Re: The weird men behind Bush's war

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Shadia Drury, has made a career of writing anti-Straussian exposés: 
The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988), Alexandre Kojeve: the Roots 
of Postmodern Politics (1994), Leo Strauss and the American Right (1997).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312217838/qid%3D961192609/sr%3D1-3/102-1692406-9592914
http://members.tripod.com/Cato1/strauss-bio.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~karljahn/Strauss.htm

Leo Strauss and the Straussians

Until quite recently, Leo Strauss and his disciples were considered 
(insofar as anyone took any notice of them) just a particular variety of 
conservative intellectuals, with a special interest in political 
philosophy and American constitutional history. Now we are beginning to 
discover that something peculiar has been going on all this time.

The greatest peculiarity of Straussianism is that there is such a thing. 
Not a single other "conservative" thinker has inspired a following 
remotely comparable, in size, continuity, and influence, to that of Leo 
Strauss. There is a Straussian school as there is no Weaveran or 
Burnhamite or Meyeran or Kendallist or Voegelinist school. And this 
school has its own interests, ideas, and purposes, which are clearly 
distinct from mainstream conservatism, however close to their collective 
chest they play their cards.

The Straussians are also the only group of "conservatives" ever to 
amount to anything in the academic world. They have reportedly been 
gradually, quietly infiltrating and taking over political-science 
departments, making that discipline characteristically theirs, as 
Marxists have done with sociology, and libertarians with economics.

Then along came Allan Bloom, who was catapulted to momentary fame by The 
Closing of the American Mind (1987), briefly becoming one of the most 
publicly-recognized "conservative" figures ... second only to William F. 
Buckley, Jr., who had spent decades making his name as the liberal 
establishment's token conservative. Curiously (and characteristically) 
enough, in Bloom's famous (or infamous) book, he only mentions his 
master once, and in passing, so that the vast majority of his readers 
remained blissfully ignorant of any connection (probably never having 
heard of Leo Strauss anyway); yet those in the know could immediately 
recognize Bloom's intellectual affiliation.

Strauss and the Straussians began to attract more attention, both 
journalistic and scholastic. One liberal scholar, Shadia Drury, has made 
a career of writing anti-Straussian exposés: The Political Ideas of Leo 
Strauss (1988), Alexandre Kojeve: the Roots of Postmodern Politics 
(1994), Leo Strauss and the American Right (1997).

The distinctively Straussian approach to political philosophy is, quite 
simply, to take premodern philosophers seriously, and to try to 
understand them as they understood themselves. This is, by itself, a 
radical challenge to modern historicism (i.e. historical relativism), 
which holds that the thoughts of premodern philosophers are "outmoded" 
and irrelevant; they were mental prisoners of their epoch -- usually 
ignoring the implication that we, too, are mental prisoners of our own 
epoch, so that contemporary prejudices are no better than "outmoded" ones.

But this is only a prelude to an even more radical challenge to modern 
thought: the Straussians believe that premodern philosophy is better 
than modern philosophy. This turns the whole "progressive" view of 
history topsy-turvy, and provides a very distinctive point of view, and 
line of criticism, about modernity. The Straussians are pre-modern and 
anti-modern, not in the name of religion (like the various forms of 
religious fundamentalism all over the world) or of tradition (like 
conservatives since Edmund Burke), but in the name of reason, of 
philosophy: an understanding of reason and philosophy different from the 
Enlightenment's.

The teaching of Leo Strauss is "political philosophy" in a very special 
sense: his primary, if not exclusive, concern is the relation of 
philosophy (and the philosophers themselves) to society as a whole. 
Moreover, he imputes this primary concern to the premodern and early 
modern philosophers.

The lesson of the trial and execution of Socrates is that Socrates was 
guilty as charged: philosophy is a threat to society. By questioning the 
gods and the ethos of the city, philosophy undermines the citizens' 
loyalty, and thus the basis of normal social life. Yet philosophy is 
also the highest, the worthiest, of all human endeavors. The resolution 
of this conflict is that the philosophers should, and in fact did, keep 
their teachings secret, passing them on by the esoteric art of writing 
"between the lines." Strauss believed that he alone had recovered the 
true, hidden message contained in the "Great Tradition" of philosophy 
from Plato to Hobbes and Locke: the message that there are no gods, that 
morality is ungrounded prejudice, and that society is not grounded in 
nature.

With Machiavelli, however, there came a shift in emphasis. He was the 
first to deviate from the esoteric tradition that began with Plato, 
thereby initiating the Enlightenment. Machiavelli de-moralized political 
philosophy, and thereby created "political science." Virtue, whether 
defined in classical or Christian terms, was dethroned, because no 
regime could live up to its demands. Instead, a new regime could and 
should be created, by accepting, understanding, and harnessing men's 
lower, self-interested nature.

