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Persecution and the Art of Writing

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An excellent text, Strauss explicates on his views of how philosophers in times of persecution will "hide" their most stunning and important ideas "between the lines" of their works. In this way, the authors avoid death, and also provide the deepest insight to only those intelligent enough to find it in the texts. Pay special attention to Strauss's chapter on the "Guide for the Perplexed:" not only is it an interesting read, but one can see Strauss himself using some of the same techniques that he claims authors of the past used. It's all a matter of trying to understand what he truly wants to tell us.

This book is absolutely central within the body of Leo Strauss's work. It stands as the culmination of his earliest work and the beginning of his middle phase of work (which most readers and commentators seem to focus on).
Leo Strauss started his philosophical career directly confronted with what he would come to call the "theological-political problem". As a Jewish intellectual in during the Weimer years, he found himself confronted with the ways that liberal political philosophy had failed the Jewish people. That confrontation led him from an exploration of different forms of Zionism to the roots of the Enlightenment critique of revelation in Spinoza and Hobbes and back to (what Strauss called) the Medieval Enlightenment works of Maimonides, Farabi and Halevi. Particularly in the writing of Maimonides and Farabi (but also in the writings of Lessing), Strauss found the clues that led him to his theory of esoteric and exoteric writing.
When talking about this Straussian way of reading, the first thing to emphasize is that it is not a universal hermeneutic. Strauss is not saying that all philosophy or theological books were written with an esoteric component. He is saying that some were and that there are indications that can be used to detect when a book is so written.
Before we get to that, let's consider THE basic presumption of Strauss's- that there are two types of men, philosophers and non-philosophers. And the two are motivated fundamentally differently and are capable of fundamentally different lives. Furthermore, it is important to realize that what Strauss believes is going on in an esoteric text is that one philosopher is writing in such a way that other philosophers can discern his hidden meaning.
Why would someone do this? This is also key. Strauss feels that since the mid-1800s in most Western cultures that it has not been as necessary to write this way. In fact, as a culture, we have forgotten that this was necessary. The radical Enlightenment determined that all truths must be told to all humanity and we have come to accept that.
But not long ago, that was not the case. Men and women died or were tortured for daring to express the heterodox thought. So the first reason philosophers wrote esoterically is to avoid the fate of Socrates.
The second reason is more Straussian. Philosophers wrote that way for reasons of propriety. They too believed that most men were not capable of living the philosophical life with its calling into question of all opinion (see p.59 of PAW). They furthermore believed that "opinion is the element of society: philosphy or science is therefore the attempt to dissolve the element in which society breathes" (the quote is from the essay On a Forgotten Kind of Writing in the collection What is Political Philosophy).
So the philosophers (the wise men), by disguising their questioning of
the dogmas on which any one society is based, acts responsibly. They do not call into question those dogmas for those for whom it would be hard to live virtuously without them (the vulgar). (Before you go ballistic with the elitism of it all please remember that this is what Strauss is saying that people like Maimonides, Farabi and Plato thought- what he thinks is a lot more elusive. Also keep in mind, that it is easy to find this same attitude in our Founding Fathers. Very very few of them were free of some form of the wise man/ vulgar dichotomy. The whole idea of the Electoral College is based on it.)
The third reason one writes esoterically is to unearth "the young men...[who] might become philosophers: the potential philosphers are to be led step by step from the popular view which are indispensable for all practical and political purposes to the truth which is ...purely theoretical" (p. 36 of PAW) (By far, the most disturbing thing about Strauss is the complete lack of women as any sort of presence in his writings- for someone who was romantically intrigued by Hannah Arendt in their youth (she loathed him) this absence seems almost like a symptom. Of what I have no idea. I'm just saying.)
So we should look for esoteric literature during time of repression. What other clues should we look for? There are four main clues from what I can tell.
The first is in the determination of the literary or rhetorical nature of the work in question. Strauss never fails to point out the Plato's works are dialogues, that you cannot assume that Socrates or the Athenian Stranger is the stand-in for Plato, that what is Platonic has to be ascertained as a result of the all the conversational strands. (See his essay on Plato in the collection The History of Political Philosophy).
The second is that someone who is a careful and precise writer writes something that contradicts something else they wrote. There are a lot or ways to do this. On pp. 70-73, Strauss lists five different ways that Maimonides contradicts himself throughout the Guide for the Perplexed. For example, Strauss notes that it is possible to express a contradiction by contradicting not the original proposition but one of its implications. The casual reader does not notice this but the careful reader does and begins to try to understand why someone like Maimonides or Plato would make such a mistake.
A third clue is a specific instruction from the author on how to read the works of others. Thomas Pangle provides some good examples of this from Locke's First Treatise in p.137 of his The Spirit of Modern Republicanism.
Locke, e.g., wrote that "in a Discourse of this Nature," written by "a Master of Style...obscurity [which includes "silently passing over" matters that could not be avoided were a frank and full exposition provided] cannot be imputed to want of Language." This is Locke's way of telling the reader to look for such passages in his own work and to search out the hidden meaning.
The fourth clue is the use of commentary. In his essay on Farabi's
reading of Plato, Strauss points out passages where Farabi acts ignorant
of aspects of Plato philosophy of which he could not possibly be ignorant.
It is through rhetorical devices like these, that authors both indicate a
hidden meaning and hide that meaning. Obviously, there are as many
strategems as authors.
There are some obvious advantages to Strauss's approach. First, and
foremost, his is a humble approach. He does not approach the thinkers of the past assuming that he knows more than they do or that his place in history gives him a priviledged position as to truth. His approach to the reading of others opens us up to learning from them. It opens us up to the possibility that Farabi or Maimonides may enrich my life and become my teacher. Strauss has really opened up the possibilities with this approach. He is not offering us anything like a universal approach. He is forcing us to sink into the particular of each author. What we do with this approach is up to us.
Suggested readings: The essays by Diskin Clay and Paul A. Cantor in Alan Udoff's collection, Leo Strauss's Thought, are extremely useful. I flat out stole my review title form Cantor's use of a quote from Pope as an epigraph.

