Leo
Strauss and
History:
The Philosopher as Conspirator
Claes
G. Ryn
[From HUMANITAS,
Volume XVIII, Nos. 1 & 2, 2005 © National
Humanities Institute]
Those wishing to understand political and
intellectual developments in today's America do well to familiarize
themselves with the German-American political theorist Leo Strauss
(1899-1973), who was a professor at the University of Chicago.
Strauss's influence extends far beyond academia, where it has been a
major force for a generation. The primary reason why an attempt should
be made to understand what Strauss is about is not the intrinsic
philosophical importance of his work but that his ideas are influential
and provide important insight into the intellectual posture of an
increasingly powerful interest in American society. Philosophical
figures of the second or third rank sometimes enjoy a time in the sun
for transitory historical reasons. They may, for example, serve well
the needs of an emerging leadership class. Though not without
philosophical interest, Strauss's work merits special attention in
today's historical circumstances because of the impact it has had and
because of the way in which it expresses and advances
extra-philosophical motives.
Strauss's thinking seems in important
respects tailor-made for a rising elite that wants, on the one hand, to
justify its own claim to power and, on the other, to discredit an older
elite that it is trying to replace. This article will examine how
Strauss's work helps justify a "regime" change, in the intellectual
life especially but also in politics and the general culture. This
partisan aspect of his thinking is hidden in part behind a concern for
the integrity and survival of "philosophy." The latter turns out to be
by definition opposed to "convention," that is, to the traditions that
prop up an existing elite. Philosophy is threatened by what Strauss
calls "historicism," which is, among other things, an inclination to
treat history respectfully. It is worthy of special note that Strauss's
concern for philosophy and his apparent defense of natural right has
made it possible for him to attract a following even among
intellectuals who consider themselves traditionalists and who have much
to lose by his gaining influence. Unsuspectingly, they have adopted
Straussian intellectual habits that undermine their own professed
beliefs and advance the rather different ethos of a new elite.
By calling attention to the aspect of
Strauss's thought that appeals to the new pretenders to power, this
article is not denying that sometimes more philosophical motives help
Strauss transcend the partisanship in question. His work is also
broader than may appear from the following examination of a particular
dimension of his thought.
The Undermining of
Traditional Elites
Strauss's own elitism accounts for some of
the more conservative-looking elements of his thought; he appears to be
arguing for an intellectual and moral aristocracy, an elite far above
the hoi polloi. His interest in Plato and other Greek figures
seems to accord with the classicist emphasis of a traditional Western
education, but his classicism and elitism have a special twist that
militates in important ways against ideas central to Western
civilization. At the same time that Strauss's elitism boosts the
self-confidence of an aspiring new elite, it delegitimizes religious,
moral, intellectual and cultural traditions distinctive to the old
Western world that support the slowly abdicating older elite. Karl Marx
is an example of an earlier thinker who sought to justify the
overturning of one leadership class and the installing of another, but
his ideas appealed primarily to people who felt themselves to be on the
outside of their society's ruling circles and were resentfully looking
in. To them, it seemed that their interest could be advanced only
through the complete destruction of the existing society. Leon
Trotsky's notion of the global revolution envisioned the worldwide
dethronement of traditional elites. Strauss appeals most to individuals
who think of themselves as being to some extent already on the inside
and as poised to take over from the resigning elite. Because the
members of the aspiring leadership class already have great influence
in many of society's key institutions, they can even plausibly portray
themselves as "conservatives." Though not as hostile to the existing
social order as the Marxists, they do not yet feel quite secure in
their power and see the need to proceed cautiously, indeed,
secretively, in undermining the remnants of the traditions that
buttress their main rivals.
Here we find one of the reasons for the
attraction of Strauss's celebrated rejection of "historicism." What
seems to the superficial reader to be part of a defense of traditional
"higher values" actually amounts to a discrediting of those parts of
the old Western civilization that stand in the way of the new elite. By
making respect for history and "convention" seem philosophically
disreputable and even nefarious, Strauss disputes the right of
lingering traditional elites to rule. To the extent that he
nevertheless manages to appeal to representatives of the old order, he
is, in effect, teaching them to despise themselves. To Straussians who
are fully alert to the anti-traditional aim of anti-historicism, it is
undoubtedly a source of both amusement and contempt that many putative
defenders of tradition seem not to suspect what is happening but are
happily contributing to the destruction of their own culture.
There are significant differences between
Strauss and typical modern liberal progressive intellectuals, but his
work overlaps with theirs in that he will grant no philosophical
standing to the traditions supporting the old elites. In spite of
disagreements pertaining, for example, to the fact-value distinction
and the assessment of classical Greek writers, Strauss and the modern
progressives are not as opposed to each other as might first appear.
The progressives usually hide a rationalistic elitism of their own
behind a professed belief in "democracy," an attitude that is not
dissimilar to that of many followers of Strauss. "Democracy" is seen as
an effective way of dislodging older elites. In political practice,
Straussians often make common cause with mainstream progressives. These
affinities are obvious within the so-called "neoconservative" movement,
which has numerous Straussians at
its core. Some who are known as neoconservatives do have genuinely
conservative traits, but, contrary to its journalistic reputation, the
neoconservative movement is in its main political-intellectual thrust a
special, ideologically intense form of modern American progressive liberalism,
as this author has shown in America the Virtuous.1
Neoconservatism differs from some other types of modern liberalism in
that it presents itself as promoting universally valid moral
principles. It asserts its own alleged nobility in highly moralistic
ways and sees itself as fighting evil in the world. The neoconservative
case for a powerful federal government differs from that of mainstream
liberalism in that such government is believed to be necessary for
fulfilling America's "virtuous" global mission. Strauss and his
disciples provide the new pretenders to elite status with a source of
righteousness. Needless to say, mainstream liberal progressivism has
its own brand of moralism, though one derived more from Rousseauistic
humanitarianism than from Plato. It is no coincidence that Straussians
typically see Plato and Rousseau as sharing much common ground, notably
that the two side with "nature" against "convention."
A Philosophy of Concealment
Much of Strauss's writing is about the
practice of and need for surreptitious philosophical argumentation. He
contends that the philosopher needs to conceal his true motives from
the powers-that-be. Strauss's voice is that of a conspirator. It has
great appeal to intellectuals who define themselves in opposition to
traditional Western elites and are trying to manipulate them for their
own purposes. In an allusion to John Le Carré's
behind-the-scenes spymaster, one of Strauss's most devoted admirers,
Abraham Shulsky, has called Strauss "the George Smiley of political
philosophy." As a high civilian official in the Pentagon, Shulsky
formed part of the neoconservative network that built and promoted the
case for war against Iraq.
