András Karácsony on the Concept of the Political

András Karácsony, Vice Rector of the Eötvös Loránd University delivered a public lecture on the conservative reading of the concept of the political in the series "Key Concepts in Politics" on October 16, 2013.

Conservatism, as Prof. Karácsony emphasized at the outset, has always been less easy to define than liberalism, since it was a disposition or attitude, rather than a coherent system of ideas. The meanings of such concepts as 'politics' or 'the political' remain highly divergent in different conservative interpretations. For authors like Michael Oakeshott, the essence of 'politics' consists in sustaining peace through the conscious self-constraint of individuals. For Carl Schmitt (who is still regarded by some as the 'crown jurist' of national socialism) the more fundamental term 'political' refers to the distinction between friends and foes. Since the primary basis of politics is the possibility of war, the most important task of a political agent is to neutralize or eliminate those inimical groups which threaten the very existence of one's own community. Schmitt's theory is thus rooted in an uncompromisingly negative anthropology.

Leo Strauss's and Martin Heidegger's criticism of Schmitt may seem somewhat surprising in this regard, for Strauss had for long been engaged in a scholarly discourse with Schmitt, and Heidegger may not have had any political philosophy at all. Strauss's concept of the state of nature as a fundamentally political one, however, questions the very idea of friend-and-foe distinction in Schmitt's works; while Heidegger's reliance on 'Volk' (deemed identical with the ancient 'polis') instead of 'Nation' places the constitutive element of the political state outside of Schmitt's scope. In Heidegger's account, the distinction between friends and foes is not the basis of the political, but a consequence of the latter, which is itself determined by the people.

In response to questions from the audience, András Karácsony confirmed that Schmitt had never completely detached himself from his national socialist past; even though his ambitions to become a leading ideologue of the regime had failed very early on. Despite his questionable political role, however, he has remained highly influential not only among conservatives, but among political theorists on all sides, Marxists included.

János Makk, Department of Political Science