Romanticismo politico

by Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), the author of such books as Political Theology and The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (both published in English by The MIT Press), was one of the leading political and legal theorists of the twentieth century. His critical discussions of liberal democratic ideals and institutions continue to arouse controversy, but even his opponents concede his uncanny sense for the basic problems of modern politics. Political Romanticism is a historical study that, like all of Schmitt's major works, offers a fundamental political critique. In it, he defends a concept of political action based on notions of good and evil, justice and injustice, and attacks the political passivity entailed by the romanticization of experience. The book has three strands. The first is an attack on received notions of the origins of the Romantic Movement. Schmitt argues that this movement represents a secularization, subjectification, and privatization in which God is replaced by the emancipated, private individual of the bourgeois social order. The second is an assault on political romanticism that includes a broader attack on the new European bourgeoisie, which Schmitt characterizes as the historical bearer of the movement. The third strand is a defense of political conservatism and a refutation of the view that political romanticism is intrinsically linked with romanticism. Here Schmitt argues that the political romantic is tied not to positions but to aesthetics, and can therefore as easily become a Danton as a Frederick the Great. Guy Oakes's introduction places the book in historical context and also suggests its continuing relevance through his discussion of the latest outcropping of political romanticism in the late 1960s, intriguingly brought out in his example of Norman Mailer as a political romantic. Political Romanticism is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Romanticism, Theory, Law

Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Carl Schmitt's early career as an academic lawyer falls into the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire. (See for Schmitt's life and career: Bendersky 1983; Balakrishnan 2000; Mehring 2009.) But Schmitt wrote his most influential works, as a young professor of constitutional law in Bonn and later in Berlin, during the Weimar-period: Political Theology, presenting Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, appeared in 1922, to be followed in 1923 by The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, which attacked the legitimacy of parliamentary government. In 1927, Schmitt published the first version of his most famous work, The Concept of the Political, defending the view that all true politics is based on the distinction between friend and enemy. The culmination of Schmitt's work in the Weimar period, and arguably his greatest achievement, is the 1928 Constitutional Theory which systematically applied Schmitt's political theory to the interpretation of the Weimar constitution. During the political and constitutional crisis of the later Weimar Republic Schmitt published Legality and Legitimacy, a clear-sighted analysis of the breakdown of parliamentary government Germany, as well as The Guardian of the Constitution, which argued that the president as the head of the executive, and not a constitutional court, ought to be recognized as the guardian of the constitution. In these works from the later Weimar period, Schmitt's declared aim to defend the Weimar constitution is at times barely distinguishable from a call for constitutional revision towards a more authoritarian political framework (Dyzenhaus 1997, 70–85; Kennedy 2004, 154–78).

Though Schmitt had not been a supporter of National Socialism before Hitler came to power, he sided with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt quickly obtained an influential position in the legal profession and came to be perceived as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of National Socialism. (Rüthers 1990; Mehring 2009, 304–436) He devoted himself, with undue enthusiasm, to such tasks as the defence of Hitler's extra-judicial killings of political opponents (PB 227–32) and the purging of German jurisprudence of Jewish influence (Gross 2007; Mehring 2009, 358–80). But Schmitt was ousted from his position of power within legal academia in 1936, after infighting with academic competitors who viewed Schmitt as a turncoat who had converted to Nazism only to advance his career. There is considerable debate about the causes of Schmitt's willingness to associate himself with the Nazis. Some authors point to Schmitt's strong ambition and his opportunistic character but deny ideological affinity (Bendersky 1983, 195–242; Schwab 1989). But a strong case has been made that Schmitt's anti-liberal jurisprudence, as well as his fervent anti-semitism, disposed him to support the Nazi regime (Dyzenhaus 1997, 85–101; Scheuerman 1999). Throughout the later Nazi period, Schmitt's work focused on questions of international law. The immediate motivation for this turn seems to have been the aim to justify Nazi-expansionism. But Schmitt was interested in the wider question of the foundations of international law, and he was convinced that the turn towards liberal cosmopolitanism in 20th century international law would undermine the conditions of stable and legitimate international legal order. Schmitt's theoretical work on the foundations of international law culminated in The Nomos of the Earth, written in the early 1940's, but not published before 1950. Due to his support for and involvement with the Nazi dictatorship, the obstinately unrepentant Schmitt was not allowed to return to an academic job after 1945 (Mehring 2009, 438–63). But he nevertheless remained an important figure in West Germany's conservative intellectual scene to his death in 1985 (van Laak 2002) and enjoyed a considerable degree of clandestine influence elsewhere (Scheuerman 1999, 183–251; Müller 2003).

