政治神学的教训:失节的施米特

The Lesson of Political Theology: The Compromised Carl Schmitt

在战后的西德,施米特代表的是“失节的知识分子”,他们在魏玛时期属于政治右翼,在1933年以后与纳粹合作或同流合污。施米特确实有知名度,他的有名,不是因为人们可以忘记他失节的过去,而恰恰是因为人们牢牢记得他那段失节的过去。迈尔在《施米特的教训》中,把施米特的思想连贯地阐述为一个可以称作为“教训”的整体。施米特的政治学说从根本上否定了政治哲学的可能。它在骨子里是一种政治神学。它把“启示”而不是“辩论”,把对绝对权威的绝对服从,而不是理性判断,当作“政治”的根本条件。如果迈尔对施米特政治神学的分析正确,那么施米特最学术的著作也应该理解为一种反宪政的学说。在中国阅读施米特的著作,不可不警觉政治神学和政治宗教、政治神秘主义的关系。“神圣启示”能破坏政治哲学的理性根基,更能把种种荒诞危险的偏执和极端带入我们的政治生活。

In West Germany Schmitt represented those compromised intellectuals who had been on the political right in Weimar and had collaborated with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt was known precisely because of his past, not in spite of it. Meier＇s The Lesson of Carl Schmitt seeks to find a single, coherent doctrine that united all of Schmitt＇s mature ideas in one lesson. Schmitt＇s inner-core doctrine is the radical negation of the very possibility of political philosophy. Schmitt＇s doctrine is at heart a theology, in which revelation of truth, not argumentation, is what demands total obedience to the absolute authority in politics. If Meier is correct, then even Schmitt＇s most scholarly production might be better understood as anti-constitutional. Reading Schmitt in China, we must not forget about the troubling nature of his political theology, which reminds us of our own political religion and political mysticism. For Schmitt revelation was part of the argument about the lack of foundations in political philosophy; for us revelation is the point at which all sorts of undefended and indefensible prejudices and stereotypes, modern as well as traditional, enter Schmitt＇ s work and our own public politics.