So. I had promised a post about this guy, Leo Strauss. I realize there is no way to give a fair depiction of his thinking or why it's important in this format. My goal is only to pique your interests here, in hopes that you might edify yourselves.
Strauss was a Platonist. He thought, among other things, that the ruling elites ("the ones who know") must mobilize the powers of media to create myths ("Noble Lies") to maintain social quiescence. He believed, essentially, that politics should be left to the elite, and that the rest of us should not bother to be involved. He believed, along with Plato, that some truths were too dangerous to tell the public. These thoughts are repugnant to our own notions of political liberty in the modern age of Enlightenment tradition, yet Strauss was a surprisingly influential thinker. His students and disciples from the U of Chicago, went on to fill many positions of great power, like starting wars.
The upshot of this is that many powerful people believe that lying to the public is the right thing to do. One of them was Irving Kristol, who once wrote:
There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.A modern democratic fallacy? These thinkers find the concept of democracy abhorrent, although they would never say so publicly. Shades of this philosophy have been uncovered elsewhere, as in the famous reporting of Ron Suskind, who wrote in 2004:
The [senior adviser to President Bush] said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''Hence we believers in open society--in the individual's right to access the truth--find ourselves opposed. They believe themselves worthy of knowledge for which we are unfit. Are they right? Should we just accept our place, have faith in their wisdom, and trust in the rule of our philosopher kings? *
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If you're interested, watch this documentary. It's by the same folks who made Century of the Self. Lots of fascinating stuff:
*the last two sentences were cut off this post, because they they were terrible and read: " It's the most un-American idea I've ever heard.
If this doesn't concern you, fine, don't worry; go back to sleep; there's always something on TV."
This is a fairly gross misinterpretation of Strauss. But expected.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Strauss was not a "Platonist." Did he read Plato with utmost seriousness? Yes. But he also read Nietzsche, al Farabi, Xenophon, Locke, Spinoza, Thucydides, Machiavelli etc etc etc with utmost seriousness. He was much more interested in finding an alternative to Heidegger through the history of political philosophy than anything involving the immediate world of politics around him.
To take one teaching from Plato's purely theoretical Republic and act as if it constitutes THE entirety of Strauss is tragic. I am sorry to hear that your students will not benefit from approaching great thinkers with humility and deference, something Strauss would have appreciated.
Thank you, Anonymous, for standing up with the courage Anonymity can sometimes give. Truly excellent post.
ReplyDeleteWithout question, Strauss was a well-read man. But to answer your other charges, let me simply quote myself:
"I realize there is no way to give a fair depiction of his thinking or why it's important in this format. My goal is only to pique your interests here, in hopes that you might edify yourselves."
To add another thing, Anonymous, what does "purely theoretical" mean in the phrase "Plato's purely theoretical Republic"? Does it mean that it was detached from this world? Never manifest? That it came to no harm because it was "just a theory" and therefore impotent?
ReplyDeleteAnd who acted "as if it constitutes THE entirety of Strauss"?
Fair enough, but Strauss does not advocate that there should be "ruling elites" who "must mobilize the powers of media to create myths."
ReplyDeleteI quote Strauss at length and let him vindicate his name, from Natural Right and History (140-141):
The best regime is that in which the best men habitually rule, or aristocracy. Goodness is, if not identical with wisdom, at any rate dependent on wisdom: the best regime would SEEM to be the rule of the wise. In fact, wisdom appeared to the classics as that title to rule which is highest according to nature. It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulations; hence the rule of the wise must be absolute rule. It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to their unwise subjects. To make the rule of the wise dependent on election by the unwise or consent of the unwise would mean to subject what is by nature higher to control by what is by nature lower, i.e., to act against nature. Yet this solution, WHICH AT FIRST GLANCE SEEMS TO BE THE ONLY JUST SOLUTION for a society in which there are wise men, is, as a rule, IMPRACTICABLE...What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise" (caps mine).
What I mean by "purely theoretical" is that there must be a distinction between practice and theory. The Republic was a Republic which lasted for an evening. Surely you are right to say that the Republic was not impotent, but its ideas were not meant to be put into practice: this 'just regime' required grave injustice to be brought to life, and should make us question whether this regime is desirable in the first place.
It could be said that the absence of the expert Socrates seeks in Plato's dialogues decides the case for the rule of law, for as Strauss shows, any man's title to rule - his wisdom - must be questioned.
If Strauss' flirtation with the Noble Lie comprises his attempt to revivify the Noble Lie in the practical world of politics, then that must lead me to think that your flirtation with Strauss comprises your attempt to revivify Strauss' ideas. Obviously, neither is the case.
And I should remind you of just what disallowing the Noble Lie means: look no further than Kant, whose limitation to the phenomenal world did not allow a man to lie, period. That means that if a man wants to chop up your family with a knife and asks you where they are, you must honestly answer him.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear: I do not condone the fact that there is fear-mongering in politics today. I just think Strauss' role in it is exaggerated beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteDearest Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI don't want to leave you hanging. This is a fantastic thread so far, I hope more will join in. I'll craft a response when I get home later, probably be a few hours.
Dearest Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteForgive my delay. I've been preoccupied in the unmediated world.
I hardly think you could have found a quote that better refutes your own argument. Please, clarify how that quote is anything but a full-throated endorsement of the rule by philosopher-kings.