Unsurprisingly, the significance and value of Schmitt's works

Reviews

[Hayfa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always wondered why the English romantic poets were staunch supporters of the French Revolution at first, and then most of them switched either to conservatism or simply to indifference. The answer is provided by this delightful book. Romanticism is the same in literature as well as in politics. It turns everything into mere "occasions". When the revolution breaks out in a conservative milieu, the romantics are the first to support the will of the people and to celebrate freedom and human will. However, when revolutionary ideas become the norm and when both intellectuals and laymen become advocates of these ideas, the romantic instantly turns the coat and reappears as a faithful royalist. Therefore, what matters for the romantic ego is the assertion of his subjectivism by the almost automatic opposition of everything that is mainstream and common.

Because the concrete point around which the romantic novel develops is always merely occasional, everything can become romantic. In such a world, all political or religious distinctions are dissolved into an interesting ambiguity. The king is a romantic figure as well as the anarchist conspirator, and the caliph of Baghdad is no less romantic than the patriarch of Jerusalem. Here everything can be substituted for everything else.

I really like this book because it deals with romanticism not just as an eighteenth-century literary movement that has been overthrown by subsequent movements, but rather as an attitude and a disposition that is also found in political revolutionaries and reactionaries.
Political Romanticism shows how the romantic attitude is always a denial of true experience (political, religious, etc.).

[Pinkyivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well constructed and argued, but the topic is his most specific that I've encountered. Recommend for those who want to know about how romanticism (really German idealism in philosophy) related to politics in Schmitt's view. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel versus Cortes, Bonald and de Maistre.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

To my excitement, Carl Schmitt is coming back into fashion, or at least into notice. Last week, for example, an excellent piece by the Swedish renegade leftist Malcolm Kyeyune received wide attention. It revolved around Schmitt’s concept, from The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, that when a regime must prove its legitimacy empirically, it is doomed. Kyeyune concluded that, just as the “bourgeois kings” of Schmitt’s analysis were doomed because they had lost intrinsic legitimacy, so has, and is, our own regime. Now I wish I had thought of and made that point in my own recent review of that book. Ah well. Instead, today you will have to be satisfied with my reflections on another book, Schmitt’s first, Political Romanticism.

I am now working my way through all of Schmitt’s works that have been translated into English (having already completed The Crisis and the much later Theory of the Partisan). Schmitt was not an ideologue, so his thoughts over the decades contained multitudes and did not maintain total consistency, though his mature works are all opposed to the liberal tradition that dominated Europe during his lifetime (1888–1985). He was willing to take his anti-liberalism quite far—famously, he toadied to the National Socialists for a brief period, before being cast out for being an opportunist, and was fortunate not to suffer worse ill consequences. Political Romanticism, however, is not on its face a book about liberalism or anti-liberalism; unlike some of Schmitt’s later work, it is hard to tell from the pages of the book what the politics of the author are. Instead, it’s an extended attack on nineteenth-century romanticism, in particular in the person of Adam Müller, for the sin of refusing to engage in politics or to choose among alternatives, justifying that refusal as a higher commitment to aesthetics.

