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World Orders: Confronting Carl Schmitt's "The Nomos of the Earth"
An issue of South Atlantic Quarterly.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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November 25, 2022Comment:
This book is actually a journal, the South Atlantic Quarterly, of Spring 2005. After the Journal Telos had their great 1987 issue on Schmitt, more and more people (of the international left and the anglo-american right) have become interested in him. (He has always been well-know in Europe.) As time has gone on I found myself more drawn to the postwar Schmitt rather than the earlier work. This is the Schmitt of geopolitics and necessity rather than enmity and decisionism. After, the war, the 'political existentialism' (very broadly conceived) of not only Schmitt and Heidegger, but also Kojeve and Merleau-Ponty either dried up or was tuned down. Thank God!
Schmitt's "Partisan" book (reviewed) is a stroke of genius. In the sixties, when the whole world is focused on the capitalist/communist divide, Schmitt treats it as an irrelevancy and warns of the coming guerilla / partisan / terrorist wars that have now, in fact, transformed our new millennium.
His "Nomos of the Earth" is a work of stunning originality. Its tying together law and geopolitics and world order (or, I would argue, World Era) evolution is done in a very erudite, original and compelling manner. Schmitt intends this book to have the explanatory power of a Marx or a Max Weber. It is well worth everyones time. I don't mean to say we should agree with everything he says; I certainly don't... (Do you agree with everything Marx or Weber said?)
Merleau-Ponty once said that we read Marx for the same reason we read Aristotle, - to learn how to think. With this book, Schmitt intends, and I think perhaps has reached, the status of a "Classic" that genuinely thoughtful people (not the rabble with their petty and disgusting 'yes and no') consider a feast for thought.
Though this collection of essays is left-leaning, I think it deserves to be read more often. Though the quality is uneven, several of the essays are quite good. If you are interested in the post-war Schmitt this collection is a must.
This book is actually a journal, the South Atlantic Quarterly, of Spring 2005. After the Journal Telos had their great 1987 issue on Schmitt, more and more people (of the international left and the anglo-american right) have become interested in him. (He has always been well-know in Europe.) As time has gone on I found myself more drawn to the postwar Schmitt rather than the earlier work. This is the Schmitt of geopolitics and necessity rather than enmity and decisionism. After, the war, the 'political existentialism' (very broadly conceived) of not only Schmitt and Heidegger, but also Kojeve and Merleau-Ponty either dried up or was tuned down. Thank God!
Schmitt's "Partisan" book (reviewed) is a stroke of genius. In the sixties, when the whole world is focused on the capitalist/communist divide, Schmitt treats it as an irrelevancy and warns of the coming guerilla / partisan / terrorist wars that have now, in fact, transformed our new millennium.
His "Nomos of the Earth" is a work of stunning originality. Its tying together law and geopolitics and world order (or, I would argue, World Era) evolution is done in a very erudite, original and compelling manner. Schmitt intends this book to have the explanatory power of a Marx or a Max Weber. It is well worth everyones time. I don't mean to say we should agree with everything he says; I certainly don't... (Do you agree with everything Marx or Weber said?)
Merleau-Ponty once said that we read Marx for the same reason we read Aristotle, - to learn how to think. With this book, Schmitt intends, and I think perhaps has reached, the status of a "Classic" that genuinely thoughtful people (not the rabble with their petty and disgusting 'yes and no') consider a feast for thought.
Though this collection of essays is left-leaning, I think it deserves to be read more often. Though the quality is uneven, several of the essays are quite good. If you are interested in the post-war Schmitt this collection is a must.
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