Many of those who have
enlisted, if only in a subsidiary capacity, in the effort to destroy
"historicism" and promote "philosophy" are strangely unaware that it
threatens their own supposedly most fundamental beliefs. The current
debilitated and confused state of Western intellectual life and a
limited, spotty education have made them vulnerable to the kind of
dissimulation that Strauss not only recommends but practices.
Straussians who think of themselves as defending "Western
civilization," specifically Christianity, have been enticed by
Strauss's interest in classical philosophy, by his rejection of the
modern fact-value distinction and by his apparently making a case for
universal right. His critique of "historicism" has seemed to them a
reassuring attack on moral relativism and nihilism. Non-philosophical
considerations have inclined them in the same direction: they have
sensed that in aligning themselves with Straussianism they are
associating themselves with a powerful new interest and can hope to
reap financial and career advantages.
Strauss's influence on neoconservatism
finally began to attract public attention when journalists and others
started tracing the influences behind the campaign for war against
Iraq. Much of the interest focused on the fact that Strauss and the
Straussians had long advocated political deceit. These features of
Straussianism could plausibly be said to have been put to use in the
effort to get the United States into war. The Straussians are known for
having cultivated a cliquish attitude of moral and intellectual
superiority. Only they possess genuine insight, which means, among
other things, that they see right through widely but uncritically held
conventional beliefs. They consider their own philosophical truths to
be wholly beyond the grasp of ordinary people and to be disturbing to
them. Even intellectuals who are not initiated members of the
Straussian circle are unable to understand what those truly on the
inside are able to understand. Because the philosophers' insights pose
a threat to the established order, they must hide them and feign
holding opinions less offensive to the conventions of the society in
which they live. To avoid the resentment of the surrounding society and
be able to insert themselves into the counsels of the powerful, the
philosophers must use deceit. Once in a position of influence, they can
advance their own objectives by whispering in the ear of the rulers.
The mind-set fostered by the George Smiley
of political philosophy does throw light on the conduct of key
proponents of the war in Iraq and of American global supremacy. It
brings into the open the conspiratorial dimension of Straussianism.
What is of primary concern in the present discussion of Strauss's view
of history and convention, however, is a more subtle, more
philosophical form of subversion. What needs to be better understood is
the deeply anti-conservative dimension of Strauss's view of
universality and history.
Strauss's thought subverts loyalty to the
"ancestral" and traditions of all sorts. To accord anything
philosophical respect because it is old, Strauss asserts, is to abjure
philosophy. To stress the historical nature of human existence and the
importance of heeding historical experience and circumstance is to be a
"historicist" and to foster value-relativism or nihilism. The true
philosopher is not interested in historical particularity but in
universality. Strauss's thinking creates a deep prejudice against
taking tradition seriously. It discredits the conservative habit of
looking to long-established human practices and beliefs as guides to
life's higher values.
Ahistorical Universality
Strauss's way of dealing with the problem of
history indicates that some of the most important ideas of modern
philosophy are largely unknown to him. He does not recognize that the
philosophy of historical consciousness or the historical sense has far
greater range and depth than anything indicated by his term
"historicism." The latter conception may describe some historicist
tendencies but ignores elements of the larger current of historicism
that have contributed greatly to an improved understanding of the
age-old question of the relation between universality and
particularity. Strauss exhibits a strange philosophical myopia that
requires an explanation. To the extent that he touches upon the more
fruitful forms of historicism at all, he analyzes them by means of his
reductionist construct "historicism," which precludes attention to the
philosophically crucial idea of synthesis. That term refers in
the present context to the possible union of universality and
historical particularity. This idea seems not to have registered in
Strauss's mind. He is unable to formulate it even as a preliminary to
trying to refute it. One may hypothesize that he was disinclined
seriously to explore the possibility of synthesis because he intuited
that such a notion would undermine his assertion that philosophy and
convention must clash. To grant that anything historical might have
authority would risk according convention respectability, which would
be to weaken the claims of an anti-traditional elite. Whatever the
reasons why Strauss ignores the idea of synthesis, his notion of
historicism is a straw-man, a caricature of little use in philosophical
discussion.
It should be said in Strauss's defense that
at times the limitations of his own conception of the problem of
universality and particularity bother him. He reaches, however
tentatively and inconsistently, for a way of reconciling universality
with the needs of time and place. He might even be said to be groping
for a historicism of his own, a position that he thinks of as a
modified moral absolutism or a modified moral relativism. This author
has written elsewhere on this feature of Strauss's thought.2
Though the careless reader might not catch it, Strauss is even willing,
when considering the actions of a political entity that he can
unreservedly embrace, to accept Machiavellian methods. He goes so far
as to suggest that "there are no universally valid rules of action."3
It appears that, for Strauss, Machiavellian methods are forbidden to
ordinary societies but permissible to an extraordinary political entity
with which he can identify.
Much of what is confusing, ambiguous and
contradictory in Strauss is due not so much to the philosophical
difficulties he encounters as to the fact that his partisan agenda is
never far from his mind. He shifts his emphasis and gives different
impressions depending on his objectives at the moment, saying one thing
to insiders who know his secret and another to those whose traditions
he would like to see weakened. Strauss and the Straussians distinguish
between "exoteric" and "esoteric" writing. The former is directed to
the uninitiated reader and may present ingratiating opinion rather than
the writer's real beliefs. "Esoteric" writing, which is directed only
to the insider or potential insider, contains the writer's innermost
views, which are formulated obliquely, "between the lines." Though
these views may be more transparent than Straussian insiders imagine,
they are supposed to be kept hidden because they may be seen by people
in the surrounding society as offensive or threatening.
Strauss seems most of the time to be
categorically opposed to "historicism" and to insist that "convention"
is inimical to philosophy, but the implied context for these arguments
is his need to deal with a society that he cannot embrace, one that the
philosophers cannot dominate and whose traditions are therefore
regarded as incompatible with natural right. His critique of
"historicism" and "convention" serves to undermine the elite of that
kind of society, enabling the philosophers to pursue their aim in
greater safety. At times, however, Strauss seems to adopt the point of
view of a society or political entity quite out of the ordinary, one in
which philosophers can rule and in which he can feel really at home.
One gets the impression that for this particular society it would be
not only acceptable but desirable to cultivate convention and
to resist alien influences. Might not this special power even
legitimately use "historicist" Machiavellian methods to advance its
interests? Those who know that Strauss has called Machiavelli a "devil"
and a teacher of "evil" will perhaps be astounded by such a
consideration, and yet it is Strauss who, right in Thoughts on
Machiavelli, hints at the possibility of just this kind of use of
Machiavellian methods. He refers to what he labels a "profound
theological truth"—that "the devil is a fallen angel"—and writes that
Machiavelli's thought has "a perverted nobility of a very high order." "Of
a very high order." If put to use by the right power, what would
such nobility be, if not a force for good?4
To look in Strauss's work for a
philosophically coherent position rather than for theorizing shot
through with partisan argumentation may strike some as attempting the
impossible, but here the emphasis will remain on what appears to be the
more genuinely philosophical basis of his work. This is not to deny the
difficulty of disentangling philosophical reasoning in Strauss from
suppositions advancing undeclared partisan motives. In fact, it is the
contention of this article that even his more strictly philosophical
ideas are biased by extra-philosophical considerations and objectives.
