The Concept of the Political: Pre-Class Reactions

Originally, when I first read the part on pages 26-28 I couldn’t help but disagree to an extent, I just didn’t see the political as something that belongs in a different category from economics or other social forces. But to me the term political and state applies to governments of various forms and nation states, since nation states are the ones considered as the sole actors in the world and the only ones that can officially wage war by international relations standards (since the time Schmitt writing this globalization has changed the playing field a lot, even though IR still claims states as sole actors in international relations). On page 35 I started to truly see that he was using the words differently from what I am used to when he says that a religious community that persecutes the other side is then acting politically, by current international standards that isn’t the case, at least not with the terms he uses, since only states have the “legitimate” rights to violence and a large part of nation states have separated government from religion. So the main issue I have with this paper is I see political in the same category with for example economical or religious because it is just another aspect of society and affects a particular part of people’s lives. His use of political is a whole different thing because it doesn’t apply solely to governments.

And his point about the enemy vs. friend made me realize just how much this mentality affects our world. Since the “other” is often labeled as enemy, that automatically decrease the chances for peaceful or useful interaction. On page 35 he says that a world without war is a world where the distinction between friend and foe can’t be made and since the opposing side is often just labeled as the enemy it seems unlikely that true peace and understand can exist. People often see different as bad or negative: they don’t live like we do or they don’t act like we do or their moral values are not like ours. And often that is said with a bias, as in: our way of life and morals are correct or superior, they are wrong or bad. So it is easy to see why violent conflict is so prevalent in humanities history. I hope people will eventually learn to first try to learn about and understand the other side and only then make decisions. Humanity tends to have difficulties with “agreeing to disagree” people always want to convert or destroy the other side. I hope peaceful coexistence is something we as race can better adapt. Of course there are some opposing views that need to be stood up against. If one morning I wake up and decide to start randomly killing people I believe deserve to die, I would hope someone would try and stop me. The difference I guess is that when someone chooses to lead a malicious life style then others should try and change that.

Finally I would like to point out the begging of the last paragraph on page 95. What he says there is so true and just powerful. People always justify themselves and often they do commit horrible things thinking they are doing good, and in other cases people use the cover of good ideals to do bad things for other reasons. This hypocrisy seems to be humanities curse that it can’t seem to escape.