The title essay is a masterpiece I read once a month in the course writing journalism by day and reading of political comedy by night. By day it is extremely helpful keeping my job in a political environment not particularly conducive to complete freedom of expression at times. By night, coupled with Strauss's superb "Socrates and Aristophanes" is has proved a wonderful tool for unveiling meaning in Aristophanes, Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Hasek, Garcia-Marquez, Kundera and the rest of the European comic tradition. I think his idea of a literary criticism "between the lines" based on ancient rhetoricians would be an extremely useful study for younger graduate students to follow - whenever such studies become possible again. The rest of the essays apply the theory of reading between the lines in interesting limit cases of persecution of political philosophy. They may lead the general reader to try such authors as Maimonides and Spinoza. Can't speak for specialists, not being one.

This book, first published in 1952, is a classic that is quoted frequently when people ask: do philosophers say what they really believe or do they hide the truth? Strauss explains that philosophers have to hide the truth from the general public because they are unable to understand the truths that philosophers know. In fact, philosophers are "in grave danger" when they tell the truth. When the public hears the truth they feel threatened and may feel like killing the individual speaking to them, as they did with Socrates in 399 BCE. Strauss gives many examples of this phenomenon. He stresses that "'all ancient philosophers' had distinguished between their exoteric (open) and their esoteric (hidden, true) teaching." The general public needs to be deceived and taught only "essential truths," not real truths, what some philosophers called "the noble lie," what Spinoza and others described as "legitimate ruses." The essential truths aid the masses in living a reasonably good and safe life. "They (the philosophers) believed that the gulf separating `the wise' and `the vulgar' was a basic fact of human nature which could not be influenced by any progress of popular education."

Strauss points out how Socrates' pupil Plato (429-347) hid his true opinions, covered them in a protective "armor," and "avoided the conflict with the vulgar and thus the fate of Socrates." One of the great philosophers al-Farabi (870-950), whom the great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) admired, "pronounces more or less orthodox views concerning the life after death," that the soul is immortal, in his book that he expected the public to read, but in his book for scholars "declares that there is only the happiness of this life, and that all divergent statements are based on `ravings and old women's tales.'"

People can see Strauss' understanding in my review of Ibn Tufayl by Hayy ibn Yaqzan or in the book itself, which dramatizes the problem with a fictional drama that is similar to Daniel Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The book is most likely the most important book written about philosophy.

