Our friends at the Brothers Judd blog call attention to the latest effort by a journalist to expose the "secrets" of Leo Strauss. It's one of the worst recent efforts, which is saying something considering just how bad some of those efforts have been.
Let me just take a few paragraphs to illustrate. The piece begins:
ODD AS THIS MAY SOUND, we live in a world increasingly shaped by Leo Strauss, a controversial philosopher who died in 1973. Although generally unknown to the wider population, Strauss has been one of the two or three most important intellectual influences on the conservative worldview now ascendant in George W. Bush's Washington.
How interesting, because in all of his years teaching political theory and writing numerous essays on various philosophers through time, Strauss largely avoided writing on contemporary politics. His major contribution to the discipline of political science, of course, is that he took texts and ideas seriously, and believed in carefully analyzing the texts of the masters for both their exoteric and esoteric meanings. He did draw serious students, largely because some students were smart enough to reject the dominant methods of philosophical interpretation (various "isms" such as deconstructionism, historicism, etc.). It is hardly surprising that some of these serious students of politics and philosophy wound up in government -- especially since many of them were trained in a method (myself included) that is not regarded as "political science" by the discipline.
Certainly, Strauss was no ordinary Republican idea-maker: Steeped in ancient philosophy, he had dark forebodings about democracy, religion, technology, and nearly everything else that can claim the allegiance of the contemporary conservative (or liberal, for that matter).
This is just nonsense -- and not supported, one should note, with any quotes or references.
A typical Strauss volume is a densely packed commentary on a classic text like Plato's ''The Laws'' or Machiavelli's ''The Prince,'' festooned with footnotes drawing on an array of hard-won languages from ancient Greek and Latin to medieval Arabic. It's often difficult to discern where Strauss's paraphrases of dead writers leave off and his own views begin-and this has only deepened the mystery that attaches to his work.
Strauss's work is not easy to understand. For one thing, Strauss became intimately familiar with the thinkers he studied, in their native languages. Strauss believed the great philosophers spoke to each other across time, almost in their own language. His books read almost like a conversation. If one is not intimately familiar with the people he is citing, then yes -- it's going to be a more difficult read. Shadia Drury and others have put forth the view that Strauss's own writings contain the same esoteric messages that he claimed to find in the ancients, and ascribe diabolical intent to Strauss. I'm far less convinced of the diabolical intent.
Despite his life of quiet scholarly obscurity, Strauss has exerted a strong posthumous sway among those who bustle through the corridors of power. Washington Straussians have included Robert A. Goldwin, who had the bizarre and unenviable task of organizing weekly seminars in political theory and practice attended by President Gerald Ford in the mid-1970s; Carnes Lord, National Security Council advisor in the Reagan administration; and William Galston, deputy domestic policy adviser in the first two years of the Clinton administration. Irving Kristol, an intellectual whose name is virtually synonymous with neoconservatism, has named Strauss as a major influence, and Straussian writers and ideas regularly grace the pages of magazines like National Review, Commentary, and The Weekly Standard, which is edited by Irving's son William Kristol. The Bush administration's Straussians include the Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Abram Shulsky, who studied with Strauss at the University of Chicago, and the bioethics adviser Leon Kass, a colleague at Chicago.
This is a strong posthumous sway? To put this slightly differently -- how many economists of Keynesian persuasion have held high positions of power in D.C. over the same time period? More than this handful of Straussians (and calling the Kristols Straussians simply because they cite him as an influence is a stretch).
Strauss also claims a large, if rather clubbish, following in the academy, especially among scholars of political theory and American constitutional history.
Imagine that -- Strauss taught political theory at the graduate level! Some of his students (most prominently Harry Jaffa) went on to specialize in American political theory. Shocker!
And yet even those academics who know Strauss's work best often sharply disagree about its fundamental meaning. There are East Coast Straussians, West Coast Straussians, and even some Straussian Democrats. Clifford Orwin, a professor at the University of Toronto strongly influenced by Strauss, describes him as a wise teacher who counseled prudence and moderation. But Shadia Drury, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and the author of ''Leo Strauss and the American Right,'' completely disagrees. For her, Strauss was nothing less than ''a Jewish Nazi'' whose pretense of American patriotism and piety hid a cynical and extremist antidemocratic ideology.
Shadia Drury has written such mistake-ridden pieces on Strauss that it should not really be considered "scholarship." She's probably one of the first Straussian "conspiracy theorists." To his credit, this journalist does get her view of Strauss correct. Unfortunately, he is not intellectually equipped to understand how silly her view is.
Was Leo Strauss a friend of liberal democracy, or an elitist who wanted society to be ruled by a secretive cabal? An ardent opponent of tyranny, or an apologist for the abuse of power? An atheist or a pious Jew?
