tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post3017865497972091434..comments2024-03-05T09:00:51.695-08:00Comments on DISSENT the BLOG: Claremont Institute, part II: the few who are fit to receive the messageRebel Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00695051285325585662noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-4233465820902006052011-02-25T01:12:18.023-08:002011-02-25T01:12:18.023-08:00If you want to read the full version of Shadia Dru...If you want to read the full version of Shadia Drury's assesment of Leo Strauss, SKIP Strauss and the American Right. You should buy or borrow her earlier book, "The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss." Even with real flaws, this is the single best companion book for any uninitiated student studying under Straussian professor(s).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-35953175937044480722011-02-02T15:50:30.197-08:002011-02-02T15:50:30.197-08:00That's crazy to see Dick Cheney getting a &quo...That's crazy to see Dick Cheney getting a "statesmanship award". It gives me the willies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-85614613746964070152011-01-30T15:10:04.662-08:002011-01-30T15:10:04.662-08:00JP: By your logic, it appears, only those who have...JP: By your logic, it appears, only those who have labored through Strauss’s works (with the proper guidance, of course) are entitled to discuss his ideas and influence, even cautiously. Surely that view is too extreme.<br /><br />If you are familiar with philosophy, then you will be aware that many philosophers and their followers lay claim, or have laid claim, to the kind of “importance” you assign to Strauss. (In my younger years, I gave the later Wittgenstein that kind of importance.) But they can’t all be right. (You see? I’m not a relativist after all!) <br /><br />This inclines me to suppose that it is quite <i>possible</i> to be ensconced in an abstruse philosophy and to suppose that those who are not similarly equipped are sadly cut off from a profound truth—that is, a truth that is not really The Truth at all.<br /><br />As I said in my post, the more I read Strauss, the more I like him. I will continue to read him. But I have read and studied many philosophers. I do not expect to become a "Straussian" (certainly not a "west coast" Straussian), but who knows. <br /><br />In the end, it may be true that certain important truths are esoteric. I do not dismiss the idea out of hand. I am not the dyed-in-the-wool "egalitarian" you take me to be. <br /><br />But it is a dangerous thing, isn't it? One can suppose that one has at long last laid eyes on the Forms--and be mistaken.<br /><br />Is that notion--of crucial political truths known (or appropriate only) to the few--a part of the Claremont Institute <i>culture?</i> Surely it is fair to ask that question.<br /><br />And if it is, how does that notion manifest itself in the political endeavors of those who are of that culture?<br /><br />Are they elitists? Paternalists? Platonic noble liars? Do they only pretend to believe in consent?<br /><br />Surely these are fair questions, fairly asked.Roy Bauerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10107385463457119300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-63735163211629401742011-01-30T13:46:10.818-08:002011-01-30T13:46:10.818-08:00Well, JP, the author of this blog (not me!) is an ...Well, JP, the author of this blog (not me!) is an extremely well-trained and careful professional philosopher. Guess what: even those of us who haven't read the entire tomes of philosophers can intelligently discuss their primary theses--especially when we do so with the humility and acknowledgment of limitations evidenced repeatedly and clearly here by BvT.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-1964391213887825382011-01-30T12:29:35.259-08:002011-01-30T12:29:35.259-08:00I'm not convinced that the students of Strauss...I'm not convinced that the students of Strauss understood him well. But many in Rumsfeld's Pentagon "Office of Special Plans" were followers or students of Strauss. Strauss was also a student and admirer of Carl Schmitt, the Nazi jurist, which complicates things a bit. Here is a 2003 New Yorker article on Rumsfeld's Straussians by Seymour Hersh:<br /><br />http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/12/030512fa_factAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-28100701400177837772011-01-30T11:29:55.193-08:002011-01-30T11:29:55.193-08:00"I'm beginning to think that the problem ..."I'm beginning to think that the problem is that she's either a non-academic attempting to tackle some difficult philosophy or (less likely) she's some sort of academic who is just too unfamiliar with philosophy to read it fairly."<br /><br />One might make the same criticism of the author of this blog. If he wants to understand Jaffa (who is like 90, by the way) and Strauss, he needs to do something more than piling names together and connecting them with allusions and aspersions. If you want to know what Strauss is about, read Strauss. His work is important because he contradicts historicism in arguing that we can indeed see past our historical horizons, but this requires a very rigorous and sustained encounter with the books of ancient political philosophy. Failing that-- if we are incapable of that-- yes, we will be narrowly constrained by the foundational truths of our own regime, which in democracies are democratic, and tend to the extreme view that everyone indeed does have the same access to truth and no one can known something someone else could not possibly know-- intellectual egalitarianism-- the very shaky ground from which Strauss, poorly understood and caricatured, is derided today. Oh gosh, he thought some truths weren't for everyone! The wizard behind the curtains! Nazi propagandists! Etc.JPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16908834.post-16568216138454658862011-01-29T21:13:22.916-08:002011-01-29T21:13:22.916-08:00Someone has been doing his homework this weekend.
...Someone has been doing his homework this weekend.<br /><br />Impressive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com