This paper was presented at the 2012 Telos Conference, “Space: Virtuality, Territoriality, Relationality,” held on January 14–15, in New York City.
Nietzsche-Schmitt Dialogue
Carl Schmitt’s TheNomos of the Earth and related work conduct a generally unacknowledged dialogue with Nietzsche; both Schmitt’s geophilosophy and Nietzsche’s politics of the earth are clarified by unearthing this dialogue. Schmitt rarely mentions Nietzsche in his published works (excepting Glossarium) and then to marginalize or distance him.
Nietzsche and Schmitt are both paradigmatic geophilosophical thinkers, in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense—they conceptualize territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization, and they raise questions about the future of the earth. Schmitt’s Nomos articulates problems of earthly order and orientation in the post-Columbian age. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra descends a mountain, calls on the urban multitude to think the direction of the earth (Sinn der Erde), even to sacrifice themselves for it. Later, he explicitly raises the question of hegemony—who will be the lords of the earth?