There is in Strauss, in addition to the
partisan, a real philosopher struggling to free himself of inadequate
conceptions. With regard to the subject of universality and history, it
is to his credit that he should at times doubt his own rather strained,
ahistorical conception of universality and the "simply right." In a
part of himself, Strauss dimly recognizes that the issue could not be
as simple as he usually makes it out to be. He becomes embroiled in a
philosophical struggle with himself but is not able to move beyond the
deep ambivalence about universality that characterizes his thinking. It
is partly this wavering that has made many of his readers, including
some of his strongest admirers, doubt his belief in universality. It
has been suggested that his apparent advocacy of natural right is
intended to fool potential allies and that he is really a moral
nihilist in disguise. Others point out that Strauss is contradictory on
this issue because he has a different message for different audiences.
An alternative view, which does not deny the element of truth in the
mentioned interpretations but gives more credit to Strauss as a
philosopher, is that he does not in the end quite know his own mind and
is trying, without much success, to reconcile opposing ideas. He does
not realize, or does not want really to consider, that the
philosophical problem with which he is struggling had been addressed in
depth by others and largely solved long ago.
Strauss's philosophical predicament, as
distinguished from contradictions generated by the clash of his
partisan dissimulation with his philosophizing, is due precisely to his
not recognizing the possibility of synthesis between universality and
historical particularity, or, to use his own preferred term,
"individuality." Strauss sees the issue as pitting universality,
affirmed by his beloved "ancients," against "individuality," which is
championed by the "moderns." He writes, "The quarrel between the
ancients and the moderns concerns . . . the status of `individuality.'"
To give prominence to individuality, that is, to historical
particularity, is to forsake philosophy, to side "not with the
permanent and universal but with the variable and the unique." It is to
abandon "universal norms."5
A choice must be made between
universality or history. Strauss never considers a third possibility. Tertium
datur.
The ignored possibility is that of allowing
for historically concretized universality, individuality that embodies
universality. To one with Strauss's philosophical predisposition such a
possibility must appear a contradiction in terms, for the universal and
the particular are by definition separate. Even so, he occasionally
catches at least a glimpse of the need for something like synthesis.
Unfortunately, his accustomed intellectual habits sooner or later
reassert themselves and quash the glimpse. It seems to him that if
universality were somehow to blend with or adapt to the historical,
universality would be absorbed into the changeable, the meaningless
flux, and would dissolve in chaotic individuality. His brand of
Platonism closes him off to another possibility.
Strauss is a rationalist and regards Truth
with a capital "T" as the essence of universality. He is at the same
time sufficiently a philosopher to recognize that philosophy does not
ever arrive at final, definitive answers to its questions; it must keep
addressing them. Because of the elusiveness of Truth, Strauss is
tempted to doubt the existence of universality, and he flirts with
nihilism. What he does not see is that it is only his own abstract,
reified, ahistorical conception of universality that is threatened by a
failure to reach the ultimate Truth. He might have considered that it
is possible to know the universal without having unobstructed, complete
access to it, that is, both to know and not know the universal at the
same time—to know it imperfectly, as a human being would—but he
conceives of universality and individuality in such a way as to leave
him undecided as between positions that seem to him, in the end,
equally unsatisfying: a belief in abstract universality on the one side
and nihilism on the other. To reconstitute the idea of universality in
a way that takes account of the dynamic-dialectical nature of human
life and that recognizes a kind of give-and-take between universality
and history is beyond him. Not having the possibility of synthesis
available to him, he is philosophically at a loss.
Instead of breaking out of the philosophical
bind in which the Master has left them, Strauss's disciples typically
magnify his philosophical mistakes and weaknesses, making him appear
even less sophisticated on the issue of universality and history than
he is. In its politically and intellectually prevalent forms rather
than in the master's own version, Straussianism has been prone to
rather crude ideologizing. Strauss and the Straussians have been a
major influence on neoconservatism, many of whose representatives have
been strongly drawn to neo-Jacobinism, a subject that is discussed in
depth in America the Virtuous. Like the old Jacobins, the new
Jacobins are ardent advocates of allegedly universal principles.
Strauss cannot be blamed for all the uses to which his thinking has
been put, but his advocacy of ahistorical natural right, even if it
should be disingenuous, and his critique of historicism have helped
shape neo-Jacobin ideology. He has provided, among other things, a
moral supplement to such other intellectual influences on
neo-Jacobinism as the Trotskyite notion of global revolution,
anti-communist social democracy à la Sydney Hook, and
progressive, "democratic" capitalism—influences that have in common a
rejection of traditional social order or, to use Strauss's term, "the
conventional."
Convention: the Enemy of Philosophy and Nature
Much can be learned from Strauss's treatment
of Edmund Burke. His way of dealing with him shows his inability to
handle a form of historicism that bears little resemblance to his
bogeyman "historicism." His account of Burke is philosophically clumsy
and careless, indeed, in some respects even dishonest.6 In
Strauss's philosophical universe, we have a choice between respecting
philosophy and respecting history. Never the twain shall meet. As Burke
accords respect to history and convention, he is to Strauss ipso
facto an enemy of universality, of "natural right." Burkean
historicism, it seems to him, prepares the way for philosophical and
political disasters to come.
Strauss sees Burke's "historicism" as a
threat to the pursuit of universality, a task that Strauss himself
narrowly and rationalistically assigns to "philosophy." What is
actually the case? Burke defends what he calls "the general bank and
capital of nations and of ages," that is, the ancient and slowly
accumulating experience and insights of humanity.7 Burke
defends this heritage not as a definitive, ultimate standard of good
but as a necessary support for frail human beings. Without the evolved
beliefs of the human race we would have to fall back on nothing more
than our meager resources as individuals. The latter are, Burke argues,
wholly insufficient for a satisfactory life. The individual tends to be
foolish but the species wise. It is partly because rationalists will
not heed the lessons of humanity's past that they are unaware of the
limits of human ratiocination.
For Strauss, Burke's desire to be guided by
the past and to carry forward the best of a heritage is a sign that he
is abandoning the universal. According to Strauss, "the ancestral"
deserves no intellectual deference. It is the product not of reflection
but of historical accident. To philosophize means "to transcend all
human traditions." Only the philosopher's insight into
ahistorical natural right is worthy of respect. History as such has
nothing to contribute to enlightenment. It is, as Plato believed, a
flux devoid of meaning. Philosophical questions are, Strauss insists,
"fundamentally different" from historical questions.
