Difference between revisions of "Leo Strauss"

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==Background==
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'''Leo Strauss''' (1899-1973) was a German-born Jewish American political philosopher who has been called the father of neoconservatism.
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The neoconservative [[Irving Kristol]] has acknowledged Strauss's influence. [[Ronald Bailey]] writes in an article for ''Reason'' magazine:
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:Kristol has acknowledged his intellectual debt to Strauss in a recent autobiographical essay. "What made him [Strauss] so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that 'the truth will make men free.'" Kristol adds that "Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make ''some'' [emphasis Kristol's] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences."
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:Kristol agrees with this view. "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," he says in an interview. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."<ref>Ronald Bailey, "[http://www.reason.com/news/show/30329.html Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin?]", Reason magazine, July 1997, accessed 3 April 2009</ref>
  
 
==Biographical Information==
 
==Biographical Information==
 
===History===
 
===History===
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Strauss was heavily influenced by his German contemporaries, [[Martin Heidegger]] and [[Carl Schmitt]]. With Schmitt's help he secured a [[Rockefeller Foundation]] grant to study in Paris, which enabled him to escape Germany as the Nazis were coming to power.<ref>[http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/07/letter_16.html The Letter], by Scott Horton, Balkanizition, 16 July 2006.</ref>He ultimately settled in the United States in 1938.<ref>[http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/ Leo Strauss's Philosophy of Deception], by Jim Lobe, Alternet, 19 May 2003.</ref>
  
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===Current activities===
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While in Paris in 1933 he wrote a letter to his friend [[Karl Löwith]] which underlined the authoritarian nature of his political philosophy at this time:
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::And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l’homme(5) to protest against the shabby abomination.(6) I am reading Caesar’s Commentaries with deep understanding, and I think of Virgil’s Tu regere imperio… parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.(7) There is no reason to crawl to the cross, neither to the cross of liberalism, as long as somewhere in the world there is a glimmer of the spark of the Roman thought. And even then: rather than any cross, I’ll take the ghetto.<ref>[http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/07/letter_16.html The Letter], by Scott Horton, Balkanizition, 16 July 2006.</ref>
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As Scott Horton has noted, Strauss was writing at a time when liberalism was a marginal force in Weimar Germany.<ref>[http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002212 Will the Real Leo Strauss Please Stand Up?], by Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine, 21 January 2008.</ref>
  
 
==Views==
 
==Views==
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==Affiliations==
 
==Affiliations==
  
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==Influence==
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In the mid-1990s, Political theorist Shadia Drury noted that a number of students and admirers of Strauss had become leading spokesmen of the American Conservative movement, including [[Harry V. Jaffa]], [[Joseph Cropsey]], [[Allan Bloom]], [[Harvey Mansfield]], [[Willmoore Kendall]], and [[Irving Kristol]].<ref>Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St Martin's Press, 1999, p.3.</ref>
  
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According to Drury, figures on the American political scene influenced by Strauss, included [[Paul Wolfowitz]], [[Caspar Weinberger]], [[Seth Cropsey]], [[John T. Agresto]], [[Carnes Lord]], [[Alan Keyes]], [[Robert Bork]], [[Clarence Thomas]], [[William Bennett]] and [[William Kristol]].<ref>Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St Martin's Press, 1999, p.3.</ref>
  
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==Publications, Contact, Resources and Notes==  
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Neoconservatives [[Abram Shulsky]] and [[Gary Schmitt]] sought in their 1999 essay ''Leo Strauss and the world of intelligence'' to apply the philosopher's ideas to the theory of intelligence analysis.<ref>Tom Barry, [http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Leo_Strauss_and_Intelligence_Strategy Leo Strauss and Intelligence Strategy], Right Web, 11 February 2004.</ref>
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According to Thomas J. DiLorenzo, other influential Straussians include [[William Allen]], [[Joseph Bessette]], [[Mark Blitz]], [[David Epstein]], [[Charles Fairbanks]], [[Robert Goldwin]], [[Michael Mablin]], [[John Marini]], [[Ken Masugi]], [[Gary McDowell]], [[James Nichols]], [[Ralph Rossum]], [[Steven Schlesinger]], [[Jeffrey Schram]], [[Nathan Tarcov]], [[Michael Uhlman]], [[Jeffery Wallin]], [[Bradford Wilson]], [[Leon Kass]], [[John Waters]], [[Francis Fukuyama]] and  [[Robert Kagan]].<ref>Thomas DiLorenzo, [http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo80.html The Ivy League Dissects the Neocon Cabal], LewRockwell.com, 28 September 2004.</ref>
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==Publications, Resources and Notes==  
 
===Publications===
 
===Publications===
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===Contact===
 
