Two new books are out that work off of classic 20th century texts in political theology, but with an eye to current situations of popular sovereignty-- Eric Santner's The Royal Remains: The Peoples' Two Bodies and the Endgame of Sovereignty and Paul Kahn's Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. From their descriptions, Santner's book seems to take a broader look at modern democracy and trace a political theology back to earlier theories of kingship, while Kahn's book looks more specifically at the American landscape and revisits Schmitt's theory under different terms of sovereignty. I haven't read either, but do know a bit of Santner's work; I took a seminar on Carl Schmitt with him this past winter.
A few reviews have popped up for either book already. Someone really needs to write a review essay taking both of them into account alongside one another.
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5 minutes ago
Thinking about the whole idea that the king's body is literally sovereign, I am reminded of today's leaders.
ReplyDeletePresidents and Prime Ministers often travel in bulletproof cars that can not be destroyed by even a rocket launcher. Outside the car will be several armed bodyguards walking on the ground, as if the armoured automobile here is itself also vulnerable. There will be motorcades in front of and behind the car, also with armed policemen and bodyguards.
But even wherever they travel, the security forces would have already done a background check on the region and forcefully weeded out anybody from coming near the area who seems suspicious.
Even if the likelihood of an attack is little, even if the attacker is unlikely to be well equipped, even if he is unlikely to kill all the bodyguards, even if he is unlikely to breach the armoured limousine, there is a pretence that the leader's life is at threat and must be excessively guarded. And even in the unlikely situation that he is killed, he is hardly so irreplacable to justify such high security.
It doesn't serve a practical purpose. It serves a religious purpose - of protocol, of worship of a national demi-god, of making oneself dutibound to protect the demi-god, and of reminding everyone of the sacrosanct PHYSICAL BODY of this demi-god.
In our relatively secular world, our mythologies, folktales, festivals, customs, protocols, rites, rituals, and priesthoods have not gone away. Perhaps it is human nature.
In the U.S. (after the Revolution at least) the first popular group making claims regarding popular sovereignty were the Democratic-Republican Societies (unless one counts the Whiskey Rebellion) of 1792-1795. Even Jefferson and Madison were somewhat troubled by the notion, and Hamilton and his crew, in large part as a result of their aristocratic pretensions, were of course appalled. Anyway, yeah, American history is shot through with such groups, the most recent being the Tea Party. They tend to rise up rather quickly, gain a fair amount of traction and then die quick deaths.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Schmitt is discussed at some length in one the of the most illuminating works I've ever read on the Nazi state; Koonz's _The Nazi Conscience_. Hayek as I recall also mentions Schmitt as an example of the sort of intellectual who helped the continent embrace illiberal regimes.
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