Strauss severely chastises Burke for not
believing that the best political regime is formed according to a
universal model, what Strauss calls the "simply right," as discerned by
an outstandingly wise person, a philosophical "lawgiver." Instead Burke
believes that a good society can emerge only historically, over time,
by building on the best from its own past. Strauss dismisses this view
as "historicism," as neglecting what is intrinsically right.
"Historicism," he asserts, "rejects the question of the good society,
that is to say, of the good society."8
Strauss is correct that Burke does not
accept the notion of a single model of political right, but he is
wholly mistaken in assuming that Burke therefore undermines or abandons
the notion of moral universality. Burke emphatically affirms it. What
he does reject is the belief that moral-political right can be summed
up once and for all in a particular abstract formula. Universality must
be served differently in different historical circumstances. The notion
of a universal model is, he believes, both superficial and arrogant and
hides a desire to dominate others. This is the kind of thinking that
Burke sees fueling the French Revolution, and he passionately opposes
it. All societies should aspire to moral and other good, Burke
believes, but in trying to realize higher values the particular society
needs to adapt to its historical situation and needs the guidance and
support of what is most admirable in its own traditions.
Strauss, in contrast, presents tradition and
universality as inherently opposed to each other. "The recognition of
universal principles . . . tends to prevent men from wholeheartedly
identifying themselves with, or accepting, the social order that fate
has allotted to them. It tends to alienate them from their
place on the earth."9
Strauss's picture of the philosopher
is that of a homeless, alienated person, whose attachment to the
society in which he dwells is tenuous at best. Universal principles,
the paramount concern of the philosopher, do by their very nature
separate him from particular traditions. Hence a person standing, for
example, in the Christian tradition must, if he is to be a real
philosopher, loosen or give up his attachment to that heritage.
That so many Christian intellectuals,
particularly Roman Catholics, have incorporated Straussian
anti-historicism into their thinking is indicative of philosophical
poverty as well as gullibility, not to say suicidal tendencies. These
Christians appear not to take very seriously that, in addition to
Scripture and reason, mainstream Christianity has cited tradition as
one of its pillars. Or perhaps these intellectuals simply have not
understood that Strauss's attack upon "historicism" is, among other
things, an attack upon tradition. Many Thomistically inclined thinkers
seem not even to have noticed that Strauss's disparagement of
convention as incompatible with philosophy runs counter to the close
connection seen by Aquinas between natural law and custom. Aquinas
writes that "if something is done a number of times it seems to be the
result of a deliberate rational decision." He senses that the authority
of long-standing custom has something to do with its both contributing
to and being informed by reason.10
Though Thomas is far from
having Burke's more consciously historical awareness, his notion of
natural law is quite different from Strauss's ahistorical conception of
natural right, which helps explain Strauss's barely concealed disdain
for Thomas as a philosopher in Natural Right and History.
Thomas is not so much a philosopher, Strauss says, as one codifying
Christian belief and practice. Thomas's notion of natural law, says
Strauss, is "practically inseparable not only from natural
theology—i.e., from a natural theology which is, in fact, based on
belief in biblical revelation—but even from revealed theology."11
A point of wider philosophical interest is
that many Christians seem not to realize that to accept the Straussian
ahistorical notions of philosophy and right is to accept the
proposition that synthesis between the universal and the historical is
impossible. But to accept such an idea is, among other things, to
reject the central Christian idea of incarnation, the possibility of
the "Word" becoming "flesh." Only lack of philosophical sophistication
and discernment could have made so many Christians receptive to a
doctrine that strikes at the heart of their own professed beliefs. Some
Christian thinkers, including Thomists who are today slowly awakening
to Straussianism's being in some ways problematic, seem to imagine that
as long as they hold to their traditional religious beliefs and
practices their Straussian intellectual habits will not do any harm.
But to retain the habits of ahistoricism is to contribute to the
erosion of Christian intellectual culture as well as to close off
access to some of the most important philosophical advances in human
history.
Abstract Universalism vs. Synthesis
The above comments about Christian
naiveté are not meant to imply that the idea of incarnation is
an exclusively Christian concern. The idea of synthesis, which is
integral to the idea of incarnation, is central to any adequate
philosophy of human existence. Without it, the dynamic-dialectical
nature of life and the interaction and cooperation of universality and
particularity must be poorly understood. It can be argued that good
historicist philosophy, which applies to all of life, has deepened and
explained more fully the implications of the Christian understanding of
the Incarnation. Such philosophy has demonstrated most generally that
universality enters human experience only in some concrete shape. Not
only in the mentioned religious context but wherever the good, the true
and the beautiful come into being, there is synthesis between the
universal and the historical particular. To recognize this fact is
fully compatible with recognizing what is equally important to
understand, that particularity/individuality is frequently in sharp
conflict with universality. As divorced from universality,
particularity becomes the material for evil, ugliness and falsehood.
Still, the particular is not, as Plato and Strauss would have it,
necessarily a detriment to universality. In the world known to human
beings, it is, on the contrary, indispensable to the
realization of the universal. Far from inevitably being enemies,
universality and particularity positively need each other. Whenever
goodness, truth and beauty are realized, universality and particularity
are mutually implicated in each other. Universality manifests itself through
the particular. This synthesis does of course shun particularity
incompatible with itself, but, to become itself, universality requires
its own kind of particularity. The more adequate the concrete
instantiation, the more profound the awareness of universality that it
yields. Universality is transcendent in the sense that none of its
particular manifestations exhausts its inspiring value, but without
historical particularity universality also is not a living reality, but
is only an empty theoretical abstraction created by ahistorical
reasoning.
It is not possible here to explain fully the
notion of synthesis being employed in this discussion of Strauss. The
author of this article asks the reader to consult his book A Common
Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World (2003).12
It sets forth a philosophy of value-centered historicism and explains
the special sense in which universality and particularity are not only
compatible but may become one and the same. The book shows why an
ahistorical conception of universality is not only false to the
phenomenological facts of human experience but is a temptation to
ideological reification and political tyranny.
Besides a record of human depravity,
ignorance and foibles, history gives us a record of embodied
universality. To the extent that the latter record is transmitted to
new generations and comes to imbue their experience, it helps broaden
and deepen life, make it worth living. Burke sees in this elevating
pattern of human striving the hand of Providence. God moves in history.
