‘The fewer the enemies,the more the enemies’: The enigma of absolute hostility

Abstract

I try to understand the current reappearance of antagonisms in democratic societies that should have overcome them. I first turn to Carl Schmitt and his distinction between the ‘real enemy’ and the ‘absolute enemy’. According to him, the origin of absolute hostility is theological. It is a resurgence of Gnostic dualism that explains the demonization of the enemy in modern-day terrors. A distinction must be made, however, between regimes based on the designation of an absolute enemy and those that strive to neutralize this type of hostility. To understand this, I draw on Lefort’s analysis of totalitarianism and Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between antagonism and ‘agonism’. We must then ask, with Derrida, whether the disappearance of the visible figure of the enemy might not lead to its reappearance as the haunting of a faceless one.