The Utopian Function of the Enemy in the Thought of the Frankfurt School

• In Event: Resisting Fascism

Abstract

As Carl Schmitt tirelessly emphasized, the concept of the enemy is a fundamental political concept. Indeed, for Schmitt it defines nothing less than the essence of the political. Just as there can be no friends without the possibility of enemies, so too can there be no politics without the possibility of hostility and antagonism. A world at peace, tolerant and free of conflict, may be a desideratum, but it can never be secured once and for all.

Perhaps the most interesting response to Schmitt's politics of enmity is found in the work of the Frankfurt School, who always maintained an ambivalent relation to Schmitt's work. In Adorno and Horkheimer's great book, The Dialectic of Enlightenment, the concept of the enemy is subjected to a dialectical critique intent on disclosing the concept's ambiguous potential. They show, through an interpretation of German anti-Semitism, that under certain conditions the enemy is not only the enemy but also, against all expectations, the friend. Under such conditions, the one who is feared—the Jew—is not only feared, but also desired. And this desire, Adorno and Horkheimer insist, is utopian through and through.

My paper—"The Utopian Function of the Enemy in the Thought of the Frankfurt School"—investigates the utopian dimension of the enemy in the work of the critical theorists. Implicit in Adorno and Horkheimer's work on anti-Semitism is the claim not only that the enemy is often enough the desired friend, but that once this logic of reversal is uncovered, the enemy could emerge anew as the disavowed friend. Uncovering the utopian current in the concept of the enemy is an important feature of the utopian politics of the Frankfurt School; it is their contribution to the politics of peace and reconciliation, of friendship and love that Carl Schmitt never envisioned.

Author

• William Winstead, George Washington University