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Was Leo Strauss a ‘Straussian’? a conjecture

 

a cyber-dialogue

Joseph Martin, Jason Carter and Sunthar Visuvalingam

From:  Joseph Martin
Date:  Thu Oct 16, 2003  6:39 pm
Subject:  Leo Strauss Again, hopefully the untruncated version

 

[Joe seems to have posted his response without having had the opportunity read Jason’s just prior comments]

Hey Sunthar; since no one has bitten let me give it a try. First off, Leo Strauss is a wonderfully subtle writer. It is an open question as to exactly what Leo Strauss wanted or believed. I have even seen it said somewhere on the Leo Strauss list (by Kalev Pehme, if memory serves) that Strauss himself was known to have voted democratic—Gasp! It is always ridiculous and cowardly to throw out a few slogans and try to palm this off as an understanding of an intelligent person’s thought, especially one as subtle as Strauss. Would we consider the quoted remarks below disproved if someone were to quip that Ron Paul is a right-wing Libertarian? Well, certainly not if we agreed with those remarks! While we may not be able to divine decisively what an esotericist believed or thought from his texts, I think we can—with caution, perseverance and luck—get a better grasp on his purpose or plan by reading the texts in question. As an aside, I will say that I suspect that the only people who know what dead esotericists thought / believed are people who are currently channeling them.

  But we non-channelers have opinions too! On Strauss, mine runs something like this. I would start by saying that one thing no one has ever heard mentioned is why Strauss mentioned esotericism. What is the plan, or purpose, of the writings of Leo Strauss? Hmmm. Nietzsche famously mentions a certain esotericism (the Platonism for the people—Christianity) in order to destroy it. What is Strauss trying to destroy by mentioning (political) esotericism in general? Of course, my position is that the only reason Strauss mentions political esotericism is to destroy it. The only thing that makes esotericism (political esotericism that is) impossible and useless is the general belief that this is how the philosophers proceed. Watch as the corrosive effects of the Straussian School continue to spread through the academic community. But let me now call an expert witness to the stand…

  Stanley Rosen, in Metaphysics in Ordinary Language (Yale University Press, March 1999), remarks on Maimonides Golden Apple in connection with Strauss in a rather revealing manner. (For those that don’t know I will point out that Rosen studied with both Strauss and Kojève.) The Golden Apple, as we all recall, was fit in silver settings so intricate and refined that no one, perhaps it would be more edifying to say no ordinary one, could tell exactly what was inside it. Now, for our purposes, all we need say is that the fine silver is the exoteric and the (nearly?) invisible gold the esoteric.

  Rosen says something to the effect that Strauss’s ambiguity consisted of his directing his students glances through the small holes in the silver, but in such a way as to as to leave the impression that there was no gold inside it. Then Rosen says that Strauss’s teaching pointed towards the notion that wisdom is impossible for non-philosophers and that philosophy, Platonic philosophy, is also impossible.

  No wonder he somewhere refers to Leo Strauss as an Epicurean! (Keep in mind the argument between the ‘gardener’ Epicurus and the world-maker Nietzsche in BGE. A gardener makes a small garden for like-minded exceptional recluses while a world-maker makes—well, why point out the obvious?) In the end, Leo Strauss, by mentioning political esotericism, has begun the process that leads to its destruction, or if you prefer, its temporary ineffectiveness. (On this reading Strauss too is against the politicization of philosophy!) Those bitten by the esotericist bug (like those bitten by the deconstruction bug) will ferret out so much ambiguity and contradictions and ugliness in the master texts of philosophy that they will become, for a time, almost worthless to non-philosophers. Which of course isn’t to say that what the esotericists and, for that matter, the deconstructionists, point at isn’t in some sense ‘there.’ This ‘genealogy of philosophy’ by Strauss, his finding political philosophy behind all philosophy, reminds us of the genealogies of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault, who found chaos, words and power behind everything.

  It will be felt, come to be felt, even or especially by our earnest exceptions, that one can make anything one pleases out of these texts. Strauss was the first postmodern, treating philosophic texts as indecipherable scriptures while even managing to deny (the anonymity of the interpreter!) that he was doing just that. The ‘divine’ philosophers neither reveal nor conceal—they give a sign. Unfortunately, or perhaps I should say, not unfortunately, this sign can only be read by their equals.

  But why is Leo Strauss a covert Epicurean—an opponent of world-making? My suspicion (and it can only be a suspicion) is that his understanding is that the world-maker’s interventions always end in some ugly tyranny. Keep in mind that Strauss is a refugee from the Europe of the twin totalitarianisms of Communism and Nazism. If we can say that Christianity is Platonism for the people then we need to immediately add that communism is Christianity for wised-up enlightened atheistic moderns, in short, a religion for atheists. Thus at bottom, communism is another Platonism. The lines of descent from Nietzsche to Nazism, while also not direct, are equally well known. How do you attack the Platonic/Nietzschean position of world-making? By making it known. Once the would-be artifacts understand that they are being manipulated they will attempt to ignore or disregard the philosophers. Fine, granting the above the question is: What did Strauss want?

