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Philosophies of “Concrete” Life:From Carl Schmitt to Jean-Luc Nancy

Mika Ojakangas

IntroductionIn the numerous commentaries on Carl Schmitt published during the

last ten years by English speaking authors there is no discussion aboutSchmitt’s concept of the “concrete.”1 This is strange given Schmitt’s con-tinuous emphasis on the concreteness of his approach. Already in Politi-cal Theology (1922) he defines his approach as a “philosophy of concretelife.” In addition, although Schmitt’s thought is usually divided into twophases, the decisionist phase and the phase which begins approximatelyin 1933, the late phase too is characterized by an attempt to think “con-crete concretely,” as evident even in the name he gives to his approach: a“theory of concrete order.” One aim of this article is to fill this gap, inother words, to examine the nature of Schmitt’s concept of the concrete.The claim is that the concept — or rather the “non-concept” — of the con-crete is the key to Schmitt’s philosophy of law and politics in general.Another aim is to show that such philosophies of the concrete, especiallybecause they identify the concrete with the exceptional event, seem to havea tendency to mythical and mystical thinking, which at least partly explainsnot only Schmitt’s but also Martin Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism.

1. See for instance John P. McCormick, Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Renato Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Author-itarian Liberalism. Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1998; David Dyzenhaus (ed.), Lawas Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); Chantal Mouffe (ed.), The Challengeof Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 1999); William E. Scheuerman, Carl Schmitt: The End ofLaw (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999); Gopal Balakrishnan, The Enemy:An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 2000).

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At the end of the article, I examine Jean-Luc Nancy’s alternative way ofapproaching the concrete, not as some exceptional event but as somethingvery common, that is to say, as the event of everyday communication.

The Closure of ImmanenceIn order to understand Schmitt’s philosophy of concrete life, and

especially, the concept of the concrete in it, we need to know why he usessuch a concept. Of course, the easiest answer would be that Schmitt isagainst all abstractions — and the concrete is surely a counter-concept tothe abstract. This also explains why he does not call his approach a phi-losophy of life, for instance. By adding the substantival adjective “con-crete” he attempts to distinguish his approach from the abstractions of themetaphysics of life that was in vogue in Germany and especially inFrance at the turn of the 20th century, Henri Bergson being a model exam-ple. Admittedly, Schmitt too holds that there exists a metaphysical core inthe work of every author: “The thought and feeling of every personalways retain a certain metaphysical character.”2 In Schmitt’s case, how-ever, this core is not life as such “in its complete spiritual emptiness andmere dynamic,”3 but what he calls the concrete.

The easiest answer, although true, is not necessarily a sufficientanswer. To be sure, Schmitt opposes abstractions, but this does not yetdisclose the meaning of his concept of the concrete. As a matter of fact, asJacques Derrida points out, Schmitt’s concept of the concrete can be itselfconsidered a mere abstraction: “It is always exceeded, overtaken — let ussay haunted — by the abstraction of its spectre.”4 However, everythingdepends on what we understand by such words as “concrete” and“abstract.” According to Derrida, the abstract — at least in Schmitt’s case— is something that is “out of reach, inaccessible, infinitely deferred” andthereby, “inconceivable to the concept (Begriff).”5 In his view, Schmitt’sconcept of the concrete is such an abstraction and in a sense Derrida isright. Schmitt’s concrete is out of reach, inaccessible and inconceivable tothe concept. However, whether it is infinitely deferred is not a matter ofself-evidence. At least according to Schmitt himself, this is not the case.

However, in order to understand Schmitt’s concept of the concrete, itis not enough to say that it is either an abstraction or that it is inaccessible.

2. Carl Schmitt, Political Romanticism (1919) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), p. 18.3. Ibid., pp. 17-18.4. Jacques Derrida, Politics of Friendship (London: Verso, 1977), p. 117.5. Ibid., p. 117.

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We need to know what kind of inaccessible abstraction it actually is.Therefore, we must widen our analysis. Firstly, we need to take intoaccount Schmitt’s intellectual-political strategy in which all political con-cepts, images, and terms are considered to have a polemical meaning:“They are focused on a specific conflict and are bound to a concrete situa-tion.”6 Therefore, they remain incomprehensible if one does not knowexactly who is to be affected, combated, refuted or negated by theseterms.7 In other words, we should know who is to be affected, combated,and so on by Schmitt’s legal and political concepts, including the conceptof the concrete. This entails, secondly, that we need to take into accountthe context of Schmitt’s usage of concepts. Obviously, this context con-sists of his contemporary political and intellectual adversaries, forinstance, certain liberal politicians and such scholars as Hans Kelsen.However, for Schmitt’s work there exists a more comprehensive political-intellectual context which explains his usage of concepts better than thesecontemporary adversaries. This context, it seems to me, is the epoch of latemodernity in general – and especially what Schmitt calls the “metaphysicalimage” of the world in this epoch.8 It is precisely against this image thatSchmitt aims his principal conceptual weapons. It is only in this contextthat we can understand the meaning of Schmitt’s concept of the concrete.

What then is the metaphysical image of the world in the epoch of latemodernity? According to Schmitt, an outstanding characteristic of latemodernity is the tendency to rationalize and neutralize everything. Hefinds the primeval source of this tendency in the dominant natural-scien-tific dogma which forces human existence into “rationalist schemes.”9

With these schemes, penetrating all the areas of human existence includ-ing politics, law, economy, and so on,10 the whole world becomes like anethically neutral automatically functioning absolutely rational self-enclosed system.11 However, the dominant natural-scientific dogma is,according to Schmitt, a mere expression of a transformation in the sphere

6. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1932) (Chicago: University of Chi-cago Press, 1996), p. 30.

7. Ibid., p. 30.8. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology (1922) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 46.9. Ibid., p. 14.

10. On a detailed analysis of these spheres as regards to the closure of immanencesee Mika Ojakangas, A Philosophy of Concrete Life: Carl Schmitt and the PoliticalThought of Late Modernity (Jyväskylä: Sophi Academic Press, 2004).

