The criticism of liberal democracy in Carl Schmitt and Robert Kurz: a comparative study

• Autor(a) principal: Borges, David Gonçalves
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Griot : Revista de Filosofia
• Texto Completo: http://www3.ufrb.edu.br/seer/index.php/griot/article/view/1902
• topic: Carl Schmitt; Robert Kurz; Democracia Liberal; Crítica do Valor; Escola de Frankfurt; Teoria Crítica.; Carl Schmitt; Robert Kurz; Critique of Value; Liberal Democracy; Frankfurt School; Critical Theory.

This article aims at comparing the similarities contained in criticism of liberal democracy present in some selected works of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) and Robert Kurz (1943-2012). In spite of the close association of the first author with the Nazi regime after 1933 and of the second being normally characterized as a Marxist thinker (although very critical to "orthodox" Marxism), numerous similarities between the two are verified when they attempt to analyze the characteristics of parliamentarian liberalism in twentieth-century democracies. One hypothesis that might explain such similarities would be the influence exercised by Schmitt on Frankfurt School theoreticians, from whom Kurz often draws inspiration in his writings – in particular, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, although Schmitt also influenced Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Karl Korsch and Herbert Marcuse. Another interpretation addressed here refers to the possibility that Schmitt found, in his theories about the State and about law, the epistemological limits of modern liberalism, which constitutes Kurz’s main research subject and was a recurring theme in the writings of the Frankfurt theorists.