Leo Strauss: Architect of the Neoconservative Rules of Governing

[Makalakumu]

Some background on Leo Strauss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

Straussian philosophy and current US policy...

http://www.alternet.org/story/15935

Rule One: Deception

It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's 1999).

Second Principle: Power of Religion

According to Drury, Strauss had a "huge contempt" for secular democracy. Nazism, he believed, was a nihilistic reaction to the irreligious and liberal nature of the Weimar Republic. Among other neoconservatives, Irving Kristol has long argued for a much greater role for religion in the public sphere, even suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the American Republic made a major mistake by insisting on the separation of church and state. And why? Because Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control.

At the same time, he stressed that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it. Indeed, it would be absurd if they were, since the truths proclaimed by religion were "a pious fraud." As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine points out, "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."

"Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing,'' Drury says, because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, precisely those traits that may promote dissent that in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. Bailey argues that it is this firm belief in the political utility of religion as an "opiate of the masses" that helps explain why secular Jews like Kristol in 'Commentary' magazine and other neoconservative journals have allied themselves with the Christian Right and even taken on Darwin's theory of evolution.

Third Principle: Aggressive Nationalism

Like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state. "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," he once wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people."

Not surprisingly, Strauss' attitude toward foreign policy was distinctly Machiavellian. "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat," Drury wrote in her book. "Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured (emphases added)."

"Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in," says Drury. The idea easily translates into, in her words, an "aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," of the kind that has been advocated by neocon groups like PNAC and AEI scholars – not to mention Wolfowitz and other administration hawks who have called for a world order dominated by U.S. military power. Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a "national destiny" – as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983 – that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a " myopic national security."

As to what a Straussian world order might look like, the analogy was best captured by the philosopher himself in one of his – and student Allen Bloom's – many allusions to Gulliver's Travels. In Drury's words, "When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect."

The image encapsulates the neoconservative vision of the United States' relationship with the rest of the world – as well as the relationship between their relationship as a ruling elite with the masses. "They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy," Drury says.

The Long Reach of Leo Strauss

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0515-09.htm

 

[Makalakumu]

The Long Reach of Leo Strauss

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0515-09.htm

Interesting tidbit...

Something of a cult developed around Strauss during his later years at Chicago, and he and some admirers figure in the Saul Bellow novel, "Ravelstein." The cult is appropriate because Strauss believed that the essential truths about human society and history should be held by an elite, and withheld from others who lack the fortitude to deal with truth. Society, Strauss thought, needs consoling lies.

He held that philosophy is dangerous because it brings into question the conventions on which civil order and the morality of society depend. This risks promoting a destructive nihilism.

According to Strauss, the relativism of modern American society is a moral disorder that could block it from identifying its real enemies. "Moral clarity" is essential. The Weimar Republic's toleration of extremism allowed the rise of the Nazi party.

Strauss made an intellectually powerful and sophisticated critique of post-Enlightenment liberalism. He saw the United States as the most advanced case of liberalism and thus the most exposed to nihilism.

He believed that Greek classical philosophy, notably that of Plato, is more true to nature than anything that has replaced it. Some critics say that his interpretation of Plato is perverse, but he said that he had recovered the "real" Plato, lost by later Neo-Platonic and Christian thinkers.

He also argued that Platonic truth is too hard for people to bear, and that the classical appeal to "virtue" as the object of human endeavor is unattainable. Hence it has been necessary to tell lies to people about the nature of political reality. An elite recognizes the truth, however, and keeps it to itself. This gives it insight, and implicitly power that others do not possess. This obviously is an important element in Strauss's appeal to America's neoconservatives.

The ostensibly hidden truth is that expediency works; there is no certain God to punish wrongdoing; and virtue is unattainable by most people. Machiavelli was right. There is a natural hierarchy of humans, and rulers must restrict free inquiry and exploit the mediocrity and vice of ordinary people so as to keep society in order.