11. See Carl Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Political Form (1923) (Westport:Greenwood Press, 1996), p. 27. See also Schmitt, Political Theology, op cit, p. 65;Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op cit., p. 57.

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of metaphysics. This is a transformation from the metaphysics of tran-scendence to that of immanence. In late modernity, “everything is increas-ingly governed by conceptions of immanence.”12 It is precisely themetaphysics of immanence — the metaphysics of natural sciences — thathas paved the way for absolute rationalization and neutralization inas-much as the concept of immanence entails, according to Schmitt, thateverything is potentially under the control of human reason.13 In otherwords, the metaphysical image of late modernity entails a possibility tocontrol everything — everything can be grasped (greifen), which alsomeans, conceivable to the concept (Begriff).

Founding RuptureIt is precisely this context, the metaphysical image of late modernity

characterized by ethically neutral and absolutely rational self-enclosedsystems, in the light of which we should examine Schmitt’s concept of theconcrete. Firstly, Schmitt develops the concept of the concrete as acounter-concept (Gegenbegriff) to these systems, based on the metaphysi-cal image of absolute immanence. However, although the concept isposed as an antipode to absolute immanence, it does not oppose it fromthe perspective of the traditional transcendence, that is to say, from theperspective of transcendence beyond immanence. Schmitt fully realizedthat late modernity is marked by a fundamental loss of such transcen-dence. It is characterized by the absence of gods which means that we areliving in an epoch in which all transcendent foundations of meaning andorder, from theistic revelation to deistic nature and from enlightenmentreason to romantic tradition, have fallen apart. To be sure, it is possible totry to erect new gods, even in the epoch of absolute immanence. This wasnot, however, Schmitt’s aim given his political-intellectual attitudeaccording to which the task of the philosophy of concrete life is to createconcepts “out of the immanence of a concrete legal and social order.”14

12. Schmitt, Political Theology, op cit., p. 49.13. For Schmitt, the leading figure in philosophy advocating absolute immanence is

Baruch Spinoza who developed an idea of God as the immanent cause of all things (Deussive Natura). In him, Schmitt conceives the metaphysician who first paved the way for therationalization and especially neutralization of human existence, and not without reason:“If men were born free they would form no conception of good and bad as long as theywere free.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (London: Everyman, 1989), p. 186. On the “horribledictum” Deus sive Natura, see Carl Schmitt, Glossarium (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,1988), pp. 84-85, 275.

14. Carl Schmitt, “Die Lage der europäischen Rechtswissenschaft” (1944) in Ver-fassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924-1954 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,1958), p. 427.

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Therefore, Schmitt’s concept of the concrete should not be understood asa new transcendent foundation of order beyond immanence. What is itthen? It is a transcendence within immanence. It is immanent to thedegree that it takes place within immanence. However, it is transcendentinasmuch as it is inconceivable to the concept, in other words, it is notpossible to appropriate within rationalist schemes.

In other words, Schmitt’s concrete takes place within immanence. As amatter of fact, the concrete is precisely something that merely takes place.It is an event (Ereignis) — and more precisely, it is an event that perturbsthe universe of absolutely rational self-enclosed systems. It introduces arupture – a void – into the closure of order immanent to itself. It is from thisperspective that we must understand Schmitt’s definition of the concept ofthe political in the 1960’s. According to him, it signifies an openness oforder towards transcendence.15 However, the transcendence in question, asalso Carlo Galli points out, is not be understood as a substantial foundationof order. It should be understood as the very openness itself,16 as the veryevent that introduces a rupture into the closure of order immanent to itself.

In Political Theology (1922), the sovereign decision stands for suchan event. In Verfassungslehre (1928), the event becomes manifest in apeople’s existential decision concerning the constitution. In The Conceptof the Political (1932), the event can be found in the figure of the enemy.And in The Nomos of the Earth (1950), although published after Schmitt’sturn towards the “theory of concrete order” and, as I would like to say,towards a more immanent orientation, the event takes place in land-appropriation. All these events are the events of the concrete, that is tosay, events that introduce rupture in the self-enclosed rationalistic systemsimmanent to themselves. The sovereign decision signifies a rupture (“newand alien”17) in the self-enclosed legal system of norms. From the per-spective of this system, the decision “emanates from nothingness.”18 (Nowonder, Schmitt identifies the concept of decision with a miracle, with thedivine interruption of theology.)19 A people’s existential decision signifiessuch a rupture as well, but now in the context of democratic constitution

15. See Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,1963), pp. 121-123.

16. For Schmitt, “transcendence means contingency.” Carlo Galli, “Carl Schmitt’sAnti-liberalism: Its Theoretical and Historical Sources and Its Philosophical and PoliticalMeaning,” Cardozo Law Review (Vol. 21:1597) (2000), p. 1607.

17. Schmitt, Political Theology, op cit., p. 31.18. Ibid., p. 32.19. Ibid., p. 36.

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inasmuch as the people’s will “precedes the constitution and is above it.”20

In the same way, the figure of the enemy and, thereby, war brings about arupture, but in this case the rupture appears in the international order ofpeace which does not recognize any “other and strange.” The enemy isprecisely such an other and strange.21 Finally, also land-appropriation(“territorial mutation”) signifies a rupture, but this time it is a rupture in theglobal order of economic change, in the system of production and con-sumption, interrupting its smooth and self-sufficient functioning.22

In this way, all these events indicate resistance to the absolutization ofimmanence. They function as antidotes to the self-propelling machines, asever-present stumbling blocks for the rationalist schemes. However,Schmitt’s event — the event of the concrete — is not only a figure of resis-tance. The decision does not merely resist the valid legal order, nor does theexistential decision of the people merely perturb constitution. Similarly, theenemy does not destroy the possibility of peace, nor does land-appropriationlead to the collapse of what Schmitt pejoratively calls the system of “mereproduction.” In fact, these events exist as the foundation of every real legalorder, of every democratic constitution, of sound peace and of authentic, thatis, meaningful production. In other words, Schmitt’s concept of the concretedoes not only denote an event of resistance but also a constitutive event. Itdenotes the “constitutive event” (grundlegende Ereignis) of meaning andorder.23 This is why Schmitt’s concrete is not only a counter-concept, signi-fying the intrusion of pure contingency, but also a fundamental concept, thatis, an original word (Urwort) and a grounding concept (Grundbegriff).

