The Familial Distinction

between care and neglect

Ever since Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt changed my life with his simple and powerful explanation of politics as the distinction between friend and enemy, I have been discovering extensions to his distinctions.

Of course his distinction between friend and enemy is too sophisticated for simpletons like me. So I reduce it to the following:

“There is no politics without an enemy.” — Curtis Yarvin

“There is no politics withou a handout.” — Christopher Chantrill

Of course, the best handouts are to those supporters of the regime useful to the regime, particularly those working in NGOs for the better good of humankind. But it’s OK to help the odd Somali of a Thursday.

Here are some extensions I came up with in 2023:

Traditional, what is “done” and “not done.”
Associational, as in mutual-aid societies, discussion groups, athletic clubs
Educational
Technical, as in “know-how” and practiced skills
Charitable
Subconscious, including emotions like sadness, fear, libido, anger, courage.

But I have been thinking today about the question of “care.” It’s obviously a girl thing: girls are always discussing the care of their loved ones. “Care” is something that our liberal friends like to descant on. Because it make them sound caring.

The opposite of “care” is obviously “neglect.” But what do we call the distinction. I wondered about it for a day or so. Then I decided that it is the “familial distinction.” Thus:

Familial: the distinction between Care and Neglect.

It makes sense. Caring for people in your family is the familial thing to do. Neglecting people in your family is the unfamilial thing to do. Of course, our liberal friends like to extend the distinction between care and neglect to sell the notion that the liberal welfare state is all about caring. But I say that’s a lie.

Why? Because of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s political distinction between friend and enemy. Liberals shower people with programs and benefits because they want to reward their friends and supporters. Because that is how politics works. See above.

My belief is that people in politics are always trying to combine non-political distinctions with the political distinction, because they need to disguise the crude operations of politics with a nice story. Thus liberals believe that their entitlement programs are moral, bending the arc of history towards justice, rather than a simple political reward to their supporters, a reward taken by force from the taxpayers.

Pretty soon I am going to set up a page to list all the Schmittian distinctions: Schmitt’s original distinctions and all the extensions that I have discovered. But not today.