civilized stupidity of the exclusionary "12 year German Reich" vs microbial intelligence of the inclusionary "4 billion year Bacterial Reich"

Carl Schmitt , the most EVIL philosopher of the 20th century

And if you happen to think ideas matter, that makes Carl Schmitt the most evil person of the 20th century.

The Allies did believe that ideas matter, but feared the fallout if they actually tried any Nazi-oriented philosophers for promoting their ideas --- ideas that they knew were dangerously close to mainstream popular thought throughout the Western World in the years between 1875-1965.

So Carl Schmitt, born almost the same time as Hitler, lived out his entire life in prosperity and prestige, before during and even after the rise of the Hitler he had cheered upon his coming to power : dying aged 96 in 1985.

Admittedly he only held a relatively minor post in the overall Nazi regime and that only for three years, 1933-1936.

But then again if ideas do matter --- and Hitler clearly thought so, just he thought of himself as a philosopher-king, then Schmitt's real power came from all his books, articles, teaching and personal prestige.

To Schmitt the Jews were handy, but not essential, as enemies

Schmitt may have claimed that his anti-semitism was, like Hitler's, based on a personal distaste for the mere sight, smell and voices of Jews, of along with their ideas.

But like Hitler, he was lying.

He had a globe-wide set of ideas, he claimed the Jews (as an entire collective) also had a globe-wide set of ideas and that the two sets of ideas clashed totally.

There can be no doubt if the Jews of Europe had all left for Palestine in the late 19th century, Hitler and Schmitt would have still held onto their own ideas and just invented a new enemy to act as their antithesis.

Schmitt's entire philosophy, zillions upon zillions of words over a very long lifetime, could be boiled down to the absolute need to invent endless numbers of imagined external enemies to hold an imagined race-nation together.

Creating an imaginary existential struggle to the death among sub-species when none ever existed in Nature

Schmitt's evil continues, because unlike Hitler, his ethnicity-free philosophy can still influence many many intellectuals who would recoil in disgust - today - from believing in Hitler's more limited concept of a world wide Jewish-communist-banker conspiracy against the World.

They do however still believe in a world wide communist conspiracy (or perhaps a world wide capitalist conspiracy), along with a world wide Moslem conspiracy.

Just as they earlier believed in a world wide anarchistic conspiracy, a Negro conspiracy , a yellow peril Oriental conspiracy, a slavic Russian conspiracy, and a Jewish conspiracy.

They are already a little ashamed, as rational academics, for being so paranoid, due to personal brain chemistry and personal family upbringing, but thankful Schmitt arrives on the scene to sooth their guilt over it.

Don't worry, be happy, he says : paranoia is good for the collectivity --- it binds together an otherwise potentially constantly civil war oriented nation, all in defense against a much larger globe-wide existential evil.

Now if you have ever have taken more than one or two political science courses, anywhere, anytime, in the world, you soon learn that the most prestigious professors in the entire Poli Sci department are those who preach a variant of Schmitt's philosophy in their International Relations courses.

Schmitt the Realist in International Relations

They hold the philosophic position of Realism, as defined within in the study of International Relations.

Now that terms covers a very wide and very warring body of thoughts, when you actually get down to the nitty-gritty details.

But what all its proponents do agree upon is that international relations are dominated by the actions of nations .

Not the actions of individuals, international organizations or globe-binding ideologies.

And that these nations act like real world anarchists because there is no effective supra-national body or body of world public opinion above them to constrain them.

The Realists do not deny that there are global idea systems and global non-governmental organizations, just that they solely act in the real world beyond books and speeches, only effectively through nation-states.

So, to Hitler and Schmitt, while the Jews possessed no state of their own, they were the true 'powers behind the throne' in the states of America, Russia, the UK and France etc.

Realists see nations having no ideals, only temporary tactics, in the constant struggle for every individual nation to stay alive and prosper at the expense of its neighbours.

"Trust no one - particularly not erstwhile allies" and "might is always right, the only right" is the maxims of this deep dark pool of human thought.

Realists would be horrified if my description of them was to stand uncorrected but they remain - in my view - permanently and fatally wounded on the position of inclusionary coalitions in their exclusionary philosophy.

Don't get me wrong --- Realists love coalitions , they just totally distrust - sight unseen - all its potential partners.

Realists misread the earlier Darwin and focus on the darker later Darwin

They refuse to adjust their worldview, by admitting the long history of the decisive action of coalitions into their nation-dominated reality.

My own view is that indeed international politics is dominated by power relationships but that 'power' is widely diffused indeed : not just in the hands of national executives, but also shared with domestic legislatures and domestic voters, international ideals like equality, international ideologies like environmentalism, mid-level and globe-wide coalitions, the varying state of the weather and the economy around the globe, even the timing of internal elections.

On and on and on.

In Darwinian terms,  the potted version of which is where the realists got all their ideas, the effort to survive long enough to produce healthy offspring is indeed a power struggle.

But Darwin then and his fans today, see that struggle as composed of many clashing and overlapping struggles.

Individual against other individuals in their own species and sub species and regions, against other species, against the local and global environment.

The sub species against other sub species in their own species and against all others mentioned above.

The species against all others mentioned above.

It does not consist primarily - as the Realists, Schmitt and Hitler claim - in the struggle of sub-sub-species warring against other sub-sub-species.

Biologically, the humans, as primates, are defined at the edges by the inability to conceive a child with other close species.

Biologically, there are no such privileged sub species as whites and blacks and yellows, Jews and Germans.

But there are literally thousands of potentially useful sub species of humanity --- all the humans with the genetic ability to safely drink cow milk being but one.

The point being that biologically, for all living beings, only their different gene structures matter in defining species and sub-species - not whether they speak German or worship the Hebrew God.

No biological definition of Canadians is possible - Schmitt to the contrary

No single simple definition can define Canadians ---  after all many people are 'Canadian' only because they were born there but grew up and live elsewhere, others have a Canadian passport but live outside Canada, still others live in Canada, perhaps most their lives, but still aren't citizens.

Canadians have different religions, taste in foods and TV shows, speak different languages, vote differently.

So while the Canadian executive branch does indeed have the Realists' much touted legal monopoly over the use of military force abroad to kill people, it is also constrained, in practise, by thousands of cross pressuring threads of shared support between its citizens and peoples and ideas from abroad.

Reality is a lot more complex than realists like Schmitt allow --- sometimes we fight against others and sometimes we work together : it is neither rule of the jungle nor love and peace beads.

Where I part company most with the Realists is their lack of evidence that exclusionary 'going it alone as a nation' has been more successful long term, in history, than inclusionary coalition building has been.

I think the most extreme example of exclusionary 'going it alone' only lasted 12 years and seemingly permanently destroyed centuries of intellectual prestige accorded the hugely powerful German nation.

By contrast, the evolutionary concept of inclusion, exhibited by microbial HGT (the horizontal gift transferring of genes amongst the globes' microbes) has allowed these tiny sacks of water to survive four billion years pf the worst the Universe can throw at them.

Realists like Schmitt may believe that they are 'thinking biologically' but the truth is that they are not thinking anywhere widely enough....