Thus, even if the sovereign decision brings about a rupture into the system

20. Carl Schmitt, Verfassungslehre (1928) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1993), p. 238.21. Schmitt, The Concept of The Political, op cit., p. 27.22. Carl Schmitt, “Appropriation, Distribution, Production” (1953), Telos 95

(Spring 1993). However, appropriation is not solely a reminder of the fact that only Godcan produce without appropriating, that is to say, to create something out of nothingness. Itis also a reminder of the fact that “the universal history is not concluded,” as AlexandreKojève had proposed, but remains “open and fluid.” It is a reminder that things are not yetset in stone, that men and peoples still have a future and not only a past, and that newforms of order will be born in the course of history. Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth(1950) (New York: Telos Press, 2003), p. 78. Admittedly, Schmitt, like Kojève, thoughtthat the end of history is a real possibility today, but contrary to Kojève, Schmitt did notperceive this end in the satisfaction of the human desire for recognition. He perceived it inthe real possibility of humanity to commit a suicide by means of the developed techniquesof total annihilation: “This death would be the culmination of universal history, a collec-tive reality analogous to the Stoic conception according to which the suicide of an individ-ual represents the culmination of his liberty.” Carl Schmitt, “L’unité du monde II” (1956),in Du politique: “légalité et légitimité” et autres essays (Paris: Pardès, 1990), p. 246.

23. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, op cit., p. 83.

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of norms and, thereby, to the legal order, it nevertheless “grounds the normand the order.”24 In the same way, a people’s existential decision, the “exis-tential total-decision” of the people,25 while preceding the constitution, isnevertheless the event which creates (herstellen) it.26 Even the enemy, this“other and strange,” which calls into question the status quo of internationalorder, introducing thereby a moment of transcendence – a moment of open-ness – into the immanence of world order, is a constitutive concept insofaras the existence of the enemy is the concrete precondition of the collectiveidentity of the friends. It is the enemy which brings about the “existentialaffinity” of those “who just happen to live together.”27 In other words, theenemy is not only a counter-concept of immanence but also a transcendentgrounding concept. However, the enemy is not a substantial foundation ofmeaning and order, because the enemy has no substance but only a form, anempty form: “An enemy is whoever calls me into question.”28 Moreover,the enemy calls me into question only at the moment “in which the enemycomes into view, in concrete clarity, as the enemy.”29 The enemy is there-fore an event, an event which founds meaning and order.

Finally, also land-appropriation is such an event. To be sure, comparedto Schmitt’s writings during the Weimar period, the turn towards the “the-ory of concrete order” in the beginning of the 1930’s seems to signify amove in the direction of a more or even completely immanent approach.However, although the “theory of concrete order” emphasizes the histori-cal continuity of institutions rather than abrupt events of the decision,Schmitt does not abandon the search for the origins. All continuity pre-supposes an origin and in the case of the “theory of concrete order” thisorigin is also an abrupt event, namely the primeval act (Ur-akt) of land-appropriation. Therefore, the order closing upon itself in the gapless sys-tem of anonymous exchange finds a new opening in – violent – appropri-ation, which interrupts this process. Appropriation becomes an event ofthe concrete, that is to say, simultaneously a rupture in the old abstractorder and the constitutive event of the new meaningful one (Raumord-nungsakt), of the order bestowed with a name: “What is most phenomenalabout Nahme [appropriation] and name is that with them abstractions

24. Carl Schmitt, Über die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens (1934)(Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1993), p. 23.

25. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, op cit., p. 10.26. Ibid., pp. 82-83, 206-207.27. Ibid., p. 210.28. Schmitt, Glossarium, op cit., p. 217.29. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op cit., p. 67.

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cease, and the situation becomes concrete.”30

Rationality of the ExtremeBased on what is said above, it should be clear that we should not

confuse that which Schmitt calls the concrete with the empirical reality ofclassical empiricism in which reality is understood to be a discrete givenrevealed in sensation. On the one hand, Schmitt’s event of the concrete isnot something given in ordinary circumstances but something which dis-rupts the ordinary. Therefore, in Schmitt’s view, the event is a concreteevent only if it is an exception, an extreme case. A good example of suchan exceptional event is the sovereign decision. Although the sovereign“stands outside the normally valid legal system, he nevertheless belongsto it.”31 He belongs to it as an exception. The same holds true for all ofSchmitt’s central political concepts. They are all exceptions, extremecases. This is so because, according to Schmitt, only the extreme case can“expose the core of the matter.”32 In fact, the extreme case is the core ofthe matter, which is to say that the event of the concrete is an empiricalevent only to the degree that experience is identified with the limit(extremitas), with the impossible experience of the limit of experience.

On the other hand, the event of the concrete is not something given butsomething to be produced. Inasmuch as reason is not capable of producingbut only of reflecting, it is not reason which produces the event. Rather, itis will, the sovereign’s pure and irrational will to decide. It is precisely forthis reason that Schmitt’s philosophy of concrete life has been described asvoluntarist and irrationalist.33 Nonetheless, its voluntarism is only appar-ent insofar as for him the will is not a subjective faculty, but merely a con-ceptual substitute for the void at the foundation of the event. It is the eventwhich reveals the subject of the event and not the other way round: “Thesovereign is whoever decides what constitutes an exception.”34

30. Carl Schmitt, “Nomos, Nahme, Name,” Appendix 2 in The Nomos of the Earth,op. cit., p. 349.

31. Schmitt, Political Theology, op cit., p. 7.32. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op cit., p. 35.33. See for instance Richard Wolin, “Carl Schmitt: The Conservative Revolutionary

Habitus and the Aesthetics of Horror,” in Political Theory, Vol. 20, Issue 3 (1992).34. Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1924) (Cambridge: MIT

Press, 1994), p. 43. For this reason I cannot subscribe to Renato Cristi’s claim that the conti-nuity of Schmitt’s thought before and after 1933 is due to his “substantivist way of thinking”and “metaphysics of substance” in which the “metaphysical core” of his “meta-legal” thoughtcan be found. See Cristi, Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism, pp. 144-145. WhileSchmitt might have longed for substance and substantive grounds, but he fully realized thatmodernity is marked by a fundamental loss of such grounds. In addition, although Schmitt’sturn to “concrete order thinking” entails a turn to a more “substativist way of thinking,” evenin this latter phase the metaphysical core of his “meta-legal” thought does not lie there.Instead, it lies in the founding event of the concrete without a foundation, without substance.

