Abstract:

The Nomos of the Earth is Schmitt's most historical and geopolitical book. It describes the origin of the Eurocentric global order, which Schmitt dates from the discovery of the New World, discusses its specific character and its contribution to civilization, a***yzes the reasons for its decline at the end of the 19th century, and concludes with prospects for a new world order. It is a reasoned, yet passionate argument in defense of the European achievement -- not only in creating the first truly global order of international law, but also in limiting war to conflicts among sovereign states, which in effect civilized war. In Schmitt's view, the European sovereign state was the greatest achievement of Occidental rationalism; in becoming the principal agency of secularization, the European state created the modern age. Since the problematic of a new nomos of the earth has become even more critical with the onset of the postmodern age and postmodern war, Schmitt's text is even more timely and challenging.

A big portion of The Pitfalls of National Consciousness in The Wretched of Earth reminds me of the anti colonialism, socialist parties in the Middle East especially Baathasim, do ya'll think that part of the text is applicable to them especially Saddam Hussain Baathism.

Provide some quotes, having trouble remembering

This quote mainly, I'm not calling Baathism fascism I dont know much about it just it got me thinking of Baathism for some reason

"The party is objectively, sometimes subjectively, the accomplice of the merchant bourgeoisie. In the same way that the national bourgeoisie conjures away its phase of construction in order to throw itself into the enjoyment of its wealth, in parallel fashion in the institutional sphere it jumps the parliamentary phase and chooses a dictatorship of the national-socialist type. We know today that this fascism at high interest which has triumphed for half a century in Latin America is the dialectic result of states which were semi-colonial during the period of independence."

In general the whole section of national consciousness on how nationalism is used to liberate the masses and after independence used to suppress and dumb the masses down, preventing any critique of the regime based of nostalgia of them leading through liberation and the leaders use this to crush down an opposition. Also the part of Fanon talking about the national bourgeois being underdeveloped, leading them to not actually improve any industries but rather invest in petty individual stuff like luxury cars which reminded me of Saddam Hussains off spring.

thx for typing that up

honestly don't have much to add bc i don't have enough knowledge of baathism. any books you can recommend on the middle east or iraq / baathism in particular?

nah sorry I dont either, most knowledge I got of Baathism is the blowback podcast on the Iraq War and that barely goes into the topic of Baathism and much more focused on the overall Iraq War.

i listened 2 that and i barely remember anything

everyone should read pedagogy of the oppressed.

Maoist things

❤️POLITICS❤️

Making my way through this rn. Kind of a light book but I'm reading Why The West Rules at the same time so ~200 pages of basically just dunking on idealists is a nice break

just finished Wretched of Earth took a while since i went through a mood of not reading, wish i was smarter or more educated would love to compare what i learned from the book to the Palestine National Liberation also got me interested in reading about Hamas and seeing if anything Fanon said about national parties the pros and cons apply to them.

Also interested in applying the book to Canada and America and the mess decolonization would be here in regards to native americans and black people.

Thinking about reading more Stalin next only text i read from him are about the National Question thinking about reading Foundation of Leninism next or Historical Materialism, after that read Mao since i’ve only read short essays from him like Combat Liberalism and Oppose Book Worhsip.

After that i’m unsure i wanna read some modern works like Towards a new Socialism or stuff about planned economies with computers, read the beast of Das Kapital since i’ve only read a summary or Black Skins and White Masks.

damn this looks fire bro, thanks for dropping it. as an international relations grad student and a marxist i’m starved of books that combine the two lmao. unsurprisingly none of my theory classes ever touch on a marxist perspective except for one i had in undergrad about structuralism

didnt know u were a marxist

ive got about 30 pages left in kapital vol 1. def worth it

finally reading Hobsbawm’s trilogy on the long 19th century rn, it’s pretty fire. about 2/3 the way through the first one, The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848. really interesting argument about “the dual revolutions” of the french and the industrial, which respectively changed politics and economics forever

yeah i just don’t really post in the socialism thread on here or anything but i’ve always considered myself one since i got interested in politics in high school and read about the different schools of thought. but only in the last year or two have i really started diving deep into actual marxist literature and knowing what the hell i’m talking about when i use that label lmao

Finished Red Acropolis, Black Terror by André Gerolymatos on the Greek Civil War as a supplement to reading Michael McClintock's Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Counter-Terrorism, 1940-1990 . Gerolymatos is a "nonpartisan" which just means he takes people at their word and in good faith way too often. McClintock's book is a very strong survey of US military intervention post WWII. It's kind of technical in its a***ysis of military doctrine, but the broader narrative and general dynamic of the interventions are there. The way he paints the Kennedy administrations view of warfare is not the same as what I've heard from his eulogists.

Starting Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. I've already read some John Newman, and listened to some conversations between James DiEugenio and Dave Emory. I also recently finished James Ellory's fictional take with American Tabloid. Scott offers a compelling frame of a***ysis that goes beyond the true crime aspect of the case. I probably should have started with him before reading Paul Williams' Gladio. This is like the 101 course for repressed history and power relations.

yeah not gonna lie its a different feeling after youve read it and can actually articulate it all lol

yeah that’s exactly it, like i knew the basic arguments and the crux of it resonated with me enough to use the label, but i didn’t know enough to speak on it comfortably. definitely rewarding to feel the pieces slowly come together as you learn more

i think by far lenin is the most eye opening tho, nothing really quite as good as state and revolution and imperialism if we're just accounting for the classical ones

but walter rodney and fanon also must reads

too many must reads actually