Re: 'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles (II)

[Peter Dorman]

To follow up on Jim's fourth point, networks are very important in staffing political positions.  There are many social networks out there, most of them invisible to those on the outside.  When a new administration takes power, it relies on the networks it's tied into for recruitment.  This is unavoidable; there is no other way to identify people who are not only ideologically but also personally compatible with the new management team.  The Straussians have provided one such network for the Bushies.  (They have also drawn on the Kissinger clique, the Bush/Rove Texas mafia and many other networks.)  Why the sudden attention given to the Strauss crew?  Certainly the oddness of an academic faction based on the study of classics is part of the story, but also the legendary cynicism and corruption of this crowd is relevant.  (Remember all the publicity surrounding Bellow's book about Bloom?)  It would be a mistake, however, to attribute too much importance to this one influence.  As far as I can tell, the Bush administration is less ideas-driven than most, and that's saying a lot.

Peter

Devine, James wrote:

three points:

 

1. It's important to distinguish Strauss from the Straussians. (Similarly, Marx is quite different from the Marxians, while Friedman is different from the Friedmaniacs, though not much.) Strauss was a scholar who came up with a lot of scholarly interpretations, many of which were controversial, whereas (as I understand it) many of the Straussians share a culture of elitism and secretiveness. It should be mentioned that they are far from the only ones who are elitist and secretive.

 

BTW, those kind of attitudes have been shared by various left groupings at times. For example, as noted in an article from the NY-based Jewish daily FORWARD that was posted to pen-l awhile back, some of the "neo-conservatives" were once (marginally) on the left, associated with the Social Democrats, USA, an elitist and secretive (i.e., sectarian) grouping.

 

2. Strauss and Straussians have nothing close to a monopoly on respect for ancient philosophers. I work at a Jesuit-sponsored university where the philosophy department puts a big emphasis on the importance of ancient philosophy (while rejecting the modernist view that new philosophy has superceded the old). However, as far as I know, there are no Straussians in the department. (I'll ask.)

 

3. No one on this list, as far as I know, believes in any kind of Straussian conspiracy. Instead, I'd guess that the consensus is either that (1) the Straussians are unimportant or (2) Straussians and Straussianism simply provide an ideological cover (in certain circles) for what the Bush administration would do anyway, based on the various vested interest groups (fractions of the capitalist class) that the administration represents and their strategy of creating a permanent lock on governmental power for their clique.

 

BTW, I haven't seen it noted that a lot of Straussians flocked to Washington to serve the Reagan administration. They are like that, servants to power, when that power is very "conservative" (i.e., overtly and strenuously serving the rich).

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

-----Original Message-----
From: David S. Shemano [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 9:46 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] 'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles (II)

In addition to this list, I receive the Strauss list, which is maintained at Yahoo Groups.  I have also read quite a bit of Strauss.  Strauss took Marx very seriously as a philosopher.  One of his books, On Tyranny, contains an exchange of letters with Alexandre Kojeve regarding, among other things, the progression of history (Fukuyama's End of History is in many ways a popularization of this exchange).  The Marx chapter in the Strauss edited History of Political Philosophy is also very respectful.

Strauss's major accomplishment, to me at least, was to successfully argue that ancient philosophy had more than historical relevance.  In other words, Strauss attacked the historicist notion that there is no point to studying the ancients for the truth of their arguments because we come after them and, therefore, know more than them, or that because they lived in an ancient slave society, they could not possible have anything important to say to us living in a technologically advanced capitalist society.  Therefore, if a serious Straussian questions political democracy, it is not pop-Nietzche, but following the ancients in asking "Who Should Rule?" as a fundamental question of political philosophy, and the ancients had very critical things to say about political democracy.  This is not to say that (all) Straussians necessarily agree with those criticisms, but that Straussians believe those criticisms must be taken seriously and cannot be dismissed a priori, because there is the possibility that those criticisms are correct.

As the Straussian conspiracy apparently controls the White House, I would encourage anyone interested to join the Strauss list to know thine enemy and bring a Marxist perspective to the various topics discussed.

David Shemano