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Moreover, although the event of the concrete negates and exceeds rea-son, Schmitt’s philosophy of concrete life is not without certain rational-ity. It contains a specific rationality, or at least certain logic, namely that ofthe very same extreme: “Everything must be forced to the extreme.”35

This is not only because the extreme case and the exception, the event ofthe concrete, is more interesting than the rule, but also because it is theconcrete condition of possibility of every rule and order and thereby theultimate foundation of all rationality, even that of abstract rationalism: “Aphilosophy of concrete life must not withdraw from the exception and theextreme case, but must be interested in it to the highest degree. The excep-tion can be more important to it than the rule, not because of a romanticirony for the paradox, but because the seriousness of an insight goesdeeper than the clear generalizations inferred from what ordinarily repeatsitself. The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule provesnothing; the exception proves everything: It confirms not only the rule butalso its existence, which derives only from the exception.”36

Besides, as all rationality, also this rationality — the rationality of theextreme — is based on the exclusion of certain “irrationality.” In Schmitt’sview, all thought, which does not recognize that order is created out of dis-order and that rationality is based on an irrational foundation, is itself irra-tional. Only thought which does not eschew the exception and the extremecase is genuinely rational. For this reason, Schmitt holds that his philosophyof concrete life aims at an even more subtle form of rationality than that rep-resented by abstract rationalism. In Schmitt’s view, it is more subtle becauseits rationality is “human in the deepest sense.”37 The event of the concrete,for instance a “definitive, disjunctive decision,”38 is not an irrational mira-cle but a real fact of human life. In Schmitt’s view, genuine rationality,namely the rationality of meaning, consists of the recognition of this fact.

All this is not to say that the event is after all included in the rational-ist schemes as a negation resulting in a higher rationalist synthesis.According to Schmitt, the event is and remains outside all rationalistschemes. The sovereign decision, the people’s constitutive will, theenemy, as well as land-appropriation — all these events stay “outside and

35. Schmitt, The Crisis, op. cit., p. 59. Schmitt refers here to Marx, but this method-ological rule is valid in Schmitt’s case as well. Contrary to Marx, however, Schmitt doesnot force the elements to the extreme for the reason that they could thus be historicallyoverturned by dialectical necessity, but because the extreme exposes the core of the matter.

36. Schmitt, Political Theology, op. cit., p. 15.37. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism, op. cit., p. 33.38. Schmitt, The Crisis, op. cit., p. 56.

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above” the immanence of reason. In other words, there exists an insur-mountable gap between the irrational foundation of order and the estab-lished order. Nevertheless, unlike in the work of Georges Bataille, forinstance, negativity is not unbound in Schmitt’s thinking, because in thefinal analysis it is subordinated to positive results, that is to say, to the ser-vice of meaning and order. Bataille’s sovereignty refuses to submit to anyends: “What is sovereign has no other end than itself.”39 Schmitt’s sover-eignty, instead, “produces and guarantees a situation in its totality.”40

Hence, in place of Bataille’s free negativity there emerges Schmitt’s sub-ordinated negativity — although from Schmitt’s perspective it would beprecisely Bataille’s negativity that is not free but tainted by romanticismand as a consequence, thoroughly servile.41

However, this subordination of negativity at the service of meaningand order does not signify that Schmitt’s negativity could be includedwithin order. In fact, the event of the concrete can serve order only to theextent that it is and remains exterior to it. The issue is not about a highersynthesis, but about the insurmountable togetherness of the foundingevent and the established order, that is to say, the insurmountable togeth-erness of the decision and the legal order, the constitutive power and theconstitution, the friend and the enemy, land-appropriation and social and

39. Georges Bataille, Sovereignty, in The Accursed Share, Vol. 3 (New York: ZoneBooks, 1993), p. 382.

40. Schmitt, Political Theology, op. cit., p. 13.41. From Schmitt’s perspective, Bataille’s unbound sovereignty would be abso-

lutely bound – or servile – inasmuch as Betaille defines sovereignty in terms of immediatemoments of consumption: “The sovereign individual consumes and does not labour.”Bataille, Sovereignty, op. cit., p. 198. Although Bataille states that such moments are non-productive, miraculous and remain outside “all knowledge,” from Schmitt’s perspectivethere would be nothing miraculous in such a moment, because the individual who irratio-nally and immediately consumes – “truly enjoys the products of this life” – is not freefrom the system of production. On the contrary, he is an indispensable part of it, eventhough he can subjectively have whatever experiences he likes and even ultimately “dis-solve into NOTHING,” as Bataille maintains (p. 203). In Schmitt’s view, only a romantic,this “metaphysical narcissist,” confuses his moods – whether or not they have content –with reality and transforms it into a source for his imagination and satisfaction. ForSchmitt, it would not have been a surprise that Bataille identifies sovereignty and sover-eign consumption with the moments of laughter, tears, death, eroticism, and war – evenwar becomes a mere stimulant of imagination for Bataille – in addition to celebratingchance (occassio) and preferring play to seriousness in general. On the other hand, itwould have been a surprise for Schmitt if Bataille had not withdrawn from political actioninto the sphere of the mystical precisely at the moment when the times – WWII – wouldhave required the firmest of commitments. For in Schmitt’s view, romanticism and politi-cal activity are mutually exclusive: “Where political activity begins, political romanticismends.” Schmitt, Political Romanticism, op. cit., p. 160.

