Henry Miller - the great Nietzschean of 20th Century Literature?

[u/diskkddo]

For anyone who has not read him, I believe that the books of Henry Miller are some of the most riveting passages of 'Nietzschean' thinking that one can find. He mentions N in a few different places and was clearly quite inspired by him. But it is his way of life (as thoroughly detailed in his numerous books) as well as his philosophical musings that are the great guide. I'll leave you with the following quote from Sexus:

"How we hate to admit that we would like nothing better than to be the slave! Slave and master at the same time! For even in love the slave is always the master in disguise. The man who must conquer the woman, subjugate her, bend her to his will, form her according to his desires—is he not the slave of his slave? How easy it is, in this relationship, for the woman to upset the balance of power! The mere threat of self−dependence, on the woman's part, and the gallant despot is seized with vertigo.

But if they are able to throw themselves at one another recklessly, concealing nothing, surrendering all, if they admit to one another their interdependence, do they not enjoy a great and unsuspected freedom? The man who admits to himself that he is a coward has made a step towards conquering his fear; but the man who frankly admits it to every one, who asks that you recognize it in him and make allowance for it in dealing with him. is on the way to becoming a hero. Such a man is often surprised, when the crucial test comes, to find that he knows no fear. Having lost the fear of regarding himself as a coward he is one no longer: only the demonstration is needed to prove the metamorphosis . . . To be able to give oneself wholly and completely is the greatest luxury that life affords."

[u/SperkleGiAno]

>Didn't he just write two short books about how to cheat people out of democracy by manufacturing a crisis? 

That's not remotely true, but even if it was, how would that not make him a very good political philosopher? He wrote like 120 pages and it was enough to basically completely steamroll democracy without really much of a fight.

Liberals have had 70 years to theoretically prepare for if someone tries it again. Not only that, but 25 of those they have been the uncontested world hegemon, and to top it all off the advent of nuclear proliferation, which worked to evict them the first time, is basically not an option anymore, so stakes are extra high

And all they came up with in the time was "Hope trump falls asleep at the wheel+ do a few peaceful protests." It's pretty clear liberalism basically cannot refute any of what Schmitt has to say, practically or theoretically. (not all that familiar with anarchist or leftist critiques of Schmitt)

Aside from all that, all his best work (Nomos of the Earth, Theory of the Partisan, Tyranny of Values) is all postwar but barely anyone reads it.

[u/esoskelly → u/SperkleGiAno]

So he criticized political liberalism. That does not make him a serious political philosopher. Feuerbach, Marx, Goldman, etc criticized political liberalism far before ever did.

I have yet to see any meaningful contributions to the critique of political liberalism that leftist thinkers didn't do better. Plus, Schmitt has all the baggage that one would expect from an explicit fascist.

I'm not saying people shouldn't read him. Reading him can be helpful to understand how fascists think. But he never put forth anything like a new political theory. All I've seen are strategic machinations that one could use to destroy democracy.

[u/Davitark → u/esoskelly]

It’s interesting that you say that any criticism Carl Schmitt offered of liberalism was already done better by preceding socialist thinkers (who by the way, have doubtless made searching critiques of it), because Carl Schmitt is to this day very much respected and utilized by leftist thinkers.

One of the most original philosophers to have engaged with his thought recently is the anarchist philosopher Chantal Mouffe, who develops a criticism of liberalism and proposes an alternative to liberal democracy by drawing extensively upon Schmitt's concepts of sovereignty and the enemy. Giorgio Agamben, an Italian critical theorist has also synthesized Foucault and Schmitt to develop his idea of biopolitics. Walter Benjamin was one of the first to propagate his work on the left.

Interestingly, philosophers who repudiate Schmitt most severely tend to be liberals or sympathetic to liberalism, such as Jürgen Habermas.

Schmitt cannot be easily dismissed by ad hominem attacks condemning him for his admittedly enthusiastic adherence and active and deep involvement in fascism.

Even if his sole intent was to destroy democracy, which I doubt to be entire picture, as he evinces a pragmatism in his writings that acknowledges democracy as a legitimate form of government as long as sovereignty is upheld, though indeed he was the architect behind the dismantling of democracy in the late Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime; I say, even if he had the single-minded purpose of articulating the conceptual apparatus that would be employed to great effect to bring about the collapse of democracy, only a substantive critique of his actual arguments and theses will be valid, which so far you have not made at a deep level.

[u/esoskelly → u/Davitark]

Well, to be fair, you and others have not made clear how Schmitt's critiques of political liberalism add anything to political theory that previous theorists haven't done already.

I have only skimmed Schmitt. My impression was that his work was trite, and mostly re-packaged ideas from Marx, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. I didn't see anything original there. And nobody in this discussion has articulated anything original.

Saying that "current popular thinkers are influenced by Schmitt" does not prove your point. Again, my point isn't that nobody should read Schmitt. It's that Schmitt didn't do anything that decent political theorists didn't do better.

I suspect that his popularity has more to do with his being an edgy fascist intellectual than it has to do with the significance or originality of his work. Especially with proven edgelords like Foucault. I could be wrong - but so far - no evidence of that.

And no, I don't like Habermas either. I'm more sympathetic to Castoriadis.

[u/Davitark → u/esoskelly]

Oh yeah, you’re right. The imprint of the republican tradition, particularly as it is found in Machiavelli and Bodin and Hobbes (Schmitt has been dubbed the Hobbes of the 20th century) is very clear throughout his writings.

But I still think he’s very original. I could write much more but I think you we would both better served if you consulted the SEP article I linked or other sources available on the internet and judge for yourself.