Leo Strauss and the American Right [Paperback]

Prof. Shadia B. Drury (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312217838 | ISBN-13: 978-0312217839 | Publication Date: February 15, 1999

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term, and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German Jewish emigré and scholar who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement, a man widely seen as the godfather of the Republican party’s failed "Contract With America." Among his students were individuals such as Alan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. Strauss influenced the work of Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and William Kristol, as well as Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Drury delves deeply into Strauss’s work at the University of Chicago where he taught his students that, if they truly loved America, they must save her from her fateful enchantment with liberalism. Leo Strauss and the American Right is a fascinating piece of work that anyone interested in understanding our current political situation will want to read.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After the Republican Party drafted its Contract With America in 1994, the New York Times traced the document's neoconservative ideology to the late Leo Strauss (1899-1973), a German Jewish emigre and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago during the 1950s and '60s. Dubbed by the media as the "godfather of the conservative revolution," Strauss, according to Drury, was considered to be the shadowy force behind the Republican Party, as his teachings were being spread by former students and admirers like Allan Bloom, Clarence Thomas, William Bennett and Irving Kristol. Although Drury's (The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss) prose is occasionally dry and academic, her evidence is persuasive, and her research is impeccable. Beginning with an account of Straussians in Washington, she works back to the professor's dominant ideas and how they affected the current political climate. She investigates how Strauss formed his ideology and what events, such as the Holocaust, may have shaped his views. Her own opinions on the matter of conservatives vs. liberals (she sides with the latter) are clearly stated yet remain incidental because her interest seems to lie in exploration rather than conversion. For students of political theory, Drury is an expert guide.

Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Drury (political science, Univ. of Calgary) has expanded an earlier work, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (St. Martin's, 1988), to examine the influence of reclusive political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973) on the American neoconservative movement. Drury rejects Strauss's philosophy for its attacks on liberalism and call to institute strong moral leadership in the United States. She largely reviews Strauss's political philosophy and spends considerable time on his views of Judaic and German philosophers. Drury points out Strauss's influence on many in the neoconservative movement, including Allan Bloom and Irving Kristol, and on the Republican Party's Contract with America. But she spends far more time on Strauss's philosophical views than on how these views manifested themselves in others' writings. Her book also requires not only an understanding of Strauss, which is tedious enough, but of the philosophies of Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schmitt, and others. The work's appeal is limited to advanced graduate-level students in political philosophy.?Patricia Hatch, Insurance Inst. for Property Loss Reduction, Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (February 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312217838
• ISBN-13: 978-0312217839
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

126 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Postmodern Conservativism, January 3, 2003

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Leo Strauss and the American Right (Hardcover)

The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.

According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power.

According to Drury, a particularly striking strategy of Straussian conservatives is their struggle to identify and mythologize American traditions. She points out that while Burke had the last remnants of feudalism to extol as a naturally just system, American conservatives have been forced to create a ?traditional? America out of whole cloth. To do so, according the Drury, Strauss's followers have invaded history departments across the US where they have been working hard to uncover "tradition" in the beginnings of America ? a difficult task given that America was the first truly modernist state. Nevertheless, these historians, depending upon which ax they are grinding, rewrite American history either to prove that colonial America was feudal, or to prove the Founding Fathers were not Deists and creatures of the (Liberal) Enlightenment, but rather Platonists. Drury notes that like postmodernists on the left, Straussians believe there is no ultimate truth, but that instead there are only discourses of power and that whoever controls the discourse wins. She notes that this is what makes American politics so narrow and so tedious -- the right and the left both operate from the same morally bankrupt premise.

This goes a long way toward explaining the bizarre combination of libertarianism and fundamentalism in neo-conservative thought. Like other dogmas which have been used to support those in power -- Social Darwinism and eugenics come to mind -- neoconservatism is just the latest apologia for the up-to-date reactionary. Notably, its adherents are generally unaware of the contradiction. This does not deter them from defending this instrumental hodgepodge of Ayn Rand "objectivism" and millenarian "revivalism" however. Such a philosophy is, of course, its own best self-satirization.

