14 December 1930: Robert Musil Meets Carl Schmitt

This article takes a concrete event as its starting point: on 14 December 1930, Robert Musil met Carl Schmitt when Musil visited Schmitt at his home in Berlin after having expressed interest in his work to a mutual acquaintance. In this article, I explore Musil and Schmitt's elective affinities by examining the critique of historical idealism to be found in Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften as well as in Schmitt's short satire “Die Buribunken,” which ironize the universal pretensions of the world spirit. I argue that Musil and Schmitt were both aware of the act of exception at work in the order of the law, the leap of faith that demands the suspension of one sphere for the priority of another. What ultimately distinguished Musil from Schmitt was his unwillingness to embrace the totalitarian vision of political existentialism, or what Musil called “das Positive.”