I was somewhat annoyed by this 1986 translation (the only one in English, though Lars Vinx, a professor at Cambridge, has recently translated some more obscure Schmitt works, so maybe he will offer new translations of the well-known works). Not because it’s a bad translation—that I can’t tell, since most of the German I used to know I’ve forgotten. Rather because of its terrible footnotes. First, the translator, Guy Oakes, admits he failed to include most of Schmitt’s own footnotes. And second, no new explanatory footnotes are included, which would have greatly helped the reader navigate the obscurities in Schmitt’s writing for the modern reader. Much of the book is taken up with extended discussions of people of whom you have likely barely heard, or of whom you have not heard at all. At least I hadn’t heard much about many of them, and I’m pretty well informed. No doubt new footnotes would have made the translator’s job more burdensome, but lack of them means the reader has to spend a lot of time with reference works to understand much of Political Romanticism.

Anyway, in the same way as all Schmitt’s works, this book rewards hard work. As with Theory of the Partisan, it seems at first glance that much of the analysis is tied to a specific time and place, but it actually has far broader applicability. Political Romanticism was published in 1919 (and revised in 1925, from which this translation was made). In many of Schmitt’s works the then-current political situation seeps in, but not here, despite that Schmitt was studying in Munich in 1919, and lived through the Communist revolt there. Nor does he touch on the Weimar constitution, also promulgated in 1919. Rather, the focus is on the early nineteenth century—with implications, as I say, for both Schmitt’s own time and ours.

Perhaps because of Schmitt’s relative youth (he was thirty-one in 1919), he takes a more polemical stance in this book than in his later, more famous, works. His core complaint about romanticism is that it relativizes all thought; it rejects a metaphysical core and substitutes aesthetic judgment. If he were alive today, he might criticize romanticism as a precursor of liquid modernity, Zygmant Bauman’s term for the dissolution of any solid core of our society and its replacement by ever-shifting and personalized beliefs.

The translator, Oakes, claims in his long but not-very-good Introduction that Schmitt’s attack on political romanticism is an attack on liberalism. His theory is that the liberal state introduced the rule of law and a private sphere, both of which are necessary for romanticism to flourish. But this is obvious tripe; both the rule of law and the private sphere long antedated liberalism, and in fact are the crucial markers of Western Christendom. Moreover, even if it were true that romanticism relies for its existence on the rule of the law and the private sphere, something Schmitt does not say or even imply, the mere fact of an attack on romanticism on other grounds does not make it a concealed attack on those underlying supports. Oakes is, however, as we will see, not wholly wrong when he says that Political Romanticism is “a critique of the metaphysical and metapolitical bases of modern liberalism.”

Schmitt spends the first part of the book (and much of his lengthy Preface to the 1925 edition) talking about romanticism itself. This is somewhat of a challenge, because romanticism is notoriously protean, and differed over time and, especially, among countries. (Schmitt ignores English romantics, focusing only on the Germans and the French.) Romanticism isn’t just smelling the flowers and admiring medieval castles, nor is it a reaction against rationalism. “[T]he romantic attempts to define everything in terms of himself and avoids every definition of himself in terms of something else.” Nor is it tradition, or an opposition to established power. After rejecting various such definitions, Schmitt defines romanticism as a type of occasionalism.

In theological terms, occasionalism is the doctrine that all events, no matter how small, are the direct result of an act of will by God. (This is often found in branches of Islam, but rarely in Christianity.) Schmitt precisely defines romanticism as “subjectified occasionalism”—God disappears, and every event, even the tiniest, becomes an opportunity for the romantic to produce an aesthetic, emotional feeling, the existence of which has no other meaning or importance. The world is viewed through this prism, which means to the romantic, “the world is only occasional, a world without substance and functional cohesion, without a fixed direction, without consistency and definition, without decision, without a final court of appeal, continuing into infinity and led only by the magic hand of chance.” Occasionalism denies “calculable causality, and thus also every binding norm.”

