Chantal Mouffe, Carl Schmitt, and the Critique of Enlightenment Liberalism

In this second in a series on Chantal Mouffe's ideas in The Return of the Political, I discuss her use of Carl Schmitt's critique of liberalism and relate her ideas to authors she draws from, such as Leo Strauss, Isaiah Berlin, Michael Oakeshott, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer and Hans Georg Gadamer. I try to get an initial handle on her preferred "agonistic pluralism" as an answer to the question--can we respect particular values and traditions enough to compete with them rather than seeking to destroy them? I relate her line of argument to my understanding of Carl Jung's theory of political ideology as "ideological possession" -- the projection of the shadow.
For more from me:
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Here's a link to my book, Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right: The Political Thought of Carl Jung: www.routledge.com/Ideological...

[@lucijafurac3691]

Your content is great. I am positively surprised for seeing someone use Jung's insights in this kind of analysis, even on a side. I am under the impression that Jung somehow gets to be left aside in the humanities, which is too bad. His thought is so layered and goes in so many directions. And thank you for uploading an examination as comprehensive as this one!

[@yttean98]

good summary and concise.

[@nnilb4278]

this is such a beneficial and clear explanation. thank you so much!

[@suddenuprising]

Great video, well sourced and highly informed, a true hidden gem.

[@dealwithitsloth]

This was really fantastic. Thank you.

[@aleksandar1724]

Great content! Thank you.

[@ryan_w_taylor]

I would argue that the situation is something closer to democracy w/o liberalism.

[@binhe6500]

Very illuminating talk. Come May 2022, the “political “ issue of the day Roe v Wade. Something Americans are supposed to focus their attention on

[@shezad7165]

Please engage Giorgio Agamben's Concept of Distituent Power. It is quite relevant with the concept of the Political.

[@csrencz6942]

Fascinating and very well presented. Apart from Berlin, who would recommend as foundational characters in “counter enlightenment” thinking? Burke? Thanks!

[@clemfarley7257]

Alasdair MacIntyre Michael Oakeshott People named after 24-minute mark

[@m.rebman7221]

Laurie, this was an interesting topic, and one not often found outside the realm of political science. The great irony here is that the extreme individualist will use the quasi-religious framework of Hegel (cf. F. Fukuyama, esp.) in precisely the same manner as Marx. Schmidt and Strauss, on the other hand, we’re post-enlightenment romantics seeking truth in the sovereignty of the greater power as a kind of ersatz transcendental entity such as God. The observations of the latter on the conflict-laden nature of humanity - or, indeed, most other higher life forms on this planet - seem trivial and too pacifistically accepting without recognizing that we humans have imagination and decision-making powers. Conflict is not bad in itself as it forces us to confront the contentious elements in our own personal worlds and constructs. Human life and the cultural milieu it spawns is therefore dynamic and never reaches anything like the religiously motivated Hegelian endpoint.

[@RobertoAFernandez]

Hannah Arendt hits the mark, I reckon, when she argued that the modern homo economicus is kept away from politics, at [their] peril.

[@MarcasLancaster]

The Frankfurt School, particularly Adorno’s “Critique of Instrumental Reason“ and obviously “Dialectic of Enlightment“ founded their critical theory of modernity (drawing and modifying Marx and Lukasz) on systemic issues at the heart of philosophy itself which have an essential bearing on this issue. There is a great deal of overlap amongst thinkers that have supposedly antagonistic orientations evidenced in their sharing a “counter enlightenment” position. In the post liberal context in which we now speak, these contradictions can be seen quite clearly with the emergence of terms like “blue labour“ and the ubiquitous “clown world“ meme.

[@brainunboxinghypnosis1986]

Everything from loud rock music, to commercial airliners, to chickens. Illuminating nonetheless.

[@michaels4255]

"the democratic process is not having much effect" - BY DESIGN. The democratic process is mostly window dressing to maintain public support for the state even though the important decisions, which often serve private rather than public interests, are being made by a handful of wealthy elites behind the scenes.

[@doh917]

