The Communal Distinction

of included vs. excluded

As you know, I’m a Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt guy. Because of his distinctions in The Concept of the Political. The political is friend vs. enemy. The moral is good vs. evil. And very satisfying it is to understand the public world through this lens.

But, I’ve been thinking. Especially after reading The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson. He divides the world into “distributional coalitions” and the rest, including the agents of “disruption.” And the point of the distributional coalition is to avoid disruption, by limiting competition, by trying to be regime-adjacent. Etc.

I decided that I didn’t like the notion of “distributional coalition.” I thought about other words such as “stationary,” stability,” “continuity,” “structural.” But I still wasn’t satisfied. But now I think I have a breakthrough.

The point of the distributional coalitions is mainly that they experience themselves as communities. We may say that they are corrupt and suck up to political power and exclusionary, and so on. But that’s not how they experience themselves.

But then I thought. Whatabout Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt and his distinctions? Because it seems to me that we have a new distinction here.

The communal is the distinction between included and excluded.

And I think that the communal distinction is important. If you are in a medieval guild, the world is divided into people that are included in the guild and those that are not. Back in the day this was important. For instance, in the days of fraternal orders like the Masons and the Elks, one of the advantages of membership was that if you headed Out West you weren’t alone. When you arrived in a new town you would connect with the local lodge and you were immediately accepted into the community. It was assumed that, as a member, you were trustworthy.

Here’s what Wikipedia says:

The Golden Age of Fraternalism is a term referring to a period when membership in the fraternal societies in the United States grew at a very rapid pace in the latter third of the 19th century and continuing into the first part of the 20th. At its peak, it was suggested that as much as 40% of the adult male population held membership in at least one fraternal order.

Do you see the point? The fraternal orders were very important in the insdividualist society of the Industrical Revolution. Until the welfare state came along. Oh did you know that every fraternal lodge had its “lodge doctor?” Health care. But no child cancer research funding, alas.

Now, in my AT article this week I was making fun of the liberal church ladies up the street and their super-woke church that sports the following slogan on its front door.

an inclusive, socially active, religious community of faith

Now, you and I know that our liberal friends are the most exclusionary tribe since sliced bread. But that’s not how they experience themselves. They experience themselves as a community, the most inclusive people since sliced bread.

Now, it’s my belief that the distinctions advertised by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt are woven together. They are all manifestations of humans as social animals.

Now I think that the political distinction of friend vs. enemy is a boy thing.

I think that the moral distinction of good vs. evil is a girl thing.

But whatabout the communal distinction? The fact is that men join together in bro clubs. And women join up into girl book clubs. And then we have families and clans and tribes and sports teams and clubs of all kinds. In other words human community is not just boy or girl but human.

So the communal distinction of in-crowd vs. out-crowd is a human thing.

And the political and the moral and the communal distinctons are all woven together. Because of course they are.