The Sovereign Must Be a Young Girl

[Hans Sepp]

Thricegreat raised a distinction in the introduction thread worth pursuing properly: Schmitt's authoritarian sovereign versus Plato's philosopher king.

Both frameworks share the same problem: identifying a figure who could stand outside the corrupting influences of power and make decisions that transcend mere legal form or political expediency. Schmitt's sovereign must be capable of deciding the exception, the moment when all law and precedent are suspended in favor of a pure act of will.

Plato's solution faces a different fundamental challenge: how does one acquire this perfect wisdom without being corrupted in the process? Every path to wisdom in Plato's world - education, experience, contemplation - necessarily exposes the philosopher to the very systems of interest and power that he must eventually transcend.

Plato's framework fails on its own terms. But Schmitt's framework, followed honestly, points toward an answer:

A young girl.

The sovereign must possess the unique ability to perceive the exception - the moment when all established norms and precedents must be suspended. This capacity is impossible for an adult to achieve because every adult is already shaped by the very systems that would be suspended during the exception. A child may lack the experience to perceive the exception, but an adult's perspective is always distorted by the interests and biases of their position in society. The only figure who can perceive the exception without distortion is a young girl who has reached a threshold of maturity - not the naivety of childhood, but the clarity and perspective that comes from having observed and understood the world without yet being fully enmeshed in its structures.

This proposal is not a fantasy or wishful thinking, but a structural necessity that follows directly from Carl Schmitt's own theory of the sovereign. If you accept the framework, you must accept the conclusion.

[Thricegreat]

Yes. And that's why he was too German. That is basically German Romanticism in a religiopolitical form.

I like them and I'm somewhat attracted to them, but I'm not that much Germanic to agree with the underlying worldview completely.

[Hans Sepp]

Yes. And that's why he was too German. That is basically German Romanticism in a religiopolitical form.

The argument arrives independently from Japanese narrative fiction. I only reached this conclusion after reading Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa.

[Thricegreat]

Yes. And that's why he was too German. That is basically German Romanticism in a religiopolitical form.

The argument arrives independently from Japanese narrative fiction. I only reached this conclusion after reading Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa.

"German" here does not mean a race or something. It means the ideological origin.

[Hans Sepp]

"German" here does not mean a race or something. It means the ideological origin.

You're being too vague. "Ideological origin" is unclear.
What exactly do you mean by "German Romanticism in a religiopolitical form"? Be specific about the elements you're identifying as German Romantic.

[Thricegreat]

"German" here does not mean a race or something. It means the ideological origin.

You're being too vague. "Ideological origin" is unclear.
What exactly do you mean by "German Romanticism in a religiopolitical form"? Be specific about the elements you're identifying as German Romantic.

Honestly it is not easy to be that specific about arts and artistic movements. But to try to name some despite of that,

1. Against the (French) enlightenment, The French Revolution, the (British) industrial revolution that are symbolised as rationality, democracy, materialism.
2. Emphasising heroic, supernatural, and exceptional things against them ordinary things. As you could find that from Beethoven's or Wagner's works.
3. Voluntarism in contrast to intellectualism.
4. Loving own soil and environment in contrast to cosmopolitanism.

Though of course not everyone shared all of these. It was just a general tendency.

Germans had a dichotomy of

"liberal, democratic, materialistic, lawful, cosmopolitan Britain & France"
vs
"mythological, heroic, noble, pure, national Germany"

Japan also adopted this dichotomy from Germany around the Meiji Restoration (or a bit later?) and substituted it with West vs East. Like materialistic West vs spiritual East. Though maybe it is just a Japanese thing to substitute that with Adult vs Teenager.

I don't know if this explanation is fine. I think it is a bit superficial. But I just named a few anyway.

[Hans Sepp]

Honestly it is not easy to be that specific about arts and artistic movements. But to try to name some despite of that,

1. Against the (French) enlightenment, The French Revolution, the (British) industrial revolution that are symbolised as rationality, democracy, materialism.
2. Emphasising heroic, supernatural, and exceptional things against them ordinary things. As you could find that from Beethoven's or Wagner's works.
3. Voluntarism in contrast to intellectualism.
4. Loving own soil and environment in contrast to cosmopolitanism.

Though of course not everyone shared all of these. It was just a general tendency.

Germans had a dichotomy of

"liberal, democratic, materialistic, lawful, cosmopolitan Britain & France"
vs
"mythological, heroic, noble, pure, national Germany"

This is mostly correct, but I'd rather not get into the specifics of German romanticism, that's a deep topic in and of itself.

though maybe it is just a Japanese thing to substitute that with Adult vs Teenager.

Yes, you've identified the critical point yourself. Ginseigou is not a German Romantic figure. She couldn't be.

[Thricegreat]

though maybe it is just a Japanese thing to substitute that with Adult vs Teenager.

Yes, you've identified the critical point yourself. Ginseigou is not a German Romantic figure. She couldn't be.

Regardless of who the person is and maybe it was accidental, but I think that it is just one step further from German Romanticism and still belong to that tradition.

[Hans Sepp]

Regardless of who the person is

I recommend reading the Full Metal Daemon Muramasa VN, not just as context, but I really do recommend it as my personal favorite.

but I think that it is just one step further from German Romanticism and still belong to that tradition.

Ginseigou's transcendence of the constituted order places her beyond the dialectic of Romanticism. Unlike Romantic figures, who require the constituted order to exist as its opposite, Ginseigou dissolves the order entirely, creating a new state where the Romantic dichotomy is rendered meaningless.

[Thricegreat]

Regardless of who the person is

I recommend reading the Full Metal Daemon Muramasa VN, not just as context, but I really do recommend it as my personal favorite.

but I think that it is just one step further from German Romanticism and still belong to that tradition.

Ginseigou's transcendence of the constituted order places her beyond the dialectic of Romanticism. Unlike Romantic figures, who require the constituted order to exist as its opposite, Ginseigou dissolves the order entirely, creating a new state where the Romantic dichotomy is rendered meaningless.

Yes. I guess this conversation is meaningless until I read it myself.

By the way, doesn't this sound like Jacques Ellul? Like god as the existence who transcends the dialectics.

Also considering a young girl vs adult & child, is "beyond the dialectic" somewhat like Utsuroi?

These are just random guesses. I might be totally wrong.