[see also bibliography, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 8]
Just as language receives its meaning only from its particular existence at a particular moment between particular speakers, "only the actual participants can correctly recognize, understand, and judge the concrete situation" and determine "whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent's way of life," (Schmitt 27), my values, and is thus my political enemy. Just as I cannot hope to appeal to political science or norms to guide my action in a concrete strategic instance, the political enemy "can neither be decided by a previously determined general norm nor by the judgment of a disinterested and therefore neutral third party" (Schmitt 27), but is instead a historically contingent and particular entity. The political enemy is not permanent, nor must he be "morally evil" or "aesthetically ugly" or even "hated personally." The political enemy is the actor or actors whose actions threaten to negate my values and hence my expression in a concrete situation, and he must be recognized and accounted for if I am to accurately perceive the political terrain and formulate my expression with hope for success. Despite my best intentions - and one rarely acts with anything less - my values become more directly contested as I attempt to express them across a wider area of the terrain, and the more seriously I pursue the realization of my political project the more seriously I must take into account the increasingly vigorous and perhaps even violent expressions that contest my claims on key territories. This paradox by which even the pursuit of the noblest, gentlest political objects leads one into conflict and enmity the farther into the public we pursue them was recognized well by Weber, who warned that "whoever wants to engage in politics... has to realize these ethical paradoxes. He must know that he is responsible for what may become of himself under the impact of these paradoxes. I repeat, he lets himself in for the diabolic forces lurking in all violence" (Weber). Although in my private life it may make sense to "love one's enemy" (Schmitt 28) - "a private person has no political enemies" (Schmitt 51) - as soon as my actions carry me out of my private life and into the lives of others I must be prepared to face the fact that, in the pluriverse of the political (Schmitt 53), I will inevitably encounter other political actors with values that conflict with mine in a concrete situation. While I may certainly refrain from direct physical or rhetorical combat and attempt to achieve my political object in spite of him with more subtle or original strategies, I must always be aware of his presence and tailor my actions accordingly. "Political thought and political instinct prove themselves theoretically and practically in the ability to distinguish friend and enemy... the incapacity or the unwillingness to make this distinction is a symptom of the political end" (Schmitt 67-8).
[next and last: part 8]