I find your channel informative as many of the videos are very well thought out. Not sure where you may fall on this but I find that many of the more liberalism people have come to the conclusion that more obfuscation is necessary or perception mgmt (sometimes through brute force and institutional indoctrination if necessary) in order to keep people numb from the recognition of the political in their lives. This was effectively the promise of liberalism (to get rid of the political). So the problem with liberalism is that its not enough liberalism seems like a bit of a cop out and an inability to reconcile the contradictions (which is often reduced to the implicit threat of well it's better than all the other options). Mouffe states that the Gramscian mode of institutional capture to effectively propagandize and program people to a concept of the radical democratic also reveals that in order for people to be in what's commonly known as "nudged" to adopt the democratic/post-marxian ethos is effectively a tacit acknowledgement that obfuscation and mass adoption of propaganda is the only method to which these concepts will be adopted regardless of its attachment to logos or reason. Also, the concept of democracy is a misnomer and again an obfuscation and concealment. The idea that democracy is capable in mass politics is impossible (a James Burnham recognition). The prevailing 20th century ideologies of liberalism, communism, and fascism were really all branches of the same thing - managerialism. One often argues that it was inevitable due to the complexities of a connected, technologically advancing world therefore to ensure and centralize more power for the managers, a more complex and more globalized setting is required in a self reinforcing loop. From the days of Aristotle the notions of governance aka rule have not changed: Monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. What people describe as democracy today is really just oligarchy (again another wonderful liberal obfuscation). Mouffe's notions of radical democracy is yet another concealment of what is (whether she recognizes or acknowledges it or not) a power grab on her and her allies part. A radical democratic platform will inevitably be reduced to a new set of ruling elites only this time, it will be in a fashion that she approves of rendering the concept of democracy another obfuscating euphemism for a personal will to power. I think that most people feel uncomfortable with the nature of humans and the way in which humans behave themselves both as individuals and as parts of groups. The perpetual instinct to perfect or fix has given rise to the therapeutic class which is just another element of control. I think people simply being confronted with the general predictability of the human and the acknowledgement of both the good and the evil similar to the Daoist concepts of life. But of course doing so would put a lot of people out of status/power/influence and this is the eternal battle for the collective consciousness.

[@maurinacademy]

Thank you for your thoughts. I agree entirely with you in your second paragraph, on democracy and mass society--they do not go together. The only real, strong democracy would be localized, amongst people with a common purpose. If most of your fellow citizens are faceless numbers, and if most of your political activity is approving of one form or another of liberal mass governance, you're not really a democratic citizen.

[@doh917]

@@maurinacademy Thank you for the response. I like your breakdowns and you cover a good spectrum of thinkers of the past. I was curious if you have ever read or reviewed James Burnham or Bertrand De Jouvenel. I have come across these thinkers and they seem to have understood much about political philosophy and the gears of how political power moves. Keep up the good work!

[@brahnehoeft7052]

I wish I could pay you to give me a good foundation in a philosophical education... I dont know where to start. I'm all over the place.

[@m.rebman7221]

You ARE paying. There are numerous, obnoxious ads on this channel.

[@golagiswatchingyou2966]

Often I wonder if the biological aspect of politics today is part of our civilizational decline, as democracy loses it's function due to inability to assimulate diffrent groups from all parts of the world, would therefor not the idea of democracy itself be put into question? Basicaly this is the eugenics argument that without proper reproductive policy a society and civilization will collapse, to me it partly explains the rise of China and the decline of the west, as the west becomes more conflicted within itself, the Chinese have through brute force and artifical means perfected their dictatorship to rival the west. Of course this is not the only reason but it seems to be a major one, one that most of the western world denies exists or ignores while their own society degenerates through stagnation.

[@kseniahoroshenkova2614]

Not sure what you mean by "biological aspect of politics" but it seems like the idea of democracy (or any political system) being (meaningfully) put into question requires a sufficiently shared view amongst citizens about what [democracy] is, what it is expected to deliver and how well it is performing versus that. In the absence of a consensus anything like this, I can imagine that 'democracy' can be sustained for yet some time rhetorically, whilst in practice it is distorted by those who have the means to do so for the benefit of their particular interests. Arguably the suggestion that conflict is inevitable is true whether it is in China or the West; in China some citizens may dislike the forceful measures but accept they are unable to influence them; in the USA, citizens may continue to believe they are able to do something about US government policies they dislike, but they increasingly have no influence in practice. Thus the political system as much reflects expectations/beliefs about who can participate in decisions, as well as who actually does so in practice. I expect this makes it much harder to influence any systemic change.

[@rodneyjames2344]

When you consider that approx 1 third of human genome pool has to do with brain development, you have a major point with biology influencing political thought. > www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Genes-Work-Brain

[@alfredathelstan4375]

'The Jacobin dream of consensus' LOL

[@mandobrownie]

