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What Was Leo Strauss?Peter Minowitz

a

aSanta Clara University

Published online: 06 Oct 2011.

To cite this article:Peter Minowitz (2011) What Was Leo Strauss?, Perspectives on Political Science, 40:4, 218-226, DOI:10.1080/10457097.2011.611754

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Perspectives on Political Science, 40:218226, 2011

Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online

DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2011.611754

What Was Leo Strauss?

PETER MINOWITZ

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that Leo Strauss was

an extraordinary scholar and teacher who strove to open up

forgotten vistas of philosophical inquiry. Gigantic contro-

versy rages, however, about the sorts of political and social

changes, if any, that he hoped to promote. The fire has been

fueled by the alleged contributions of Straussians to the Iraq

Warand by the publication of Strausss 1933 letter that

commended fascist, authoritarian, and imperial principles.

This article reviews and then updates the assessments prof-

fered in my 2009 book (Straussophobia) about the state of

the Strauss Wars. Critics such as Shadia Drury continue

to embarrass themselves in prestigious venues, but newer

voices are using innovative strategies to argue that Strauss

was attempting to undermine the principles of American

democracy. Whereas William Altman relies on esoteric in-

terpretations of Strausss writings, Alan Gilbert illuminates

Strausss behind-the-scenes efforts regarding policy disputes.

Although I maintain that Gilbert and especially Altman

have made invaluable contributions, I argue that they both

overreach.

Keywords: Leo Strauss, William Altman, Alan Gilbert,

Shadia Drury, Robert Goldwin, Nietzsche, Heidegger,

Straussophobia, political philosophy, historicism, fascism,

liberal democracy, National Socialism, segregation

WHAT WAS LEO STRAUSS?

During his four decades as anemigre, Leo Strauss appears

to have been vastly more comfortable as a professor than he

would have been as a president. He spoke with a heavy Ger-

man accent, his classes routinely ran late, and he reputedly

needed assistance to change a light bulb. More important, he

wrote dense books and articles that teemed with citations,

quotations, paraphrases, and fresh starts. He treated ideas

with maximum seriousness, devoting himself with unsur-

Peter Minowitz is at Santa Clara University.

passable energy to extracting teachings between the lines

of old books; at times, he suggested that if we scrutinize the

history of political philosophy, we can discern threads that

explain the development of Western civilization. Regarding

the trade-offs between theory and practice, finally, Strauss

was notorious for questioning if not condemning a fateful

revolution he traced to Machiavelli. Machiavelli, according

to Strauss, inaugurated the modern world by abandoning

the primacy that classical political philosophy accorded to

the contemplative idealand by attempting to control the

future fate of human thought (WIPP 46) via a multigener-

ational campaign of propaganda/enlightenment.1 Given the

powerful real-world effects that Strauss traced to texts and

teachings, however, it is natural to wonder whether he in-

tended to promote major political and social changes.

Such issues became the focus of my scholarship thanks

to . . . Tim Robbins, the Oscar-winning actor. Building on

my experiences as a department chair at a Jesuit university,

I was writing a book about the use and abuse of the term

diversity. Along the way, I happened to watch a DVD of

Embedded, the 2003 play by Robbins in which President

George W. Bushs top officials and advisers offer incanta-

tions to Strauss while initiating and conducting the Iraq War.

Recalling other slanderous remarks I was encountering about

Strauss and Straussians, I decided to write a chapter about

my diversity as a Straussian. That chapter swelled into

Straussophobia.2

Strauss and his school of followers have been controver-sial for decades, but the Iraq War produced a major escalation

in the accusations. William Kristol, a professed Straussian,

had been beating the war drums.3 He was joined occasion-

ally by Paul Wolfowitz, who became a high official at the

Pentagon that prosecuted the war; Wolfowitz had taken two

classes with Strauss at the University of Chicago, after be-

comingcloseto Allan Bloom as an undergraduate at Cornell.4

From 2003 on, ignorant and inane statements about Straus-

sian conspiracies were appearing in prestigious publications,

including the New York Times, Harpers Magazine, and the

Chronicle of Higher Education; such statements were also

218


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OctoberDecember 2011, Volume 40, Number 4 219

being promulgated by highly celebrated journalists (e.g., Joe

Klein) and scholars (e.g., Douglas Massey).

Among the prominent professors who helped to shape the

discussion, two stand out for their departures from scholarly

integrity: Shadia Drury and Anne Norton.

