Empathy and Morality

@philokalia said
What do you think, @FMF?

What I think has been amply and clearly expressed page after page. Anyone reading our exchange can judge for themselves.

@philokalia said
But, we owe it to ourselves to inquire into their ideas, take what we like, discard what we dislike, and to try to gain something from the whole thing.

I find his anti-Semitism, his advocacy for the demonization of targeted groups - framed as "enemies" - in order to achieve "state unity", his staunch support for dictatorship and opposition to democracy, his active membership of the German Nazi Party, and the contribution of his ideas to the Holocaust, all to be stuff I dislike and reject. I note that you are "inspired" by him. I am not.

@fmf said
How did Carl Schmitt's "nuanced" "friend/enemy distinction" work out for the Jews he so despised and dehumanized?

It seems Schmitt was removed from his position because he was seen as an opportunist and not legitimately in line with party principles.

Moreover, like other Germans, he had no idea of the plans for extermination.

If you were to read his works, it would be more clear just how divorced these ideas are from anti-Semitism. ^^

For instance, here is some analysis on his ideas that tend to correlate with totalitarianism -- they require clarification, after all:

... none of these associations can be said to be decisive andsovereign."
This is the crux of his criticism of Liberalism, that its over emphasis on atomised individualistic tendencies to attempt to determine the political (the friend/enemy distinction), weakens and undermines the sovereign power of the state, that Schmitt argues is the most effective and decisive determinant of this distinction.

"The state as the decisive political entity possesses an enormous power: the possibility of waging war and thereby publicly disposing of the lives of men.""The individual may voluntarily die for whatever reason he may wish. That is, like everything in an essentially individualist liberals ociety, a thoroughly private matter - decided upon freely."

Thus, he argues that a one party system in a state, acting as ana uthoritative political entity is the optimal operating agenda for socia lcohesion and the political ability of a state to effect its
"will to power" in creating homogeneity internally and security externally.

"The political entity is by its very nature the decisive entity, regardless of the sources from which it derives its last psychic motives. It exists or does not exist. If it exists, it is the supreme, that is, in the decisive case, the authoritarian entity."

However, Schmitt does not here argue for the implementation of a totalitarian state, merely that sovereignty to determine whom the enemy of the state is, functions better within a singular political entity.

"A valid meaning is here attached to the word sovereignty, just as to the term entity. Both do not at all imply that a political entity must necessarily determine every aspect of a person's life or that a centralised system should destroy every other organisation or corporation."

In a similar manner to religious ideology, one can view all political ideologies as possessing the intention to move towards a final state of such ideological domination. The encroachment of progressivism and its own values of unrealistic equality, takes advantage of liberal values of individualised tolerance, and displays this obvious, prospective trait of despotism. This is manifested in the antagonistic intolerance, by both ideologies, of antithetical attitudes to their moralistic ideals. This, Schmitt argues, leads to the neutralising and the depoliticising of the friend/foe distinction into regressive forms of the political, such as highly individualised ethical or economic concerns. He sees this as ultimately leading to the maintenance of social control through manipulation.

https://www.academia.edu/31241890/The_Concept_Of_The_Political_by_Carl_Schmitt

You see:

Schmitt believes that

(1) Singular body politics that represent the views of the people beneath them organically are preferable to progressivist societies which depoliticize and atomize the population, resulting in a different sort of domination over the people that deludes them & removes their voice.

You would learn if you read Schmitt that he believes the friend/enemy distinction is interminable, and even those who say that they do not have it end up actually having it, whether they want it or not.

This ties in beautifully with where we started on page one:

The people who invoke humanity and appeal to universal principles immediately create an enmity -- a very bitter one -- that is far more deadly than the honest conflcits of organic friend/enemy relations -- something that is also interminable.

@philokalia said
If you were to read his works, it would be more clear just how divorced these ideas are from anti-Semitism.

This is from the wikipedia article that you quoted:

"The Concept of the Political" is an attempt to achieve state unity by defining the content of politics as opposition to the "other" (that is to say, an enemy, a stranger. This applies to any person or entity that represents a serious threat or conflict to one's own interests.)"

This is "divorced" from his anti-Semitism?

Again from the Wikipedia article you quoted:

"This [friend/enemy] distinction is to be determined "existentially", which is to say that the enemy is whoever is "in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible." Such an enemy need not even be based on nationality: so long as the conflict is potentially intense enough to become a violent one between political entities, the actual substance of enmity may be anything."

This is "divorced" from his own hatred of the Jews and his own political party's scapegoating of them? Really?

@philokalia said
Moreover, like other Germans, he had no idea of the plans for extermination.

I thought you just got finished saying that you "don't really know anything about Carl Schmitt's involvement with the Nazis", right?

Now you are making assertions about his involvement with the Nazis that would serve to absolve him from the fact that his political thinking and ideas and his political activism were part of the intellectual underpinning for the dehumanization of the Jews that led to the Holocaust?

@fmf said
[b]"This [friend/enemy] distinction is to be determined "existentially", which is to say that the enemy is whoever is "in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with him are possible." Such an enemy need not even be based on nationality: so long as the conflict is potentially intense enough to become a violent o ...[text shortened]... vorced" from his own hatred of the Jews and his own political party's scapegoating of them? Really?

