Link: The Chronicle: 4/2/2004: A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics.
An interesting look at Nazi intellectual Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy and how it lives and breathes in today’s movement Conservatism. At base, Schmitt saw politics as a no-holds-barred struggle to define who is a friend and who is an enemy – an art that contemporary Conservatives have mastered. Liberals don’t see politics in this light, but in the traditional American vernacular of power balance and coalition building, which is both why Liberals seem to have no strategy to counter Conservative assaults, and why today’s Conservatism may be a self-limiting political philosophy in the American context.
Interesting stuff, Michael. David Horowitz is one of the chief conservative proponents of domestic politics as warfare, but he was inspired by the teachings of Lenin.