THE POSTHUMOUS WILD ADVENTURES OF A NICE JEWISH THINKER PART II

Before we touch upon the more sensitive aspects of Strauss’s Leninist proclivities, let me say all the positive stuff I have to say about him.

Strauss was a well-educated student of classical philosophy with a special interest in the thought of Ancient Greece. Being a political philosopher, he separated the era of the pre-Socratics, where science and ontology were the main preoccupation, from the era that started with Socrates, seeing the birth of political philosophy in Socrates’ view that philosophers could not study nature without first studying their own human nature. In Aristotle’s words, Strauss says, “man is by nature a political animal,” hence, we are present at the birth of political philosophy.

Apart from his love for the Ancient Greeks, Strauss was a great admirer of Nietzsche. In his own words, “I can only say that Nietzsche so dominated and bewitched me between my 22^nd and 30^th years that I literally believed everything that I understood of him.” He wrote that Nietzsche was the first philosopher to properly understand relativism, an idea grounded in a general acceptance of Hegelian historicism. Heidegger, in his view, sanitized and politicized Nietzsche, whereas Nietzsche believed that our own principles including the belief in progress, will become as relative as all earlier principles had shown themselves to be; the only way out… that one voluntarily choose life-giving delusion instead of deadly truth, that one fabricate a myth. He also wrote that Hegel was correct when he postulated that an end of history implies an end to philosophy as understood by classical political philosophy.

My hands-down favorite among Strauss’s ideas is his excellent distinction between “scholars” and “great thinkers,” which I have chosen to present as a separate entry in my The Genius And The Scholar section. He says that most self-described philosophers are in actuality scholars, cautious and methodical. Great thinkers, in contrast, boldly and creatively address big problems. Scholars deal with these problems only indirectly, by reasoning about the great thinkers’ differences. With a deliberate touch of humility he characterizes himself as a “scholar.”

Now, before we move on with everything else, here is a brief but instructive Strauss summary, courtesy of the Wikipedia (which appears in teal font).---

According to Strauss, modern social science is flawed, because it assumes the fact-value distinction, which concept he finds dubious, tracing its roots in philosophy to Max Weber, a thinker whom he described as a “serious and noble mind.” Weber wanted to separate values from science, but, according to Strauss, he was really a derivative thinker, deeply influenced by Nietzsche’s (lupus in fabulis!) relativism. Strauss treated politics as something that could not be studied from afar. For Strauss a political scientist examining politics with a value-free scientific eye was self-deluded. Positivism, heir to both Auguste Comte and Max Weber in the quest to make purportedly value-free judgments, failed to justify its own existence, which requires a value judgment.
While modern liberalism stressed the pursuit of individual liberty as its highest goal, he felt that there must be a greater interest in the problem of human excellence and political virtue. In his writings, he constantly raised the question of how, and to what extent, freedom and excellence can coexist. He refused to make do with simplistic or one-sided resolutions of the Socratic question: “What is the good for the city and man?”
Strauss taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards extreme relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism. The first was “brutal” nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. He said that these ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy traditions, history, ethics and moral standards replacing them by force under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. The second type, “gentle” nihilism, expressed in Western liberal democracies, was a kind of value-free aimlessness and a hedonistic “permissive egalitarianism,” permeating the fabric of contemporary American society. In the belief that twentieth century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, he sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this situation. The study of it led Strauss to advocate a return to classical political philosophy as a starting point for judging political action.

So far so good, and so innocent, but now the clouds are about to appear on the horizon. Ironically, they start with the allegedly anti-democratic premise, which I totally share, that all societies consist of the minority elite and the majority hoi polloi. Apparently, to protect itself from the physically overwhelming majority, and, at the same time, to effectively subjugate hoi polloi to its superior intellect and will, the elite minority practices esoterism.

In 1952, he published Persecution and the Art of Writing, commonly understood to advance the argument that some philosophers write esoterically in order to avoid persecution by political or religious authorities. A few readers of Strauss suggest esoteric writing may also seek to protect politics from political philosophy whose explosive reasoning might well shatter fragile opinions undergirding the political order. Stemming from his study of Maimonides and extended to his reading of Plato, he proposed that esoteric texts were the proper type for philosophical learning. Rather than simply outlining the philosopher’s thoughts, the esoteric text forces readers to do their own thinking and learning. As Socrates says in the Phaedrus, writing does not respond when questioned, but invites a dialogue with the reader, thus reducing the problems of the written word. One political danger Strauss pointed to was students too quickly accepting dangerous ideas.

Ultimately, he believed that philosophers offered both an exoteric, or salutary teaching and an esoteric, or true teaching, the latter concealed from the general reader. For maintaining this distinction, Strauss is often accused of having written esoterically himself.

This does not look so innocent anymore...

 

(This is the end of Part II. Part III will be published tomorrow.)