Oh yes, it has nothing to do with Jews. Here are some more quotes about the enemy distinction:

"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. These can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party"

"For as long as a people exists in the political sphere, this people must, even if only in the most extreme case—and whether this point has been reached has to be decided by it—determine by itself the distinction of friend and enemy. Therein resides the essence of its political existence. When it no longer possesses the capacity or the will to make this distinction, it ceases to exist politically. If it permits this decision to be made by another, then it is no longer a politically free people and is absorbed into another political system. "

"If a part of the population declares that it no longer recognizes enemies, then, depending on the circumstance, it joins their side and aids them. Such a declaration does not abolish the reality of the friend-and-enemy distinction. "

"Furthermore, it would be a mistake to believe that a nation could eliminate the distinction of friend and enemy by declaring its friendship for the entire world or by voluntarily disarming itself. The world will not thereby become depoliticalized, and it will not be transplanted into a condition of pure morality, pure justice, or pure economics. If a people is afraid of the trials and risks implied by existing in the sphere of politics, then another people will appear which will assume these trials by protecting it against foreign enemies and thereby taking over political rule. The protector then decides who the enemy is by virtue of the eternal relation of protection and obedience.

Why not go read a whole book on the topic, in which the Jews are never mentioned, in which conflict is rarely talked about -- a book that is mostly about how progressivism attempts to erase political distinctions that are relevant, and creates an artificial reality that is manipulative.

It is also a book in which war is looked down upon greatly, and can only be something that is engaged in when it isabsolutely necessary

"War, the readiness of combatants to die, the physical killing of human beings who belong on the side of the enemy—all this has no normative meaning, but an existential meaning only, particularly in a real combat situation with a real enemy. There exists no rational purpose, no norm no matter how true, no program no matter how exemplary, no social ideal no matter how beautiful, no legitimacy nor legality which could justify men in killing each other for this reason. If such physical destruction of human life is not motivated by an existential threat to one's own way of life, then it cannot be justified. Just as little can war be justified by ethical and juristic norms. If there really are enemies in the existential sense as meant here, then it is justified, but only politically, to repel and fight them physically."

Your own limited knowledge of the book has even hinted at these limitations.

@philokalia said
Oh yes, it has nothing to do with Jews.

But he despised and dehumanized the Jews. He most likely had the Jews in mind when he was talking about the "enemies" of the state and how targeting such enemies ~ in a dictatorship no less ~ would flesh out his "conceptual realm of state sovereignty and autonomy".

His state-unity-through-scapegoating-enemies ideology had nothing to do with the Jews simply because the word "Jews" does not appear in your copy-pastes? Really?

@philokalia said
Why not go read a whole book on the topic, in which the Jews are never mentioned...

You'd actually need "the Jews" to be mentioned for you to 'get' what this prominent anti-Semite and German Nazi Party member was on about when he was arguing for the attempt "to achieve state unity by defining the content of politics as opposition to 'the other'"?

You'd really do need "the Jews" to be mentioned explicitly? You are being for real?

@fmf said
You'd actually need "the Jews" to be mentioned for you to 'get' what this prominent anti-Semite and German Nazi Party member was on about when he was arguing for the attempt "to achieve state unity by defining the content of politics as opposition to 'the other'"?

You'd really do need "the Jews" to be mentioned explicitly? You are being for real?

Aw yes, 1932 Germany was famous for its politically correct culture

Surely Schmitt would have to have silently tiptoed around mentioning Jewish people or else he would've faced a severe backlash from the German people.

That is what it was like kn thirties Germany, after all

A lot like America or Britain in the nineties


All those dog whistles!

@philokalia said
Aw yes, 1932 Germany was famous for its politically correct culture

Surely Schmitt would have to have silently tiptoed around mentioning Jewish people or else he would've faced a severe backlash from the German people.

That is what it was like kn thirties Germany, after all

A lot like America or Britain in the nineties


All those dog whistles!

You can be as facetious as you want. It seems you need this German Nazi to have mentioned the Jews before you 'get' what his stuff about targeting "enemies" of the state - that inspires you - is actually about? I understand where you are coming from in your defence of Carl Schmitt. I understand.

Philokalia, I think you have laid out your side of it pretty clearly ~ I assume so, anyway ~ and I think I have done the same, throughout this thread, in fact. I will let others here - who might or might not be reading - make what they want of what you have said about empathy, morality, dehumanization and Carl Schmitt, and what I have said about the same things.

@fmf said
While most would agree that one's capacity for empathy is arguably an important basis for morally sound behaviour ~ and without forgetting that this is all in the realm of subjectivity ~ can empathy, in fact, lead to support for - or even participation in - morally unsound actions in certain situations, despite being virtuous in and of itself?

What are some real-life examples of so-called "misguided empathy"?

@fmf said
Philokalia, I think you have laid out your side of it pretty clearly ~ I assume so, anyway ~ and I think I have done the same, throughout this thread, in fact. I will let others here - who might or might not be reading - make what they want of what you have said about empathy, morality, dehumanization and Carl Schmitt, and what I have said about the same things.

Sounds great -- have a nice day.

@philokalia said
It is completely true that misguided empathy can result in all sorts of injusitces.

You got any real-life examples of what you called "misguided empathy"?