(Article changed on March 11, 2014 at 14:09)
Some American commentators close to the Obama administration are touting the coup in Kiev as a successful tit for tat for Russia's obstruction of U.S. war plans against Syria and its broader plans for world order. However, the Europeans, who get a lot of their gas from Russia, are split over joining "a coalition of the willing'. At the NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Feb. 26, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen insisted that a solution could be found through cooperation with Moscow. She was echoed by the German business community.
In contrast, as reported Feb. 26 by the European Policy Centre in Brussels, British neoconservative policy advisor Amanda Paul demanded the EU adopt a tougher line against Putin. The conservative daily Die Zeit agreed, noting that "although reason, caution and compromise are good virtues, Europe have to learn power politics. We believe that the world is rational, with lots of compromise and consideration. In reality, Man is not a moral animal, but an animal of power."
It is no coincidence that this quote should come from the German business community, for it expresses an ideology that is deeply rooted in that country, and which has gained significant influence, albeit under the radar, in the U.S., although it constituted the philosophical basis of the Nazi state.
To make this point I will turn to a surprising source: British former diplomate Alastair Crooke's 2009 book "Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution'. Unlike NY Times bestsellers that deal with Islam, it introduces the reader to analyses of Western ideology by Islamist scholars, revealing knowledge ignored by most American college graduates.[
During the Vietnam War, the well-known conservative philosopher Alan Bloom accused liberalism of undermining American values and in particular patriotism. He claimed that one of liberalism's founders, John Locke, who influenced both the French and American revolutions, extended Hobbes' ideas about liberal government, rights, the "self-aware Self' and innate human goodness. Bloom and other Chicago School philosophers and economists, starting with Leo Strauss, were convinced that liberalism had thus led to nihilism, a "defining modern disorder' that discourages citizens from sacrificing themselves for the State. The idea of nihilism had been laid out by Heidegger and Nietzsche, and led to the path taken by Nazi Germany. It was elaborated by their disciple, Carl Schmitt, who was none other than Leo Strauss's friend and mentor.
The "Chicago School', as it is widely know, is presented as being concerned strictly with economics, it's best-known representative being Milton Friedman. In fact, it has been a major player in the development of the overall Neo-Con-servative philosophy. From here I will simply cut and paste a slighted edited version of Crooke's analysis of Neo-Conservatism's philosophical background as it appears starting on page 248 of "RESISTANCE":
Carl Schmitt was born the son of a small businessman in Westphalia in 1888. He studied law in Berlin, Munich and Strasbourg and became Professor of Law at Berlin University. He joined the Nazi party, and with Hermann Goring's assistance, was appointed Chief Jurist. His legal arguments for dictatorship were seen to justify the 'Fuhrer' state." (Here is the precursor of the Unitary Presidency!) "Schmitt presented himself as anti-Semitic; but despite his expressed views, the Nazis did not trust him: he was denounced as an opportunist and Catholic pretender. He lost his position as Chief Jurist, but retained his professorship. After the war and a period of internment he continued to exercise wide influence - receiving a continuous flow of visitors seeking out his ideas on the failings of liberalism and its incompatibility with democracy.
It was through (Schmitt's) critique of liberalism, and his redefinition of the nature of power and politics, that Strauss' ideas had their influence: Schmitt and Leo Strauss were life-long friends. Schmitt supported Strauss for a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, and Strauss remained an ardent admirer and scholar, who taught his works - many of which were translated and published by Chicago University Press and circulated among Strauss's so-called 'Chicago School' followers. 6 It was only in one important respect that their paths had diverged: Strauss, a Jew, left Germany for the US; and Schmitt, a devout Catholic, joined the Nazi party in 1933.
Schmitt's Political Theology, published in 1922, derived its title from his assertion that all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are no more than secularized ideas originating from religious themes, an argument we too have made in earlier chapters. In other words, Schmitt argued that political theory traditionally has looked at the state and sovereignty through the same prism that theology views God - that is from ethical principles.
From this starting point evolved his Concept of the Political, published in 1932, in which he argued that this approach had been misconceived: politics was totally different from theology. Moral philosophers and theologians may be preoccupied with justice and equity, but politics has nothing to do with making the world fairer or more just - that is the task of moralists and theologians. Politics for Schmitt concerns power and survival, and nothing more.
Distinguished from the jostling of party politics, the 'true' political represents the essence of power - it is power's identity. While churches are predominant in religion, or society is predominant in economics, the state is predominant in politics.
It was an attempt to define exactly what politics is: the political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, Schmitt wrote. War is the most violent form that politics takes, but even short of war, politics still requires that you treat your opposition as antagonist to everything in which you believe. It's not personal, you do not have to hate him, but you have to be prepared to destroy him if necessary. Schmitt challenged liberals to admit that politics was literally a 'matter of life and death.
Here we have a clear explanation for what Washington's consistent policy of designating every country that does not toe its line as "enemy', its regime to be "changed'. Indeed, according to Crooke:
"This distinction had to be taken to the limit , to the point of life or death, which is to say that the enemy is whom-soever is, in an especially intense way, something different and alien . Such an enemy need not even be of a different nationality: as long as the conflict is potentially intense enough to become a violent one between political entities, the actual substance of enmity may be anything.This deliberate dichotomy between power and moral or theological objectives reflected Schmitt's belief that liberalism's basis in human rights and a preoccupation with self cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state - in other words, the Vietnam protesters were acting exactly as Schmitt would have expected in the circumstances."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