Years before regime change became a gleam in Presi-

dent Bushs eye, Drury published two books about Strauss.5

Because I have attacked her so relentlessly inStraussopho-

bia, I shall here offer only a few comments. First, Drury isa lively and focused writer who, especially in her first book

(The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss), opened up important

vistas on the elitist strains in Strauss. Even this book, alas, is

marred by a variety of serious errors and exaggerations; the

new introduction she prepared for its 2005 reprinting, more-

over, is perhaps the most wretched discussion of Strauss and

his followers that has been penned by anyone with a Ph.D.

Among other things, Drury here maintains that Strauss hated

Athensbecause of its philosophical love of truth. Re-

garding his followers, she asserts that Straussians embrace

perpetual war so that they can imagine they are gods enter-

taining themselves with the mutual slaughter of the mortals

on their television screens.6 Such outlandish statements alsopervade what Drury has written and said in less scholarly

venues.

In a recent professional triumph, Drury was chosen to re-

view Nicholas Xenoss Strauss-bashing 2008 book,Cloaked

in Virtue, for Perspectives on Politics.7 Despite the stature

of the venue, Drury repeats her sweeping accusations about

Iraq, including her mistaken characterization of Wolfowitz

and Libby as professed Straussians: It is well known that the

neoconservatives who masterminded the foreign policy of the

George W. Bush administration were self-proclaimed devo-

tees of StraussPaul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Abram

Shulsky, and Lewis Scooter Libby emerged as paradigms

of Straussian politics (410).8 Drury ends the review with abizarre accusation: that Xenos was in many ways a victim

of the secrecy that has lowered the level of intellectual dis-

course between the defenders and critics of Strauss (411).

Although Xenos does provide painstaking textual analy-

sis, suggestive innuendos, and subtle allusions (Drurys

phrases), he is not secretive, and the person who has most

degraded the debate about Strauss is Shadia Drury.9

Even more than Drury, Anne Norton looms large because

of her academic credentials. She serves on the governing

council of the American Political Science Association; she

serves on the Executive Editorial Committee ofPolitical The-

ory, a flagship journal; her 2004 book, Leo Strauss and the

Politics of American Empire, was published by Yale Univer-

sity Press; and this book received glowing reviews in both

Political Theoryand Ethics.10

Norton respects Strauss and admires several Straussian

professors with whom she studied at Chicago, but she loses

her bearings dramatically as she attempts to blame Straus-

sians for the Iraq War. Her three main transgressions are

these.First, sheoffersan incoherent batch of statements about

what makes someone a Straussian. Second, she applies the

label promiscuously to several prominent neoconservatives

(e.g., Richard Perle and Donald Kagan) who bear little if any

Straussian heritage. Third, she heinously misquotes and

otherwise distorts important works written by Wolfowitz,

Carnes Lord, and comparable figures. Her interpretative er-

rors are particularly outrageous because she provides no page

citations.11 As she builds to her conclusion, finally, Norton

offers the ludicrous claim that Baghdad was being occupied

by those who call themselves his [Strausss] students.12

In trying to explain the parade of disgracefully flawed

quotations, paraphrases, citations, attributions, associations,

interpretations, and speculations that I examined in Straus-sophobia, I attributed the corruption of inquiry to causes

such as the following: impatience; partisan zeal; the propen-

sity to scapegoat; the complexity of Strausss posture as an

author/commentator; the time shortages that afflict political

deliberation and action; and the professional concerns that

impel academics and journalists to publish.

Let us turn now to two critics who have demonized

Strauss more recently and with greater sophistication. The

first is Alan Gilbert, a strident leftist who refers to Con-

doleezza Rice, his former protege at the University of Den-

ver, as an unrepentant war criminal. For Gilbert, the major

Straussian sins are warmongering, racism, and the promo-

tion of tyranny in the Oval Office. Gilbert is writing a bookabout Strauss, and he has been posting long discussions on

his blog (http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/). Al-

though he regularly offers claims that I regard as flagrant

overstatements,13 Gilbert has made at least four major con-

tributions to Strauss studies. First, on the basis of research he

did in the Strauss collection at Chicagos Regenstein Library,

Gilbert has written about some of Strausss unpublished let-

ters, including two hawkish pieces he had sent to Charles H.

Percy in the early 1960s (Percy was a prominent Republican

CEO who went on to serve as the U.S. Senator from Illinois).