I haven't read any Mouffe, so I feel kinda weird trying to comment on her though only your video, but I'll go for it anyway: 1. Who is Mouffe directly disagreeing with? I ask this because, to me, there seems to be a good chunk of liberal writers who acknowledge the truth of value pluralism, and even very deep antagonism, but at the same time maintain that they aren't incompatible with the pursuit of a "post-political" world. The condition of value pluralism and deep antagonism aren't some kind of inherent thing in the way that having 2 hydrogen atoms is inherent to a water molecule. They can cease to be in multiple ways, with some paths toward no pluralism (or at least like, substantive pluralism) and no antagonism being much better or worse than others. Take Rawls for example: everyone criticizes him because (they think that) he thinks there's a concrete procedure to reaching an end state that's the society that ought to exist, somehow ignoring all of history as if struggle and disagreement and cycles of ideology don't exist. But I think that such a reading of Rawls fails to consider that despite always talking about the end state and procedures to get to that end state, he constantly talks about how what he says is only one part of realizing the society that ought to exist. Rawls is laying out his ideal, and his ideal procedures, as a way to just imagine the path toward a non-plural and non-antagonistic society, not as a way to prescribe exactly what to do (he even constantly talks about the fact of reasonable disagreement!). In this way, Rawls acknowledges and yet ignores the current facts of pluralism and antagonism without dismissing them, and has, to boot, the observation that claiming pluralism and antagonism to be inherent is just a different form of rationalist politics. If Mouffe claims to be substantively disagreeing with someone like Rawls, it seems that she's just invented a type of liberal that doesn't exist among contemporary theorists and philosophers. 2. This parlays into my second concern. If, as I've maintained, Mouffe is rejecting a type of liberal that doesn't exist, or only minorly exists, then what exactly is new to her method of drawing from a wider variety of political ideologies? What makes it more than a repackaged marketplace of ideas (which itself is a substantive conception often tied to certain forms of liberalism)? These kind of left-right team-ups have a mixed history: the Tory Labor Party of Blair, the Arendt-Heidegger connection, the various black traditionalism-left socialism alliances throughout Africa and the Caribbean. Why should we not instead frame Mouffe as someone who's project is "what happens when we take value pluralism and antagonism to be inherent facts about the world but still aim for something like a liberal democracy without ignoring conservative, nationalist, and group superiority-based ideologies? Do we get something coherent? Do we get something better than previous versions of liberal democracy?"

[@maurinacademy]

I think it's too early to tell whether she's rejecting a type of liberal that doesn't exist. I doubt she has all the answers, but it's refreshing to find someone who is making the attempt to think beyond the usual binaries of left and right that get us all worked up. There definitely has been a trend in the direction of management as opposed to true political expression and competition in liberal governments--until recently in the US Democrats and Republicans were coming fairly close to being the same thing. Is Trumpism partly an attempt to reassert the political? I suppose I'm hoping that Mouffe's commentary can help us think about that possibility.

[@mandobrownie]

@@maurinacademy We shall see as the series goes on!

[@groupchat2554]

If you have a lot of close encounters with people who occupy that 1 or .01 percent political status they all have the same tool set and workshop at their disposal putting aside the difference in quality and variety. The first real issue with a 99% percent politcal pluralism is that they dont have a workshop or tool set thats available outside their own private use either within their private spaces or out. Lets just imagine a there was a lawyer and secretary on call amd available to simply given every citizen a report that was meaningful to their community or self interest. How would a secretary or legal advisor that is task with the organization or reliable knowledge advised the local citizen about Corona. I think what you boil it down to is the community is unfocused on any practical change therefore the commumity has been declawed politically an will remain so until a tool set and workshop is widely disrupted.

[@RobertoAFernandez]

Given the [totally predictable and predicted] events of January 6, 2021 (many people knew that a Trump electoral defeat would be met with him trying to undo such result and cling to power), all these issues are even more crucial. Schmitt stated that liberalism has had the paradoxical effect of drawing most people away from politics. Mass media and entertainment, plus suburbia and individual transportation in cars, have also done their part in demobilizing and alienating us, while we still have our instinctual need for identity, and our fears, prejudices, irrationalities and anxieties. But people will not magically be drawn to the political. There's probably a lot of engineering to be done if that's the goal. For the most part, politicians are not interested in doing so. The violence before and after January 6 comes from people who don't think that they have other options but violence. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[@m.rebman7221]

Great sound track of headbanger music, chickens, song birds, children and aircraft overflights. Hilarious, and really a great example of “un-gated” living…

[@user-fd8fe9hk9q]

Your characterization of Schmitts friend enemy distinction as a psychological tribal tendency is naive. For example right wing populism is not merely of a psychologically xenophobic type but rather their material interests run counter to mass immigration into the country. Also, Mouffe fails to take into account the age old question of politics, "who watches the watchman?" Who is it that decides the bounds and rules of this "liberal democracy" she is so attached to and how are they enforced? Basically, she says, "Violence isn't ok in democracy unless its against people who don't want to be ruled by said democracy (whose laws, conveniently enough, are drafted and interpreted by a class of intellectuals much like myself)" I mean, does Mouffe think the south's right to succeed in the American civil war should have been respected, or is this liberal democracy she speaks of held together by a monopoly on violence held by an elite (just like every state everywhere)?

[@user-ce2le8ml9y]

Putin has restarted history.