What the romantic pursues most of all is a synthesis, a harmony of opposites that displaces the need to make choices. “In the absence of the occasionalistic displacement into the higher, subjective creativity that resolves all antitheses in a harmonious unity, there is no romanticism.” Beautiful phrases lovingly crafted hide that this is a waste of time and a way to avoid commitment by talking all the damn time. (Schmitt really despises trite, meandering talk; I wonder if he was unpopular at cocktail parties, although he was very well-connected and was socially adept, so maybe he could talk about the weather when he had to.) In the same way, the romantic does not, cannot, hold to any fixed position; he may support the revolution today, and the counter-revolution tomorrow, seeing no contradiction, only a romantic flow of occasions. “Because the concrete point around which the romantic novel develops is always merely occasional, everything can become romantic. In such a world, all political or religious distinctions are dissolved into an interesting ambiguity. The king is a romantic figure as well as the anarchist conspirator, and the caliph of Baghdad is no less romantic than the patriarch of Jerusalem. Here everything can be substituted for everything else.”

Of great importance, this way of viewing the world exalts the individual. Traditions and hierarchies are as nothing in this view, instead, we have the romantic “endless conversation” with no fixed points and no conclusions. This is atomizing. What romanticism offers is unlimited possibilities. This is an approach that fundamentally opposes reality, and ensures that a prime motivator of a romantic’s actions is to stave off the need to make a choice. For the romantic, what he feels, the aesthetic experience of emotion, is the most important thing. Schmitt would see the logical endpoint of this today, where the individual is paramount, feelings are everything, and emotivism is one of the prime drivers of politics, both on the Left and the Right, though more on the Left.

Quite a few pages are taken up with precise discussion of how the romantics thought and behaved, analyzing their antecedents, use of language, and so forth. (Interestingly, in passing, Schmitt cites Victor Klemperer for a philological point; Klemperer became famous much later for his diaries of life as a Jew in the Third Reich.) We get attacks on Müller from every angle, along with some on Friedrich Schlegel for good measure, and these attacks are used to repeatedly flog romanticism as a whole. “The rootlessness of the romantic, his incapacity to hold fast to an important political idea on the basis of a free decision, his lack of inner resistance to the most powerful and immediate impression that happens to prevail at the time—all these things have their individual reasons.” But they are not good reasons.

After this relentless barrage, which includes memorable phrases such as “the effeminate raptures of those two bourgeois literati Schlegel and Müller,” Schmitt turns to the specific political implications of romanticism, which is after all the main point of the book. (But not before he tells us that Müller’s “amoral appreciation of everything . . . his effeminate passivity . . . . and his emotional pantheism . . . . can probably be explained in an individual-psychological fashion as well, as a consequence of his feminine and vegetative nature.” Ha ha.) In any case, the “essence of [romanticism] is passivity.” A romantic outlook makes one incapable of choosing a moral, or legal, position. This can be aesthetically pleasing, part of the “endless conversation,” but it is totally lacking in political productivity, in the real world, where such decisions must be made in order for society to function. Here Schmitt swings into high gear, castigating Müller and his kind by comparison with thinkers such as Edmund Burke, Louis de Bonald, and Joseph de Maistre, who in the mind of some bear indicia of romanticism, but in fact are not political romantics at all.

The result is that the romantic denies the importance of justice, a focus on which is “the most important source of political vitality.” Instead, they substitute inconsistency, “though with splendid words about the necessity of [their] position.” They “speak and float in the beautiful movement of a social conversation.” This produces “moral helplessness in the face of each new impression” and makes necessary political life impossible. “An emotion that does not transcend the limits of the subjective cannot be the foundation of a community . . . [N]o society can discover an order without a concept of what is normal and what is right. Conceptually, the normal is unromantic because every norm destroys the occasional license of the romantic.” The essence of the romantic is “the renunciation of every active alteration of the real world.” Everything is fragmentary for the romantic, capable of being part of some higher synthesis, the achievement of which is so eagerly sought. No side needs to be chosen; there is always more talking to do. Schmitt does make some allowances—not every person who has a heightened aesthetic sense is such a useless political romantic; there are also romantic politicians, who rather than seeking a higher harmony that erases making distinctions and choices, inform their moral choices with an aesthetic sense (Schmitt gives the interesting example of Don Quixote).

