TO DECIDE IN UNDECIDABILITY: DERRIDEAN CRITICISM OF SCHMITTEAN POLITICS IN THE MOMENT OF CRISIS

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to make a Derridean criticism of Schmittean conception on politics through the term of crisis and decision. In Schmitt’s political theory, these two notions are evaluated as foundational concepts of the political since they determine the meaningful being of the politics. According to Schmitt, the political can emerge within a crisis through which the constituent decision distinguishing the friend from the enemy can be possible. This idea is criticized by Derrida, who argues that politics cannot be reduced to an absolute distinction between friend and enemy. Although Derrida approaches Schmitt by considering the crisis as a foundational manner of the political, he understands the fact of crisis as an “unjustifiable moment”. While Schmitt thinks that the political is only possible through a sovereign decision that establishes the radical distinction between the friend and the enemy, Derrida argues that the political can only be understood as an ethical experience in which the absolute judgement is postponed until an indefinite moment. Schmitt evaluated the crisis and decision within the possibility of thinking the political within the framework of a defined integrity, whereas Derrida tends to deconstruct the pre-assumptions on the political. So, the notions of crisis and decision are either understood as the opportunity to deconstruct the pre-assumptions about totality and integrity, or they are evaluated as a constitutive action that restores the totality. This article aims to discuss the different forms of the term of crisis and decision by a careful comparison between Derrida and Schmitt. 

Keywords: The Political, deconstruction, difference, friend-enemy, crisis, decision.

 

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