Customer Reviews

Leo Strauss and the American Right

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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.

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.

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.

A readable and scary review of Strauss' philosophy and how it influences neo-conservative thoughts and actions. I could not put it down.

It is hard to believe this was written in 1999. It is consistent with everything we have seen and suspected since the 2000 election. What we see today in the missing John Roberts documents. Yesterday in the Downing Street memos. And tomorrow in ...

Do you wonder why Jewish and Catholic neo-cons support a born-again President? Why born-again evangelicals support Israel? Because the philosopy of Strauss is for only a few chosen individuals to be educated and know what is going on, to lie to the rest of us, and to use religion (any religion will do) as a vehicle to rally the masses.

I can't give a very complete review since I read the book two years ago; however, I was surprised that some reviewers are praising it and so wanted to get my two cents in.

If Drury took the ideas of the people she critiques seriously, this would be an excellent book since she covers such interesting terrain. However, she dislikes anyone who is not a liberal so much that she is completely deaf to them. I will give only one example, but I think it shows how misleading her readings are of Strauss, Carl Schmitt and Heidegger.

She writes: "Strauss points out that the greatest philosophers, those who manage to rise above convention altogether, are pederasts" (62).

Her endnote for this claim points to The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism pages 116-7.

Look up those pages, one sees that Strauss is discussing Aristophanes' representation of Socrates. In this context, Strauss writes:

"We record here the fact that the hero of the Birds, who succeeds in dethroning the gods and in becoming the ruler of the universe through the birds, is the pederast Peisthetaerus" (117).

To go from the fact that a character in a comedy is a pederast to Drury's claim that for Strauss the greatest philosophers are pederasts shows how arbitrary and malicious her interpretations are. Or rather that the principle guiding her interpretation is that whatever Strauss writes must be interpreted in the most nefarious way possible.

Her book is really a polemic and as such Drury is more concerned with deriding her opponents than in giving them a fair hearing. However, if she would have the mindset to give them a fair hearing, then I think she would see that there is no need for all-out war but rather strategic queries. On the other hand, since she seems to be a committed Lockean-Millian liberal maybe for her there is a need for an all-out war since Strauss is willing to question modern pieties through his ancient lens.

I think it is safe to assume that Strauss' teaching can only be gleaned by reading Strauss as carefully as he reads others. By writing in that mode, Strauss seems to intentionally court misinterpretation; thus, he presumably would not be bothered by a book like Drury's, which offers a quite wild interpretation. Perhaps, she hits on a few points but isolated from the whole of which they are only a part they can't be seen in their proper light.

The book is not a serious philosophical engagement with Strauss' thought. Although I've only read parts of _The Truth about Leo Strauss_, it seems an infinitely better account of Strauss's thought and also deals with Drury's interpretation.

Shadia Drury has exhibited first-rate scholarship on a figure who has traditionally been hard to pin down. She has captured the thought of Leo Strauss in all of its subtleties in ways that no other scholar has been able to do. Drury has especially done a superb job of explaining Strauss' philosophical elitism in her explanation of his virulent attacks on liberalism, his affinity with Carl Schmitt, his duplicitous division of knowledge between the esoteric and the exoteric, and the cult-like nature of his teaching style. As subtle and enigmatic as Strauss is, his influence on the authoritarian Right in America cannot be underestimated. And she has rightly shown that this influence is not a healthy one. Many of Strauss' supporters have been in the vanguard of the Culture War that the authoritarian Right has unleashed on the United States. Drury deserves to be congratulated for her careful and accurate scholarship on this figure. I highly recommend her book as must reading for all who wish to be informed about the danger to freedom that is coming from the Right.

Drury's reprise of her 1988 "Political Ideas of Leo Strauss" continues a fine tradition of questionable scholarship and pseudo-journalistic inquiry into the mysterious figure of Leo Strauss. Drury attempts to demonstrate how Strauss's true teaching is radically antithetical to American democracy and that his pupils and followers in the Republican Party are hoping to fulfill this teaching by transforming the United States into a classical regime with a post-modern twist. Of course, as in her first book, Drury's portrayal of Strauss is as friendly as possible to her argument (using a favorite post-modern rhetorical tactic she never really attacks him head-on) but rather weak on confronting the complexity and variety of Strauss's corpus of work. Students of Strauss (or anyone familiar with his works) might say that Drury's attempt at creating a myth failed rather obviously. Drury also makes sloppy use of historical coincidences to create an air of conspiracy among Straussians. Unfortunately, even the most obtuse reader could not fail to recognize that since Strauss died in 1973 labelling him the godfather of the Reagan years of 1980-88 and of the 1994 Republican Revolution is a bit of a stretch. Drury does make a good point in showing how Strauss's ideas have been used politically by various factions, but she mistakenly implies that Strauss somehow endorsed all of these appropriations and she never holds these Straussians (often self-proclaimed) up to the high standards of political wisdom Strauss demanded from his students, not to mention from the the greatest men of the past. Drury's work does present a number of areas of fruitful inquiry for students interested in Strauss and his political philosophy, especially in her notes on the large body of Strauss literature, but the substance of her account smacks more of not-quite-so-subtle ideological posturing rather than the detailed and methodical scholarship of the man whose "dirty political secrets" she claims to have unearthed.

This book is stuck somewhere between authentic scholarship and a popular television-type investigative report. I cannot help but thinking Shahida Drury was duped into updating her earlier, more scholarly executed work on Leo Strauss, by the publisher who wanted to cash in on contemporary, and now out of date, political moods. The book is very short (included in the total page count is her Notes section and her Index), skimming the surface and regurgitating thread-bare arguments; however, I think she truly believes what she writes. The good professor is the 'city' and she comes up against 'the philosopher' and accuses him of unjust things in a more sophisticated and learned way than the political men ever could. She is Thraymachus, her anger at Strauss is honest and not totally without cause, for Leo Strauss, the little old, refugee Jew, really was a dangerous man. He was dangerous because philosophy is dangerous and this book testifies to how constant and true or perrenial that fact remains. I encourage anyone to read this book to see that I am not simplifying or rationalizing the text. Here is the clash that has marked civilization since the death of Socrates.

I bought this book a few years ago and just had a chance to read it cover to cover this week. I notice that of the 5 reviews below, 4 are unfavorable in varying degrees. They are all accurate in direct proportion to their level of criticism. This text is little more than a polemic.

I recently went back over Alan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind (after reading Saul Bellow's wonderful Ravelstein), which was my chief source of Straussian thought other than college texts read over a generation ago. Bloom repeatedly castigated (North) American academics for their doctrinaire orthodoxy and lack of genuine philosophic vision. Ms. Drury's text demonstrates his point much more effectively, although presumably unintentionally. Unlike Strauss, Bloom and others in their school, she is never able to justify or explain her value programming and simply proceeds from the (incorrect) assumption that the reader shares her basic premises which differ from those of the Straussians. Further, the book has a repetitive, sing song prose style that bespeaks a lack of editing. The same sentence form, and in some cases even the same sentence, appears so often as to be remarkable even to the casual reader. This makes for tedious reading.

One thing the Ms. Drury does do, almost to perfection, is to set up a "straw man" argument using an oversimplified or disorted paraphrase of a Straussian or Bloomian thought and then demolishing it in a way that would be impossible if the point were viewed in full context. If that is what you are after, this is a valued resource. Otherwise, don't repeat my mistake.

A simply terrible book. Caricature is not a sufficient refutation. Be very careful of any assertions in this book: always follow up the footnotes and compare and contrast the massive difference between what Strauss says and what Drury makes Strauss say. Another strategy employed is that of guilt by association. This book has no redeeming features.