Thursday 28 January 2021

Memes for theocracy












12 comments:

  1. Did he really say "we make a god of our political beliefs and force others to worship it"?

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  2. Where did you get that Schmitt described our intentions to take our political ideas and force others to worship it? I haven´t seen it in his 'Political Theology' treatise. By the way Schmitt would not be happy to parade around on memes.

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  3. "all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts"—in other words, that political theory addresses the state (and sovereignty) in much the same manner as theology does God.

    Schmitt is really articulating the Mandate of Heaven in Schmittian terms. The Mandate of Heaven tells the Emperor China in no uncertain terms who is really sovereign, and it ain't the Emperor of China.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

    All secular political ideologies can do is state who is sovereign using a constitution that explains how the state is to operate and who is in charge. When that sovereign is overthrown, a different constitution and sovereign is substituted, until that in turn also falls.

    As far as Schmitt is concerned, the constitution is merely the machinery, but the sovereign is the operator of that machinery.

    If all secular political ideologies are is the idol of their creator and followers, and they all last a significantly shorter time than religion, we might as well choose one that will stand the test of time.

    Just as it is a false economy to buy cheap shoes, it is a mistake to adopt the ideas of fallible and mortal men who are all creatures of their age with their particular preoccupations.

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  4. I don't recognize Carl Schmitt in those words.

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  5. I am not claiming that he said those words, but what else could he have meant if he used the term "political theology"? Every political ideology has its creator. Any creator of any political ideology would want that political ideology to be followed. Anyone operating the political ideology in question would punish those who broke its laws, and those who break its laws and those who are injured by the breaking of them are part of the concept of the political ie those who decide who is friend and foe in the making and breaking of these rules and in the changing of these rules.

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  6. When you read the full treatise you will see what he meant.

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  7. I was hoping you would be quoting Schmitt to demonstrate that he could not possibly have meant what I claim he meant!

    "All significant concepts of the modem theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver—but also because of their systematic stmcture, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts."

    What Schmitt said above supports my argument.

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  8. yes chaper III I recognize quote.

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  9. Schmitt was also saying that someone who believes in the Big Bang and someone who believes in God are really very close because an atheist believing in the Big Bang is not that far away from someone who believes God caused the Big Bang, if they both obey God's laws.

    If both were living in the same theocracy, the atheist would presumably be obeying what are said to be God's laws because he does not want to punished, while the theist who believes in God will be obeying them because he wants to do as God wishes. The effect would be the same, though the theist would be more likely to obey the law more because he has a policeman inside his head while the atheist might break the law if he thought no one was looking.

    Let us imagine a situation in which the laws are the same in both societies: atheist and theist.

    We would assume that the theist society that believes in the Abrahamic God would be more likely to obey those laws for longer than the atheist society and thereby do better, because the theist society would be more likely to properly parent their legitimate offspring and have more legitimate offspring because God-believing people are less likely to casually conceive and parent their illegitimate offspring.

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  10. I prefer his words. I would never interpret it like "we make ..."

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  11. "The political theology of the Restoration offers an exemplary illustration of the sentence Max Weber articulated in his critique of Rudolf Stammler’s philosophy of right, namely, that it is possible to confront irrefutably a radical materialist philosophy of history with a similarly radical spiritualist philosophy of history."

    "It is true, nevertheless, that for some time the aftereffects of the idea of God remained recognizable. In America this manifested itself in the reasonable and pragmatic belief that the voice of the people is the voice of God—a belief that is at the foundation of Jefferson’s victory of 1-801, TocquevUle in his account of American democracy observed that in democratic thought the people hover above the entire political life of the state, just as God does above the world, as the cause and the end of all things, as the point from which everything emanates and to which everything returns. Today, on the contrary, such a well-known legal and political philosopher of the state as Kelsen can conceive of democracy as the expression of a relativistic and impersonal scientism. This notion is in accord with the development of political theology and metaphysics in the nineteenth century."

    Those two quotes were the only times the term was used. I really do not think he would quarrel with my interpretation!

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