The place of politics: friend-enemy between Arendt and Schmitt

This article interrogates Hannah Arendt and Carl Schmitt's different notions of friendship. Arendt defines citizenship in terms of a horizontal commitment to friends. Friendship has political weight because it is only through friendship that the world is turned into a political one. At the heart of Schmitt's thought lies the strong connection between the friend-enemy distinction and sovereignty. For Schmitt each element of this relationship is internally related to the other. Politics exists as a direct consequence of the friend-enemy relationship. He insists that this distinction cannot be reduced to an economic, aesthetic, moral, or any other particular 'antithesis'. It is original and pre-political. The two philosophers mentioned above are increasingly convicted that politics is at risk from the improvements of consumerism, liberalism, and a mass culture of immediate gratification. The power of friendship seems to reestablish a sense of politics in society.