-Caveat Lector-

Here is another good item on this isse:


Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor
by Shadia B. Drury

There is a certain irony in the fact that the chief guru of the 
neoconservatives is a thinker who regarded religion merely as a political tool 
intended for the masses but not for the superior few. Leo Strauss, the German 
Jewish émigré who taught at the University of Chicago almost until his death in 
1973, did not dissent from Marx’s view that religion is the opium of the 
people; but he believed that the people need their opium. He therefore taught 
that those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the people 
in the stupor for which they are supremely fit.

Not all the neoconservatives have read Strauss. And those who have rarely 
understand him, for he was a very secretive thinker who expressed his ideas 
with utmost circumspection. But there is one thing that he made very clear: 
liberal secular society is untenable. Religion is necessary to provide 
political society with moral order and stability. Of course, this is a highly 
questionable claim. History makes it abundantly clear that religion has been a 
most destabilizing force in politics—a source of conflict, strife, and endless 
wars. But neoconservatives dogmatically accept the view of religion as a 
panacea for everything that ails America.

Using religion as a political tool has two equally unsavory consequences. 
First, when religious beliefs become the guide for public policy, the social 
virtues of tolerance, freedom, and plurality are undermined, if they are not 
extinguished altogether. Second, the use of religion as a political tool 
encourages the cultivation of an elite of liars and frauds who exempt 
themselves from the rules they apply to the rest of humanity. And this is a 
recipe for tyranny, not freedom or democracy.

There have always been those who deluded themselves into thinking that they 
were akin to gods who are entitled to rule over ordinary mortals. But no one 
has described this mentality more brilliantly than Dostoevsky, when he created 
the figure of the Grand Inquisitor. In his short story of the same title, 
Dostoevsky imagined that Jesus has returned to face a decadent and corrupt 
Church. As head of the Church, the Grand Inquisitor condemns Jesus to death, 
but not before having a long and interesting conversation with the condemned 
man. Jesus naively clings to the belief that what man needs above all else is 
freedom from the oppressive yoke of the Mosaic law, so that he can choose 
between good and evil freely according to the dictates of his conscience. But 
the Inquisitor explains to him that truth and freedom are the sources of 
humanity’s greatest anguish and that people will never be free because “they 
are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious.” He declares that people can!
  be happy only if they surrender their freedom and bow before miracle, 
mystery, and authority. Only then can people live and die peacefully, “and 
beyond the grave, they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the 
secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven 
and eternity.” The Inquisitor explains that the “deception will be our 
suffering, for we shall be forced to lie.” But in the end, “they will marvel at 
us and look on us as gods.”

To say that Strauss’s elitism surpasses that of the Grand Inquisitor is an 
understatement. Undeniably, there are strong similarities. Like the Grand 
Inquisitor, Strauss thought that society must be governed by a pious elite 
(George Bush the second and the Christian fundamentalists who support him fit 
this role perfectly). Like the Grand Inquisitor, Strauss thought of religion as 
a pious fraud (something that would alarm the Christian fundamentalists who are 
allied with the

neoconservatives). And even though Strauss was sympathetic to Judaism, he 
nevertheless described it as a “heroic delusion” and a “noble dream.” Like the 
Grand Inquisitor, he thought that it was better for human beings to be victims 
of this noble delusion than to “wallow” in the “sordid” truth. And like the 
Grand Inquisitor, Strauss thought that the superior few should shoulder the 
burden of truth and in so doing, protect humanity from the “terror and 
hopelessness of life.”

All the similarities between Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor notwithstanding, 
the Straussian position surpasses the Grand Inquisitor in its delusional 
elitism as well as in its misanthropy. This shows that while one need not be a 
religious thinker to be misanthropic, religion is an excellent vehicle for 
implementing misanthropic policies in public life.

The Grand Inquisitor presents his ruling elite as suffering under the burden of 
truth for the sake of humanity. So, despite his rejection of Christ, the Grand 
Inquisitor is modeled on the Christian conception of a suffering God who bears 
the burden for humanity. In contrast, Strauss represents his ruling elite as 
pagan gods who are full of laughter. Instead of being grim and mournful like 
the Grand Inquisitor, they are intoxicated, erotic, and gay. And they are 
certainly not too concerned about the happiness of mere mortals. They have 
little pity or compassion for them. On the contrary, the pain, suffering, and 
tragedies of the mortals provide them with entertainment.

The Trojan wars and similar tragic atrocities were festivals for the gods, 
intended for their pleasure and amusement. Nietzsche thought that only when 
suffering is witnessed by gods did it become meaningful and heroic. Soaring 
high, Strauss discovered that there are no gods to witness human suffering; and 
finding the job vacant, he recruited his acolytes.

