Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt

Weber, Samuel

doi:10.2307/465262

Cited by 83 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…For Carl Schmitt (1996) [1932], it is the distinction between enemy and friend that makes the space of the political possible. Although controversial because of his Nazi affiliations, his theorization of the political includes a critique of liberalism, which many have turned to as the assumptions undergirding liberal forms of sovereignty have increasingly come under question (Aravamudan ; Khanna ; Jameson ; Ottolenghi ; Weber ) . Central to Schmitt's work is his argument that liberalism is depoliticizing through its attempt to include all forms of opposition.…”

Section: Difference and The Politics And Ethics Of Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanity Lost: Alterity and the Politics of a Melancholic Anthropology

Vliet

2016

Anthropology and Humanism

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Anthropology's approach to the study of difference has been marked by dramatic shifts defined in political terms. Nonetheless, the accompanying historical trajectory of the discipline's theorization of politics hasn't substantially changed, and has focused less on what constitutes politics, its terms and concepts, and more on how to do politics, often with the assumption that this politics should be in solidarity with the victims of unequal relations of power. In so doing, anthropology has often reinforced humanist assumptions about the human, based on the liberal subject of European modernity. An analysis of Jewish-Israeli political identifications puts into question such humanist assumptions. I show how an analysis of two examples from my fieldwork in Israel calls into question concepts of community and identity, including that of the human, as the foundational ground on which anthropology's analyses of politics often rest. Drawing on Freud's concept of melancholia, and on a Levinasian concept of alterity, I suggest the notion of a melancholic anthropology as the study of difference which acknowledges the inhuman within the human, and the impossibility of a common humanity. This article thus builds on recent discussions about how anthropological investments in doing politics have consequences for understandings of responsibility, ethics, and the human itself. [Israel, Jew, alterity, politics, anthropology, human]. The place: Tel Aviv The time: November 2008 The event: A friend gets on a public bus in the city center.It is an accordion bus, it is morning, and the bus is crowded with passengers. As she pays her fare, the driver says to her, "Quickly, call 101 [like 911], there is a 'cousin' behind me with . . ." She glances back and sees a young man with a large package. The driver is clearly agitated and scared. In that moment, between the suspected bomber, the driver, the other passengers, and herself, she must make a decision. The question is not only if the passenger sitting behind the driver is a bomber or not, but whether or not he is (and it is impossible to know for sure then) should she call? It does not matter who she is in this moment or what her political views might be-neither work as an alibi. She is forced to make a decision between those with whom she shares the bus. Specifically and explicitly, it is the demand of the driver for her to call to which she must respond, and she and everyone else on the bus are implicated.

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Section: Difference and The Politics And Ethics Of Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanity Lost: Alterity and the Politics of a Melancholic Anthropology

Vliet

2016

Anthropology and Humanism

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“…Schmitt mentions Benjamin's 1930 letter in his Hamlet oder Hekuba (Schmitt 1956, p. 53). The letter was republished in English by Samuel Weber (Weber 1992 See, for example, Kennedy 1987a and1987b;cf. Jay 1987.…”

Section: Schmitt and Marxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Book review: Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos, written by Stephen Legg

Nieuwenhuis

2014

Hist Mater

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Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies o f the Nomos is an edited volume by Stephen Legg. The book was published in the midst of accruing attention to the issues of space and order in the writings of Carl Schmitt. The objective of the book must, therefore, be understood as a critical analysis of the different ways Schmitt's concepts can inform and have informed the study of geopolitics. This review will pro vide a critical summary of the main themes in the book and analyse the arguments made for and against using Schmitt. I will additionally assess the ways in which Marxist Geography can benefit from critically engaging with Schmitt. It will be argued that a critical engagement with Schmitt should start from a contextualised position and a subsequent fertile negation of his thinking. About SchmittThe burdensome name of 'Carl Schmitt' has gained prominence over a number of years in anglophone International Relations (i r ) literature. The growth of academic scholarship on this illustrious thinker is placed by many1 against the background of an intensified 'friend-enemy' environment in the aftermath of the 'War on Terror'. The increasing amount of attention is, however, also seen as a consequence of the role that Schmitt's challenging ideas and concepts played in the writings of renowned Continental thinkers such as Derrida, Mouffe, Zizek and, of course, Giorgio Agamben.2 The result of such accruing attention occurred consequently and simultaneously with the English (re)publishing of his intellectual corpus3 and dedicated issues in the South Atlantic Quarterly 1 E.g.

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“…When authentic being emerges through destroying public, intersubjectively exchanged criteria that define what kind of content of life, what traditions of life are valuable, it empties history into mere being. History becomes an empty plane upon which anything can happen, but nothing can be finally decided (Weber 1992:14–15). This view of history “de‐societalizes” subjectivity.…”

Section: Agamben the Exception‐as‐the‐rule And The Specter Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

The Jargon of Exception—On Schmitt, Agamben and the Absence of Political Society

Huysmans

2008

Int Political Sociology

149

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The idiom of exception is again central to the politics of insecurity in Europe, the United States, and Australia. One of the key characteristics of the jargon of exception is its suppression of political renditions of the societal. In doing so, it eliminates one of the constituting categories of modern democratic politics, hence producing an impoverished and ultimately illusionary understanding of the processes of political contestation and domination.

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Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt

Cited by 83 publications

References 0 publications

Humanity Lost: Alterity and the Politics of a Melancholic Anthropology

Humanity Lost: Alterity and the Politics of a Melancholic Anthropology

Book review: Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt: Geographies of the Nomos, written by Stephen Legg

The Jargon of Exception—On Schmitt, Agamben and the Absence of Political Society

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