The philosopher need not understand this higher movement in a Christian
or other doctrinally specific fashion to realize that without the
historical manifestations of universality human existence would be
morally, philosophically and aesthetically impoverished. Without them,
the man of moral, intellectual and aesthetical sensibility who is
trying to articulate his own groping sense of universality would be at
a crippling disadvantage. The more he has been able to make the
particular historical manifestations of universality his own, the
greater his ability to discern and express the universal for himself.
The living, experiential reality of these particulars helps hone his
higher sensibilities. It helps him to weed out of tradition inferior
and perverse products of history and to identify and resist forces in
the present that threaten the higher potentialities of human existence.
Differently put, the sense of the universal
can be articulated and strengthened by what it finds upon intimate
examination to be consistent with itself in the past. The universal
recognizes itself, as it were, in what is best and noblest in the
historical record. These precedents help give it concreteness and
direction and inspire new manifestations of the universal. Without the
best of the human heritage to stir and challenge his will, imagination
and reason, man's sense of the universal lacks guidance and can easily
be distorted by the idiosyncracies and limitations of time and place
and of particular individuals and groups. At a time when the human
heritage is neglected or positively scorned, man's sense of higher good
has to find its direction in circumstances of moral, aesthetical and
philosophical perversity or chaos. This is why transmitting the best of
the civilized heritage—respecting tradition in the Burkean sense—is
indispensable to the continuing articulation of man's sense of the
universal.
An acute awareness of the historicity of
human existence and of our dependence on previous generations is, then,
not, as Strauss would like us to believe, the enemy of universality.
The historical consciousness is the all-important ally of philosophy
and of universality in general. It is indistinguishable from the
direct, immediate, experiential apprehension of universality and from
its continual adaptation to changing circumstances.
Granted that narrow-minded, provincial
convention can pose a threat to truth, why is it so important for
Strauss to base so much of his thinking on the assumption that
philosophy and convention must clash? Why must no room be left for the
possibility that healthy tradition may become the ally of philosophy
and vice versa? Joseph Cropsey—a leading Straussian, who was Strauss's
student at the University of Chicago, taught in the same department,
and co-edited a book with Strauss—has given stark expression to the
sharp dichotomy between nature and convention upon which Straussians
insist. "The conventional," says Cropsey, "is antithetical to
the natural." It is "contrary in its essence" to what reason
finds in nature.13
So radical and seemingly forced is this
dichotomy between philosophy and history that one has to suspect that
its origins are mainly non-philosophical. The dichotomy seems to have
more to do with a felt need to discredit tradition, presumably to
advance a partisan interest. It might be said that Strauss and the
Straussians are simply following the pattern set by Plato, who also
taught disdain of what he thought of as history. But Strauss is
presenting his arguments more than two millennia after Plato, and in
the wake of philosophical developments that can only make the adoption
of a Platonic conception of the relation of history and universality
appear to the philosophically educated to be archaic and far-fetched.
Strauss is also more radically anti-historical than any ancient Greek
could have been. It might be retorted that Strauss and the Straussians
are not alone today in ignoring centuries of philosophical development,
but this means merely that the question of extra-philosophical motives
must be raised with regard to others as well. It is not uncommon in
intellectual history for groups to avoid facing up to profound
philosophical challenges to themselves by acting as if nothing had
really happened and by hiding behind some old, more pleasing figure who
is accorded the status of unimpeachable authority and is interpreted as
representing just what the group thinks he should represent. This is
philosophical evasion, group partisanship intensified by intellectual
insecurity, for which the particular group pays a high price in the
long run. Strauss's exaltation of Plato, as he chooses to interpret
him, would appear to be in large measure an example of such evasion,
however helpful it may be in discrediting tradition and dislodging
corresponding elites.
Though not a philosopher in the more narrow,
"technical" sense, Burke sees deeply into the connection between
history and universality. Other philosophically more systematic and
conceptually precise minds, including Hegel in the nineteenth and
Benedetto Croce in the twentieth century, have, in spite of
philosophical weaknesses of their own, provided a more penetrating
account of what Burke understood more intuitively. One of the
weaknesses of modern American intellectual conservatism has been its
failure fully to absorb the historical consciousness that gave rise to
and gave distinctiveness to modern conservatism. A certain resistance
in the Anglo-American world to philosophy above a certain level of
difficulty helps explain this problem. One finds, for example, in a
thinker like Richard M. Weaver a failure similar to Strauss's to grasp
the possibility of synthesis between universality and the particulars
of history. To be sure, that deficiency does not make Weaver as
unfriendly as Strauss towards tradition, but, although Weaver himself
may not recognize it, it does give tradition a philosophically
precarious existence. The absence in Weaver's thought of the idea of
synthesis makes him see the need for a choice between "imitating a
transcendent model," which is to him the appropriate stance, and giving
prominence to individuality. What will invest life with meaning is "the
imposition of this ideational pattern upon conduct." To Weaver, "ideas
which have their reference to . . . the individuum . . . are
false." Echoing an ancient notion that had long been challenged by
historicist philosophy when Weaver wrote, he asserts that "knowledge"
has to be of the universal, not the individual. He decries "the shift
from speculative inquiry to investigation of experience."14
That universality might be a concrete, experiential reality rather than
a purely intellective, ahistorical truth does not here occur to him.
Eric Voegelin provides a much needed counterweight to the
abstractionist intellectual trend that affects even a thinker like
Weaver. Voegelin does so by drawing attention to the experiential
reality of what he calls the Ground. Unfortunately, he at the same time
and inconsistently gives aid-and-comfort to anti-historicism by
propounding a notion of radical transcendence. That notion, too, tends
to rob history as such of meaning and contradicts the possibility of
incarnation. Straussians and Voegelinians find common ground at the
point where their respective positions are philosophically the weakest.
Straussianism has been able to invade American conservatism on its
philosophically perhaps most unprotected flank, which is its halting,
fumbling conception of history and its correspondingly weak notion of
universality or "higher values."
Strauss the Anti-Conservative
What is anti-conservative about Strauss's
philosophy is not that he affirms universality, but that he conceives
of universality in a radically ahistorical way. Neither is it
anti-conservative to believe that philosophers do, in a sense,
transcend particular traditions or that there is often tension between
good philosophy and the conventions of society. What is problematic,
indeed, suggestive of rigid dogmatism, is the assumption that
philosophy and natural right are by definition opposed to convention.
It is here that Straussianism links up with the new Jacobinism that has
proved so appealing to neoconservatives. It has already been discussed
that, according to some interpreters, Strauss's apparent endorsement of
"natural right" is mere rhetoric and that he is, in the end, a moral
nihilist. Be that as it may, he and his followers have contributed to
the neo-Jacobin lack of interest in or scorn for the historically
evolved traditions and circumstances of particular societies. They have
also helped generate the neo-Jacobin idea that there exists a single,
morally mandatory form of society, what Strauss calls a "universal and
unchangeable norm."15
To make these observations and to
point out that admirers of Strauss are ubiquitous in the circles that
advocate "the global democratic revolution," the term used by George W.
