StraussiansMike Rappaport

As Tom mentioned, I recommended to him the book by Michael (and Catherine) Zuckert about Strauss and the Straussians.  I recently attended a conference with Michael Zuckert and finally decided, after years of ignorance about Strauss, to read his book, The Truth about Leo Strauss.  His discussion really opened up a new world to me.  I was finally able to understand why the different Straussians I read from time to time were making the moves they were.  Sudden understanding where bafflement previously prevailed.

For me, the best part of the book was the discussion of the Straussians and in particular the division between East Coast, West Coast, and Midwestern Straussians.  The Zuckerts explain Strauss as believing three propositions that are in tension with one another:

1. American is good;
2. Modernity is bad; and 
3. American is modern.

The different Straussians schools each modify one of these propositions.

The West Coast Straussians, who seem to worship Harry Jaffa for some reason, believe that America is not modern.  The founding was really based on Aristotle, not Locke. 

The East Coast Straussians do not believe America is good.  Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind is the best known example.  Let me say that Zuckert's summary of Bloom's book (which I have not really read) made me detest Bloom. 

Finally, the Midwestern Straussians believe that America modernity is good.  It is this group, who were led by Martin Diamond until his untimely death, that I like.  In this group you can find Darwinian Conservative Larry Arnhart, the folks at Powerline, and Michael Zuckert himself.    

Comments

[Eric Rasmusen]

Some scattered thoughts.

Strauss is like Keynes or Nietzsche. He wrote unclearly, but was very stimulating, so people have fun interpreting him. Like Nietzsche, if not, perhaps, Keynes, he had an Attitude, not a System.

Strauss was like economist Frank Knight at Chicago, someone whose teaching was hugely influential but whose writing was less important--- perhaps even mediocre.

What have been the good Straussian writings? "Persecution and the Art of Writing" by Strauss himself. The Strauss and Cropsey political philosophy survey. Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, and his translation of The Republic with its essay by far the best things. The wonderfully derogatory review of Rawls---was it by Cropsey, or by Bloom? Bloom and Jaffa on Shakespeare. Paul Rahe's books. Jaffa on Lincoln is supposed to be very good, tho I haven't read it. Rhoads on regulation is first-rate-- up there with Bloom--- though I don't know that it's particularly Straussian. I don't recall anything else right now that should be on the list, though I've read other things by Strauss, Pangle, Fukuyama, and Mansfield that didn't impress me so much.

[Brian Leiter]

Comparing Strauss, who was a poseur and unreliable scholar and academic cult leader, with Nietzsche, who was a brilliant writer and moral psychologist, is pretty outrageous! The relevant comparison is with Heidegger, who also cultivated obscurity as a way of maintaining an intellectual cult following. The only good news is all the Straussians but one have finally been purged from Chicago--indeed, the cult has migrated to Austin!

[y81]

I'm no expert, but that is a pretty good (and funny) three-point synopsis of Strauss. You might add Francis Fukuyama to the list: in his case, the "Modernity is Bad" proposition has been modified if not abandoned.

No doubt Prof. Leiter is more in tune with academic fashions than I. (I don't mean that to be derogatory, just a factual statement about the concerns of lawprofs versus those of practicing lawyers). However, there was certainly a Straussian contingent at Yale when I was there. I wonder if it is still there?

[Tom Smith]

Brian -- Are you saying Heidegger is not worth reading? If so, I wish you would say, because I was about to try reading something about Heidegger.

[john knox]

I'm no Prof. Leiter but after slogging through much of his corpus I regretfully concluded I'd wasted a lot of time. With our limited time on this earth there are more profitable things to read. The intentional obfuscation is entirely unnecessary. To be fair if said clearly everything in Being and Time could be laid out in a few dozen pages or less but then there wouldn't have been a book which was really helpful to his career. As well, much of it is either trivially true or just wrong. I'm not sure it's worth wading through the Heideggerian lingo--dasein, being unto death and all that--just to get a few scraps of something that fell from the table. What's worse is that most of his interpreters see his obfuscation and raise him on it making the secondary literature even more impenetrable.

Unlike Heidegger Nietzsche's sentences are remarkably and delightfully clear. It's putting them together into a coherent whole that's difficult. I suppose that's not surprising given what he said about the will to system.

[DJF]

Mike, you write that each Straussian school "modifies" one of the three core proposoitions, and then write that the "Midwestern school believes that America is good." But that just repeats the first proposition without modification. Did you intend to say that "the Midwestern school believes that modernity is good"?

Anyway, interesting stuff.

[Michael Rappaport]

DJF: Good point. I corrected the post.

[Perseus]

"Comparing Strauss, who was a poseur and unreliable scholar and academic cult leader,"

Quite ironic coming from the likes of you, Professor Leiter.

[Engineer]

Regarding these divisions: it's most interesting that Strauss himself was pretty clearly none of the above.

Re: Strauss being a "poseur" ... takes one to know one I would say.

[Anderson]

It would be interesting to hear a little more about why Bloom is detestable.

I retain a soft spot for Closing, as it led me to major in philosophy, though I'm not quite sure that my fondness for Nietzsche was quite the effect that Bloom had hoped for.