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political order. The decision creates the legal order, but it does not ceaseto operate even after the order has been created: “That constitutive powerhas once been exercised does not abrogate or eliminate it.”42 It is alwayseffectively present, resembling thus the psychoanalytical notion of traumain the origin of the ego, insofar as trauma goes on marking the ego evenafter its formation. Besides, even though the event is put into the service ofnorm and order, there exists no — previous or subsequent — norm or orderthat could determine the nature of the event: “Righteous measures are bornand meaningful relations are formed,” but only on the grounds of theunrighteous and meaningless event.43 There exists no measure, whichcould determine the nature of the event of the concrete, because the event isthe measureless original measure (Ur-Mass) of all measures.44 The event isthe extreme case, which determines all other cases — including itself.

The “Non-concept” of the ConcreteAlthough English speaking authors have hardly paid attention to

Schmitt’s concept of the concrete, some continental thinkers have doneso. As already mentioned, one of them is Derrida. Another is HeinrichMeier. According to him, however, Schmitt’s original measure, the eventof the concrete, is by no means a measureless event. Schmitt’s event,exterior to human understanding, indeed has a measure, namely the com-mandment of God.45 In other words, Meier sees in Schmitt a thoroughlyreligious thinker whose entire spiritual existence can be understood onlyin the light of Revelation: “There can be no doubt of the fundamental pre-cedence of the theological for Schmitt.”46

Without going into details of Meier’s fine analysis, let us focus on hisremarks on Schmitt’s relationship with Hegel’s philosophy because thisrelationship reveals the real status of Schmitt’s concept of the concrete.Although Schmitt has been considered a Hegelian,47 I nevertheless agreewith Meier that in certain respects Schmitt was an anti-Hegelian. I agree

42. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, op cit., p. 77.43. Carl Schmitt, Land and Sea (1942) (Washington: Plutarch Press, 1997), p. 59.

Translation altered.44. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, op. cit., p. 45. 45. Heinrich Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction

between Political Theology and Political Philosophy (Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1988), p. 16.

46. Ibid., p. 16.47. As a matter of fact, Hegelianism was one of the reasons why certain Nazi’s

accused Schmitt of ideological impurity in the middle of 1930’s.

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with him that Schmitt was an anti-Hegelian because in Hegel’s philoso-phy, at least in his construction of the philosophy of history, the othernever enters from the outside into the immanence of development.48

Schmitt indeed rejects Hegel’s philosophy of history because the unend-ing process of the Hegelian world spirit absorbs all interruptions intoitself as immanent negations. However, I do not agree with Meier aboutthe reason why Schmitt rejects Hegel. Namely, according to Meier,Schmitt rejects Hegel because Hegel’s denial of the other entering fromthe outside entails the denial of God’s sovereignty, that is to say, the tran-scendent command of God. To my mind, however, Schmitt does not aban-don Hegel because he believes in divine Revelation but because theHegelian absorption makes all interruptions counterfeit. In Hegel’s phi-losophy, there is no genuine interruption and thereby no space for anevent of the concrete: “The essential point is that an exception,” signify-ing the event, “never comes from outside into the immanence of develop-ment.”49 On the other hand, Schmitt rejects Hegel’s philosophy becausefor the latter that which remains outside the concept — outside objectiveknowledge — is identical to nothing. For Hegel, what does not make adifference in terms of objective knowledge makes no difference at all.50

In Schmitt’s view, however, that which is outside objective knowledge isidentical to nothing only from the perspective of rationalist schemes.From the perspective of the philosophy of concrete life, that which comesfrom the outside constitutes the foundation of the collective existence ofhuman beings. Therefore, Schmitt’s notion of the concrete is not a con-cept at all, not at least in the Hegelian sense, but rather a “non-concept,” aname for that what cannot have a name, a name for the meaningless other,which nevertheless bestows existence with a meaning.

Admittedly, especially in the case of the enemy, Schmitt appears tohave an inclination to nullify this “non-conceptual” existence of theother. For instance, in the end of Ex Captivitate Salus he seems to affirmthe Hegelian characterization of the concept absolutely: “In the reciproc-ity of recognition of recognition lies the greatness of the concept.”51 Hadthis been Schmitt’s last word, the enemy would be nothing but areflected image of the real enemy, a mere simulacrum. However, Schmitt

48. Meier, The Lesson, op cit., p. 15.49. Schmitt, The Crisis, op cit., p. 56.50. See especially Hegel’s critique of immediacy in G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology

of Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 58-66.51. Carl Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus (Köln: Greven Verlag, 1950), p. 89.

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immediately adds that the objectivity of the enemy is not the objectivityof a concept, but that of power: “The enemy is an objective power [objec-tive Macht].”52 The enemy is a power, not a “metaphor or symbol.”53 Asa concrete power, the enemy precedes all reflection. It perturbs the worldof the reflecting self — its otherness and strangeness calls the self intoquestion.54 The power of the enemy disrupts my identity and no amountof reflection can reduce its difference into an immanence of the same.Certainly, this power can, and in Schmitt’s view, must become an objectof reflection because the self is the result of such reflection, but this canoccur only after the event, namely the appearance of the enemy, has takenplace. Even then the intellect is not capable of exhausting it completely,because the event is not prior to reflection merely in a temporal sense butalso and above all ontologically.55 The event precedes and is abovereflection in the same way as the people’s constituent will precedes and isabove constitution. The event of the concrete is the objective but unreflec-tive and irrational foundation of all reflections and rationalizations.

