Dangerousness

«The political is threatened insofar as man's dangerousness is threatened. Therefore the affirmation of the political is the affirmation of man's dangerousness. How should this affirmation be understood? Should it be intended politically, it can have "no normative meaning but only an existential meaning", like everything political. One then will have to ask: in time of danger, in the "dire emergency", does "a fighting totality of men" affirm the dangerousness of its enemy? does it wish for dangerous enemies? And one will have to answer "no," along the lines of C. Fabricius's comment when he heard that a Greek philosopher had proclaimed pleasure as the greatest good: If only Pyrrhus and the Samnites shared this philosopher's opinion as long as we are at war with them! Likewise, a nation in danger wants its own dangerousness not for the sake of dangerousness, but for the sake of being rescued from danger. Thus, the affirmation of dangerousness as such has no political meaning but only a "normative", moral meaning; expressed appropriately, that affirmation is the affirmation of power as the power that forms states, of virtù in Machiavelli's sense. Here, too, we recall Hobbes, who describes fearfulness as the virtue (which, incidentally, is just as much negated by him as is the state of nature itself) of the state of nature, but who understands fearfulness as inclusive of glory and courage. Thus warlike morals seem to be the ultimate legitimation for Schmitt's affirmation of the political, and the opposition between the negation and the position of the political seems to coincide with the opposition between pacifist internationalism and bellicose nationalism.
Is that conclusion really correct? One has to doubt it if one considers the resolution with which Schmitt refuses to come on as a belligerent against the pacifists. And one must quarrel with the conclusion as soon as one has seen more precisely how Schmitt arrives at man's dangerousness as the ultimate presupposition of the position of the political. After he has aleady twice rejected the pacifist ideal on the ground that the ideal in any case has no meaning for behavior in the present situation and for the understanding of this situation, Schmitt - while recognizing the possibility in principle of the "world state" as a wholly apolitical "partnership in consumption and production" of humanity united - finally asks "upon which men will the terrible power devolve that a global economic and technical centralization entails"; in other words, which men will rule in the "world state." "This question cannot by any means be dismissed by hoping... that government of men over men will have become superfluous, because men will then be absolutely free. One can answer this question with optimistic or pessimistic suppositions," namely with the optimistic supposition that man will then be undangerous, or with the pessimistic supposition that he will be dangerous. The question of man's dangerousness or undangerousness thus surfaces in view of the question whether the government of men over men is, or will be, necessary or superfluous. Accordingly, dangerousness means need of dominion. And the ultimate quarrel occurs not between belicosity and pacifism (or nationalism and internationalism) but between the "authoritarian and anarchistic theories".»

Leo Strauss, «Notes on Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the political»