliance as a

perceptive critic of the constitutional problems of Weimar Germany andthe inadequacies of liberalism as well as assessments that described himas the chief jurist of the Nazi state, the scholar as intellectual chameleon,and the opportunist who not only wrote legal opinions to justify Hitler'sseizure of power in 1933 and his arbitrary use of violence in 1934, butwho also developed a heretofore unknown streak of anti-Semitism in his

writings to suit the party in power.Both judgments are correct. An exceptional work of balanced scholar-

ship by Joseph Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theoristfor the Reich (PrincetonUniversity Press, 1983), speaking of the 1933-36 period, notes that "his

writing and actions during these years were indeed reprehensible" (p. 282).Bendersky also notes: "Toallow Schmitt's Nazi collaboration to overshadowall other aspects of his life and work would create a distorted image ofan important historical figure"(p. 282). All the more reason to be indebtedfor this graceful translation by Guy Oakes of a work written substantiallyin 1917-1918 which offers the gist of Schmitt's critical attack on modernity,a critique which the later works on sovereignty, parliament, and liberal

democracy draw on.In PoliticalRomanticism,which could have been aptly subtitled "The Need

for Traditional State Authority in a Mass Society,"Schmitt described po-litical romanticism as the disease of the atomized mass society. The car-riers of this debilitating malady are the liberal bourgeoisie; they lack realismin facing political conflict at home and abroad, and they support a polit-ical value system with no core: pluralism without hierarchy, politicalcacophony without strong state orchestration. In his words: "In the liberalbourgeois world, the detached, isolated, and emancipated individual be-comes the middle point, the court of last resort, the absolute" (p. 99). The

remedy which Schmitt offered was to remind the intellectual elite of Ger-

many's new republic that the political thinkers of conservative Catholi-cism - de Maistre, Bonald, and Burke - had also faced the undisciplineddemands of the sovereign ego in the turbulent times of post-1789 Europeand had offered sound advice. Schmitt clearly saw a parallel between the

challenge to traditional authority of the French revolutionary period,

and the unstructured nature of the political experiment of Weimar.

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REVIEWS

Schmitt'sCatholicismin this workand othersshould not be underplayed.It helpsexplainthe fusillade-nature f hisdefensivepolemicsagainstsecular

intellectuals and his attitude that Catholics were more sober realistsandcareful restorerswhile rebellious Protestantismwas part of the threat ofmodernity.

Schmitt'sargument in this work is cleanly stated. In the preface, heasserted:"Romanticism s subjectifiedoccasionalismbecausean occasionalrelationshipto the worldis essential to it.... Because the final authorityis shiftedfrom God to the geniusof the ego,' he entireforegroundchanges"(p. 18).ForSchmitt,the forcesof individualism, ubjectivism,andprivatismhave beenhurriedalongbyindustrializationanddemocracy.The problem

of constructing a national community is normally difficult in bourgeoissocieties, but it is doubly difficultin Germany where, in Schmitt's anal-ysis, the romanticstyle in politics is the classic example of style oversub-stance,mehr chein ls Sein.Earlyon in his argumenthe laments, "theroot-lessness of the romantic,his incapacityto hold fast to an important ideaon the basis of a free decision . . ."(p. 51).

The prefaceoffersnotjust a compactsummary; t is alsowhere Schmittsets up his target: the aestheticization of experience which underminesthe hierarchy of values crucial for political choice. The action-oriented

Schmitt is dismayedby the romantic as a free floaterwed to the Hegelianideal of "eternalbecoming."Intellectually this leads to caprice, fancy,whimsy,and opportunisticfeints. Politicallyit leads to passivity,the "end-less conversation" f Novalis, a fatal posture in Schmitt'sview for a weakGerman state with contentious social forces.

The argument moves forwardwith Schmitt as accuser and judge ina debate in which he contrasts the inadequacies of Adam Mueller(1779-1829)and FriedrichSchlegel(1772-1823)with the receivedwisdomof de Maistre, Bonald, and Edmund Burke. Guy Oakes is certainly cor-rect in his introductionwhen he notes

that Schmitt"embraces hej'accuserolewith an unqualifiedenthusiasm"(p. xiii). The polemical,prosecutorial,and dogmatic tone, developedto a fine art by Schmitt, is a familiarstrainof the characteristicWeimarstyle of debate in political, intellectual, andsociallife. The chargeagainstMueller is especiallyunrelenting,and muchof it is deeply ironic given Schmitt's ater political actions. Mueller "isazealous student of whateversystem happened to be in power" p. 45); heis an"amoral ppreciatorofeverything" withouthis owncenter of gravity"(p. 128). He lacks Burke'sappreciationof the "great,superindividualna-tional reality,

independentof all the

powerand volition of the individual

person" p. 63).Schmitt'samalgam of historical, philosophical, literary,and political

analysisis extremelywelldone. Yes,the tone is polemical,but the scholar-ship, forthe most part,is solidand the writing is forceful.There areprob-lems wherehe grindshis axe too intently.Burke did fear an individualismfueledby materialismand disdainfulof community,but he also promotedparliamentarygovernmentwith itsendlessdiscussionand toleranceof dis-sent. For all of Schmitt'swide reading, he does not seem to have comeacrossAlexis de Tocqueville.Here one could read the appreciationof the

aristocraticvirtues with the qualifiedhope in more widespreadparticipa-

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