I think the confusion rests in the referrential realm, specifically of the word "solution." You apparently take "solution" to refer to the system of aristocracy, which you think Strauss views as just but impracticable. But the subsequent sentences make clear that the seeming "solution" he rejects is the representative electoral system, which he terms "consent of the unwise," and which certain unwise men could manipulate into tyranny. How could his endorsed "absolute rule" of the unwise be the same thing that brings brighter tyrannical prospects through manipulation of elections, which are the consent of the governed [unwise]? The system that "caters to the lowest desires of the many" clearly refers to the democratic/representative system that both he and Plato reject as unnatural.
Now, as for "purely theoretical," my beef was not with the concept of theory, but rather the concept of purity, which is the guiding metaphor for many or most forms of unwholesome fundamentalism. You seemed to employ it for the purpose of denying the Republic had connections to the realm of material reality. The Republic had another name too, Lacedaemon. (Don't bother pointing out differences between the Platonic and Spartan political constructs, I acknowledge hyperbole here. But it is true that the Thirty Tyrannts enthroned by the Spartans after Athens fell were followers of Socrates, himself no supporter of democracy.) The Republic in nested within a real time of fierce political dispute between the proponents of the very systems that Strauss discusses. It is clear which side Plato and Strauss were on.
Would you like to see the rest of the passage?
ReplyDeleteNR&H (141):
"This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. THE POLITICAL PROBLEM CONSISTS IN RECONCILING THE REQUIREMENT FOR WISDOM WITH THE REQUIREMENT FOR CONSENT."
Have you ever read Shakespeare's Coriolanus? I would not go so far as to say that Coriolanus, a warrior, would be the "wise man" Strauss and Plato seek -- not by any longshot -- but he was a noble member of the patrician class, and you see the problem of gaining the consulship which faced him back in Rome: the people.
That is an interesting insight: Sparta=Republic. I like the sound of it. I don't like the sound of "Thirty Tyrants=followers of Socrates." Critias, maybe. And then, Xenophon has a lot of work to do in order to get people to believe that Alcibiades (if we recall, the great democrat and relation of Pericles) and Critias did not have the kind of association w. Socrates that people thought they had. Furthermore, there is still Socrates' very strange side, the side which Aristophanes presented at least a version of in The Clouds.
So yes -- is Plato problematic? Of course. Is Strauss actually recommending the re invigoration of Plato as political practice?
Let us look, to answer that question, at the blog you wrote up: "create new realities"; "myths"; "history's actors"...All of this seems to be very Nietzschean language.
You say: "[Strauss] believed, along with Plato, that some truths were too dangerous to tell the public." I submit that this sentence should read "along with Nietzsche." It was Nietzsche's sense that the Enlightenment had ended with a thud that caused Strauss to panic. But only momentarily: because it was Strauss' conviction that Nietzsche had prematurely declared that "God is dead" (for revelation never claimed to be intelligible through unassisted human reason), Strauss saw that the West could be energized by, as it always had been, the contending claims of Athens (philosophy) and Jerusalem (faith).
As a result, Strauss dropped his Nietzschean sentiments. As he said, Nietzsche's spell on him was broken by the time he reached thirty (this link is helpful: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/764028.html).
Now, I am certainly no expert on Strauss. I am only an interested student who wants to learn more. I do find it interesting however that Strauss seems to be recieving the same kind of reputation that Socrates had in Athens. Hm.
As an aside, I point out that our Founders lovingly called our kind of political regime a "natural aristocracy." Chew on that phrase for a while, and I think you see them attempting to answer the very political problem Strauss speaks to.
ReplyDeleteForgive me, but I hadn't even touched on the observation that the wise, precisely because of their wisdom, could not be persuaded (even by themselves!) to rule. Thus, we get in Book IV of Republic "minding your own business" as the working definition of justice.
ReplyDeleteThis is Garret Schwinghammer, I am a Christian, and I whole heartedly disagree with the premise of this documentary, that Christianity has no place in a free, liberal, democratic society envisioned by our founding fathers. In fact, I argue that it was the dissolution of Christianity that has brought America down the dark road today.
ReplyDeleteJohn Adams once said that America's constitution is only for a moral and religious people and that it is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. This is because of the self-rule that inevitably comes by an unwavering devotion to God. It is only through such a faith that a society can be free and still function.
If the people have no faith and are not capable of self-rule while they posess the freedoms outlined in the Constitution, it is inevitable that chaos will result and the people will demand a king to protect them. They will give this king everything, including the fanatical loyalty that should belong to God. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe John Adams also said, "If the people do not wish to govern themselves, then by a tyrant will they be governed" if someone knows who said that, please tell me.
To conclude, while the neoconservatives, whom I wholeheartedly disagree with, may have used Christianity to further their ends, it does not take away from the fact that an unshakeable faith in God is, and should be, the only thing that will hold a nation such as ours together. In the late 1800s, America thought itself too smart to believe in God, since then, everything, from our freedoms to our morality, has crumbled.
P.S. If anybody doubts my mental capacity because I choose to give my loyalty to a Power higher own than my own selfish wishes and much higher than the selfish wishes of any politician, I was the one who gave the "excellent summary" of Neil Postman way back when. I welcome debate.
Dead thread...adieu!
ReplyDeleteChristianity has no part in Democratic Governments, Religiom SHOULD have no part in government affairs. The U.S. is run by bankers interests. Good luck in your "chip" controlled world.
ReplyDelete