From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 19:13:51 MDT
Ron writes
> Now, it seems a little difficult to pin down what you think about Leo
> Strauss and what William Pfaff thinks and you only quote. However he did
> exist, he was in the political science department of the U of C for a time.
> For those of you that wish to check him out you might look up a speech of his
> at
> http://www.cnphysis.com/civil/yuanwen.htm
> I can't recognise Mike's position on Pfaff at all when I look at
> Strauss' own words.
I find Strauss' own words extremely mystifying, I can't tell really
what he is trying to say at all.
But google quickly provides
http://home.earthlink.net/~karljahn/Strauss.htm
which may explain what is going on. The primary conclusions I glean
from this are
1. Yes, Leo Strauss and some of the neo-cons, as charged,
do deliberately write obscurely and don't always think
that their ideas are meant for mass consumption
2. Strauss and his followers are true, almost archaic
conservatives in the sense that they believe that the
ancients had it right, and that even America's founders
were contaminated with egalitarian tendencies
3. Strauss' pessimism that America would in the end turn
out to be as weak and helpless against the Left and
against socialism as the Weimar Republic was, seems to
be far less likely (IMO) since 1989, thus casting further
doubt on the Strauss view
4. One can be an avid follower of Harold Bloom and "The
Closing of the American Mind", and yet (like the author
of the above page) be at odds with Strauss. (As for me,
I couldn't get through "Closing", finding a bit too dull.)
5. Strauss appears to reject the 19th century notion of
liberalism (as he accuses America of being "liberal"
to the core in that previous meaning of the term),
and to favor the promotion of "natural rights". (It's
not clear to me whether Strauss really believes in
natural rights, or if this is something to be fed to
the masses.)
Lee
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