Politics Defines the Enemy

then the real work begins

Ever since I read Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political the world has changed for me. Because?

Because he writes that the political is about the difference between friend and enemy.

Because that means that “there is no politics without an enemy.”

Because politics turns every “other” into an enemy.

Because politics turns every human disagreement into a fight.

That’s odd, because we humans tend to think of ourselves as “social animals” rather than a human version of “soldier ants.”

And so, I now believe that the great question that confronts humanity is how to get beyond the Great Mistake of the educated ruling class that rules us: the idea that we can build a better society with politics.

No you can’t dear educated friends. Because as soon as you try to do anything with politics then you define the other guys as enemies. And what do you do with enemies? You defeat them.

So when I read a conservative piece about the transgender issue and how each side attributes “sinister motives” to its opponents, I think: of course, because both sides look on the issue as political, and that means that both sides of the issue look to the political system to enforce — or defend — their world-view.

And obviously, both sides look to the government school system to teach the kiddies their moral system and enforce their world view and defeat the “other” world view.

But Adam Carrington wants to engage the left on transgender issues by defending their “position by reason, science, and the major world religions.” Ain’t gonna happen if the left believes that conservative opposition to transgenders is enemy action.

Carrington writes that:

Politics establishes and maintains a community through laws and institutions that create and administer those laws.

Actually, the way I read history, law and institutions grew up outside the state. The British Common Law was a traditional of legal opinions developed over the years by legal decisions. Christianity started out as a cult of Mediterranean yahoos, that was first experienced by the Romans as an enemy, and was later co-opted by them into the official religion of the Empire.

At some point the rulers decided that it was good politics to make the law courts into the Kings Law Courts and enforce their decisions by royal will. Napoleon decided to appoint a committee to codify French civil law: “a major step in replacing the previous patchwork of feudal laws”, experts agree.

It’s one thing for the politicians to attach organic cultural achievements to their state to make themselves look good. It’s another thing for them to “fundamentally transform” the state to implement a particular vision of society and justice. It might have seemed like a good idea back in the day. But every effort to “fundamentally transform” society, from the French Revolution to the Bolshevik Revolution to the Maoist Revolution, has been a violent disaster. It just doesn’t work.

And the reason is simple. A political leader is there perform the straightforward task of protecting society from the enemy. Society itself is organic, complex, evolving, with a purpose — if it has a purpose — that is beyond human comprehension.

Take transgender. I’d say that if transgenders want to form their own gender cult then go ahead, just don’t frighten the horses. But if transgenders get the support of the ruling class and then proceed to ram it down society’s throat: that’s Trouble with a capital T, right here in River City. Personally, I think that transgenderism is a crazy cult rather like the Shakers. “Shakers were celibate; procreation was forbidden after they joined the society”.

See, I think that any society or cult that does not focus on the question of children is not long for this world. Nothing personal, you understand, you feminists and gays.

And I believe that any society that proposes to transform the world through politics is not long for this world either.

It’s a great question: how do we humans develop a society with the ability to defeat an enemy every now and again, but that concentrates all its energies on social activity outside the state. I believe in Jürgen Habermas’s “lifeworld,” humans living in community in the world with other humans with whom they communicate and develop moral agreement, as much as possible without the enemy-creating influence of politics.

But how do we get there? And more to the point, how do we get our educated class to give up on “fundamental change” and just let human society evolve and adapt according to the mystery of the universe?

Obviously, Step One is to stop beating up on the enemy.