Bush, is of course not to have determined the extent to which Strauss
himself would have supported the global democratic revolution as
currently conceived.
Dr. Grant Havers has attempted a defense of
Strauss against charges that he is not conservative and that he is a democratist.16
Dr. Havers exhibits an admirable willingness
to be accommodating to and look for common ground with a thinker whose
legacy is far from univocal. This writer is by no means unreceptive to
such an effort, having pointed many years ago to potentially fruitful
ideas in Strauss.17
It is regrettable that Dr. Havers's
generosity of spirit should be at the expense of philosophical
stringency.
It should be mentioned in passing that,
contrary to Dr. Havers's assertion, America the Virtuous does
not argue that Leo Strauss would today be a global democrat. The book
hints at the likelihood that he would not be one, except perhaps for
public consumption. What the book does argue is that Strauss and his
leading disciples have helped create the mind-set that is today proving
very hospitable to democratist notions, whether these notions are
promulgated out of conviction or are a cover for ulterior motives. It
is hardly coincidental that so many of Strauss' s leading disciples and
their students are in the forefront of those advocating a view of
America and its role in the world that has a pronouncedly neo-Jacobin
slant.
Making the case that Strauss is some kind of
conservative, Dr. Havers compares his thinking to that of Willmoore
Kendall. That comparison will not be discussed here. Kendall never
achieved a philosophically well-integrated position and is in many
respects a study in contradictions. Some elements of his thought, such
as his populism and fondness for Rousseau, make him a rather curious
representative of conservatism. Kendall's reputation as a thinker owes
much to his work having been enthusiastically promoted in the early National
Review, whose editor, William F. Buckley, Jr., had been Kendall's
student at Yale. To figure out the extent to which Strauss and Kendall
agree or disagree seems in the present context to be of marginal
interest.
In dealing with the issue of historicism,
Dr. Havers retains Strauss's philosophical weaknesses, specifically,
the failure to absorb the philosophy of historical consciousness.
Havers also exhibits the kind of intellectual innocence that has made
so many putative traditionalists receptive to Straussianism. He never
suspects that his reasons for regarding Strauss as a kind of
conservative might point in just the opposite direction.
Dr. Havers writes that, for Strauss,
"classical `natural right' supports the eternity of truth (understood
Platonically) over the flux of convention and opinion."18 To
believe in "the eternity of truth" is for Havers apparently the same as
having a conservative trait. But universal truth or universal values
can be understood in radically different ways. Some, including Plato,
see universality as having revolutionary implications for the kind of
society that is known to history. It seems not to bother Havers that
Plato's eternal truth is incompatible with convention and history in
general. One might have thought that Plato's contempt for historically
evolved social arrangements and his considering driving all above ten
years of age out of the city in order to give it a fresh start might be
indicative of a radical strain in his thought. What would be
conservative about wishing to drain society of its traditions and to
start over according to an abstract plan? In the eighteenth century,
the French Jacobins fervently advocated their own allegedly universal
plan, and they, too, saw it as requiring a complete revamping of
society. Burke the conservative opposed as arrogant, superficial and
tyrannical the Jacobin desire to implement an ideal bearing no
resemblance to any historically known society.
Vaguely aware that a conservative is
supposed to take history seriously, Dr. Havers argues with
characteristic generosity that Strauss does appreciate the importance
of history. Paradoxically, Havers at the same time draws the reader's
attention to Strauss's belief that philosophy must not be a
"historical discipline." Havers confirms the above analysis
that, for Strauss, "philosophy" and "convention" are incompatible but
takes this view as a sign that Strauss has conservative leanings. If a
conservative is one who cares about history, Strauss is at least to
that extent a conservative, Havers argues, for Strauss takes an
interest in history. "There is no evidence," he states, "that Strauss
rejected the study of history tout court." It is thus supposed
to be proof of Strauss's conservatism that he did not reject the study
of history altogether. But of course he didn't reject the study
of history tout court. Only a great fool could do such a thing.
Contrary to Havers's apparent assumption, believing that history
matters in some way is by itself not the same as having a conservative
disposition. Karl Marx took a great deal of interest in history, can,
indeed, be said to have been in some respects more genuinely interested
in it than Strauss. Havers seems not to realize that what is at issue
is the role that a particular thinker sees history as playing.
Is it, in particular, important to understanding universality?
Surprisingly, given his objective of
defending Strauss as a conservative, Dr. Havers argues that, for
Strauss, the philosopher's acceptance of convention is grudging and
deceitful. Still, to show interest in history and to tolerate
convention is conservative, Havers argues. Does it then make no
difference that Strauss's reason for paying attention to tradition is
completely different from that of one who regards the study of history
as essential to man's understanding his own humanity and achieving a
civilized existence? Strauss does not think that studying history and
respecting tradition is conducive to insight. The philosopher takes an
interest in convention to subvert or circumvent it. The philosopher
needs to be familiar with convention better to protect himself from and
mislead the society in which he lives. In this endeavor Strauss
counsels caution. According to Strauss, Havers writes, "philosophers
must be ever mindful of their historical context in order to write with
caution about their subject."19
The philosopher should
articulate his convention-busting truth in ways that will not subject
him to the wrath of the surrounding society. He must practice the art
of dissembling, of paying lip-service to traditional beliefs. Strauss's
ideas are here as elsewhere those of one who sees the philosopher as a
conspirator against the society in which he finds himself. But
according to Havers, Strauss's "awareness of the need to preserve the
ways of tradition suggests that Strauss is sufficiently conservative."20
Sufficent by what standard? Dr. Havers's case for Strauss amounts to
saying that a radical who proceeds cautiously qualifies as a
conservative.
Strauss's attitude towards history has
almost nothing to do with the conservative belief that, without its
historical achievements and without familiarity more generally with its
own past, mankind would be at sea. The Burkean is conservative
of something historically evolved because it is thought to have
intrinsic value. Burke respects custom and what he calls "prejudice"
not as a final standard of good but because he believes that the
accumulated heritage of civilization contains a wisdom far greater than
that of any thinker or intellectual group living at a particular time.
The great moral, intellectual and aesthetical accomplishments of the
human race are needed to help orient us to life's higher potential.
Strauss shows little awareness that man's
sense of the universal might be deepened and broadened by the
experience of the human race. For him, convention is merely what
historical accident happens to have thrown up. History in general is
for him as for Plato a meaningless flux. It most certainly is not
integral to philosophy. Only reason, unclouded by historical prejudice,
can discern universality. Convention is an obstacle to truth
as well as to the philosophers' receiving their rightful influence.
