Aufsätze E-Book

Andreas Heuer

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 120

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Inhalt

Cover

Vorwort

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

The theological-political foundation of modernity as a political problem

Das Ende der westlichen Weltgeschichte

Politische Theologie

Globalisierung im Geschichts- und Ethikunterricht

Letzte Rettung Shanghai: China und der Holocaust

Die jüdische Geschichte Shanghais

Aufsätze

Cover

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

Die jüdische Geschichte Shanghais

Aufsätze

Cover

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Vorwort

In den folgenden Aufsätzen handelt es sich um Einmischungen in politische Fragen, die ich in den letzten Jahren geschrieben habe und die einen gemeinsamen Nenner haben: die Infragestellung eines einseitigen westlichen Denkens. Allein der Begriff des westlichen Denkens stellt uns schon vor die Herausforderung, die Frage zu beantworten, was denn dieses westliche Denken ist. Dieser Problematik ziehen sich durch die folgenden Aufsätze. Aus sehr unterschiedlichen Perspektiven soll deutlich werden, dass der selbstverständliche Gebrauch, der sich seit dem Angriffskrieg Russlands auf die Ukraine wieder verselbständigt hat, im Zeichen eines wirklichen Universalismus nicht halten lässt. Carl Schmitt als einer der wichtigsten Kritiker des Liberalismus kommt nicht zufällig in diesem Zusammenhang zu Wort. Carl Schmitts Antworten, die er selber im Zuge seiner Kritik am Liberalismus gegeben hat, sind zu verwerfen. Dies schließt aber nicht aus, dass er in seiner Kritik am Liberalismus zentrale Schwächen erkannt hat. Der Liberalismus stellt sich selber gern als Vertreter eines Universalismus hin. Aber in der realen Politik ist dies oft nicht der Fall. Zudem unterliegt der Liberalismus der Gefahr, dass er als Idee instrumentalisiert wird.

Wenn wir weiter das Ziel verfolgen wollen, einen Universalismus glaubhaft zu vertreten, dann kommen wir nicht umhin, eigene, gängige Denkvorstellungen, die sich am Liberalismus orientieren, kritisch zu reflektieren. Hierzu möchten die folgenden Artikel einladen.

Bratislava, 11. März 2023

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 non-European 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. Meinecke is convinced that the dangers of relativism can be overcome by distinguishing a relativism of values from a groundless relativism. But where do the values come from? Or to put it into Schmitt’s famous question: Quis iudicabit – Who decides?

After World War I liberalism reinforces a narrative that evolved during the 19th century to justify colonialism. It combines Kant’s ethical monotheism with Herder’s dignity of mankind. Nations and peoples are in various stages of development towards ethical monotheism and history becomes the stage on which the path to one truth enfolds. The idea of historical progress glues the ahistorical claim of reason with the dignity of mankind in every culture and civilization. The less civilized people just have to be educated and brought to the right way of history. In political reality this narrative is abused as pretext to justify aggression, oppression and exploitation.

On the other hand, we should not romanticise autonomy and the aspiration for selfdetermination as a good end to itself. The cardinal principal of the autonomy of the collective individual tends to degenerate into the pretext of immunity from all kinds of crime and inhuman oppression. Autonomy, national or regional self-determination, the principle of nonintervention of outside force can be used to commit crimes of horrendous scale as we can see in former Yugoslavia or in Syria today. Schmitt sees the danger, that the “worst confusion arises when concepts such as justice and freedom are used to legitimize one’s own political ambitions and to disqualify or demoralize the enemy” (Schmitt 1932/2007: 66). What makes Schmitt’s analysis so suspicious is that he himself fell deeply into the trap of justifying German autonomy during Word War II on the ground of racial politics. Putting the friend/enemy distinction to the extreme, war crimes and political crimes unfold.

Herder avoids the monstrosity of nationalism by strictly confining his nationalism to the domain of culture. Unlike Schmitt Herder fails to see that almost everything can become political. Schmitt discovers the weak point of the liberal narrative by understanding that neutralizing political conflicts by economic politics does not lead to peaceful coexistence of mutual respect and autonomy.

Neutralizing of politics means at the end that there is no alternative to liberalism: “In a good world among good people, only peace, security and harmony prevail” (Schmitt 1932/2007: 65). After the fall of communism and the end of the Marxist narrative of history, liberalism expands its own narrative. Eric Li resumes this narrative from the Chinese perspective: “All societies, regardless of culture, be it Christian, Muslim, Confucian, must progress from traditional societies in which groups are the basic units to modern societies in which atomized individuals are the sovereign units, and all these individuals are, by definition, rational, and they all want one thing: the vote. Because they are all rational, once given the vote, they produce good government and live happily ever after. Paradise on Earth, again. Sooner or later, electoral democracy will be the only political system for all countries and all peoples, with a free market to make them all rich. But before we get there, we're engaged in a struggle between good and evil. (Laughter) The good belongs to those who are democracies and are charged with a mission of spreading it around the globe, sometimes by force, against the evil of those who do not hold elections” (Li 2013).

The original concept of neutralizing is the transformation of political religion into the realm of privacy. During the 20th and 21st century, neutralizing turns into a take- over of liberalism as the only legitimate form of politics and government. As Raymond Geuss resumes: “A particular worldview dominates the contemporary political scene. It is composed by the assumption that societies should be organized as modern states conjoined with a commitment to a form of liberalism, democracy as a form of government, and a system of individual human rights” (Geuss 2006: 153).

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe falls into the trap of its self-imagination. The liberal narrative is regarded as being implemented by and in the European Union as the embodiment of a universal trend. Ivan Krastev concludes: “After the end of the Cold War and the expansion of the union, Brussels fell head over heels for its social and political model, adopting a highly uncritical view of the direction world history was heading. European public opinion had assumed that globalization would hasten the decline of states as key international actors and nationalism as a core political motivator. Europeans interpreted their own post-WW II experience of overcoming ethnic nationalism and political theology as a signal of a universal trend” (Krastev 2017: 8).