Therefore, it is no wonder that Derrida maintains that Schmitt’s event

52. Ibid., p. 89.53. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op cit., p. 27.54. “The enemy is a figure of our self-questioning.” Schmitt, Ex Captivitate Salus,

op. cit., p. 90.55. For this reason, it is not completely erroneous to claim that Schmitt’s enemy

occupies structurally the same place as the “other” in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics. In thesame way as Schmitt’s enemy, this irreducible “other and strange,” also Levinas’ other isirreducible other and strange, “transcendent.” Moreover, in the same way as Schmitt’senemy which calls the self into question, also Levinas’ other calls the self into question.Finally, in the same way as Schmitt’s enemy is constitutive in relation to the self, also Lev-inas’ other is constitutive in relation to the self, at least in relation to oneself as a moral self:“To discover such an orientation,” orientation to the for-the-other, “in the I is to identify theI with morality.” Emmanuel Levinas, “The Trace of the Other,” in Mark Taylor, ed.,Deconstruction in Context (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 345-359. Ofcourse, Schmitt’s and Levinas’ conclusions are absolutely different. According to Levinas,the otherness of the other does not pave the way for enmity, as Schmitt maintains, but forresponsibility — especially if the relationship between the self and the other is asymmetri-cal. In Schmitt’s view, however, it is precisely the asymmetrical relationship which bringsabout enmity, namely the worst possible enmity, that is, absolute hostility. Although wecannot reduce the other into the same, we nevertheless can negotiate with him if we areable to create a symmetrical relationship with him, that is to say, to face the other as another human being, as an equal. However, if the symmetrical relationship is transformedinto asymmetry, the other is not necessarily regarded as the one which awakens my respon-sibility only but my hatred as well. He can become my “god” as happens in Levinas’ ethics,but he can also become less than a man, a sub-human – as Schmitt fears. He is no longermy enemy in the sense of the enemy soldier. He becomes a felon, an absolute enemy thatmust be “utterly destroyed.” Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op. cit., p. 36.

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of the concrete is out of reach and inaccessible, at least from the perspec-tive of the concept (Begriff). Contrary to Derrida’s claims, however, theevent is not infinitely deferred — and this is the difference between Derr-ida and Schmitt.56 Schmitt’s event takes place, here and now, but not inthe modality of the concept. It takes place in the modality of event,although this event is inaccessible to rationalist schemes and ultimately, tothe conceptual thinking as such. Despite this, however, it is there, it hasbeen there — or at least we have to suppose that it has been there. Why dowe have to suppose that? We have to suppose it because if it is not there,then nothing would be here, nothing would happen. Rationalist schemeswould already have taken over the whole human existence, signifying thatthere would no longer be human existence. Nothing new would takeplace. Humanity would already have been paralyzed, that is to say,deprived of freedom and change: “Freedom is freedom of movement,nothing else. What would be terrifying is a world in which there no longerexisted an exterior (Ausland) but only a homeland (Inland), no longerspace (Spielraum) for measuring and testing one’s strength freely.”57

In order to exist, the event presupposes such an exterior. As a matter offact, the event is such an exterior, it comes from the outside. However,this outside is not Meier’s absolute outside, not even outside as the oppo-site of inside – it is an outside within inside, transcendence within imma-nence. It is, in other words, the same outside as Derrida himself time andagain constructs in his own philosophy, although in Schmitt’s case thisoutside is not infinitely deferred. The outside occurs here and now, or

56. For as we know, Derrida’s all central philosophical concepts like différance,supplement, and writing are also “non-concepts” that bring about a rupture into the “sys-tems,” especially those of metaphysics. However, they also bring about a rupture into thevery same systems as Schmitt’s concrete, especially if we take into account Derrida’sopenly political concepts including justice, democracy to come, the other, and gift. Theybring about a rupture into the self-enclosed system of legal order (“justice”), into the insti-tutional political order of liberal democracy (“democracy to come”), into the immanenceof humanity (the “other”) as well as into the self-sufficient system of exchange (“gift”). Inother words, point by point they correspond to Schmitt’s concepts although in the place ofjustice there is the sovereign decision, in the place of democracy to come there is people’swill, in the place of the other, well, there is the other, namely the enemy, and in the place ofgift there is appropriating violence. In addition, in the same way as Schmitt’s concepts,also Derrida’s concepts stand for the foundation – or rather, for the condition of possibility,which is simultaneously the condition of impossibility to the extent that this foundationcannot present itself – of legal order, democracy, humanity, and exchange, even thoughthis foundation is always already out of reach, or more precisely, this always alreadyunreachable and infinitely deferred is their very “foundation.”

57. Schmitt, Glossarium, op cit., p. 37.

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rather, this occurrence here and now is the very outside.

Event and MythOf course, it could be argued that contrary to Schmitt, Derrida leaves

open and as unresolved the tension between inside and outside, whereasSchmitt repeatedly emphasizes the necessity of resolutions. Nevertheless,also in Schmitt’s work this tension is ultimately left open for without thistension there would be no resolutions, that is to say, no decisions, ene-mies, or appropriations — no events of the concrete. It is the very open-ness of order that makes it possible for the event to arrive. In Derrida’scase, it is the very possibility of arrival — of justice, democracy, theother, gift, and so on58 — that keeps the order open, because if alreadyarrived, that is to say, if the event has already taken place, the gate for anevent is closed. Therefore, the condition of possibility of an event issimultaneously its condition of impossibility. For instance, it is impossi-ble for democracy to come, because if it has already come, if it hasalready become present, there would be no space for democracy-to-come.In Schmitt’s case, however, it is precisely the event that keeps the orderopen. The event is not, in other words, something impossible but an “everpresent possibility,”59 becoming actual in extreme cases.

For these reasons, it is no wonder that Schmitt’s thought is consideredradical. This also explains why even left radicalism has not been sparedhis influence: the possibility of revolution is not something infinitelydeferred but something that takes place, here and now. As a person, how-ever, Schmitt was not radical, far from it. He was a conservative throughand through, a man of “fidelity, obedience, discipline, and honour.”60

How then is it possible that all his political concepts are revolutionaryrather than conservative? Why is he repeatedly emphasizing rupturesrather than structures? The reason is simple. Only by emphasizing theirrational origins of meaning and order, it becomes possible to legitimateirrational means of maintaining order. If the origins of meaning and orderare irreducibly irrational, it is in vain to attempt to “tame” this irrational-ity by means of rationalist schemes. The “power of real life” always“breaks through” such schemes — or through “the shell of a mechanismthat has become torpid by repetition,” as Schmitt puts it.61 How then is it

58. See footnote 56 above.59. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, op. cit., p. 27.60. Schmitt, Über die drei Arten, op. cit., p. 52.61. Schmitt, Political Theology, op. cit., p. 13.