What is the application of all this today? At first glance, not much. Romanticism is no longer a relevant current of intellectual thought. Or is it? Some elements of romanticism are visible in the thought of today’s Left, notably the importance of subjective feelings. Schmitt refers to romanticism as an “emotive response to political events,” which sums up much of our politics today. But I think that is a secondary element of today’s Left, and also affects the Right, because it is the end product of the hyper-feminization of much of our society. The primary markers of the Left are, as I have noted many times and stole from Roger Scruton, are a simultaneous exaltation of total autonomy, emancipation from unchosen bonds, and of total equality, where no excellence can be permitted. To some extent, the rejection of norms that necessarily characterizes romanticism in Schmitt’s analysis fits precisely with the modern Left, but their reason for rejecting norms results from the demand for emancipation at any societal price, not from a refined aesthetic calculus. And the Left is very much interested in political decisions and choices, in altering the real world, not in the romantic search for a higher synthesis that removes thought to a more abstract plane.

As Gopal Balakrishnan points out in his analysis of Schmitt’s thought, The Enemy, Schmitt is usually associated with the anti-Weimar Conservative Revolutionaries, but at this point, similarities were hard to discern. Yes, Schmitt expresses some contempt for the liberal bourgeois view of life, but that criticism could be Left as much as Right. German Romanticism was something very important to many of the Conservative Revolutionaries, such as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, reinforcing that this book can be taken in part as an attack on the German Right of 1919. Schmitt’s later turn to the intellectual Right was thus perhaps not preordained.

No doubt annoying Schmitt, the reaction to the 1919 publication of this book was a resurgence of interest in Müller; Schmitt’s Preface to the 1925 edition notes this, and denies that he’s responsible just because he “discussed an insignificant and questionable personality such as Adam Müller in far too much detail.” Nor did Schmitt return much, if it all, to the themes of Political Romanticism in his later thought. Yet this book is important because it begins Schmitt’s analysis of politics, which he extended to great benefit. Visible here are the roots of Schmitt’s later thoughts on decisionism, on the need for a choice between good and evil, and other crucial views. Also visible is Schmitt’s antipathy toward unmoored individualism, which became more important in his thinking over time. It is explicitly present in the Preface, where he notes that “The ultimate roots of romanticism and the romantic phenomenon lie in the private priesthood.” He is not attacking Protestants; what he means is “romanticism makes the individual [the bourgeois world’s] own point of reference, and imposes upon it the entire burden that otherwise was hierarchically distributed among different functions in a social order.” This leads to “despair,” and certainly, what we can see all around us is despair resulting from the destruction of an organic social order.

Thus, even if Schmitt did not intend to attack the Left, much of this book reads as an assault on elements of Left thought as they have developed in the past one hundred years. That alone makes it fun, and while this book is often overlooked, and I’m not sure it’s essential reading, it’s not a waste of time.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have long since suspected that Schmitt makes for a better literary/cultural critic than a political philosopher, and this tract only proves my suspicion.
This monograph, somewhat uneven in its rhythm, is an attempt at a conceptual-scientific elaboration on an invariant structure known as "romanticism", which as Schmitt quickly tells us, is correlated with subjectivity. Previous definitions of romanticism missed the mark because they were looking for the supposed individuating content (e.g. a certain longing for a world already on its way to becoming obsolete) that preoccupied the allegedly romantic subject. But in an almost Copernican turn, Schmitt argues that it is the specific structure of subjectivity whose adoption that determines whether or not an individual is romantic. This structure is one of subjective occasionalism; subjective because it is borne out of the absolute's ego aesthetic productivity and occasionalist because such an ego treats everything it comes into contact with (be it revolution, Western Feudalism or singular entities and even proper names like Napolean) as a purely contingent material for the said aesthetic-affective creation. If a romantic showers praise on Tertullian, it is not because they politically align with Tertullian's decision to side with Jerusalem over Athens but because the concrete figure of Tertullian merely presents an occasion (occasio) for the subjective ego to flex its lyrical or poetic prowess. As a matter of fact, the romantic, far from taking sides, displaces all antithesis and oppositions she encounters into a so-called 'higher third' (which is always available, curiously) in which these antheses are suspended in a magical synthesis. "Neither reason nor revelation, but a higher third thing" says the romantic. Consigned to oblivion along with every real antagonism is the necessity to make a risky decision for or against something. This continual aestheticizing and displacement constitute, and therefore exhaust, the sum total of her contribution to the life of culture--life as an endless Roman (novel)!
Alternatively, one can read this text as a ruthless take-down of Adam Muller, who was an early 19th century German political thinker.
(It is crucial to note that political romantics are an altogether different breed from those who engage in romantic politics, such as Don Quixote for example. The latter take risks and expend their energy on actual political undertakings. However, the defining quality of political romantics is that they never objectivate the frenetic activity of their ego except in the form of aesthetic reports of one's affects)

[Karlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extensive study of the romantic movement, mostly focusing on authors from the German idealism period (Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer). Starting from a genealogical analysis of the idea of "romantic", Schmitt is carefully, through several levels, "dissecting" the whole metaphysical system of romantic authors. Stating that the epistemological starting point of romantics is an aesthetic view of reality, Schmitt makes a great case in describing their epistemology, philosophy of religion, rhetoric, and in the end, political philosophy. Written in a highly erudite manner (like most of Schmitt's works) it should be read a few times to comprehend the specter of his critique.

[Count Gravlax · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more I read Schmitt the more I feel he is one of the most relevant political scientists to help understand our current situation. He is also an excellent and clear writer, who leaves no room for ambiguity in his texts.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Political Romanticism" by Carl Schmitt presents a profound analysis of the intricate relationship between aesthetics and politics, focusing on the phenomenon of political romanticism. Schmitt explores how romanticism influences and shapes political thought, emphasizing its impact on the formation of political identities, the quest for sovereignty, and the emergence of charismatic leadership. This review aims to provide an academic evaluation of Schmitt's arguments, discussing the book's strengths, weaknesses, and its significance within the fields of political theory, intellectual history, and cultural studies.


In "Political Romanticism," Schmitt delves into the complexities of romanticism's intersection with politics. He explores how the romantic impulse seeks to transcend the rational and normative foundations of traditional political theory, invoking emotional and mythical elements to generate political legitimacy. Schmitt examines the historical manifestations of political romanticism, including its influence on nationalism, messianism, and the emergence of political movements driven by charismatic figures.

One of the notable strengths of Schmitt's work is his ability to unravel the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in political romanticism. He highlights the tension between the idealized visions of a harmonious, organic society and the potential dangers of romanticizing political action. By scrutinizing the intersections of art, myth, and politics, Schmitt provides a nuanced analysis of the aesthetic dimensions of political thought.


Schmitt's analysis in "Political Romanticism" is characterized by its depth and erudition. His interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon philosophy, literature, and political theory, enriches the book's exploration of the subject matter. Schmitt offers a profound understanding of the romantic mindset and its influence on political discourse and action.

Moreover, Schmitt's examination of the role of charismatic leadership in political romanticism is particularly insightful. He explores how charismatic figures, often embodying the collective aspirations and desires of their followers, arise as agents of transformation in times of crisis. Schmitt's analysis sheds light on the allure of charismatic leaders and their ability to mobilize masses through emotional appeals.


While "Political Romanticism" provides a comprehensive analysis of the romantic influence on politics, it is not without its limitations. Some scholars argue that Schmitt's critique of romanticism lacks a balanced assessment of its positive contributions to political thought and culture. A more nuanced consideration of the potential benefits and constructive aspects of romanticism would enhance the book's analytical breadth.

Additionally, critics contend that Schmitt's examination of political romanticism could benefit from a more thorough engagement with its diverse manifestations across different cultural and historical contexts. Expanding the analysis beyond European contexts would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the global reach and variations of political romanticism.


"Political Romanticism" holds significant importance within the fields of political theory, intellectual history, and cultural studies. Schmitt's exploration of the interplay between aesthetics and politics expands our understanding of the complex motivations and aspirations that underlie political movements and ideologies. The book's enduring significance lies in its ability to prompt critical reflections on the tensions between reason and emotion, tradition and innovation, and the allure of charismatic leadership within political discourse.