Well-written, its conclusions careful and amply defended, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT, is not the ravings of conspiracy theorist. It does not imagine that Straussians have come to run the United States, nor that they form a secret cult which pulls the strings behind the scene. It exposes rather the infiltration of post-modern intellectual cynicism into the once decent, and even honorable, Republican Party.

48 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book If Viewed As A Narrow Survey, January 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Leo Strauss and the American Right (Hardcover)

This survey book is not nearly the slanderous piece that many of the reviewers of this site would have you to believe. Instead, Professor Shadia Drury, who is a Canadian political theorist of a liberal democratic stripe, admittedly sets out to demonstrate the differences between two ostensibly related ideologies: "neo-conservatism" and "classical liberal democracy." According to Drury, the former is the logical "American" manifestation of Leo Strauss's philosophy and the latter is the worldly stalwart & hegemonic target of Strauss's attack. It must be said that Drury seems to spare, on the whole, the tradition of European Conservatism from analysis, although Drury does reference this tradition in order to contrast it with neo-conservatism. This absence is the weakness of an otherwise fine survey.

Drury may be called a popular corrupter by some (indeed, the repetitious writing leaves a thing to be desired), but this book is an honest survey of Straussian Philosophy and Classical Liberal Democracy, in the sense that the book contrasts Strauss's ideas against the backdrop of his enemy, classical liberal democracy. It is true that many modern conservatives (but usually not libertarians) may take offense to Classical Liberal Democracy, but so do modern liberal democrats. To illustrate this, allow me to give two examples and one comment: (1) Modern Liberals may be disturbed that the source of MODERN governmental welfare may not be Marx or, even, Enlightenment Liberalism, but the European conservative political ideologues of the 19th century--for example, Bismarck. (2) Likewise, American Conservatives may wince at the idea that they are really a new breed of ideologue who are only distantly related to the European Conservative Tradition and who have, instead, adopted the ideas of late 19th Century Social Darwinism and 20th Century nationalism. Modern Libertarians, on the other hand, may nod their heads to Drury acknowledging the bastardized lineage of both modern liberals and neo-conservatives, although ultimately Drury drops hints of an affinity for modern liberalism.

As one may see, Drury's descriptions and conclusions may disturb many modern political ideologues. Consequently, Drury's book is a valuable, although not unprecedented, contribution to the American canon; however, it may face opposition from modern liberals and neo-conservatives.

56 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Atheists in the White House, July 29, 2004

By 

M. A. Plus "Advanced Atheist" (Mayer, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Leo Strauss and the American Right (Hardcover)

I have a somewhat different take on this book than the other reviewers. I am struck by the idea that the Straussians neoconservatives, who have seized strategic positions in the U.S. Government and the Republican Party, fundamentally agree with the Secular Humanists about the nature of religion (i.e., that there's no god out there to rapture us away, much less lecture us about right and wrong). They just disagree with the Humanists about the advisability of telling ordinary people the truth, pretending instead that increasingly absurd and delusional christian beliefs like the ones promoted by the Left Behind novels are worthy of respect, as long as christians who hold such fantasies vote Republican. (By contrast, UFO cultists who promote similar scenarios about mass alien abductions are ridiculed.) In other words, Neocons view religion as a useful tool for keeping the rabble in line, including the unsophisticated religious politicians who support their agenda.

I find this crypto-Atheism contemptible, though also complimentary in a back-handed way. Intelligent people in many times and places have arrived at Atheism by following their own inquiries into the nature of reality. Strauss and his followers just add further support to the legitimacy of the Atheist discovery, though their systematic dishonesty about it has led to harmful consequences in the real world. The increasingly Atheistic populations of Western Europe, where even American christians readily visit for vacation, show that advanced societies can function well without religion, empirically falsifying the Straussian prejudice that the sheep need superstitions while their shepherds can handle Atheism.