Carl Schmitt (and Francis Parker Yockey) put foward the idea that human evaluations occur between two poles -
- Aesthetics distinguishes between the Beautiful and the Ugly,
- Economics between the Profitable and the Unprofitable
- Moral between the Good and the Evil
- Politics between Friend and Enemy.
Each of these four fields of human evaluation - aesthetic, economic, moral, political - have what I would call a nexus (Carl Schmitt does not deal with this, as far as I'm aware, but from my perspective, adding this element helps). The nexus of aesthetics is form, the nexus of economics is product, the nexus of moral is human action, and the nexus of politics is - what?
Schmitt believes that the 'friend' has nothing to do with good, profitable or beautiful. The enemy does not have to be immoral, useless, or hideous. He is simply one who infringes on one's own identity and values to the extent that he can be considered a threat to the self. The act of deciding who the enemy is, is at the same time selecting one's friends - the friend does not have to be moral, profitable, or beautiful - he is one who is willing to fight alongside one's self against the enemy. The political is defined by the very real possibility of killing physical death, for either the self or the enemy. The core question of politics is effectively as follows: for what convictions is one willing to die?
A conviction, for the purposes of this topic, is a positive evaluation (moral, aesthetic, economic, or otherwise) for which one is willing to risk losing one's life or means of sustaining it. A conviction must necessarily be loved - one's family, one's people, one's God, etc. So, I put the question: is love not a positive moral, or aesthetic, or economic evaluation but the nexus of the political?
Bookmarks