All posts filed under: Political Discussion & Analysis

On the Future Ascent of a Caesar

Published by Charles Haywood

I recently wrote about what might happen after an American Caesar, a radical reconstructor of our polity, arose. And in these days of American humiliation and accelerating decay, a Caesar is viewed by many, if in quiet tones, as a kind of solution. But is Caesar, Michael Anton’s Red Caesar, merely a coping mechanism for the Right, a fantasy meant to replace the dead hope of a restored American founding? Is Caesar an encouragement to eschatological passivity, our equivalent of the Twelver Shia hidden imam, who when everything is at its worst will arrive to set the world aright, without any action needed by us? No, and today I will tell you why.

Dictatorship: From the Origin of the Modern Concept of Sovereignty to Proletarian Class Struggle (Carl Schmitt)

Published by Charles Haywood

Dictatorship, in the form of Caesarism, is in the American air. I have recently written on what, in practical terms, an American Caesar would do; I will soon tell you how likely our Caesar is, and why. As it happens, I am at the same time working my way through all the books of Carl Schmitt, in their order of original publication, and his next book up, Dictatorship, published in 1921, clarifies the historical and legal-analytical part of what is unspooling before our eyes. We cannot be better informed, analytically at least, than by pondering this work of the peerless German, whose book, as always, puts to shame today’s mostly insipid political and constitutional analysis.

What to Do When Caesar Comes

Published by Charles Haywood

An article by me, “What to Do When Caesar Comes,” has been published in the new magazine Asylum, along with pieces from others, including Lord Conrad Black and Bronze Age Pervert. The theme of this first issue is the changes that may come, and my article is, no surprise, about what we can expect in the coming new dispensation. The first paragraph, and a link to the entire magazine, including my contribution, are below. (I encourage you to buy the print magazine; a free PDF is also available.) (Credit for the image of Gaius Julius Caesar to Daniel Voshart, whose photorealistic images of Roman emperors (and one proto-emperor), generated by computer-analyzing extant images, are very valuable and interesting.)]

The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (Christopher Lasch)

Published by Charles Haywood

Christopher Lasch died before this, his last book, was published, twenty-six years ago. Lasch was a man out of time, a refugee leftist who nonetheless refused to embrace what passed for conservatism in the post-Communist false dawn, the main feature of which was idolatry of the invisible hand. No surprise, his message was rejected by its intended audience, America’s intellectual class. Now, however, every one of the problems with our society he identified has grown monstrous, far beyond the power of any dragonslayer to kill. Thus, this book is, at least now, less prescription and more an intellectual history of how we failed as a nation.

Political Romanticism (Carl Schmitt)

Published by Charles Haywood

To my excitement, Carl Schmitt is coming back into fashion, or at least into notice. Last week, for example, an excellent piece by the Swedish renegade leftist Malcolm Kyeyune received wide attention. It revolved around Schmitt’s concept, from The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, that when a regime must prove its legitimacy empirically, it is doomed. Kyeyune concluded that, just as the “bourgeois kings” of Schmitt’s analysis were doomed because they had lost intrinsic legitimacy, so has, and is, our own regime. Now I wish I had thought of and made that point in my own recent review of that book. Ah well. Instead, today you will have to be satisfied with my reflections on another book, Schmitt’s first, Political Romanticism.

The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (James Burnham)

Published by Charles Haywood

The American Right, like all outsider political movements, has long been susceptible to Gnosticism. This usually manifests as the belief that a small group of wise initiates can see through rationales for political action and find hidden knowledge, of the real reasons men and societies act as they do. Sometimes those reasons are the machinations of the Illuminati, or the Freemasons, or the Lizard Men. More often, they are prosaic, and although economic Gnosticism is the most frequent type, another common gnostic belief is that power is the only real driver of the actions of men, and all other rationales in politics mere epiphenomena, lies designed to conceal the hidden centrality of power. The Machiavellians is James Burnham’s exposition of this latter Gnosticism.

The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (Carl Schmitt)

Published by Charles Haywood

Ah, Carl Schmitt, Carl Schmitt! No man like him exists today. Political philosophy in our time is, and for many decades past has been, largely the domain of intellectual pygmies and outright morons; the age of gold has degenerated into the age of brass, or of plastic with yellow paint. Schmitt is dead, but his work is not, and this, one of his series of books published during the early Weimar period in Germany, illuminates much of our own present condition. That’s not to say The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is an easy read. Like much of Schmitt’s writing, it is somewhat elliptical, alternating great insight with moments of “where are we going with this?” But the payoff is worth the effort.

Announcement: SECOND Podcast Discussion between Michael Anton and Charles Haywood

Published by Charles Haywood

The people, they demand Michael Anton and The Worthy House! I am again pleased to announce that The Claremont Institute, in the form of The American Mind, a publication of the Institute, has published another Special Edition of its regular podcast. This Special Edition features a second discussion between Michael Anton, author of the crucial books The Stakes and After the Flight 93 Election, and myself. This time, we talk more about applied politics than last time, ranging over a number of current topics, from race relations, to the correct way to perceive and interact with the catamite Right, to the birth dearth, to the printing of fake money. And, quite a bit, of our coming time of troubles.

What to Do When the Russians Come: A Survivor’s Guide (Robert Conquest)

Published by Charles Haywood

One fine day in April, 1945, a cousin of mine was shot by the Russians. His name was Félix Straszer. His crime? None, of course. In February, Stalin had conquered and occupied Budapest, overwhelming determined and heroic Hungarian and German resistance. Two dead Russian soldiers had been found in the street, so the Russians rounded up all the men from the nearby apartment houses, collected them in the Gamma Optical Instruments Factory, chose ten at random, and murdered them. As it turned out, the two soldiers had been killed by other Russian soldiers in a drunken brawl, but that didn’t help Félix Straszer.