In the 1963 letter, Strauss seemed to recommend that the

U.S. invade Cuba. Second, Gilbert has conducted interviews

with politically active Straussians such as Gary J. Schmittand Michael J. Malbin. Third, Gilbert has an abiding interest

in Plato and Heidegger, he has looked carefully at Strausss

discussions of them, and he admits that Strauss is a skillful

commentatorthough he insists that Strauss is a cryptogra-

pher rather than a philosopher.14 Fourth, Gilbert published

a scholarly article that highlights the 1933 letter to Karl

Lowith in which Strauss commended the fascist, authoritar-

ian, [and]imperial principles of the Right.15 Strausss letter

wasnt published until 2001, when it appeared (in German)

in volume III of Strausss collected works; it didnt attract

widespread attention until Scott Horton posted a translation

in August 2006.

In another key letter to Lowithone that wasnt published

until 1988, when it appeared in an obscure journalStrauss

revealed that during his twenties he had been completely

dominated and bewitched (beherrscht und bezaubert) by

Nietzsche.16 Needless to say, Strauss never even hints at this

attachment in any of his published writings. Drury harps on

Strausss debts to Nietzsche, and a 1996 book by Laurence

Lampert provides a brilliant account of them.17

Our understanding of Strausss indebtedness to German

thinkers, in any case, may well be transformed by a new

book called The German Stranger.18 The author, William

H. F. Altman, argues that Strauss, throughout most of his


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220 Perspectives on Political Science

adult life, admired the inner truth and greatness of National

Socialism.19 I was recruited to write a blurb for the back

cover, and I spent a month wrestling with Altmans 600-page

manuscript.20

Starting with Strausss 1921 dissertation on Friedrich

Heinrich Jacobi (17431819), a pioneering decisionist,

Altman scrutinizes Strausss development as no other com-

mentator has done. Although various scholars have argued

that Strauss sympathized with the proto-Nazi agenda of CarlSchmitt, Altman also pores over the intra-Zionist polemics

that occupied so much of Strausss attention in the 1920s;

along the way, he highlights Strausss enthusiasm for the

fascistic Blau-Weiss faction led by Walter Moses.21

In the autobiographical essay that introduces the 1962

reprinting of Spinozas Critique of Religion, Strauss an-

nounces he underwent a change of orientation that he had

first expressed in his 1932 articleabout Schmitt. It is typically

assumed that this change was a shift toward pre-modern

rationalisma shift derived from Strausss growing doubts

about Nietzsche and other historicist/existentialist philoso-

phers who were willing if not eager to say farewell to rea-

son (SCR301/LAM2567). Because Strauss here stressesthat the shift augmented his interest in the writing strate-

gies that heterodox thinkers of earlier ages had employed,

it is easy to infer that Strauss had blossomed and become

Strauss under the auspices of ancient and medieval authors

whose hidden teachings had previously eluded him. Altman,

by contrast, not only observes that someone can dismissrea-

son withoutsayingfarewell to it; he argues, shockingly, that

Strausss Nietzschean orientation was abandoned primarily

under the influence of Heidegger, who departed from Niet-

zsche by embracing both anti-Semitism and German nation-

alism (cf.RCPR31, TWM 98).

Among the passages that Altman marshals in defending

this thesis are Strausss assertions that Heidegger had van-quished Ernst Cassirer (Strausss dissertation advisor) at a

conference in Davos (WIPP 246, RCPR 28). As Altman

notes, Cassirer was a staunchly anti-fascist Jew who em-

braced both the Enlightenment and the Weimar Republic.22

The RCPRlecture makes no mention of the year of the de-

bate, 1929approximately the time that Strauss overcame

his infatuation with Nietzsche.23 In a widely quoted passage

from the lecture, Strauss adds that the failure of the Nazis

taught Heidegger that Nietzsches hope of a united Europe

rulingthe planet hadproved delusoryandthat an appalling

world society controlled either by Washington [soapy ad-

vertising] or Moscow [iron compulsion] appeared to be

approaching (RCPR412).24

Whatever their differences, Heidegger followed Nietzsche

in lamenting the victory of the slave morality and the

world-alienation that were allegedly introduced by Judaism,

spread by Christianity, and then appropriated by modern

thinkers in a manner that augured the pending triumph of

the last man.25 For Altman, Strausss amazing discover-

ies concerning the art of writing equipped him to promote

major themes from Jacobi, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Heideg-

