insights INSIGHT Decisionism Overrules Normativism
- Carl Schmitt's core theory centers on decisionism: political authority exists in the sovereign's power to decide exceptions.
- He argues liberal rule-by-norms removes decisive authority and thus weakens politics.
insights INSIGHT Sovereign Decides The Exception
- Schmitt defines sovereignty as the authority who decides on the exception and what to do about it.
- This links sovereign power directly to the ability to suspend normal legal order in crises.
insights INSIGHT Politics As Secular Theology
- Schmitt secularizes theological concepts: political authority mirrors divine intervention.
- He equates exceptional sovereign decisions to miracles in a political theology.
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The Nazi State was a totalitarian state. This, nobody denies. While Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party associates obviously intended to organize the Nazi State in that way, a thoroughgoing justification was provided by the so-called "Crown Jurist of the Third Reich," Carl Schmitt, who has become popular on the so-called "New Right" (Woke Right). Schmitt resisted the idea of the Nazi movement, despite his political and judicial theories that went on to justify it, but only until Hitler took the Chancellorship in January 1933. Then Schmitt joined and soon after penned an essay, "The Legal Basis for the Total State," to justify Nazi totalitarianism and the Führerprinzip in the "miracle" of legal decisionism (the dictatorial executive making decisions on top of rule of law). In this groundbreaking episode of the New Discourses Podcast, not only does host James Lindsay continue his sprawling series on the "Nazi Experiment," but he also presents this Schmittian essay in English for the first time. Join him for an introduction to Carl Schmitt and to hear "The Legal Basis for the Total State."
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