Strauss thought that the best way for ordinary human beings to raise themselves 
above the beasts is to be utterly devoted to their nation and willing to 
sacrifice their lives for it. He recommended a rabid nationalism and a militant 
society modelled on Sparta. He thought that this was the best hope for a nation 
to be secure against her external enemies as well as the internal threat of 
decadence, sloth, and pleasure. A policy of perpetual war against a threatening 
enemy is the best way to ward off political decay. And if the enemy cannot be 
found, then it must be invented.

For example, Saddam Hussein was an insignificant tyrant in a faraway land 
without the military power to threaten America. And he wasn’t allied with the 
Islamic fundamentalists who attacked the World Trade Center in 2001. But the 
neoconservatives who control the White House managed to inflate the threat to 
gargantuan proportions and launched the nation into a needless war. Even though 
they are not hardcore Straussians, neoconservatives share Strauss’s view that 
wealth, freedom, and prosperity make people soft, pampered, and depraved. And, 
like Strauss, they think of war as an antidote to moral decadence and 
depravity. And this should make us wonder if they purposely launched the nation 
into a needless war because they were convinced of the salutary effects of war 
as such.

There is a strong asceticism at the heart of the neoconservative ideology that 
explains why it appeals to the Christian Right. Neoconservatism dovetails 
nicely with the views that humanity is too wicked to be free; too much pleasure 
is sinful; and suffering is good because it makes man cry out to God for 
redemption. With the neoconservatives and the Christian Right in power, 
Americans can forget about the pursuit of happiness and look forward to 
perpetual war, death, and catastrophe. And in the midst of all the human 
carnage and calamity that such policies are bound to bring, the Olympian 
laughter of the Straussian gods will be heard by those who have ears to hear 
it. In short, the Straussian elite makes the Grand Inquisitor look 
compassionate and humane in comparison.

The fact that so many of the most powerful men in America are self-proclaimed 
disciples of Leo Strauss is rather troublesome. For example, Abram Shulsky, the 
director of the Office of Special Plans, which was created by Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was a student of Strauss. Shulsky was responsible for 
finding intelligence that would help to make the case for war in Iraq. We know 
now that the intelligence was false and misleading. Shulsky tells us that he 
learned from Strauss that “deception is the norm in political life.”10 But 
deception cannot be the norm in public life without subverting democracy and 
robbing people of the opportunity to deliberate freely in light of the facts.

Another important Straussian close to the Bush administration is William 
Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New 
American Century, in which the neoconservative foreign policy is clearly 
outlined. Kristol wrote his thesis on Machiavelliæa theorist who was much 
admired by Strauss for everything except his lack of subtlety. Strauss endorsed 
Machiavellian tactics in politicsænot just lies and the manipulation of public 
opinion but every manner of unscrupulous conduct necessary to keep the masses 
in a state of heightened alert, afraid for their lives and their families and 
therefore willing to do whatever

was deemed necessary for the security of the nation. For Strauss as for 
Machiavelli, only the constant threat of a common enemy could save a people 
from becoming soft, pampered, and depraved. Strauss would have admired the 
ingenuity of a color code intended to inform Americans of the looming threats 
and present dangers, which in turn makes them more than willing to trade their 
liberty for a modicum of security.

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and assistant to Vice President 
Dick Cheney, is also a self-proclaimed follower of Strauss. Like many of 
Strauss’s students, he is animated by a sense of missionæa mission to save 
America from her secular liberal decadence. And what better solution is there 
to secular liberal sloth than a war effort? I am inclined to give these 
powerful students of Strauss the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they 
have no idea of the sinister depths to which Strauss’s political thought 
descends. And I think that by revealing aspects of Strauss’s dark philosophy, I 
may dissuade some of them from following Strauss too blindly into the abyss. 

 

Notes
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor with Related Chapters from The 
Brothers Karamazov, Constance Garnett, trans. (New York: Library of Liberal 
Arts, 1948). I am very suspicious of this interpretation of the message of 
Jesus. See my new book, Terror and Civilization: (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 
2004).

2. Ibid., p. 30.

3. Ibid., p. 40.

4. Ibid., p. 31.

5. Ibid., p. 30.

6. Leo Strauss, “Why We Remain Jews: Can Jewish Faith and History Still Speak 
to Us?” in Leo Strauss: Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker, Kenneth L. 
Deutsch and Walter Nicgorski, eds. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 
1994), p. 61.

7. Ibid., p. 61.

8. Leo Strauss, Philosophy And Law: Essays Toward the Understanding of 
Maimonides and His Predecessors, Fred Baumann, trans. (New York: Jewish 
Publication Society, 1987), p. 18.

9. Leo Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: Essays and 
Lectures, Thomas L. Pangle, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 
pp. 107–08.

10. Gary J. Schmitt and Abram N. Shulsky, “Leo Strauss and the World of 
Intelligence (by Which We Do Not Mean Nous),” in Kenneth L. Deutsch and John A. 
Murley (eds.), Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime (New York: 
Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 410.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shadia B. Drury is Canada Research Chair in Social Justice at the University of 
Regina, where she is professor of philosophy and political science. Her most 
recent book is Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western 
Psyche (Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).

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