I confess I'm not all the way through Schmitt yet, but so far I'm finding him pretty interesting. When he is first introducing his theory of an "ultimate distinction" between friend and emeny, he writes:
The political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible. (p27)
I think it's interesting that Schmitt doesn't say that the enemy should be portrayed as the "other" but rather, it is in his nature that he is the enemy. I'm sure he didn't write with science fiction in mind, but it relates strongly to books like Ender's Game or movies like Starship Troopers where the very nature of aliens make them the enemy.
However, even in Ender's game, the line between friend and enemy isn't so easy. Even though the aliens are about as different as you can get, Ender and the queen find a commonality, and become not enemies, but friends. Even though Schmitt states that enemies are not necessarily at war, but rather that conflicts are possible, in my opinion the very nature of the relationship between humans and the buggers changes with the Speaker for the Dead's story of the bugger queen.
Additionally, Schmitt's idea that all relationships of states with other entities can be simplified to "friend" or "enemy" is overly simplistic. Conflict with any nation is possible, no matter how unlikely it may seem; then, is every nation an enemy?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think that in a sense, every nation is an enemy when it comes down to it. I certainly wish it were not so, but any state that could threaten the security/self-interests of one state is thus a threat, so I guess that since every state has the capability (in pure form, anyway) to act against our interests, then yes, they are an enemy. However, things such as treaties, alliances, and economics (trading and the concequences if they are not in good graces with larger trading powers), all persuade a state that it is more advantagous to be a friend than an enemy. So perhaps this is what diplomacy is--making friends out of enemies, or at least neutralizing potential enemy threat.
Post a Comment