These questions indicate a complete lack of understanding of the Straussian enterprise. Strauss taught the intimate study of a thinker, so that a scholar might come to know that thinker better than the thinker knew himself. Bringing preconceived notions to a thinker or a text only drove a person towards verifying those notions, instead of understanding the thinker on his own terms. It might be useful to attempt to understand Strauss in the same way, instead of imposing these questions.
To understand Strauss, we need to look beyond the famous students and self-styled acolytes and examine the man himself.
Strauss himself would point readers to his WRITINGS, and not his background. Strauss himself eschewed the academy's method of attempting to understand philosophers by examining "the man himself" instead of the man's writing! Surely a journalist writing on Strauss should know this. So why study Strauss in a manner Strauss himself rejected?
As the political theorist Stephen Holmes observes, Strauss believed that classical thinkers had grasped a still-vital truth: Inequality is an ineradicable aspect of the human condition.
Inequality IS an ineradicable aspect of the human condition. However, what that says about equality of natural and political right is an entirely different matter. The author here either does not grasp the distinction, or wants to imply something sinister.
For Strauss, the modern liberal project of using the fruits of science and the institutions of the state to spread happiness to all is intrinsically futile, self-defeating, and likely to end in terror and tyranny. The best regime is one in which the leaders govern moderately and prudently, curbing the passions of the mob while allowing a small philosophical elite to pursue the contemplative life of the mind.
This is an interpretation made by the journalist, and not necessarily a good one.
While his teachings and books bewildered mainstream American social scientists and drew many hostile comments, students flocked to this odd and beguiling refugee scholar.
That says much about contemporary social science.
Many would go on to become important academics in their own right, including the philosopher Stanley Rosen (a leading light at Boston University), the historian Harry Jaffa (who later wrote speeches for Barry Goldwater), and Allan Bloom, whose 1987 bestseller ''The Closing of the American Mind'' would-paradoxically-bring Strauss's thought to a mass audience.
Harry Jaffa is not an historian, but a political theorist. He taught in the government department of Claremont McKenna and the Claremont Graduate School (and is now retired). Allan Bloom's little tome should be regarded as influenced by Strauss, but it should be regarded as Bloom's teaching, not Strauss's.
Mindful of the collapse of Weimar Germany's fragile democracy, Strauss was distrustful of American liberals; he believed they were too weak-minded and trusting to fight communism. In fact, Strauss believed that the United States shared certain ills with Soviet communism: Both societies put the material well-being of the masses ahead of the cultivation of virtues among an elite. But Strauss also saw America's constitutional government as the last, best hope for excellence in a modern world besotted with egalitarianism.
Citations? This is the journalist's interpretation of Strauss, presented as settled.
Once in Washington, Straussian conservatives could carry on their war against modern liberalism's moral relativism at home and naive pursuit of detente with the Soviet Union abroad.
The journalist gets surprisingly close to what's important about Strauss -- his rejection of the relativism of the modern academy -- but then completely blows it by trying to tie Strauss to a directly political project.
With his teachings about philosophers who write in code and secret doctrines for the elect, Leo Strauss can seem like a conspiracy buff. In fact, some of Strauss's followers like Allan Bloom and Willmoore Kendall do use the word ''conspiracy'' to describe the history of Western thought. Not surprisingly, conspiracies have flourished around Strauss himself. The followers of Lyndon H.
LaRouche, the fringe presidential candidate who believes that the world is being governed by Jewish bankers inspired by a Babylonian cult and that the Queen of England is a drug dealer, argue that Strauss is the evil genius behind the Republican Party. More sensible folk, like the New York Times writer Brent Staples, who earned a doctorate in psychology at Chicago in the 1980s, have also decried the ''sinister vogue'' of Strauss.
Note the effort to try to tie people like Allan Bloom and the late, great Willmoore Kendall to obvious nuts. As for conspiracy buffs, Strauss is far less of one than nitwit journalists who see a Straussian conspiracy behind George Bush's Presidency.
So where did Strauss really stand? ''He was an atheist,'' says Stanley Rosen flatly. ''They [Straussians] all are. They are epicureans and atheists.'' (The epicurean comment is perhaps a reference to the late Allan Bloom, who was legendary for his enjoyment of the high life. After his death, Bloom's esoteric life as a closeted gay man turned out to be very different from his outward posture as a proponent of traditional values.)
False (not to mention silly). See Harry Jaffa and Tom West as examples of Straussians who are not the type suggested by Stanley Rosen "flatly."