  Strauss somewhere remarks that it would be desirable to live in a pre-Aristotelian world. It is important to note that this pre-Aristotelian world is a ‘natural’ world, not a philosophical (Platonic—a Christian, Islamic, Liberal, Marxist world—or Nietzschean) artifact. Most artifacts, as we know, are completely unaware that they are artifacts. By showing how cunningly the philosophers write Strauss destroys the trust that existed between philosophers and non-philosophers. But this too is an old story. Augustine, if we recall, interpreted much of ancient pagan philosophy in a suspicious manner. It can be said that he thought ancient philosophy boiled down to an argument between those that thought empire good and those that thought it necessary. (There are those that think much the same of modern philosophy.) He sneers at the political esotericism of the philosophers. But Augustine becomes a Christian anyway!

  Why? Because philosophy doesn’t (overtly) make religion—it makes the presuppositions on which the religion is built. Whenever the political esoteric is known and/or suspected the metaphysical (speeches about the meta-onto-theo-genetic Whole) esoteric stock rises. The people (guileless mob and cunning exceptions) think that they escape the ruses of the devious philosophers by joining some ‘true’ (non-artifactual) religion! But, in the end, they are only substituting one philosophical maneuver for another. Even when an artifact ‘changes’ he or she remains an artifact. (As the author of Zarathustra said—any belief is better than no belief. This remark should give our pious Zarathustrians pause—but, of course, pious enthusiasm, like righteous indignation, can’t stand to wait.)

  Leo Strauss, or so it seems, has a problem with all this world-making. Perhaps he thinks that this mixing of reason with the unreasonable (non-philosophers) a mistake. Perhaps he thinks that opening non-philosophers to the resources of philosophy, albeit in an inadequate way, by turning them into philosophical artifacts only makes them more dangerous. In any case, Strauss in the end is an assassin of artifacts, an assassin of the unsuspicious reading of the philosophers, and thus an assassin of the warm, fuzzy feelings that rewards a trusting reading—and this nicely explains why academia, which is populated by various sentimental artifacts, had such a negative reaction to him.

  But is this stratagem by Strauss successful? It seems that it will be most successful against purely political readings of Plato/Nietzsche but less so, I would say far less so, on more metaphysical readings. By that I mean the exceptions (who demand of philosophers what the mob demands of them, equality!) will come to be repulsed by the purely political reading of the philosophers (Sunthar, Gary, Edward, Marilynn, isn’t my reading of Nietzsche and Plato repulsive? Yes? Well then, you see my point!) and gradually drift over to the metaphysical (meta-onto-theo-genetic Whole) position. Unless, of course, this is what Strauss, who is always respectful of those that stand on the faithful side of the Athens/Jerusalem divide, expects! These damned devious esotericists! They ruin both enthusiasm and indignation!

Joe

From:  Jason Carter

Date:  Thu Oct 16, 2003  7:36 pm

Subject:  Re: Is Friedrich Nietzsche the patron saint of American neo-conservatism? ask (the disciples of) Leo Strauss!

Nietzsche was an elitist who wanted to subordinate the state and its political activities to a cultural project that he believed would allow the creation of a new master caste that would be free of the nihilism of previous societies and that would be able to administer the Earth and the lesser mortals who obeyed them in order to insure the greatest flourishing of the human race. On this point, see Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, out-of-print) by Bruce Detweiler and Nietzsche Contra Democracy (Cornell University Press; December 1998) by Frederick Appel. As for Strauss, he was not exactly a Nietzschean, but may have been close in some ways, according to Laurence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (University of Chicago Press; January 1996). The only significant points of resemblance between Nietzsche and what is generally taken for esoteric Straussianism (as opposed to its public face as a revival of ancient political philosophy) are the notion that some people are more capable than others and that those who are best suited to govern ought to. Strauss' covert goal, if he had one as some of his critics assert, would have been to prevent the sliding of present society into the abyss by placing it in the hands of a class of leaders who were capable of stabilizing it and saving it from the weaknesses of its rabble. Nietzsche wanted to start something wholly and completely new, a society built on what he regarded as totally different spiritual foundations from those any other society (except Pre-Socratic Greece) had ever known.

 

[Jason Carter]

 

"When your heart overflows broad and full like the river, a blessing and a danger to those on the banks: there is the origin of your virtue. 

 

When you are exalted above praise and blame, and your will wants to command all things, as a lover's will: there is the origin of your virtue. 

 

When you despise pleasant things, and the soft couch, and cannot couch far enough from the soft: there is the origin of your virtue.

 

 

From:  Sunthar Visuvalingam
Date:  Thu Oct 16, 2003  2:04 pm
Subject:  Is Friedrich Nietzsche the patron saint of American neo-conservatism? ask (the disciples of) Leo Strauss!

 

 

Craig Hulet, Universal fascism, freedom betrayed: What is Mr. Bush doing in your name? (The Other News, 30 July 2003)

Could anyone explain to me if and how (the political implications of) Nietzsche's thought could have (given rise to or) influenced, via his modern-day exegete Leo Strauss, the American neo-conservative movement (you could add Christopher Hitchens to the list of 'Troskyites').

 

Sunthar

[rest of this thread at Parameters for discussing American and Global politics at the Abhinava, WTC-911 and TheOtherNews forums]