"Political Romanticism" by Carl Schmitt offers a profound analysis of the intricate relationship between aesthetics and politics. Schmitt's erudition and interdisciplinary approach contribute to a nuanced understanding of political romanticism, unraveling its paradoxes and exploring its historical manifestations. While the book has its limitations, its enduring significance lies in its ability to stimulate scholarly debates and encourage critical reflections on the aesthetic dimensions of political thought. "Political Romanticism" invites scholars to navigate the complexities of romantic influence on politics, providing valuable insights into the intersections of art, myth and politics.

GPT

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

“In the most limited area of its distinctive productivity, in lyrical and musical poetry, subjective occasionalism may discover a small island of free creativity. But even here it unconsciously submits to the strongest and most proximate power. And its superiority over the present, which is taken in a purely occasional fashion, undergoes an extremely ironical reversal: Everything that is romantic is at the disposal of other energies that are unromantic, and the sublime elevation above definition and decision is transformed into a subservient attendance upon alien power and alien decision.”

I usually have a good time reading Carl Schmitt, despite our widely different political leanings. This unrepentant Nazi coward really knew how to turn a phrase. This text, dating from long before Schmitt’s embrace of Nazism and subsequent disgrace, brims with a certain tragic tension. Schmitt was not a political romantic, but when he writes powerfully and eloquently about the amoral occasionalism of the political romantic, when he tells us that a writer with no sense of justice and a flair for the dramatic easily becomes the tool of whichever politically active powers prevail at the time, the reader knows something that the 1919 Schmitt doesn’t: the political romantics with their amorality and indifferentism are, at this stage, irrelevant. They do no harm. It will be Schmitt, who clearly valorises political activity as virtuous in-itself even in 1919, who will cravenly submit to “alien power” and enable far more havoc than the figures he spends this text pointing the finger at. Perhaps a “Political Schmittianism” would be an interesting follow-up in our time.

As I said, I normally enjoy reading Schmitt. This time, I was rarely enthralled - this book is by-and-large a repetitive and only sometimes interesting attack on a aesthetic-political tradition that most of us never think about anymore. If anybody other than Schmitt, with his propensity for understated but devastating epigrams, had written this book I wouldn’t have reached the end. In so far as the germs of some of Schmitt’s most famous ideas (the Political, the Decision, the Exception…) can be discerned here, the text holds interest beyond its rather specific target. Otherwise, I’d claim the most interesting aspect of this read is knowing what comes next.

[Chris Chiou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of overlooked and underrated, in reality this is an absolutely essential read and deserves the status of classic in political philosophy. Schmitt's idiosyncratic approach is brilliant as always, and in fact very, very few works have more to offer in understanding modern liberal and especially post-modern neoliberal politics from a conservative point of view. Romanticism, according to Schmitt, is intrinsic in a bourgeois society: Its origins are to be found in the enlarged and demanding private sphere, to be found in capitalist modernity.

As liberalization and depoliticization expand, romantic pseudopolitics are bound to dominate. Thus what today is understood by conservatives as the post-modern tyranny of subjectivity, emotional judgement, and non-stop demand for rights (often for constructed minorities) can be explained via Schmitt not as a reaction to a past of romanticism in the West, but as a new romantic fashion of pointless, hollow revolts against the air we breathe, in a society that is totally out of touch with the antagonistic and irrationalistic/existentialistic nature of the political.

[OSCAR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considero que este ha sido el trabajo más abstruso del jurista alemán. Esto debido a que trató temas de literatura y filosofía a los cuales no nos tiene habituados. Eso hizo el texto árido, y ralentizó la lectura.

El objetivo central del libro es encontrar una característica definitoria del romanticismo ¿Cuál sería ésta, si los románticos fueron ya filomonárquicos, ya republicanos, ya cristianos, ya ateos? Justamente su negación de lo político, que los hace buscar en determinados hechos, ocasiones para expresar su vena artística. Son emocionales por naturaleza y eso los define.