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possible to “tame” the irrationality of the event, the violent power of reallife? Surely, it can be tamed by naked force which means that the order ismaintained by the police and the military. However, Schmitt did notbelieve in the power of naked techniques of holding power: “No politicalsystem can survive even a generation with only naked techniques of hold-ing power.”62 Instead, what is needed is a spiritual power that is not taintedby the spirit of rationality. According to Schmitt, this power can be discov-ered in myth. Myth does not attempt to rationalize the irrational but merelyto foster its ghost and to expose this ghost in a “meaningful” form – in thesame vein as the Roman Church exposes the ghost of Christ’s irrationalityin a “meaningful” form.63 Indeed, it was precisely for his capacity formyth that Schmitt praised Mussolini who declared in his speech of Octo-ber 1922 in Naples before the March to Rome: “We have created a myth.This myth is a belief, a noble enthusiasm. Our myth is the nation, the greatnation which we want to make into a concrete reality for ourselves.”64

However, Schmitt’s “solution” to the problem of the irrationality ofthe event is by no means extraordinary. As a matter of fact, in their excel-lent analysis of Nazism, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancycame to the conclusion that the desire for an event and the search for mythgo always hand in hand.65 We should ask, however, if every philosophyof the event is necessarily mythical? Or do philosophers of the eventdecline into mythical thinking because they usually these count onlyextraordinary events as genuine events? To my mind, this is precisely thecase. For these philosophers, the truth of being, the core of the matter, canbe found only in the extreme case — in the extraordinary event —through which the rest of the world becomes conceivable. For them, thiscase becomes the measure of being, although this measure itself remainsbeyond every measure. For them, the extreme case becomes the criterionof judgment, that is to say, the criterion according to which they can judgethe world as it normally is. What then is the judgment they pass on theworld as it normally is, on everyday life? The judgment is that everydaylife is banal through and through — and this banality is “evil.” This seemsto be a logical conclusion of every philosophy of the event which identifies

62. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism, op cit., p. 17.63. It is from this perspective that we must approach Schmitt’s opinion according to

which we should make Christ’s influence “harmless in the social and political sphere.”Schmitt, Glossarium, op cit., p. 243.

64. Quoted in Schmitt, The Crisis, op. cit., p. 75.65. See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, Le myth nazi (Paris: Edi-

tions de l’Aube, 2003), p. 15.

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the event with an exception.This is Schmitt’s conclusion but it seems to be Heidegger’s conclu-

sion as well. According to him, every true “event is exceptional,” soexceptional that “when it happens and prepares itself” man at first and fora long time thereafter fails to see it and fails to recognize it: “This isbecause his vision is confused by habituation to the multiplicity of theordinary.”66 This confused vision habituated to the multiplicity of theordinary is the vision of the everydayness, and everydayness is, accordingto Heidegger, “groundlessness and nullity.”67 Heidegger admits that peo-ple may think they are “living concretely” within the framework of every-dayness, but this is a serious error. In everydayness there is nothingconcrete. In the final analysis, those who live within the framework ofeverydayness live in an illusion.68 Therefore, only the one capable ofexception reaches the concreteness of the world because it is only in anexceptional situation that the “world comes to be.”69 Moreover, as forSchmitt, also for Heidegger this exception is the event (Ereignis) of adecision: “The manner in which the whole of beings is revealed, in whichman is allowed to stand in the midst of this revelation, is grounded andtransformed in such a decision.”70 And finally, although such a decision“emanates from nothingness,” as Schmitt would put it, it is not withoutmeaning. On the contrary, it is a decision for meaning, that is to say, for aspirituality that is not tainted by the spirit of rationality. It is the spiritual-ity of myth: “The spiritual world of a Volk is not its cultural superstruc-ture, just as little as it is its arsenal of useful knowledge and values; rather,it is the power that comes from preserving at the most profound level theforces that are rooted in the soil and blood of a Volk, the power to arousemost inwardly and to shake most extensively the Volk’s existence. A spir-itual world alone will guarantee our Volk greatness. For it will make theconstant decision between the will to greatness and the toleration ofdecline the law that establishes the pace for the march upon which ourVolk has embarked on the way to its future history.”71

66. Martin Heidegger, Basic Concepts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1988), p. 17.

67. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), p. 223.68. Ibid., p. 311.69. Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2000), p. 65.70. Heidegger, Basic Concepts, op. cit., p. 17.71. Martin Heidegger, “The Self-Assertion of the German University,” in Richard

Wolin (ed.), The Heidegger Controversy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), p. 34.

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In other words, for both of these thinkers, the exceptional event — theevent of the exceptional — constitutes what is concrete. However, to theextent that this event is, at least from the perspective of rationalisticschemes, out of reach, the only way to render it comprehensible is to fallback to mythical language, to the language of myth. This holds true in thecase of Schmitt, but it holds true in the case Heidegger as well. To be sure,Heidegger moved from the mythical to the mystical and finally to thepoetical in the 1940’s and 1950’s. However, even then he saw the Westernrationalism as a curse that we must get rid off — and even then it was theevent, the mysterious happening, that gave him the means for his efforts,as it did from the very beginning. What makes this solution problematic isnot, however, that he opposes Western rationalism but rather that he iden-tifies the event with the exception. In fact, it can be argued that it is pre-cisely this solution which explains, at least partially, Schmitt’s andHeidegger’s enthusiasm with Nazism — with its fascination of the eventand myth — and that even Bataille can be seen as working for it, as WalterBenjamin once noted, anticipating thus Jean-Luc Nancy’s opinion accord-ing to which Bataille’s “ecstasy remained linked to the fascist orgy.”72 Foralso Bataille identified “what is supremely important to us”73 with theextreme, with the ecstatic and sovereign moments of rupture that are totallyalien to ordinary everyday experience. Although from the perspective ofreason and knowledge these moments are out of reach and inaccessible,they nevertheless constitute the concrete reality of man, his true nature: “Itis by dying, without possible evasion, that I will perceive the rupture whichconstitutes my nature and in which I have transcended ‘what exists.’”74

Conclusion: Being as MeaningAccording to Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, the desire for an event and

the search for myth go always hand in hand. This may be true but only tothe extent that the event is identified with the exceptional. Instead, if wethink that there is no longer difference between the normal and the excep-tional, between the everydayness and authenticity, it is perhaps possible todevelop a non-mythical concept of the event and thereby, a non-mythicalconcept of the concrete. As a matter of fact, it is precisely Nancy who has

72. Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis: University of Min-nesota Press, 1991), p. 20.

