Defunct Defunct The Concept of the Political (German: Der Begriff des Politischen) is a 1932 book by the German philosopher and jurist Carl Schmitt, in which the author examines the fundamental nature of the "political" and its place in the modern world.

[5] This distinction arises from the fact of human diversity: identities and practices, beliefs and way of life can, in principle, be in conflict with one another.

Schmitt attempts to substantiate his ideas by referring to the declared anthropological pessimism of "realistic" Catholic theology.

The anti-perfectibilist pessimism of Traditional Catholic theology Schmitt considers esoterically relevant to the inner ontological being of politics and political activity in the contemporary world, modern people subconsciously secularizing theological intellectual ideas and concerns.

Schmitt criticizes political "radicals" as basically ignorant, deluded, pseudo-messianic in mentality, and oblivious to the stark, hard knowledge of unveiled human nature, its esse, encoded in ancient theology, wherein Original Sin held central, axial place, intertwining his own ideas of metapolitics with a reformulated "metaphysics of evil".