 

[sgtmac_46]

In an aside, why do you always use commondreams as a source of 'information'? Maybe you should broaden your horizens and use sites that at least pretend to be objective in their news and analysis. Just a suggestion. I know on occassion, I may have thrown in a newsmax or even an article the Weekly Standard, but I always find it useful to use politically neutral or even left leaning material to make my point as much as possible, if for no other reason than avoid the material being labelled biased. Using the Washington Post or the BBC as a source material for any comment I make, pretty much negates the charge that i'm using a 'right wing media' site. Just a suggestion.

As for Neo-Conservative viewpoints, I think I illustrated above that I believe commondreams take on it is about as biased a view point.

 

[Makalakumu]

Come on now. Leo Strauss is the one who advocated the "noble lie" and you can research that for yourself. He also made the distinction between the knights and the barbarians. He's totally a Hegelian and it totally fits the neocon philosophy.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Come on now. Leo Strauss is the one who advocated the "noble lie" and you can research that for yourself. He also made the distinction between the knights and the barbarians. He's totally a Hegelian and it totally fits the neocon philosophy.

I was referring less to Strauss, and more to your reading too many leftwing websites.

I can make a long list or references you've made in the past to commondreams, which is just to the left of Castro. What's next, the World Workers Party? Come on, up, I like your posts, but they'd be better backed by using source material that is not so obviously dripping with bias.

I'm merely suggesting you broaden your horizons.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

In an aside, why do you always use commondreams as a source of 'information'? Maybe you should broaden your horizens and use sites that at least pretend to be objective in their news and analysis. Just a suggestion. I know on occassion, I may have thrown in a newsmax or even an article the Weekly Standard, but I always find it useful to use politically neutral or even left leaning material to make my point as much as possible, if for no other reason than avoid the material being labelled biased. Using the Washington Post or the BBC as a source material for any comment I make, pretty much negates the charge that i'm using a 'right wing media' site. Just a suggestion.

As for Neo-Conservative viewpoints, I think I illustrated above that I believe commondreams take on it is about as biased a view point.

Good point. I do the same myself. Generally, I read the right wing version of a story as well as the left wing and then combine the two versions into my own judgement. Both left and right will distort - by selection, ommission, exaggeration, etc.

However, I have followed the "Straussians" for some time and I believe there is some truth to a committed core of neconservatives, strongly influenced by Strauss and the idea of the "noble lie" as well as a Trotskyite belief in perpetual world revolution (their version of Democracy imposed at gunpoint, rather than Trotsky's version of Communism imposed by gunpoint, of course).

 

[sgtmac_46]

Good point. I do the same myself. Generally, I read the right wing version of a story as well as the left wing and then combine the two versions into my own judgement. Both left and right will distort - by selection, ommission, exaggeration, etc.

However, I have followed the "Straussians" for some time and I believe there is some truth to a committed core of neconservatives, strongly influenced by Strauss and the idea of the "noble lie" as well as a Trotskyite belief in perpetual world revolution (their version of Democracy imposed at gunpoint, rather than Trotsky's version of Communism imposed by gunpoint, of course).

I agree with some of the conclusions. However, I think a much better, and less distorted, point can be made by using neutral material. In the case of the Straussians, use their own writings, if they illustrate the point.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/717acusr.asp

"These accusations, similar versions of which are often leveled at neoconservatives, are nonsense, and in parts vicious nonsense. Yet the ideas that the accusations pervert are those of Strauss, and when those ideas are restored to their true shape they can be seen as articulating core neoconservative convictions."

"Strauss was not an elitist--but he was a lover of excellence. He believed in the cultivation of the mind, and sought to restore respect for its manifestation in the ambition for honor and nobility in the soul, which he understood to be not only compatible with but essential to democracy. On the occasion of Winston Churchill's death, he told his class that "We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence."

"Finally, Strauss was not a proponent of American empire--but he did teach the importance of American strength in defense of liberty. Writing in the midst of the Cold War, as a refugee from Nazi Germany and as a student of tyranny, Strauss insisted that totalitarians of the left and the right posed a profound threat to liberal democracy--a threat that liberal democrats tended to underestimate because of their habit of supposing that all individuals and nations are as open to reason and persuasion as liberal democrats consider themselves to be. Strauss encouraged liberal democracies to be strong in defending themselves and forceful in conducting a foreign policy in accord with their principles. "