73. Bataille, Sovereignty, op cit., p. 203.74. Georges Bataille, Inner Experience (New York: State University of New York

Press, 1988), p. 71.

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moved the farthest in this direction. According to him, Heidegger’s prob-lem was that he confused the everyday with the undifferentiated, the anon-ymous, and the statistical — just about with what Schmitt called rationalistschemes. In Nancy’s view, however, the ordinary itself is always excep-tional: “The ‘ordinary’ is always exceptional, however little we understandits character as origin. What we receive most communally as ‘strange’ isthat the ordinary itself is originary. With existence laid open in this way andthe meaning of the world being what it is, the exception is the rule.”75

It is not the exception in contrast to the rule that is the origin of therule but the exception itself is the rule, which is to say that what we con-ceive as “ordinary” is always exceptional and thereby originary. The“ordinary” thus becomes the very founding rupture of all existence, thecore of the matter and the event of the concrete. This does not mean, how-ever, that the “ordinary” remains out of reach, becoming inaccessible andinconceivable to the concept. The “ordinary” is by no means the Other,signifying the unique and ineffable origin. It is not Schmitt’s enemy as theOther that bestows us with our identity, but it is not Emmanuel Levinas’other either because he makes the Other appear in the place of the other.In Nancy’s view, a desire for such an ineffable Other is a “desire for mur-der.”76 To be sure, the “ordinary” is never “in what is said,”77 but it never-theless is spoken and it is spoken in every utterance, which means thatevery utterance is the event of the concrete — or “the moment of creation,”as Nancy puts it.78 Every utterance is the moment of creation of the “ordi-nary” and to the extent that there is nothing outside the “ordinary,” becausethere is no outside at all,79 every utterance is the moment of creation of theworld, the singular origin of the whole being: “Humanity speaks existence,but what speaks through its speech says the whole being.”80

For Nancy, however, this singular origin is by no means a single ori-gin. According to him, singular is always plural, which is to say that there

75. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford: Stanford University Press,2000), p. 10.

76. Ibid., p. 20.77. Ibid., p. 27.78. “Creation takes place everywhere and always.” Ibid., p. 17.79. “There is no ‘outside.’ The event of existence, the fact that there is, means that

there is nothing else. There is no ‘obscure God.’ There is no obscurity that could be God. Inthis sense, since there is no longer any clear epiphany, what ‘technology’ presents to us mightwell simply be, if I can put io this way, clarity without God,” which is to say, there is no “get-ting away,” from the “closure of immanence.” Jean-Luc Nancy, “The Unsacrificeable,” inJean-Luc Nancy, A Finite Thinking (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 75-76.

80. Nancy, Being Singular Plural, op. cit., p. 17.

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is a “multiplicity of origins,”81 the indefinite “plurality of origins andtheir coexistence.”82 It is in fact their coexistence that is the originbecause being is coexistence, it is constituted by coexistence. Being isalways being-with and it is precisely this “with” that constitutes being. Itis the “heart of being,”83 that is to say, the core of the matter and the eventof the concrete. The event is no longer the exception — not at least in thesense of the opposition to the rule — but takes place in the exposition,that is to say, when singular beings expose themselves to one another.When then they are doing this? They are doing it, or rather, this is happen-ing to them all the time, everywhere. Being as such is nothing but the plu-rality of such mutual expositions of singularities. Being is constituted bythis plurality, which means that each being, each gesture of each being,because it exists only with others, belong to the origin. In other words,each being is originary and original — or to be more precise, all of themshare this originarity and originality, because it is this sharing that is theorigin. It is this sharing that is the core of the matter, even more so becausein Nancy’s view, the ontology of being-with can only be “materialist.”84

What is important in this context, however, is not so much Nancy’semphasis on the originary togetherness of human existence (“being iscommunication”) but rather the deconstruction of the opposition — theinsurmountable gap — between the normal and the exceptional, betweenthe illusion of the everydayness and the concreteness of the event withoutforcing existence into the rationalist schemes. Of course, we could claimthat Nancy ultimately resorts to the poetical, at least at the level of writ-ing, but in his message there is nothing mythical or mystical. There isnothing mythical or mystical — nothing secret or closed (µυω = to close)— because the event is not out of reach, it is not ineffable, but it is dis-closed in every event of communication, in every utterance, even in everyinstant (coup).85 Moreover, because each event, regardless of its nature, isan event of the concrete, that is to say, the founding rupture of order, orrather of meaning as Nancy would like to have it, each event is equal, sig-nifying absolute equality of beings.86 To be sure, it is possible to arguethat Nancy merely celebrates what Schmitt disdained, namely the closure

81. Ibid., p. 9.82. Ibid., p. 10.83. Ibid., p. 30.84. Ibid., p. 83.85. “Each time, ‘Being’ is always an instance of Being.” Ibid., p. 33.86. Ibid., p. 24.

'

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of immanence which opens the door for absolute rationalization (every-thing is present for manipulation) and neutralization (everything isequally present for manipulation). In a sense, this argument is correct.However, this argument is correct only to the extent that in Nancy’s view,there is no escape from the closure of immanence, but this closure doesnot necessarily signify absolute rationalization and neutralization ofhuman existence. It signifies also a condition of possibility for thinkingimmanence itself as openness of order towards “transcendence,” which isto say, openness as such. It makes it possible to perceive in every instant amiracle — or a surprise.87 From this it follows that the closure of imma-nence does not necessarily signifiy the meaninglessness of being, becausebeing as such, which is being-with, being of communication, is disclosedas a being of meaning: “Being itself is given to us as meaning. Being doesnot have meaning. Being itself, the phenomenon of Being, is meaning thatis, in turn, its own circulation – and we are this circulation.”88

87. Ibid., pp. 159-169.88. Ibid., p. 2.