Posted by caraher on November 24, 2005, at 4:14:45
In reply to Re: The Usual Thing » Jakeman, posted by zeugma on November 23, 2005, at 17:24:35
> wonder how many times though-out history this has happened. I'm beginning to consider the terrible thought that people want war...or that nations need an enemy. I started to go on about Iraq but I'll stop here>>
>
> Prudence, prudence- stopping here too.
>
> On second thought- nations don't need enemies. But some political agendas certainly do. In fact, I've looked over a few that actually demand it. Hitler's plan for Lebensraum comes to mind, as do a few penned by authors closer to me in time and space.There are some political theorists - whose writings have enjoyed a revival in certain circles - who say "the enemy" is fundamental to a state's identity. For instance, Carl Schmitt and his intellectual descendants. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt
"Schmitt, in perhaps his best-known formulation, bases his conceptual realm of state sovereignty and autonomy upon the distinction between friends and enemies. This distinction is to be determined "existentially," which is to say that the enemy is whoever is "in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible." (Schmitt, 1996, p. 27) Such an enemy need not even be based on nationality: so long as the conflict is potentially intense enough to become a violent one between political entities, the actual substance of enmity may be anything. Although there have been divergent interpretations offered of this work, there is broad agreement that "The Concept of the Political" is an attempt to achieve state unity by defining the content of politics as opposition to a foreign "other," and also through the preeminence of the state, which stands as a neutral force over potentially fractious civil society, whose various antagonisms must not be allowed to reach the level of the political, lest civil war result."
poster:caraher
thread:581252
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20051121/msgs/581820.html