Strauss has an introductory essay followed by a discussion of the writings of Maimonides, Halevi, and Spinoza. He gives many examples of how Maimonides and Spinoza hid their true views in order to protect themselves from the general not-learned population. He offers some ideas on how to uncover Maimonides' the true teachings, such as analyzing seeming repetition carefully because only one of them adds a point that is Maimonides' true view: "the purpose of repeating conventional statements is to hide the disclosure, in the repetition, of unconventional views." Put differently, "a considerable number of statements are made in order to hide the truth rather than teach it." Readers must also, among other devises, pay attention to apparent contradictions that Maimonides himself said he purposely inserted into his writing to hide his true message. One of his tricks is to state the conventional idea often, such as his frequent mention of angels, as if such beings actually exist, but mention the truth infrequently, that an "angel" is any force of nature that carries out the natural law, such as the wind and rain.

Since the thinkers' views are hidden in this way, Strauss recognizes the problem, that "reading between the lines will not lead to complete agreement among all scholars." Thus it is no surprise that Maimonides, who hid his real understandings and who, like al-Farabi made contradictory statements to appease the masses, is misunderstood by so many people, including scholars who debate what the "great eagle" is really saying.

What does Strauss understand is Maimonides' ultimate teaching? "Above all, in the last chapter of the Guide (3:54) he asserts that most precepts of the law (meaning, the Torah and the rabbinical commands) are merely a means for the acquisition of moral virtue, which, in turn, is merely a means subservient to the true end, namely, speculative virtue, or the true knowledge of things divine." Since Maimonides states elsewhere that it is impossible for humans to know God, the "things divine" are the laws of nature, such as physics.

Once the fact that all the ancient philosophers hid the truth from the masses because they could not understand and could not accept it, thinking people should realize that the Bible also must hide the real truth and only tell the public as much of the truth that will help them live a good and safe life, "essential truths." In fact, Strauss, as others such as Joseph ibn Kaspi (circa 1279-1340) before him, writes that Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is a document where the great eagle explains some of the secrets of the Torah, but only with hints, in an esoteric way.

Leo Strauss collects essays from a novel perspective in this volume. I bought this to read about his take on Maimonides, and esp. his Guide for the Perplexed. He supplies context and continues his work of explicating the complex thought f Maimonides as only he does.
I like it.

Mr. Quickly (see review below) is either a prankster or an idiot. He has confused the philosopher, Leo Strauss, with the composer Richard Strauss.
But his review was good for a laugh, at least.

I bought PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF WRITING because I wanted an easy approach to whatever contribution Leo Strauss might be able to make to the understanding of political philosophy, and the idea that writers might be persecuted is fundamental to my understanding of what separates social thinking from what a philosopher might be capable of. The second chapter, which covers the topic "Persecution and the art of writing," is only from page 22 to page37 of this book. The Introduction attempts to provide a basis for understanding all the essays in this book "within the province of the sociology of knowledge." (p. 7). The final chapter, "How to Study Spinoza's THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE," is the culmination of a series of articles, which first appeared in 1941, 1943, and 1948, that is primarily concerned with understanding the works of a few philosophers in a manner which might be helpful "for a future sociology of philosophy." (p. 7).

The particular work of Spinoza discussed was an attempt "to refute the claims which had been raised on behalf of revelation throughout the ages." (p. 142). Studying the Treatise is primarily philosophical because "the issue raised by the conflicting claims of philosophy and revelation is discussed in our time on a decidedly lower level than was almost customary in former ages." (pp. 142-3). Later it is admitted that Spinoza's own age did not have Spinoza's books to discuss. "The only book which he published under his own name is devoted to the philosophy of Descartes." (p. 152). "But Spinoza, who wrote for posterity rather than for his contemporaries, must have realized that the day would come when his own books would be old books." (p. 153). My own understanding of Spinoza is not helped by the fact that the longest quotations, in note 2 on page 143 and note 19 on page 153, are in latin. Note 13 on page 149 quotes Carl Gebhardt (Spinoza. OPERA, vol. II, p. 317) in German. I thought I was going to be able to understand it best when Strauss wrote, "To ascertain how to read Spinoza, we shall do well to cast a glance at his rules for reading the Bible." (p. 144). Philosophy itself might demand that the most modern conclusion on that effort would be: "For the same reason it is impossible to understand the Biblical authors as they understood themselves; every attempt to understand the Bible is of necessity an attempt to understand its authors better than they understood themselves." (p. 148). In the case of the Bible, the idea of revelation offers the consolation to people who never wanted to be considered its authors that the book was written by someone else, as the angel who dictated the Koran to its prophet is the ultimate target of the book THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie in the most modern comic edition of this conflict. The only escapes which Spinoza would offer is "to potential philosophers, i.e., to men who, at least in the early stages of their training, are deeply imbued with the vulgar prejudices: what Spinoza considers the basic prejudice of those potential philosophers whom he addresses in the Treatise, is merely a special form of the basic prejudice of the vulgar mind in general." (p. 184). Given the facts of life for most people, this seems to be particularly bad news for the political, which could use a few intellectual connections.

