Review article
LOGIC AND APORIA OF THE POLITICAL – POLITICAL POTENTIAL OF FRIENDSHIP
Domagoj Vujeva
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author sees Schmitt’s understanding of the political as a division
into adversary groups that implies the possibility of physical liquidations of people, based on the conditioning of the political by the
taxonomy of liberal thought, whose most consistent manifestation is
the age of technology of the 20th century. According to Schmitt,
contemporary liberalism understood as the age of technology represents an attempt at eliminating all the contentious issues of human survival through the faith in unlimited technological progress i.e. enabling communication by avoiding the issue of correctness at all
cost. Based on Strauss’ criticism of Schmitt, the author argues that
Schmitt’s concept of the political can be understood as the first step
in the renunciation of such communication by revealing its disguised
politicalness i.e. as a warning that avoiding the issue of correctness is
the most dangerous response to it. In that case, however, the political
as understood by Schmitt, by its logic aims to be eventually overcome, since its rationale beyond the age of technology lies exclusively in opening the space for asking the pertinent questions on the conditions and the goals of the survival of the human race.
In the second part of the paper the author looks into the possibility
that Schmitt’s concept of the political, with Derrida’s help, can be
analyzed by using the concept of amity as its starting point. The enemy would be a figure of laying oneself open to death in the other, by which a friendly relationship is freed from its natural foundations and fraternization, retaining in amity a moment of a thoughtful decision for the other and preventing its degradation into a mere technique of cultivating friendship.
Keywords
political; age of technology; friendship; enemy; Schmitt; Derrida
Hrčak ID:
20439
URI
Publication date:
2.2.2007.
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