Clausewitz and the End of Europe
A review of Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre
As stated at the outset, this book is focused on mimetic rivalry in French-German relations, leading to a total war largely already completed, and the apocalypse described as more or less already with us, including the vapidity of contemporary American culture, a vast ecological crisis, and a necessarily ensuing conflict between the United States and China. Substantial principles relative to this are that political dynamics of the past two centuries, including both French and Prussian nationalisms which he claims were largely defined implicitly against the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic church – which, perhaps together, present the only possibility of resolving this mimetic tension (the ‘how’ is never elucidated).
Clausewitz, then, is a productive illustration of this dynamic, largely because his entire venture is defined implicitly against Napoleon — his drive towards the apex of enlightenment thinking, including a rational exposition of all elements of war reveals, in its shadow, the utter irrational, passionate, and mimetic aspect of warfare, including those which, despite his ostensibly rational intentions, persist in Clausewitz’s actions and private statements. This is most clearly revealed in the double metaphor offered in the opening statements of his masterpiece, in which Clausewitz refers to war as a duel, then qualifies and describes wrestling as a better metaphor. The duel, as Girard correctly observes, inevitably escalates on the basis of mimetic violence and passion, whereas the wresting match is over when the rational objectives of one party have been attained and the other is reduced to submission.
As stated above, this irrational, mimetic aspect of violence necessarily leads to an escalation in violence leading to total war, in which there are ultimately no victors. The Christian response, as exposited by Girard, is necessarily withdrawal and complete abstention from violence. The mimetic mode for the Christian is to follow the Christ in his withdrawal from society, rather than the pagan, which imitates other men (“vengeance”), but contains no means for approaching God. In this sense, it is Hölderlin who best typifies the appropriate response within the context of European of the past two centuries — especially his late Christian phase (e.g. Patmos) passed over by many commentators. Consistent with this point, Girard criticizes violent acts by Christians, such as the crusades, as a reversion to archaic elements of religion, and sees the previous pope’s public acts of repentance as figurative of a new more Christian era.
Along the same lines, all statements of heroism post-Napoleon are corrupted by their assessment of the potential “fecundity of violence,” which is expressed as potentially redemptive because of the prospect of recapturing the hallowed State, as found in Hegel, Schmitt, and also Nolte. His critique of Levinas is that, while he successfully describes the violent nature of all ontology, he thought we could escape with recourse to “the pure experience of pure being” which fails to address or confront the essential and necessarily mimetic nature of rivalry — this is to say that he attempts to construct a harmonious community without first addressing the fundamental human aspects of the participants in this community, ultimately a “dried up humanism” without humans.
Despite Girard’s promise at the outset, he never properly addresses apocalyptic texts, or, at least, those foundational to the Christian tradition. His pro-Catholic polemics, especially in favor of papal infallibility are unlikely to be convincing to those not already convinced, and his scapegoat theory remains in certain respects somewhat dubious and incomprehensible. These criticisms aside, Girard articulates, perhaps better than any since Clausewitz, the essential elements of war, and exposition of French-German relations, including the potentiality that currently hangs over Europe is generally correct, if ultimately failed since, as Plato expounds, all political unions rest necessarily on their ability to commit acts of violence — something Girard denies to the Christian.
The author recently returned to the United States from Israel where he was studying theories of war.
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