The modern world is held to be the deliberate creation (with some 
unintended consequences) of the modern philosophers -- namely, the 
Enlightenment, which gave birth to both scientific-technological 
progress and the liberal ideology of social-political progress. The 
Enlighteners argued (though still covertly) that instead of hiding 
philosophy, philosophers should reform society to make it more 
hospitable to philosophy: in particular, by undertaking the "project" of 
modern science, by which reason masters nature and provides material 
gratifications -- safety, health and wealth -- to common men, bribing 
them into acquiescence to philosophy. Physical science and technology 
would provide the know-how, while a new kind of regime, liberalism, 
would provide the conditions of liberty and equality enabling men to 
pursue their self-interest.

The problem with this (in the Straussian view) is that it exposed 
philosophy once more, and ultimately prostituted philosophy itself into 
the service of common men. The esoteric tradition was forgotten, and 
with it philosophy as such. At the same time, philosophy inadvertently 
exposed men to certain hard truths, truths too hard for them to bear: 
that there are no gods to reward good or punish evil; that no one's 
patria is really any better than anyone else's; that one's ancestral 
ways are merely conventional. This leads to nihilism, epitomized by the 
listless, meaningless life of bourgeois man, or to dangerous experiments 
with new gods -- gods like the race and the Fuehrer.

Strauss, an ethnic Jew and refugee from Nazi Germany, looked at the 
regnant liberalism of mid-century America, and saw the Weimar Republic: 
morally weak, incapable of self-preservation. His prophecy was fulfilled 
by the ignominious collapse of the liberal establishment, both political 
and academic, in the face of the New Left.

Now, this unique interpretation of Western history depends on the 
existence of a "hidden agenda" in the history of philosophy. If there 
was, in fact, such an esoteric tradition, it has escaped the attention 
of most scholars. Of course, that might only prove how well-hidden it is 
... which goes to show how seductive esotericism can be, once you start 
flirting with it. But in the end, what really matters is the 
philosophical questions Strauss raised, whether or not he was correct in 
ascribing them to the historic philosophers.

There are several problems with his "teaching." First, is the 
philosopher (in the original, literal sense: a "lover of wisdom") really 
a superior type of person? I think that he is -- but not that he is a 
superior being. The difference between the philosopher and the ordinary 
person is one of degree, not of kind. His impulses are the same, but 
ordered differently. No matter how rational he is, he is still a 
rational animal: a sexual one, for instance, and a social one. His 
curiosity is more fully developed than theirs, but unless his other 
faculties are at least as well developed as theirs, this one trait does 
not make him better than they are.

The ancient philosophers did believe that the philosophic life is the 
highest and best, but only a few are suited to it. The Straussians 
concur, and go on to imply that the major evil of modern egalitarianism 
is that it makes philosophy impossible, by devaluing anything that is 
not accessible to the common man. But philosophy is not the only thing 
that suffers: so do creativity, heroism, authority, and all other 
"elitist" qualities.

Bloom makes much of this, even though he regards these other "types of 
soul" as rivals to philosophy, because he wants to undermine 
egalitarianism, and these others are more appealing. Philosophy is all 
the less appealing if, as he seems to assume, the ultimate truth is that 
there is no truth. It is all the more important, then, to convey this 
truth through misdirection: the desire to know cannot be aroused unless 
the allure of truth is held out.

The main difference between the Straussians and Left-wing nihilists is 
that the former think the "truth" of value-relativism should be known 
only to the few. All the philosophical problems with relativism apply to 
the Straussians' Right-wing version, and in spades. Suffice it here to 
say that the Straussians, too, have to introduce quasi-objective 
standards of judgment, covertly and unintentionally: e.g., the social 
utility of religion and patriotism. Surely, the very fact that society 
requires certain things -- communal loyalty, for instance -- in itself 
justifies these things: they are rooted in nature, the social nature of 
humanity.

Then there is an evident contradiction between the idea of philosophy as 
the pursuit of truth, and the idea of philosophy as a body of esoteric 
lore. If the Straussian reading is correct, it would seem that the 
history of philosophy consists of practically nothing but pondering the 
relation of philosophy to civil society, rather than pondering 
philosophical questions themselves. All the important questions have 
already been answered, or declared to be unanswerable: this is what 
created the tension between philosophy and civil society in the first 
place. So what is there for philosophers to do? The Straussians 
themselves are not even philosophers, but historians of philosophy, 
custodians of the esoteric lore.

The perceived need to write obscurely also tends to obscure thought. The 
Closing of the American Mind is much better-written (in style, at least, 
if not in convoluted structure and argumentation) than anything by Leo 
Strauss. But even Bloom makes his argument complex and subtle to the 
point of evasiveness, as if he wants to confuse and mislead the reader. 
(In particular, his critics -- those who actually did read him -- were 
hardly ever able to tell when he was or was not speaking in propria 
persona.) Bloom, at least, writes so well that he charms rather than 
repulses the reader, so one is (if sympathetic) willing to read his book 
again and again, with closer and closer attention; but not even the most 
sympathetic reader can really be sure, in the end, precisely what Bloom 
really means, behind all the good and important things he does say.