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===Resources===  
 
===Resources===  
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Jim Lobe [http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305strauss.html The Strong Must Rule the Weak: A Philosopher for an Empire] Foreign Policy In Focus | May 12, 2003
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*Jim Lobe [http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305strauss.html The Strong Must Rule the Weak: A Philosopher for an Empire] Foreign Policy In Focus | May 12, 2003
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===Articles, books, and parts of books (online)===
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*Brague, Rémi. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0333-5372%28199822%2919%3A2%3C235%3AAJMLS%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: Leo Strauss's "Muslim" Understanding of Greek Philosophy],  ''Poetics Today'' 19.2 (Summer 1998): 235–59.
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*[[Shadia Drury|Drury, Shadia B.]] [http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/112.html "Leo Strauss and the Neoconservatives"].  ''Evatt Foundation'', [[September 11]], [[2004]].
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*———. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0090-5917%28198508%2913%3A3%3C315%3ATEPOLS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P "The Esoteric Philosophy of Leo Strauss"], ''Political Theory'' 13, no. 3 (Aug 1985): 315–337.
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*———. [http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=drury_24_4 "Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor"]. ''[[Free Inquiry]]'' 24, no. 4 (June 2004).
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*———. [http://www.uregina.ca/arts/CRC/encyc_leostrauss.html "Strauss, Leo (1899–1973)"]. ''Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. (New York: Routledge, 1998). Accessed [[October 5]], [[2007]].
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*[[Paul Gottfried|Gottfried, Paul]].  [http://www.nhinet.org/gottfried18-1&2.pdf "Strauss and the Straussians"].  ''[[Humanitas]]'' 18.1&2 (2005): 26–29.
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*Levine, Peter.  [http://www.peterlevine.ws/Leo_Strauss_&_Nietzsche.pdf "A 'Right' Nietzschean: Leo Strauss and his Followers"].  152–67 in ''Nietzsche and the Modern Crisis of the Humanities''.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.  Inc. notes to chap. 8: 260–65.  (Published version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation; online posting on author's personal website, ''[http://www.peterlevine.ws/work%20in%20philosophy.htm PeterLevine.ws]''.)
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*Novak, David [http://books.google.com/books?id=s5Gs-jYQ3AEC&dq Leo Strauss and Judaism: Jerusalem and Athens Critically Revisited]
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*Perreau-Saussine, Emile. [http://www.sps.cam.ac.uk/pol/staff/eperreausaussine/atheism_and_Politics.pdf "Athéisme et politique".] ''Critique'' n° 728–729 (Jan–Feb 2008): 121–35.
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*Piccinini, Irene Abigail. [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/tr/volume3/puccinini.html "Leo Strauss and Hermann Cohen's "arch-enemy:" a quasi-Cohenian apology of Baruch Spinoza"]  ''The Journal of Textual Reasoning'' 3.1 (June 2004).
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*[[Robert B. Pippin|Pippin, Robert B.]] [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0090-5917(199208)20%3A3%3C448%3ATMWOLS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q "The Modern World of Leo Strauss"]. ''[[Political Theory]]'' 20.3 (August 1992): 448–72.
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*Robertson, Neil G. [http://www.mun.ca/animus/1998vol3/robert3.htm "The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought"].  ''Animus: A Philosophical Journal for Our Time'' 3 (1998).  [Vol. 3 (1998) is on  ''[http://www.swgc.mun.ca/animus/1998vol3/1998vol3.htm Modernity]''.]
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*[[Claes Ryn|Ryn, Claes G.]]  [http://www.nhinet.org/ryn18-1&2.pdf "Leo Strauss and History: The Philosopher As Conspirator"].  ''[[Humanitas]]'' 18.1&2 (2005): 31–58.
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*Smith, Gregory Bruce. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1049-0965%28199706%2930%3A2%3C180%3ALSATSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0 "Leo Strauss and the Straussians: An Anti-Democratic Cult?"]  ''Political Science and Politics'' 30.2 (June 1997): 180–89.
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*Verskin, Alan. [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/tr/volume3/verskin.html "Reading Strauss on Maimonides: A New Approach"].  ''Journal of Textual Reasoning'' 3, no. 1 (June 2004).
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*West, Thomas G. "Jaffa Versus Mansfield: Does America Have a Constitutional or a 'Declaration of Independence' Soul?"  ''Perspectives on Political Science'' 31 (September 2002).  [http://www.claremont.org/writings/000901west.html "Jaffa Versus Mansfield"].  ("What were the original principles of the American Constitution? Are those principles true?")  Online posting.  ''[[The Claremont Institute]]'', [[November 29]], [[2002]].  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].
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*Xenos, Nicholas.  [http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.2/xenos.htm "Leo Strauss and the Rhetoric of the War on Terror"].  ''[[Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture]]'' 3.2 (Spring 2004): 1–19.  (Printable [[PDF]].)
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*Zuckert, Catherine, and Michael Zuckert.  "Introduction: Mr. Strauss Goes to Washington?"  1–26 in ''The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy''.  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006. ISBN 978-0-226-99332-4.  Online posting of [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/993329.html "Excerpt" (1–20)], ''www.press.uchicago.edu''.  (Book website updated [[May 21]], [[2007]].  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].)
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===Related commentary, other articles, and parts of books (online)===
