The Philosopher of Neoconservatives

The Boston Globe ^ | 5/11/2003 | Jeet Heer

[A. Pole]

The late Leo Strauss has emerged as the thinker of the moment in Washington, but his ideas remain mysterious. Was he an ardent opponent of tyranny, or an apologist for the abuse of power?

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. Eager to get the lowdown on White House thinking, editors at the New York Times and Le Monde have had journalists pore over Strauss's work and trace his disciples' affiliations. The New Yorker has even found a contingent of Straussians doing intelligence work for the Pentagon.

[Helms]

Lets gang up on Cornell West who studied under Walter Kaufman at Princeton. What a pathetic heir to Kaufman who was an heir to Nietzsche. Such is the state of Ivy League philosophy.

[A. Pole]

Heidder is still alive in France and German intellctual thought. Apparently a "meme" which dies hard.

He is alive everywhere including America. One of the main pilosophers whether we like it or not.

[diotima]

You should also read Heidegger on Karl Schmitt, there is an essay in Habermas' "The New Conservativsm" but the name of the essay escapes me, I am away from my library.

Also, read some Husserl: The Crisis of the European Sciences is a good start. Husserl converted, I think.

Heidegger as a human being is disgusting. His philosophical work is important, however. Victor Farias' book on Heidegger and Nazism interesting as well. Once of the best seminars I took was on Heidegger, Schmitt and Nazism.

[William McKinley]

If he clearly sees the Democrats for who and what they are, and he still supports them, then he must not hold as important half the things he says he does, such as the danger of relativism and subjectivism, and he must not mind sophistry nearly as much as he claims.

[cornelis]

Strauss knew what that inferiority meant for Socrates, for Plato, and for Aristotle (different for each).

[x]

When a reasonably good existing regime is threatened by one that manifestly isn't at all good, one ought to defend it, if only to defend one's "the good," which is possible under the good regime and impossible under the bad. But the question is how far one should go in defending it and how much of one's own detachment and philosophical freedom one should contribute to that defense. I suppose it matters how one sees oneself: as a Socratic philosopher (which seems to imply a skeptic), as a doctrinal philosopher (who tries to find foundations for what a society believes or knows to be true, good and just) or as a statesman (concerned with political action in the world).

There's much to be said for Jaffa's concern for our society and its beliefs. He sees the abyss and seeks a way to escape it, but I have to wonder whether some of the Straussians' dogmatic arrogance can't be traced back to the urgent necessity of escaping the nihilism that haunts Strauss's own teaching. Once you make the Declaration of Independence the sole alternative to catastrophe, you exclude a lot of other worthy ideas. The founders themselves clearly believed in the documents they created, but I don't think the question of nihilism occupied them as much as it did twentieth century thinkers. For the most part, they were more inclined to let their experiment prove itself than to demonstrate its universal validity and urgent necessity or to impose it on others.

Another link here. The Strauss list is also a good place to resolve perpetuate confusions about Strauss.

[rmlew]

Robert is Straussian with paleocon and even Tory tendancies. That is what I like about him.
His article on Strauss somewhat subjective.

[Mihalis]

Did Strauss write any major books? Can you recommend one or two?

[Princeliberty]

This is neo-conservatism and that is the real
point that needs to understood,
what the masses consider conservatism
and what the small group of neo-conservatist
elites consider conservatism are very different
things. What average person describes
himself as a neo-conservative?

Its a group of elites who are not conservatives
but who think using and abusing conservatives
is a great idea.
Hench Bennett is great neo-conservative,
a phony who got rich using conservatives.

[gcruse]

I confess to no idea of what neoconservatism means in the here and now. It does seem, though, to have an anti-semitic sidecar whenever it appears, with scapegoat-du-jour scowling through the windscreen.

[patriciaruth]

Thanks for the ping. Good time to expand my consciousness.

Before I wade into some reading, just give me one crib note. What is historicism?

[A. Pole]

Before I wade into some reading, just give me one crib note. What is historicism?

Do not blame me.

OK, http://www.wordreference.com/English/definition.asp?en=historicism:

Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins
Publishers:

historicism
noun
1  
   the belief that natural laws govern historical events
   which in turn determine social and cultural
   phenomena

2  
   the doctrine that each period of history has its own
   beliefs and values inapplicable to any other, so that
   nothing can be understood independently of its
   historical context

3  
   the conduct of any enquiry in accordance with these
   views

4  
   excessive emphasis on history, historicism, past
   styles, etc.
   his'toricist noun, adjective

[cornelis]

Check post #40. It depends on what you are interested in or where you're at.

If its for starters, I suggest his lectures On Plato's Symposium:
Read that with this edition of the Symposium translated by Bernadete:

Then, I suppose City and Man. The chapter on Thucydides in City and Man is very good. I won't recommend Persecution and the Art of Writing for starters.

The introduction to his edition (with Cropsey) on the History of Political Philosophy is an excellent essay and makes the distinction between nomos (law) and physis (convention) very clear. Otherwise, Liberalism, Ancient and Modern and Natural Right and History.

[patriciaruth]

Well, there is some truth to historicism then; but the exceptions mean there is a deeper truth of which historicism is but a part.

Thanks. Maybe after a couple years of reading I will be able to join this discussion.

[arthurus]

The part that confuses me is who was going to kill Strauss if he didn't talk in code?

The suggestion in the article seemed to be that Strauss himself felt that his ideas were too dangerous or esoteric for the common man so he wrote in code to let that common man think he understood but did not.

[arthurus]

The elites he would have been writing to are the like minded philosophers within academe. The "Liberal Elite" he would not have regarded as any elite at all, the term having intelligence and philosophical connotations for Mr. Strauss.

[rmlew]

I would certainly agree that neoconservatism is an elitist ideology. It takes an intelligent educated person to truly ascribe to any intellectual ideology whether it is clasical liberalism, traditional conservatism, fusion conservatism, or paleo-conservatism (the newest).

Its a group of elites who are not conservatives but who think using and abusing conservatives is a great idea.
Do you really want me to list the deviences of the post 9-11 Paleo-movement?

Hench Bennett is great neo-conservative, a phony who got rich using conservatives.

The same could be said for Pat Buchanan or Justin Raimondo.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Read like a hit piece to me. A nice bit of propoganda at best.

[Princeliberty]

I am not on board with Pat either.
The issue at hand was the Neos.

Beware anyone who makes an idol of
any "ism"