"Defiance"

I just watched "Defiance," the World War II pic about a group of Jewish refugees who hide and restart their lives in the forests of, I think, Poland (or Russia? I missed some context). The point being that it is a story in which Jews are agents of resistance and self-formation rather than the people of endless passive suffering. (The humor in the film, limited given its subject matter, comes from the irrepressible love of intellectual bickering that characterizes robust Jewish society).

What I found interesting is an implicit counter point to the either/or of Schmittian friend/foe politics. As the attacked, minoritarian, under-supplied, and non-state people this group exists in a tripartite politics: friend, foe, and non-combatant. Of course, part of the dramatic and philosophical tension of the film lies in the question of whether there can be non-coms; but from an extremely pragmatic point of view for a dispossessed group, the category non-combatant is expeditious for avoiding unnecessary and costly battles.

This also puts what counts as a "friend" in a different light. For Schmitt, a friend might be a non-com who permitted state violence against a third part. For the politics of the dispossessed, a friend is one who provides material support: an active rather than passive position.

If such a political paradigm belongs properly to those politically dispossessed, it can at least be a resource for condemning the either/or grandstanding of American foreign policy. We are short on friends and foes right now; the sort of varying relations that can be created with non-combatants is our biggest concern.