Strauss's belief that the intellectual resources of a small group of
philosophers can supplant the thought and experience of all mankind
establishes a profound difference between him and those who stress our
dependence on previous generations. According to the Burkean
conservative, the ahistorical excogitation of an individual or group is
more likely to produce self-serving, historically provincial and
ideologically rigid abstractions than a better grasp of the universal.
For Strauss, as interpreted by Dr. Havers,
"Historicism requires utter acceptance of the movement of History, and
an embrace of its authority alone."21 This statement
unintentionally conveys the reductionism and sheer artificiality of the
Straussian conception of historicism. Should it not be obvious to all
that human beings are flawed and fall far short of perfection? How,
then, could anyone "utterly" accept a movement of history that has to
be in large part of human making? And how could anyone "utterly" accept
the movement of history when history always contains opposing forces
and is simultaneously moving in many directions? Burke stood athwart
one powerful historical movement represented by the French Revolution
and took great personal risks defending another, the cause of the
American colonists. A principle of selection was obviously at work. He
had a profound sense of moral right and obligation, but his
apprehension of how universality could best be served in the historical
situation in which he found himself was not derived from ahistorical
ratiocination. His choosing involved reason, to be sure, but reason of
a kind that is indistinguishable from an acute historical
consciousness. The latter heightened his sense of both the dangers and
the higher opportunities of the present.
To consider further the Straussian notion of
"historicism," how could anybody favor "utter acceptance of the
movement of history" when it is impossible to know just what the
movement of history is at a particular time? The historicist here
depicted is clearly a simpleton hardly deserving of a place in
philosophical discussion. Yet it is with this kind of figure that
Strauss and so many others engage in a battle to the death. The battle
has a foregone conclusion. It would have been very different if Strauss
had taken up the kind of historicist philosophy that threatens the very
basis of his thought. He never comes close to doing so. Having
appointed "historicism" as his main opposition, Strauss is able to
stick to his theme of conflict between history and philosophy.
Like Strauss, Dr. Havers lacks the
conception of synthesis. Trying to show that Strauss does not neglect
history, he quotes with approval the statement of Emil Kleinhaus that
"Strauss was a historian who bridged the gap between history and
philosophy by extracting the universal from the particular."22
Neither the author of this statement nor Havers understands that to
conceive of the universal as something extracted from the particular is
not to bridge but to retain the gap between history and universality,
though it means returning to Aristotle rather than Plato. The former
did have much greater respect than Plato for concrete historical
circumstances and could perhaps even be said to have had an ancient
Greek premonition of the need for a more historical understanding of
human existence. Yet Aristotle remained, though more in his stated
epistemology than in his philosophical practice, committed to an
ahistorical conception of philosophy and knowledge. Neither he nor the
Greek and Roman historians developed the kind of awareness of the
historicity of human existence that broke through in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.
What Dr. Havers as well as Strauss leaves
out of consideration is the idea that the real principle of moral,
aesthetical and philosophical selection is a synthesis of universality
and particularity. Stuck as they are in a philosophical cul-de-sac,
Strauss and his followers can make no sense of such an idea: it must
strike them as incomprehensible gibberish, a contradiction in terms.
Universality and particularity—specifically, "philosophy" and
"convention"—must be distinct and even opposed. Only individuals in a
similar intellectual predicament could find Strauss's notion of natural
right and history persuasive.
Radical Implications
Though careful not to tip his hand too much
and too often, Strauss himself does indicate the radical, even
revolutionary import of his own ahistorical notion of universality. He
writes, for example, that "the acceptance of any universal or abstract
principles has necessarily a revolutionary, disturbing, unsettling effect."23
The neo-Jacobin, revolutionary propensity of many
so-called neoconservatives shows that they regard universal principles
as having in politics the same effect as Strauss sees universal
principles as having in philosophy. The desire of many neoconservatives
to clear the decks of historically evolved beliefs and institutions
extends to America itself. The America they champion is not the actual,
historically distinctive America with its deep roots in Christian and
English civilization but a country of their own theoretical invention,
which owes its greatness to what are alleged to be its ahistorical,
rational founding principles. The America of neoconservatism breaks
sharply with the America of history.
Despite the label that they have adopted and
by which they have become known, many or most of the leading
neoconservatives think of themselves as representing a progressive,
even revolutionary force. According to Professor Harry Jaffa, a leading
disciple of Strauss, "To celebrate the American Founding is . . . to
celebrate revolution." The American Revolution in behalf of freedom may
appear mild "as compared with subsequent revolutions in France, Russia,
China, Cuba, or elsewhere," Jaffa notes, but "it nonetheless embodied
the greatest attempt at innovation that human history has recorded."24
America turns its back on the past. What is admirable is the idea
of America. For Irving Kristol, who claims to be an admirer of Strauss,
the United States is "ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear."25
Straussians are fond of referring to "the
Founding" of the United States, because that term suggests that America
sprang from a fresh start. Turning its back on the bad old ways of
Europe, America adopted ahistorical universal principles. The
Straussian use of the term "Founding" conceals that prior to the War of
Independence, which Straussians prefer to call "the American
Revolution," and prior to the framing of the Constitution, America was
already constituted as functioning societies along the lines of
classical, Christian and specifically English traditions. The term
conceals also that the American colonists rebelled against the British
government in order to reclaim their old historically evolved
and respected rights as Englishmen, which King and Parliament were
denying them. The phrase "American Revolution" conceals the great
extent to which, after the War of Independence, America, including the
U.S. Constitution and not least the Bill of Rights, represented a
continuation of its historical heritage.26
Led by the Straussians, neoconservatives
have long tried to transfer the patriotism of Americans from their
historically formed society to the ideological America more to the
neoconservatives' liking. They have tried to make the so-called
Founding, including the work of the framers of the Constitution, seem
the implementation of an ahistorical idea conceived by anti-traditional
lawgivers. In recent decades the neoconservatives have even tried, with
considerable success, to redefine American conservatism accordingly.
Far-fetched though it may sound, they have, in effect, persuaded many
Americans of limited education to think of conservatism as celebrating
a radical understanding of America. Irving Kristol's son William has
long argued that, for America to be able to carry out its universalist
ideological mission in the world, American government must have great
military and other governmental might. He and the neoconservatives have
had to confront the old, deep-seated American suspicion of strong
central power, a suspicion that used to be synonymous with American
conservatism. Kristol has argued that, now that people of virtue and
insight are in a position to rule America, this old prejudice must be
abandoned. In the view of Kristol senior, viewed by many as the
"godfather of neoconservatism," the historical role of neoconservatism
has been "to convert the Republican party, and conservatism in general,
against their wills," to the new conception of government.27
Convert them in whose interest, one might ask. It is obviously not in
the interest of the waning Anglo-American leadership class that stood
within and derived its authority from America's old constitutionalist
tradition and the general culture from which it is inseparable.