Now that certain of his followers have risen to such unpredictably high prominence and stuck around, Leo Strauss is getting more attention. This is good. Strauss is a good reader of good books (esp. Spinoza and Aristophanes), but his legacy is more ambivalent than one might expect. He is more than simply the intellectual architect behind Reaganism. Here are some observations that give an idea of what I mean in Persecution and the Art of Writing:

First, something to like about Strauss: He proceeds from the beginning of this study with the assumption that knowledge has a social basis, that social factors produce "truth." This position actually puts Strauss much closer to Foucault, the Frankfurt School, and the Cultural Studies crowd than to, say, Paul Wolfowitz and others who seek to engineer social circumstances by force if necesary to meet their proclaimed truths; thus, "freedom" must be "spread" to Iraq. Strauss was not stupid, like these saps. (We'll leave non-Senator Alan Keyes out of this.)

In fact, Strauss saw the right-wing shouters and their exercise of free speech at the expense of everyone else's coming: "What is called freedom of thought...for all practical purposes consists of--the ability to choose between two or more different views presented by the small minority of people who are public speakers or writers." (23). Nuance be damned. "We made the right decision on Iraq." "Ignorance is strength..."

Second, a disturbing view. Strauss assumes that the suppression of ideas by those in power and the persecution of dissenters and intellectuals is okay. Why? "Persecution...cannot prevent independent thinking. It cannnot prevent even the expression of independent thought" (23), never mind that this contradicts the statement Strauss makes above that independent thinking doesn't really exist anyway unless you have an AM talk radio show. Strauss's thesis: "Persecution cannot prevent even public expression of the heterodox truth, for a man of independent thought can utter his views in public and remain unharmed, provided he moves with circumspection. He can even utter them in print without incurring any danger, provided he is capable of writing between the lines" (24). What follows from this? Because the savvy socialist can write allegorically, then, it's alright to oppress socialists, or feminists, or any other kind of grownup. One can also argue from Strauss that religious minorities may also be persecuted, since they ought to find a way to "behave" between the lines. This is disgusting, obviously.

History teaches us the danger inherent in this attitude. The case of Walter Benjamin is a good place to start inquiring, if you're interested. I'd rather find a way to do without persecution at all. A more productive vision might be: Free Inquiry and the Art of Listening.

May Allegory Strike Back, and "fit audience find, though few."

This book is an introduction to the sociology of knowledge. Or perhaps not. The historians must be aided by the sociologists of knowledge. That is a fact. It is the logic of the Houyhnhnms. The esoteric message of the esoteric philosopher is esoteric itself. Or is it? Perhaps it means nothing. Maybe it means a symbol or parable. But perhaps the symbol or parable is esoteric as well. Such is the logic of the Houyhnhnms. Perhaps Plato's dialogue with Trasymachus means something. But that would be absurd. Or perhaps it means nothing. But that would also be absurd. So perhaps we should simply say that it means nothing? Some people are not ready to hear the truth. This is because a + b = c [a - c = b] a + c = d. Yes, that is the logic of the Houyhnhnms. However, I have spelled out the truth in private to my beloved disciples Alan Bloom and Paul "Yahoo" Wolfowitz. Beware of Lyndon LaRouche, he is one of the historicist Lilliputians! Such is the method of the Kuzari. And the logic of the Houyhnhms, mind you.

Well, does *anyone* understand Leo Strauss? ;-)