Carl Schmitt’s writings link political theology to total enmity and the total state.

Evidence

Schmitt, Carl, Politische Romantik, Munich, 1925; Staat, Bewegung, Volk, 1934; “Totaler Feind, totaler Krieg, totaler Staat,” Völkerbund und Völkerrecht, vol. 4, 1937; Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924–1954. Materialien zu einer Verfassungslehre, Berlin, 1958. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1814

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘total enemy, total war, total state’ formulation is a precursor to the friend/enemy distinction central to Schmitt’s concept of the political — a key apparatus in critical-theory readings that follow. — connects to: Discussion defined parliamentarism for Schmitt, not majority rule alone — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 452; Neoliberalism’s double-truth doctrine originated in Hayek’s covert borrowing from Schmitt — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 239; Ordoliberals borrowed Schmitt’s diagnosis of the state but rejected his authoritarian conclusions — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 577 (+1 more)
• SEED: An essay on how Schmitt’s total enemy became the template for the construction of the racial and civilizational Other could bridge Arendt’s totalitarianism to contemporary Islamophobia discourse.