Another leading neoconservative, Michael
Ledeen, who was an advisor on national security in the Reagan White
House, openly portrays the America with which he identifies as a
destroyer of existing societies. America turns its back even on its own
historical roots. According to Ledeen, "Creative destruction is our
middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old
order every day . . . . Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of
energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions . . . . [We] must
destroy them to advance our historic mission."28 "We" are
obviously those who wish to dethrone historically evolved elites. For
Ledeen, innovation, the overturning of existing order, is the essence
of human history. Though Strauss and people like Ledeen may disagree on
various issues, they are cooperating in the task of dislodging those
whose spiritual, moral, cultural and intellectual identity and social
standing are derived from long-standing tradition.
Some prominent neoconservatives who are now
drawn to the new Jacobinism were once Marxists. Having become less
hostile to the society in which they live and more friendly to
capitalism, they have not abandoned their old desire for a world free
of traditionally formed elites. They want those removed who, because of
their remaining attachment to old roots, resist the claim of the new
"enlightened" elite to national and international dominance. Like Marx,
the new Jacobins see the spread of progressive, anti-traditional
capitalism as an effective way of dismantling old societies around the world.29
Needless to say, it is possible to understand
capitalism very differently.30
Democracy, as conceived by
the new Jacobins, is also seen as a break with the past and as
well-suited to dislodging older elites. Strauss might not have approved
of all the ideological predilections of neoconservatism, but he
facilitated its rise and that of the new Jacobinism by denigrating
tradition.
America has already moved far in the
direction of the kind of regime change that the new Jacobins favor, and
America thus meets with their qualified approval. But much remains to
be done finally to sever America from its old traditions, specifically,
those rooted in Christianity. The rising new leadership class still
worries about a possible reinvigoration and return of the old elite.
Here Strauss's discrediting of "historicism" and his ahistorical
conception of universality serve a most useful function. His work has
contributed significantly to a weakening of the American attachment to
a particular historical heritage, thus eroding the basis on which
traditional America might stage a comeback. Not the least of Strauss's
accomplishments is to have persuaded naive and intellectually feeble
traditionalists to give the new elite a helping hand.
Notes
Claes G. Ryn is Professor of
Politics at the Catholic University of America, Chairman of the
National Humanities Institute, and Editor of Humanitas.
1
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest
for Empire (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers,
2003). [Back]
2 See Claes
G. Ryn, "History and the Moral Order," in Francis Canavan, ed., The
Ethical Dimension of Political Life (Durham: Duke University Press,
1983). See also my critique of Strauss's ahistorical epistemology in
chapter 7 of Will, Imagination and Reason, 2nd exp. ed. (New
Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1997), which demonstrates a deep
ambivalence in Strauss regarding ultimate truth. Strauss's hesitation
in this area shows his failure to do justice to historicism but also
gives evidence of a genuinely philosophical desire to overcome the
limitations of his own accustomed view of the relationship of
universality and particularity. [Back]
3 Leo
Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1953), 162. [Back]
4 Leo
Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1984), 13. [Back]
5 Ibid.,
323, 18, 14. [Back]
6 For a
discussion of the shortcomings of Strauss's interpretation of Burke
that also demonstrates his carelessness as a scholar and his seemingly
deliberate distortions, see Joseph Baldacchino, "The Value-Centered
Historicism of Edmund Burke," Modern Age, Vol. 27, No. 2
(Spring 1983). [Back]
7 Edmund
Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1987), 76. [Back]
8 Leo
Strauss, "What is Political Philosophy?," The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 19, No. 3 (1957), 360, 355. See also Strauss's criticisms of Burke
in the chapter on "The Crisis of Modern Natural Right" in Natural
Right and History. [Back]
9 Strauss, Natural
Right and History, 13-14 (emphasis added). For a critique of
anti-historicism and an argument for the potential synthesis of
historical particularity and universality, see Claes G. Ryn, A
Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural
World (Columbia and London: The University of Missouri Press,
2003). [Back]
10 Thomas
Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics, transl. and
ed. Paul Sigmund (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), Summa
Theologica Qu. 97, 57. [Back]
11 Strauss, Natural
Right and History, 164. [Back]
12 See also
Ryn, Will, Imagination and Reason, which examines the moral,
intellectual and aesthetical dimensions of synthesis and how they
interact. [Back]
13 Joseph
Cropsey, Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), 117-118 (emphasis
added). [Back]
14 Richard
M.Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1948), 4, 22, 68, 13. [Back]
15 Strauss, Natural
Right and History, 13. [Back]
16 Grant
Havers, "Leo Strauss, Willmoore Kendall, and the Meaning of
Conservatism," Humanitas, Vol. XVIII, Nos. 1 & 2 (2005);
hereinafter referred to in the footnotes as "Havers." [Back]
17 See Ryn,
"History and the Moral Order." [Back]
18 Havers,
12. [Back]
19 Ibid.,
13. [Back]
20 Ibid.,
14. [Back]
21 Ibid.,
15 (emphasis in the original). [Back]
22 Ibid.,
15n24. Quoted from Emil A. Kleinhaus, "Piety, Universality, and
History: Leo Strauss on Thucydides," Humanitas, Vol. XIV, No. 1
(2001). [Back]
23 Strauss, Natural
Right and History, 13. [Back]
24 Harry V.
Jaffa, "Equality as a Conservative Principle," in William F. Buckley,
Jr., and Charles R. Kesler, eds., Keeping the Tablets (New
York: Harper & Row, 1988), 86. [Back]
25 Irving
Kristol, "The Neoconservative Persuasion: What it was, and what it is,"
The Weekly Standard , Aug. 25, 2003. [Back]
26 For a
discussion of the meaning of the War of Independence and the continuity
of America's "founding" with its past, see Ryn, America the Virtuous,
esp. chs. 5 and 12. See also Joseph Baldacchino, "The Unraveling of
American Constitutionalism: From Customary Law to Permanent
Innovation," Humanitas, Vol. XVIII, Nos. 1 & 2 (2005). [Back]
27 Irving
Kristol, "The Neoconservative Persuasion." [Back]
28 Michael
Ledeen, The War Against the Terror Masters (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 2002), 212-213. [Back]
29 For a
discussion of how fondness for capitalism can be related to a desire to
eradicate inherited culture, see Ryn, America the Virtuous,
Chapter 14, "Jacobin Capitalism." [Back]
30 See, for
example, Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework
of the Free Market (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 1998; first
published in 1960) and Joseph Baldacchino, Economics and the Moral
Order (Washington, DC: National Humanities Institute, 1986). See
also Ryn, America the Virtuous, chapter 14. [Back]
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