While some Straussians dispute the idea that the master was a godless cynic, it does seem that Strauss wanted a regime where the elite lived by a code of stoic fortitude while governing over a population that subscribes to superstitious religious beliefs. ''He agreed with Marx that religion was the opium of the masses,'' says Shadia Drury. ''But he believed that the masses need their opium.'' Sociologically, Strauss's approach would seem to work well for the Republican Party, which has a grass-roots base of born-again Christians and a much more secular elite leadership-at least in its foreign-policy wing.
We've already dismissed Shadia Drury's sloppy work on Strauss. Relying on her as one's authority is problematic. Note, however, the virtual blood-libel*** of suggesting "Strauss's approach" (as mis-interpreted by Ms. Drury) as being in sync with the Republican Party.
Some traditional and religious conservatives have become deeply wary of Straussians. ''They certainly believe that religion may be a useful thing to take in the suckers with,'' notes Thomas Fleming, editor of the right-wing journal Chronicles. ''Exoteric Straussians are taught to repeat mantras about democracy, liberty, and republican government which the inner-circle Straussians don't appear to hold to. One of Allan Bloom's students told me that Professor Bloom had taught them that Plato was just an American-style democrat. This is just absurd. Plato taught the rule of a tiny elite, which is what the Straussians actually believe.''
This is just silly -- and perhaps a good reason to question anything Mr. Fleming or his journal publishes. Does anyone with any sense really believe there's a little society of Straussians in the academy, with a rulebook about exoteric teachings? Come on. That's just silly. And all of this is based on a student who told the journalist that he heard Bloom say something about Plato once? Come on. Get serious.
But just how ''sinister'' was Leo Strauss himself? The answer depends on how a reader approaches his books. If you read Strauss with a well-disposed spirit, he can be interpreted as a genuine friend of American liberal democracy. He worked to create an elite that was strong, sober, and sufficiently free of illusions about the goodness of man to fight the totalitarian enemies of liberal democracy-be they fascists, communists, or Islamicist fundamentalists.
The answer shouldn't depend on how a reader approaches his books, since the reader didn't write the books. Why not read Strauss in an attempt to understand Strauss as Strauss understood himself, instead of in any kind of "spirit?" In any case, if one looks at the work done by prominent students of Strauss now located at the Claremont Institute and Ashbrook, one would have to think he at least produced some students with great affinity for the principles of the American regime. That, of course, would be insufficient data to judge Strauss -- but it is useful data nonetheless.
But if you read Strauss with a skeptical mind, the way he himself read the great philosophers, a more disturbing picture takes shape. Strauss, by this view, emerges as a disguised Machiavelli, a cynical teacher who encouraged his followers to believe that their intellectual superiority entitles them to rule over the bulk of humanity by means of duplicity. The worst thing you can do to Leo Strauss, perhaps, is to read his books with Straussian eyes.
Actually, reading Strauss using Straussian textual analysis techniques is exactly what I suggest in the previous paragraph, and something the journalist rejects. All he does here is repeat Shadia Drury's interpretation of Strauss, without attribution. Her interpretation of Strauss, to be charitable, is flawed.
(05-14-03) A person who has asked me not to reproduce his email has written me to complain that I have used the term "virtual blood-libel" to accuse the author of anti-Semitism. Let me make perfectly clear that I am making NO SUCH ACCUSATION, and I don't think the context of this commentary supports any such interpretation. Perhaps if I had used the term "literal blood-libel" there might be some genuine confusion. But to err completely on the side of caution, I used the term "virtual blood-libel" to mean, precisely, an outrageous assertion. The acknowledged king of bloggers himself uses the term in the same manner here (although he omits "virtual"), so I think my meaning should be plain enough to blog readers. If not, this addendum should make it perfectly clear.
To rephrase: I think it is an outrageous assertion to suggest that Strauss's teachings (as interpreted by Ms. Drury -- problematic enough, that) are particularly suited to the GOP, with its grassroots superstitious evangelicals. Indeed, I think that's a terribly condescending, uninformed view of the GOP. But my objection has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. At all.
(05-15-03) A blogger new to me, Josh Cherniss, engages in textual analysis of the same article, with much the same result. Other good, fair stuff on Strauss there.
A very nice close textual analysis. Mr. Heer is quite obviously attempting to make anyone who has studied Strauss and looks upon his work favorably as some sort of dark masonic cult. I think many on the left are grasping at straws to find something to pin on Republicans who they see as slowly swaying the country to their point of view.
[05/12/03 11:00 PM] [Posted by jmvaughn]
You should read James M. Rhodes' new book, "Eros, Wisdom and Silence" for some really top-notch work on Strauss and Straussian thought.
[05/14/03 12:14 PM] [Posted by RL]
Thanks for the recommendation, RL! I will try and track down a copy.
[05/14/03 07:25 PM] [Posted by Kevin]
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