While writing The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt also wrote a very interesting short book, Land and Sea. The central concern of Land and Sea is precisely a critique of geopolitics. The opening chapters all discuss how Britain’s rise is to be understood in geopolitical terms. Why did Britain rise? The answer given by many geopoliticians at the time was that Britain was a maritime country: geography had determined it.
在写《大地的法》的时候，施米特还写了一个很有意思的小册子《陆地与海洋》。而《陆地与海洋》的重心，恰恰就在于批判地缘政治学。这本书前面的几章都在讲，按照地缘政治学，如何理解英国的崛起。为什么英国会崛起？当时很多地缘政治学家的答案是，因为英国是一个海洋国家，这是由地理决定的。
Yet the important concepts Schmitt introduces in this book are precisely ‘spatial consciousness’ and ‘spatial revolution.’ Schmitt actually borrowed the concept of ‘spatial revolution’ from Mackinder. But whereas Mackinder emphasizes geographical space, Schmitt emphasizes political juridical space. What matters is not the change in geographical space itself, but how Europeans understood that change in their thought and ideas. For this reason, Schmitt emphasizes the underlying religious factors. In terms of values, the conflict between land and sea corresponds to the two great traditions of Catholicism and Protestantism.
然而，施米特这本书里提出的一个重要概念恰恰是“空间意识”和“空间革命”。“空间革命”这个概念实际上是施米特从麦金德那里借来的，不过麦金德强调地理空间，而施米特则强调政治的法权空间。重要的不在于地理空间的变化，而在于欧洲人在思想观念上如何理解这个变化。为此，施米特强调背后的宗教因素。陆地和海洋的冲突在价值观念上对应着天主教和新教这两大传统。
This also points toward Schmitt’s implicit answer to another question: why could the Industrial Revolution take place in Britain? Because, in choosing the sea, Britain chose a world that dispensed with land and meaning, a world in which everything could be created through technology.
这也指向了施米特隐含的另一个问题的回答：为什么工业革命可以发生在英国？因为英国选择了海洋的时候，就选择了不要土地、不要意义，可以依靠技术来创造一切的世界。
We can thus see that in his writings Schmitt offers a systematic critique of Britain, the great power of the maritime world. Mackinder places great emphasis on the effect of technology upon nature and is even, in a certain sense, a proponent of technicism. Schmitt, by contrast, subjects precisely this point to searching reflection. He continually emphasizes that technological and scientific inventions plunge human existence as a whole into nihilism. Schmitt consistently defends the norms, civilization, and meaning of existence that Europe provides as a land-based world, opposing a nihilistic order of existence detached from the earth and founded entirely on maritime freedom and technology.
由此可见，施米特在著作中对英国这个海洋世界大国进行了系统的批判。麦金德非常强调技术对自然的作用，甚至某种意义上是一个技术主义者，而施米特恰恰是非常反省这一点，他一直强调，技术和科技的发明导致人类整个生存陷入到虚无主义中。而施米特始终捍卫欧洲作为陆地所提供的规范、文明和生存意义，反对一个脱离大地、完全建立在海洋自由和技术之上的虚无主义的生存秩序。
If we place the debate between Mackinder and Schmitt in today’s context, we find that the focus of the China–United States trade war is precisely technology, with China’s industrial development plans as its target. We might say that, in sparing no effort to compete for mastery over science and technology, China and the United States are not very different. Both are racing to enter a world dominated by robots, a nihilistic world.
如果我们把麦金德和施米特的争论放在今天的语境里。我们就会发现，中美贸易战的焦点恰恰在于技术，针对中国的工业发展计划。可以说，在不遗余力争夺科学技术的支配权这一点上，中国和美国没有太大的区别，二者都争相进入到机器人支配的世界，一个虚无主义的世界。
The United States has inherited Britain’s maritime tradition and can be said to be the source of the entire world’s decline. If China, as a rising great power, truly wishes to surpass the United States and rebuild a community of shared destiny for humanity, it must do more than surpass the United States technologically. More importantly, in its understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature, it must move beyond Western technicist thinking and once again ground humanity and technology in the earth, history, norms, and civilization. In this sense, we need to take the legacies of Mackinder and Schmitt seriously.
美国继承了英国的海洋传统，可以说是整个世界沉沦的根源。而中国作为一个崛起的大国，如果真正想要超越美国，重建人类命运共同体，不仅仅是技术上超越美国，而且更重要的是在理解人与自然关系上超越西方技术主义的思考，重新将人与技术放在对大地、历史、规范和文明的基础上。在这个意义上，我们需要认真对待麦金德和施米特的遗产。
Thank you. I’ll stop here.
谢谢，我就讲到这儿。