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*[[Tom Ashbrook|Ashbrook, Tom]], with guests [[Harvey Mansfield]], [[Shadia Drury|Shadia B. Drury]], and Jack Beatty. [http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2003/05/20030515_a_main.asp "Leo Strauss and the American Right"].  ''[[On Point]]''.  [[WBUR]] Radio ([[Boston, Massachusetts]]), [[May 15]], [[2003]].  Accessed [[May 26]], [[2007]]. (Interviews.  Inc. audio link to radio program.)
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*[[Tom Barry|Barry, Tom]]. [http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0402nsai.php "Leo Strauss and Intelligence Strategy"]. ''[[International Relations Center]]'', [[February 12]], [[2004]].  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].
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*[[Peter Berkowitz|Berkowitz, Peter]]. [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/717acusr.asp What Hath Strauss Wrought?]  ''[[Weekly Standard]]'', [[June 2]], [[2003]].
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*Cronkrite, Al. [http://www.etherzone.com/2003/cron051503.shtml "Judeo-Christian Decadence at the Fount of Power"].  ''EtherZone'', [[May 15]], [[2003]].
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*Desch, Michael C. [http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/jan/17/00029/ What Would Strauss Do], The American Conservative, 17 January 2005.</ref>
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*Doliner, Michael. [http://www.swans.com/library/art11/mdolin10.html Book Review: ''Leo Strauss and the American Right''].  ''Swans.com'', [[October 10]], [[2005]].
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*[[Shadia Drury|Drury, Shadia B.,]] and Matthew Rothschild.  [http://progressive.org/radio_drury05 "Political Ideas of Leo Strauss"]. Interview of Shadia Drury.  ''Progressive Radio'' (2005).
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*[[Shadia Drury|Drury, Shadia B.,]] and Michael Enright. [http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/377 "The New Machiavelli: Leo Strauss and the Politics of Fear"]. Interview of Shadia Drury. [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]], [[April 27]], [[2005]].
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*Franchon, Alain, and Daniel Vernet. [http://www.counterpunch.org/frachon06022003.html "The Strategist and the Philosopher: Leo Strauss and Albert Wohlstetter"]. Trans. (for ''[[CounterPunch]]'') Norman Madarasz.  Online posting. ''[[CounterPunch]]''.  [[June 2]], [[2003]].  Originally published in French.  ''[[Le Monde]]'', [[April 16]], [[2003]].  Rpt. with permission.
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*Goldstein, Yoni. [http://www.umich.edu/~moment/current/12.htm "A Platonic Love Affair: Strauss in the White House"].  ''Moment'' ([[University of Michigan, Ann Arbor]] undergraduate student publication), Issue 3 (February–March 2004).  Cf. ''[[Critical Moment]]''; [http://old.criticalmoment.org/archives issue 3 of the previous series, entitled ''Moment'' (on "Empire")], is not currently available online. (This article was written by an undergraduate student.)<!--dubious source-->
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*[[Seymour M. Hersh|Hersh, Seymour M.]] [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact "Selective Intelligence"].  ''[[The New Yorker]]'', [[May 12]], [[2003]].  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].<!--corr. of prev. ed. error in date.  See editing history summary re: problematic other citation of Hersh w/ defunct link.-->
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*[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leo_Strauss "Leo Strauss"].  [[SourceWatch]] (A project of the [[Center for Media and Democracy]]), [[November 14]], [[2006]].  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].
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*Leupp, Gary. [http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05242003.html "The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss and the Neocons"].  ''[[CounterPunch]]'', [[May 24]], [[2003]].
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* [[Jim Lobe|Lobe, Jim]]. [http://www.alternet.org/story/15935 "Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception"], ''Alternet'', May 2003.
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*Madarasz, Norman. [http://www.counterpunch.org/madarasz06022003.html "Behind the Neocon Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss & Allan Bloom"].  ''CounterPunch'', [[June 2]], [[2003]].
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*McBryde, David.  [http://members.tripod.com/Cato1/strauss-bio.htm "Leo Strauss"]. N.d.  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].  (Self-published essay posted on author's website.) 
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*Pfaff, William. [http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0515-09.htm The Long Reach of Leo Strauss], [[International Herald Tribune]], [[May 15]], [[2003]].
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*[[Abram Shulsky|Shulsky, Abram N.]], and [[Gary Schmitt|Gary J. Schmitt]].  [http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/leo_strauss_and_the_world_of_intelligence.pdf "Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)"].  Originally published in ''Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime''.  Ed. Kenneth L. Deutsch and John A. Murley.  New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.  Rpt. ''Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007'' (personal blog of [[W. Patrick Lang]].)  N.d.  Accessed [[June 1]], [[2007]].
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*Silva, Jim. [http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2006/02/06/opinions/020606c.txt "Strauss and the Neocon Takeover"].  ''The Lompoc Record'', [[February 6]], [[2006]].
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*Skidelsky, Edward. [http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7335A "No More Heroes"].  ''[[Prospect (magazine)|Prospect]]'', March 2006.
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*[[Richard Wolin|Wolin, Richard]].  [http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i32/32b01301.htm "Leo Strauss, Judaism, and Liberalism"].  ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]'', [[April 14]], [[2006]].  Accessed [[May 22]], [[2007]].
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*Xenos, Nicholas. [http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.2/xenos.htm Leo Strauss and the Rhetoric of the War on Terror]
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[[Category:?]]
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[[Category:Neocons|Strauss, Leo]]

