The enemy is an idea—at least in part.
But who speaks of “enemies” anymore? Isn’t the human race beyond such low, petty, potentially violent concerns?
No. It will never be. It cannot be. As long as there will be man, he will have friends and enemies—individual men no less than groups of men.
Lately a group of dishonest men have taking to dismissing this concern as “Schmittian,” after the German political philosopher Carl Schmitt. But this is just their way of calling their own enemies “Nazis.” These sophists forget—or deliberately obscure—that Schmitt’s core insight follows Plato, who gives three definitions of justice in Book I of the Republic, the central being that justice is helping friends and harming enemies. Only this definition survives as Plato proceeds to elaborate his political philosophy.
Schmitt was a Nazi because he joined the Party, not because he understood that politics cannot be separated from—can never fully rise above—the friend–enemy distinction. Or, if believing in the friend–enemy distinction makes you a Nazi then Plato was a Nazi, too. As was virtually every thinker in the Western tradition. We expect this kind of malevolent lunacy from our leftist enemies but not from (former) ostensibly rightist friends. Therefore let this be understood: anyone who today dismisses the concept of “enemy” is himself an enemy, for he aims to deceive and, via that deception, to harm—either by design or out of delusion.
Schmitt was a Nazi because he joined the