Bloom's analysis of our cultural predicament is so true, so profound, 
that there must be some truth in his speculations as to its causes; but 
he all-too-carefully avoids making clear and specific claims that can be 
put to the test. This is the great weakness of the Straussian method: so 
careful is he to hide the point of his argument, he nearly fails to make 
it. Certainly he fails to support it. Strauss puts his students to such 
a mental effort to try to understand him that they are too exhausted to 
make the mental effort to criticize him.

Given the inherent obscurity of the Straussian teaching, one should only 
be surprised if it did not produce conflicting interpretations. There 
are in fact two schools of Straussians: those like Bloom, who accept and 
propound this esoteric teaching; and those, such as Harry Jaffa, who 
interpret Strauss in terms of a more conventional understanding of 
classical philosophy. One might call them the esoterics and the 
exoterics, but it is hard to tell which is which.

It may be that the seeming exoterics are just better at hiding their 
esotericism, which makes them the true esoterics. Both of them challenge 
the prevailing relativism of twentieth-century thought, harking back to 
classical standards of truth and justice; but the esoterics only do so 
because truth and justice are salutary myths, while the exoterics 
(perhaps) really do believe in truth and justice.

The two schools are also divided on their interpretation of American 
history, and particularly the American Founding. Both follow Strauss's 
division of philosophical history into the (good) "ancients" and the 
(bad) "moderns." According to the esoteric version, America was wholly 
modern from its inception: it is entirely the creation of the "modern 
project." The exoteric Straussians, like conservatives, prefer to 
emphasize America's continuity with the classical and Christian sources 
of Western civilization.

The esoterics, then, basically agree with the libertarian and 
(pre-1960s) liberal understanding of American history: we are a 
"proposition nation," liberal to the core, and conservatism is 
un-American. The cult of the Founding Fathers is just a salutary myth. 
The truth is that the Founders, under the tutelage of Hobbes and Locke, 
deliberately created a squalid regime ruled by self-interest, 
sacrificing virtue to liberty and equality, and are ultimately 
responsible for the philistinism, mediocrity, and deracination of 
contemporary America.

Both esoterics and exoterics seem to agree that we need to try to 
refurbish the old notion of "natural rights," on which the republic was 
founded. Bloom regards "natural rights" as illusory, and bourgeois 
society as distasteful; but they are at least preferable to the nihilism 
of the New Left. The question is whether the New Left was the inevitable 
culmination of the ideology of liberty and equality -- and he strongly 
implies that it is. His only hope seems to be the cultivation of a tiny 
remnant to pass on the old lore through the new Dark Age. Now, 
conservatism might or might not be un-American, but this sort of 
quietism certainly is.

Straussianism is an extraordinarily complex and subtle body of ideas, 
and I am sure that I have hardly done it justice in this small space. 
But in the end, Straussianism offers more questions than answers. This 
is not necessarily bad: the questions need to be asked. What is the 
relation of nature to culture? Can society be founded on rational 
principles? Has the Enlightenment brought about its own downfall? How 
did this happen? What can be salvaged from the wreck? -- etc. Strauss, 
through his disciple Bloom, started me thinking about these questions, 
which have preoccupied me ever since.

© 2000 by Karl Jahn



utopian wrote:
> > Most neoconservative defence intellectuals have their roots on the left, not
> > the right. They are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist
> > movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist
> > liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of
> > militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or
> > political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics,
> > including preventive warfare such Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak
> > nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for
> > "democracy". They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after
> > President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the
> > permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism.
> > Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as
> > the Palestinians.
>
> I don't think that it is sufficient to say "Most neoconservative defence
> intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right" and then say
> "morphed" from "the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement" into
> "neoconservative" without at least citing one individual by name. How does
> the "morphing" take place?
>
> I say this without contradicting the well-know fact that many early American
> communists from Lovestone on, including ex-Trotskyists, ex-left-wing
> socialists, and ex-Stalinists became right-wing ideologues. But there are
> several problems with this analysis. First, these figures seemed to have
> started out as right-wingers. Second, the ex-socialist types operated
> primarily as either ideological opponents or secondary aides to the primary
> leaders of U.S. imperialism, i.e., they never rose as high as Bush's
> neocons. Third, the ability that they brought worked primarily against the
> Marxism of Stalin's Soviet Union and the Third International. These figures
> that played this role have died off or are in their 90s. Morphing seems
> closer to the "past lives" of Shirley Maclaine than to any real analysis.
>
> Utopian