{"id":144,"date":"2025-05-25T14:39:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T14:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/25\/who-is-the-enemy-more-on-carl-schmitt\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T14:39:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T14:39:17","slug":"who-is-the-enemy-more-on-carl-schmitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/25\/who-is-the-enemy-more-on-carl-schmitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Enemy? More on Carl Schmitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commenter Ben wrote<\/a>: <\/span><\/p>\n

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Neighbors are familiar, local. This is in direct contrast to the sort of pablum about being a "citizen of the world" and preferring the plight of the universal faceless stranger over what you owe to your own countrymen . . .<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That's right. I'll add that while we are enjoined to love our neighbors, we are also commanded to love our enemies (MT 5:44 and Luke 6:27). Are these enemies familiar and local too and not, say, Iranian Islamists? Do the verses mentioned rule out hating foreigners who pose an existential threat to us? Or do they permit it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Carl Schmitt has something to say on the question in The Concept of the Political<\/em> (expanded ed., tr. G. Schwab, U. of Chicago Press, 2007, 28-29):<\/span><\/p>\n

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The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity. The enemy is solely the public enemy, because everything that has a relationship to such a collectivity of men, particularly to a whole nation, becomes public by virtue of such a relationship. The enemy is hostis<\/em>, not inimicus<\/em> in the broader sense; polemios<\/em>, not ecthros<\/em>. <\/span>As German and other languages do not distinguish between the private and political enemy, many misconceptions and falsifications are possible. The often quoted \u201cLove your enemies\u201d (Matt. 5:44; <\/span>Luke 6:27) reads \u201cdiligite inimicos vestros<\/em>,\u201d agapate tous ecthrous<\/em>,<\/span> and not diligite hostes vestros<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

No mention is made of the political enemy. Never in the thousand-year struggle between Christians and Moslems did it occur to a Christian to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward the Saracens or Turks. The enemy in the political sense need not be hated personally, and in the private sphere only does it make sense to love one\u2019s enemy, i.e., one\u2019s adversary. The Bible quotation touches the political antithesis even less than it intends to dissolve, for example, the antithesis of good and evil or beautiful and ugly. It certainly does not mean that one should love and support the enemies of one\u2019s own people.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What is Schmitt telling us?  The criterion of the political sphere is the Freund-Feind<\/em>, friend-enemy distinction. (26) But who is the enemy? The main point made above, as I understand it, is that the political enemy is a public enemy who may or may not be in addition a private adversary whom one hates.  Suppose you are I are Trump supporters who hate each other.  That would be a case of political friendship but personal enmity.  Or it may be that you and I are on the same side politically and love each other. That would be a case of both political and personal friendship. (I assume that love includes friendship but not conversely.) A third possibility is realized in many marriages: the partners love each other on the personal plane but are on opposite sides of a political divide. (James Carville and Mary Matalin?)<\/span><\/p>\n

Now consider Luke 6:27: "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you (KJV)."  Who are the enemies referred to in this verse? Not political\/public enemies, but private enemies, according to Schmitt.  The verse therefore allows the hating, and presumably also the killing, of foreign and domestic enemies who pose an existential threat to us, where an existential threat is one not merely to our biological life, but to our way of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is that right?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commenter Ben wrote: Neighbors are familiar, local. This is in direct contrast to the sort of pablum about being a "citizen of the world" and preferring the plight of the universal faceless stranger over what you owe to your own countrymen . . . That's right. I'll add that while we are enjoined to love … Continue reading “Who is the Enemy? More on Carl Schmitt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,166,137,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-new-testament","category-political-theology","category-schmitt-carl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}