Aufsätze: Politische Einmischung

Von Andreas Heuer

Es geht um eine Kritik am westlichen Denken. In den Aufsätzen wird diese Kritik aus verschiedenen Perspektiven vorgestellt. Die Aufsätze orientieren sich an gegenwärtigen Entwicklungen und nehmen andere Weltregionen in den Blick.

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: tredition
• Erscheinungsdatum: 10. März 2023
• ISBN: 9783384092274

Andreas Heuer

Andreas Heuer (1959) wurde in Kassel geboren. Er studierte an den Universitäten Hamburg und Bordeaux. 1990 Promotion am Fachbereich Geschichte der Universität Hamburg. Unterrichts- und Lehrtätigkeiten an internationalen Schulen und Universitäten in Deutschland, Südkorea, China und der Slowakei. Zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen u.a.: Die Geburt des modernen Geschichtsdenkens in Europa (2012), Globales Geschichtsbewusstsein. Die Entstehung der multipolaren Welt vom 18.Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart (2012), Nachdenken über Geschichte. Hegel, Droysen, Troeltsch, Löwith, Strauss (2013), Öffentliche Philosophie. (2014), Moralisch Denken. Einführende Gedanken zur philosophischen Ethik. (2015), Carl Schmitt und die Krise des gegenwärtigen Liberalismus (2019).

Buchvorschau

The European self-imagination: Carl Schmitt`s criticism of liberal democracy

Carl Schmitt was a fervent critique of liberalism and liberal democracy. This critique becomes relevant again in a world in which liberalism is contested not only outside the realm of liberal democracies but also within the boundaries of liberal democracies. I will put up the thesis that there is a European self-imagination of historical progress and its problematic side in the realm of politics. I will use the term liberal and liberalism in a broader sense as a philosophical and political idea, which evolves between the 17th and 19th century centered on two main principles: individualism and liberty. By the term European self-imagination, I want to indicate that there is a liberal narrative based on the ideas of ethic monotheism and history as human progress, which is the foundation of the European self-imagination transforming liberalism into a political concept to establish a world order through economic progress. This self-imagination takes over again with the Russian invasion in Ukraine. The idea of the West proclaims a worldview which distinguishes in Carl Schmitt’s fashion the essence of politics: the distinction between foe and friend. It leads to, as the German chancellor Olav Scholz proclaimed, a Zeitenwende (a turning point) which distinguishes a before and an after. What is this Western world which rises again in the realm of international politics?

I firstly will refer to the historical rise of the idea of the West. Such concepts were developed during the period of modernity. They imply political concepts, economic structures which demonstrate the progress of humanity. Hegel’s Philosophy of history and its secularized versions in political liberalism see the world history as a development towards the modern Western society with the core idea of liberty. Liberal theory concedes liberty to every individual as a basic right to choose: a political party as citizen, a product as a consumer, a way of life as a bourgeois. Every society must follow this model to become modern. Historical progress will neutralize all political conflicts and transform societies into the realm of liberal democracy.

Carl Schmitt is suspicious by this claim early on. While liberals claim the self-determination of nations after World War I, political reality tells another story. The Treaty of Versailles excludes most nations from the process of decision-making. A few Western powers and Japan determine the new world order represented by the League of Nations. Schmitt dismantles liberalism as a political ideology of Western powers to oppress Germany in particular, while holding up the idea of winners and losers (Sieger und Besiegte) to dominate international politics (Schmitt 1928:107). Ironically Schmitt argues from the same perspective as many nonEuropean intellectuals at that time such as Mohammed Abduh, Liang Qichao, Rabindranath Tagore who despised the bias between the liberal claim of universal rights and political reality of oppression and self-interest of Western powers.

The founder of Islamic modernism Mohammed Abduh confesses in 1895: We Egyptians believed once in English liberalism and English sympathy; but we believe no longer, for facts are stronger than words. Your liberalness we see plainly is only for yourselves, and your sympathy with us is that of the wolf for the lamb which he deigns to eat (Mishra 2012). Liang Qichao turns to social Darwinism seeing the way Western countries penetrated China. He comes to the conclusion that in the world, there is only power – there is no other force … Hence, if we wish to attain liberty, there is no other road: we can only seek first to be strong (Mishra 2012). Rabindranath Tagore resumes his view about Western ideology: The truth is that the spirit of conflict and conquest is at the origin and in the center of Western nationalism (Tagore 2017:9).

Schmitt realizes in the context of the Treaty of Versailles from the perspective of those who are excluded from political decisions that liberalism and its concept of the modern state are a secularized version of theology, which betrays the true theological foundation of the modern state. Schmitt has no doubts that theology is the core principle of modernity: All significant concepts of modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts […] (Schmitt 1922/2005:36). During the 16th century, the modern state becomes the new model of political order to overcome religious civil wars by evolving the monopoly of violence above the conflicting religious groups. The modern state finds its roots in the omnipotent God who becomes the omnipotent lawgiver: In the theory of the state of the seventeenth century, the monarch is identified with God and has in the state a position exactly analogous to that attributed to God in the Cartesian system of the world" (Schmitt 1922/2005:46).

Schmitt favours in his reconstruction of modern European history the biblical story of the Fall of Man. The sin of modern Europe is the fall from its origin: the establishment of a state above, which controls the evil powers of conflicting ideologies and religion and a sovereign who is in control in times of upheaval. Liberalism turns the state into a servant of the society. The achievement of the modern state is blast away by liberal politics featuring on progress and the growing liberty of each individual.

The liberal detachment from the theological foundation of the modern state comes mainly in two phases represented by Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottfried Herder. Both thinkers reflect the transformation of the modern state into a worldly affair.

Kant succeeds in placing ethics on an autonomous basis, as part of systematic philosophy transcending all boundaries between humans. As Hermann Cohen puts it: The spirit of mankind breathes in Kant’s ethics - So atmet die Ethik Kants den Geist der Menschheit – (Cohen 1929/2008:301). Kant sums up the nucleus of Prophets’ ethical monotheism in his categorical imperative: Respect mankind in your own person as well as in the person of everyone else synthesizing successfully faith and reason in his Kingdom of Ends. Reason suspends religion.

Herder, a disciple of Kant, expands the idea to respect mankind in a person into respecting the intrinsic dignity and worth of mankind in every culture and civilization. Herder insists that civilizations must be understood from within, in terms of their own stages of development, purposes and outlooks. But Herder realizes the problematic side of his idea, which is relativism. He clings to the notion of one world, one basic human personality, the organic interrelation of everything because his expanded version of Kant’s noble idea cannot be a part of relativism. But the door to relativism has opened.

The liberal German historian Friedrich Meinecke recognizes this conflict in his reflections about the rise of historicism (Die Entstehung des Historismus). He attributes to antiquity as well as to the modern period to be anchored in the philosophy of natural law attributing to human nature an ahistorical validity (Meinecke 1936/1965:3). It is historicism during the 19th century, which develops a full understanding of historical thinking turning ideas as preestablished harmony, philosophical postulate, absolute spirit, and the trans-historical truth of God into the realm of historical consciousness. Historicism replaces general views about historical and human forces by individual contemplations.