Latest revision as of 00:37, 5 September 2009

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a German-born Jewish American political philosopher who has been called the father of neoconservatism.

The neoconservative Irving Kristol has acknowledged Strauss's influence. Ronald Bailey writes in an article for Reason magazine:

Kristol has acknowledged his intellectual debt to Strauss in a recent autobiographical essay. "What made him [Strauss] so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that 'the truth will make men free.'" Kristol adds that "Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make some [emphasis Kristol's] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences."
Kristol agrees with this view. "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," he says in an interview. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."[1]

Biographical Information

History

Strauss was heavily influenced by his German contemporaries, Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. With Schmitt's help he secured a Rockefeller Foundation grant to study in Paris, which enabled him to escape Germany as the Nazis were coming to power.[2]He ultimately settled in the United States in 1938.[3]

While in Paris in 1933 he wrote a letter to his friend Karl Löwith which underlined the authoritarian nature of his political philosophy at this time:

And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l’homme(5) to protest against the shabby abomination.(6) I am reading Caesar’s Commentaries with deep understanding, and I think of Virgil’s Tu regere imperio… parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.(7) There is no reason to crawl to the cross, neither to the cross of liberalism, as long as somewhere in the world there is a glimmer of the spark of the Roman thought. And even then: rather than any cross, I’ll take the ghetto.[4]

As Scott Horton has noted, Strauss was writing at a time when liberalism was a marginal force in Weimar Germany.[5]

Views

Affiliations

Influence

In the mid-1990s, Political theorist Shadia Drury noted that a number of students and admirers of Strauss had become leading spokesmen of the American Conservative movement, including Harry V. Jaffa, Joseph Cropsey, Allan Bloom, Harvey Mansfield, Willmoore Kendall, and Irving Kristol.[6]

According to Drury, figures on the American political scene influenced by Strauss, included Paul Wolfowitz, Caspar Weinberger, Seth Cropsey, John T. Agresto, Carnes Lord, Alan Keyes, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, William Bennett and William Kristol.[7]

Neoconservatives Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt sought in their 1999 essay Leo Strauss and the world of intelligence to apply the philosopher's ideas to the theory of intelligence analysis.[8]

According to Thomas J. DiLorenzo, other influential Straussians include William Allen, Joseph Bessette, Mark Blitz, David Epstein, Charles Fairbanks, Robert Goldwin, Michael Mablin, John Marini, Ken Masugi, Gary McDowell, James Nichols, Ralph Rossum, Steven Schlesinger, Jeffrey Schram, Nathan Tarcov, Michael Uhlman, Jeffery Wallin, Bradford Wilson, Leon Kass, John Waters, Francis Fukuyama and Robert Kagan.[9]

Publications, Resources and Notes

Publications

Resources

Articles, books, and parts of books (online)

Related commentary, other articles, and parts of books (online)

Notes

  1. ↑ Ronald Bailey, "Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin?", Reason magazine, July 1997, accessed 3 April 2009
  2. ↑ The Letter, by Scott Horton, Balkanizition, 16 July 2006.
  3. ↑ Leo Strauss's Philosophy of Deception, by Jim Lobe, Alternet, 19 May 2003.
  4. ↑ The Letter, by Scott Horton, Balkanizition, 16 July 2006.
  5. ↑ Will the Real Leo Strauss Please Stand Up?, by Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine, 21 January 2008.
  6. ↑ Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St Martin's Press, 1999, p.3.
  7. ↑ Shadia B. Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, St Martin's Press, 1999, p.3.
  8. ↑ Tom Barry, Leo Strauss and Intelligence Strategy, Right Web, 11 February 2004.
  9. ↑ Thomas DiLorenzo, The Ivy League Dissects the Neocon Cabal, LewRockwell.com, 28 September 2004.
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