ger while teaching and writing within the belly of the liberal

beast. Everyone knows that the ancients werent Christians,

but Altman argues that Strauss distorted them to bring out

world-embracing and possibly nihilistic elements that di-

vide them irrevocably from the enfeebling tendencies and

movements that Nietzsche abhorred.26 Although Altmans

Strauss conceals the truth about himself, he does not lie,27

and Altman proceeds quite cleverly in arguing that Strauss

sometimes encourages us to embellish his words in ways

that align them with sentiments that are congenial to Anglo-

American traditions.28 Altman is wise, furthermore, to em-

phasize that Strauss refrained from publishing his essay onNietzsche (SPPP 17491)and his description of Heideg-

ger as an outstanding thinker (SPPP30)until very late

in his life.29

Altmans manuscript was suffused with erudition and

imagination, but it included dozens of assertions that I found

Straussophobic.30 Obviously, there are passages in which

Strauss forcefully commends liberal democracy,31 and other

passages seem to condemn National Socialism.32 Not all of

these passages are in introductions or conclusions, and Alt-

man sometimes struggles to accommodate them. For exam-

ple, Altman quotesSPPP168 on three different occasions,33

but does not address the challenge posed to him by Strausss

suggestion that Hitler [sic] Germany was one of the catas-trophes and horrors that disfigured the era in which Strauss

lived.34 Altman also fails to accommodateWIPP241, where

Strauss states that insanity prevailed again as Germany

entered the Third Reich, [l]ed politically by Hitler and in-

tellectually by Heidegger.35 But Altman does raise potent

doubts about Strausss widely cited claim that Nietzsche, by

impelling his readers to choose between irresponsible in-

difference to politics and irresponsible political opinions,

prepared a regime which, as long as it lasted, made dis-

credited democracy look again like the golden age (WIPP

55).36 As Altman explains, Strausss wording implies that

discredited democracy looked like the golden age only

during the period of Nazi rule (as long as it lasted), andStrauss says nothing here to suggest that Germanys defeat

removed democracys taint. Had the Third Reich lasted for

a thousand years, Altman adds mischievously, democracy

would have remaineddiscredited.37 Altmans interpretation,

however, fails to acknowledge that Strauss is likening pre-

Nazi democracy, despite the flaws that discredited it, to an

exalted condition (the golden age).38

Altman maintains that Strauss harbored a pure, pristine,

and unshakable hatred of America, that he intended to take

Germanys western enemy out of the picture, and that he

proved to be remarkably successful in destroying Liberal

Democracys faith in itself.39 These and other passages sug-

gest that, in Altmans view, Strauss would have welcomed

a fascist revival.40 On the other hand, Altman acknowledges

the difference between annihilating a theoretical founda-

tion and erecting some new form of totalitarianism; it

is altogether wrong, Altman adds, to think that Strauss

meditated the rise of National Socialism in his adoptive

home.41 Granted, Altman never alleges that the German

Stranger mapped out a conspiratorial project for overthrow-

ing the American regime. It is nevertheless difficult to believe

that Altmans Strauss would not have meditated about the

development of fascistic alternatives. And although it is dif-

ficult to deny that Strauss labored to prevent the principles of


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liberal democracy from conquering the world of thought,42

Altman fails to demonstrate that Strauss either hated America

or caused its self-confidence to teeter.

Strausss arguments on behalf of ancient moderation,

furthermore, convey powerful warnings against the mon-

strosities that utopianism and misguided revolutions can

spawn. In Liberal Education and Responsibility, for ex-

ample, Strauss seems to echo his above-quoted complaint

about Nietzsches contributions to irresponsible politi-cal postures: after lamenting both visionary expectations

and unmanly contempt for politics, Strauss offers the

amazing assertion that it may again become true that

all liberally educated men will be politically moderate

(LAM 24). The again implies that at some point in the

pastpresumably, before Machiavelli paved the way for

a variety of modern utopianismsevery liberally educated

man was moderate.43 Perhaps Altmans most implausible

claimor implicationis that Strauss was not appalled by

the butchery of six million Jews (LAM266). Unlike both

Nietzsche and Heidegger, Strauss spoke eloquently on behalf

of Jerusalem.44 Even for Altmans Strauss, finally, Hitler was

a manifestly vulgar Nazi.45

Commentators generally assume that Heidegger is the

radical historicist whobecause of his contempt for per-

manencies such as the distinction between the noble and

the basechose in 1933 to welcome, as a dispensation

of fate, the verdict of the least wise and least moderate part

of his nation while it was in its least wise and least mod-

erate mood (WIPP 267). Altman argues ingeniously that

this radical historicist is Strauss; for Heidegger, adds Alt-

man, the authentic and inauthentic modes ofDaseinqualify

as permanent characteristics of humanity.46 In developing

this point, however, Altman falters on at least one key issue.

