After the deluge
Aleksandr Dugin these SHOULD WE READ days? Not necessarily, but we should keep in mind that he is more like a Russian Brzezinski, and not the absolute Slavophil – or fascist – he is portrayed to be. He looks more like a Russian mirror image of some Western international relations theorists. Nevertheless, unless we stick to Hegel’s dictum “what is rational is real and what is real is rational” we can indulge ourselves with better reads: there are plenty of them.
TRUTH AND BEAUTY
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” (John Keats). John Keats wrote this memorable line in his Ode on a Grecian Urn in 1820. The Ode begins with “THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness”, and the first part ends with “What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?” It is still an unsettled matter whether Keats claimed “beauty is truth, truth beauty” in order to express his belief that beauty is the bearer of truth, which in its full veracity is far more beautiful in its beatitude than any other truth humans can aspire to consummate. An interpreter believes “humans can experience and fulfil their hearts’ desires, unlike the ‘bold lover, who never, never
canst thou kiss’ who, like the other figures in art, is in a moment of anticipation which won’t be fulfilled.”
BEAUTY AND TRUTH
It is also possible to imagine that Keats merely reflects what the Urn tells him; this isn’t Keats’ own thinking. Anyway, Lamia deceives Lycius out of a pure wish to be not only in bliss, but also to be looked at and seen, as opposed to the denigration of vision in the 19th Century French thought Foucault, inter alia, so unforgettably rendered decomposable and re-constructible.
And this is what makes the truth of it. That truth can also be beauty itself is unmistakable. Outside the realm of poetics this is a theme that we can delineate back to the Enlightenment. However, the converse, the “beauty is truth” part, could only be rendered intelligible and acceptable if Keats approves the beauty in it. So beauty can in no poetic condition belie any truth. Could it defame it under other circumstances? Or to open up another venue in political theology, can beauty alone pass for poiesis? Here enter Schmitt, Cassirer, Kantorowicz and of course Dante, Shakespeare, and Benjamin. Jünger and Niekisch also come to the forefront.
TRAUERSPIEL VS. TRAGÖDIE
Shakespeare’s Richard II and Hamlet have both been interpreted either as tragedies or as Trauerspiele. The Trauerspiel is a hybrid form, with unending stream that is sometimes narrated from within as a mournful cry. It doesn’t carry historical generality nor does it generate proper myths. Its plot is full of allegorical schemata that may be symbolic images of an entirely different theatre. As long as modern politics is intended as a game of games within games so that who is game and who is gaming are fluidly indeterminate, the peculiar mirror nature of play will continue to be emblematic. For instance, Richard II has always been a political play in what may be termed a spectral time.
Consider the use of Leviathan by Shakespeare: “We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil. As send precepts to the leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town and of your people, Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of heady murder, spoil and villany”. (Henry V speaks; Henry V, Act III, Scene III) Well, nothing allegorical or mythical has been alluded to by this
reference. Hobbes’ choice of Leviathan as an image of the Artificiall Mann, the state, and Shakespeare’s use of it are completely different. Times have changed so fast between 1595 and 1651 that Leviathan became a catchy image in the new world of men.
REVOLUTIONARY THEATRES
The idea that revolution is a street theatre where everyone can watch and participate, such that the world itself becomes a theatre scene – theatrum mundi - is actually a Shakespearean idea. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum: the World map published in Antwerpen in 1570 may have influenced Shakespeare, an undoubtedly learned man. In fact a map is a theatre: that is, theory. Etymologically theatre means theory. Hence, we now have the concepts of theatrum mundi, trag(o)edia and Trauerspiel. Starting from 1920s the mythical tone of mass politics has more often than not invited crowds to outdoor public performances or even issued calls to help stage them. For instance, like many modern time political drama, whether the Earl of Essex did really stage a coup against Elizabeth I in 1603 is still unclear. There are claims that Essex commissioned Shakespeare to write Richard II to be played in the Globe Theatre before the uprising, and that after the debacle, great jurists like Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Edward Coke discussed the political significance of the Shakespearean play. “I am Richard, know ye not that?” allegedly uttered Elizabeth I after the decapitation of Lord Essex. Kantorowicz added: “It is as though Richard’s self-indictment of treason anticipated the charge of 1649, the charge of high treason committed by the king against the King.” The Puritan motto of 1640s “We fight the king to protect the King ” conveys exactly the same message. Ian Kelsey showed convincingly that Charles Stuart (Charles I) referred to Richard II before the tribunal.
DANTE
Dante is not only a poet: in fact he is more of a student of politics. He wrote Convivio and De Monarchia, both important political treatises of their era. The “two suns” symbolism of Dante is a remake of the “two swords” doctrine. This is the origin of modern day secularism. Sacerdotium and Regnum were been posed as Powers with distinct sources – potestates distinctiae – and entered classical political theology as such. Unless the secular sword of the monarch is perceived as a distinct power source, secularism is impossible. Imperium non dependet ab ecclesia: the empire doesn’t draw its authority from the church. Because sacerdotium and regnum are seen as inherently immanent and indivisible powers in the Christian doctrine, there are “two natures”. This led to wellknown “two bodies” symbolisms. The “two suns” equally imply “two laws”; Canon Law and Common Law. Any return to this dual legal system, even though the two legal traditions were in many ways intertwined since the Bologna School days, would be to recur to the High Middle Ages. There are many countries, the U.S. as a case in point, where the shades of the olden myths sacerdotium spread 900 years ago are still extant. Yet, more importantly, there are countries that try to return to ancient myths without being able to regenerate the episteme that produced them in the first place. They aren’t even in the 13th Century; they lag far behind. Maybe this is what Huntington meant in 1993 when he suggested that the clash of civilizations was in the making.
SCHMITT
Carl Schmitt, the godfather of modern secular political theology, had already moved beyond a very dangerous threshold in 1938 when he revisited Hobbes’ Leviathan. Non externa cogunt Deos is Schmitt’s reference to Seneca. Seneca threw this in Emperor Nero’s face: “the sublime can’t be imposed from the exterior.” If imposed it isn’t divine. Even though Nero was liturgically Pontifex Maximus, Seneca told him he couldn’t rule because he was unfit for the job. Schmitt turns this Republican thesis upside down. If Leviathan can’t be imposed from the exterior, then because it must exist, the Mortall God qua corpus mysticum has to come from within. There will be no need for the public/private sphere distinction, and no ius (right) will be required. Not even a trace of ius naturale should be allowed to exist in the ideal polity. Because the sovereign is who decides on the state of exception and on what to do in such a state, he is bound to be the one who renders the legal norm meaningful at the same time it annihilates it. The exception is more interesting than the rule. Also, the sovereign has to be a real person, not a fictitious corporate sole. This is beyond the ordinary meaning of dictatorship, which in the Roman tradition is a legal and temporary device empowered by the Senate. Der Führer beyond the circumference of the open set the jurisprudential circle delineates.
SECULAR POLITICAL THEOLOGY
It seems to me that the world is moving into the one-man rule direction again. This trajectory had its origins in the politics of so many eras that a comeback shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, the comeback began in 1991 when the Old Left was gone. The Old Left has obviously miserably failed, but this is another matter. And here is what may happen after the deluge: a new journey into the night. Not even one single Western country is set to move towards further or better democracy or towards the fortification of strong parliamentary institutions. It is exactly the opposite that awaits us. Clearly, other countries can’t do what even the West can’t. Alas!