En este texto Schmitt ataca a los "políticos románticos" justamente por negar la esencia de la política, que es tomar resolución, es decir, tomar partido. Muestra con argumentos filosóficos, históricos y biográficos la irresolución de los autores románticos, y los contrasta con movimientos paralelos y hasta afines, los cuales, sin embargo, sí tenían posturas claras sobre su visión del mundo y el ordenamiento político.

Considero que este trabajo fue el semillero de sus futuras ideas, y que además fue el eje de denuncia contra el liberalismo, que encuentra en el romanticismo su más perversa consecuencia. Después de leer otras obras del jurista alemán, he quedado anodadado por su cúmulo de conocimientos; realmente quedé azorado de conocer a este Schmitt medio filósofo. ¡Impresionante!

[André Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quem já leu Carl Schmitt provavelmente já sabe por que ele é o malvado favorito de muita gente que não concorda com ele em quase nada. É algo difícil de explicar para além de uma caracterização bastante primária: o sujeito escreve sobre coisas complicadas com uma clareza ímpar e consegue produzir a aparência de raciocínios infalivelmente rigorosos. Aqui ele expõe sua visão extremamente negativa de um conceito nebuloso, o de romantismo (francamente não acho a definição dele satisfatória, mas não sei se são muito melhores as de escritores respeitáveis como Michael Löwy e Isaiah Berlin, os dois aliás bem menos precisos do que Schmitt). Vale não só pela tese, em si bastante interessante, do romantismo como ocasionalismo político, mas pela revisão esquisitices reacionárias que dificilmente se encontram referida em autores mais kosher. Também são impagáveis as tiradas dele contra Adam Müller e Friedrich Schlegel. Esse último, que normalmente se conhece por suas indiscutíveis contribuições à teoria da literatura, se revela em outros assuntos um rematado paspalho.

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Political Romanticism de Carl Schmitt es una reflexión sobre el papel de la política en la modernidad, en la que critica la banalización de la política en el marco del liberalismo y el racionalismo. Schmitt defiende que la política, en su esencia, es un campo donde los individuos y las comunidades deben tener una identidad profunda, basada en sentimientos, pasiones y una conexión auténtica con su pueblo. La obra aborda cómo los movimientos románticos, al rechazar la racionalidad y los sistemas políticos abstractos, buscaron una política más orgánica y vinculada a las tradiciones y la identidad de la nación. Schmitt analiza la pérdida de este sentido romántico de la política en el mundo moderno, donde se ha sustituido por una visión utilitaria y deshumanizada. Aunque su crítica al liberalismo es acertada, su énfasis en una política más visceral y conectada con la identidad cultural puede resonar fuertemente con aquellos que defienden un modelo político que valore la soberanía nacional y el vínculo profundo con las raíces culturales y espirituales.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Im engsten Bereich seiner spezifischen Produktivität, im Lyrisch- und Musikalisch-Poetischen, mag der subjektive Occasionalismus eine kleine Insel freien Schöpfertums finden, aber selbst hier unter- wirft er sich unbewußt der nächsten und stärksten Macht, und seine Überlegenheit über die bloß occasionell genommene Gegenwart erleidet eine höchst ironische Umkehrung: alles Romantische steht im Dienste anderer, unromantischer Energien, und die Erhabenheit über Definition und Ent- scheidung verwandelt sich in ein dienstbares Begleiten fremder Kraft und fremder Entscheidung.'

[Pinky 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well constructed and argued, but the topic is his most specific that I've encountered. Recommend for those who want to know about how romanticism (really German idealism in philosophy) related to politics in Schmitt's view. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel versus Cortes, Bonald and de Maistre.

[Iohannes · Rating 3 out of 5]

even tho I hardly ever agree with him, Schmitt is a brilliant thonker and always a fun read.

[Ministerial Assessor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could also be titled “Why Adam Mueller Sucks”

[On!Theup · Rating 1 out of 5]

The introduction had more name drops than most rap diss tracks I've heard.

2/10

[Yukinosita Yukino · Rating 5 out of 5]

SEDUCTIVE

[Luke Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange polemic against mostly Adam Müller - a 19th C german romantic political writer.