Regarding Strausss responses to the historicist rejection of

the question of the good societyi.e., to the historicist po-

sition that, because even the possibility of raising the ques-

tion is the outcome of a mysterious dispensation of fate,

the question is not in principle coeval with man (WIPP

26)Altman equates historicism with the well-known clas-

sical view that the actualization of the best regime depends

on chance (WIPP 34).47 Among other things, it is difficult

to reconcile this conflation with the emphasis Strauss places

on the difference between the philosophic question of the

best political order and the practical questions about when

and where such an order could or should be established. 48

In any case, something could be coeval with man without

beingeternal

; when Strauss includes the natural order of thehuman soul among the unchangeable things that can help

us distinguish right from wrong (LAM13), he is not denying

that the human species came into being and will pass away. 49

Perhaps the decisive issue is whether all human thought

depends ultimately on fickle and dark fate and not on evi-

dent principles accessible to man as man (NRH19). Strauss

appears to insist, contra Alexandre Kojeve and others, that

human beings have a nature that is associated with cer-

tain fundamental and even permanent/eternal problemsor

alternatives,50 and he maintains that, because the most rad-

ical historicism entails oblivion of eternity, it also entails

estrangement . . . from the primary issues.51 Strauss might

seem sympathetic when he conveys Heideggers view that

Greek philosophy, by assuming that the whole is essen-

tially intelligiblethat the grounds of the whole . . .are

alwaysultimately spawned the noxious modern attempt to

promote human mastery of the whole (RCPR43; cf.NRH

301). But Strauss departs conspicuously from Heidegger

by illuminating the zetetic/skeptical aspects of classical

political philosophy52and by sketching the hidden threads

whereby the modern project allegedly developed as a con-spiracy launched by Machiavelli.

If human beings confront problems that are permanent, in

any case, political philosophy as the attempt both to specify

the right, or the good, political order and to know the

nature of political things (WIPP12) can ward off key chal-

lenges from historicism. It can also serve as the political, or

popular, treatment of philosophy (WIPP934), promoting

truly independent thinking (PAW23) while attempting to

persuade society that philosophers are neither atheists nor

subversives (OT2056). Both types of political philosophy

can thrive in universities, and neither requires a creative call

to creativity designed to promote a new planetary aristoc-

racy (WIPP54) or the transvaluation of all values (TWM96). Although Strauss in On Classical Political Philosophy

accentuates, via an emphatic I say, that the politicpresen-

tation of philosophy is the deeper meaning of political

philosophy (WIPP 934), he does not thereby reject the

substantive definition (investigation of the best regime and

the nature of political things) that he articulates in What

Is Political Philosophy? (WIPP12).53

Along with Gilbert and Lampert, Altman insists that

Strauss was a nihilist who resolutely denied the existence

of God, Platonic Ideas, natural law, natural rights, and analo-

gous phenomena.54 Such a denial might bring Strauss closer

to the types of historicism according to which it is impos-

sible for human thought. . .

ever to grasp anything eternal(NRH12), for example, the eternal cause or causes of the

whole (OT 198), the eternal beings (OT 200), or an

eternal and unchangeable order . . . which is not in any way

affected by History (OT212).55 This same denial, however,

can help demolish the cruder historicisms that project a rigid

and rational path to historyor deny thatanyonecan escape

his/her historical context. For Lampert, indeed, Strauss was

a magisterial interpreter who demonstrated that some exalted

thinkers consciouslyand quite creativelyexaggerated the

primacy ofbeing overbecoming.56 Even if Altman has delin-

eated Strausss debts to Nietzsche and Heidegger accurately,

one can argue that Strausss account of the history of po-

litical philosophy provides us with unprecedented access to

certain peaks of human thought; Strauss has surely done his

share to counteract the forgetting of earlier important in-

sights (NRH223).57 And anyone who extols Altman must

admit that, if Strauss is so adept at esoteric communication,

perhaps the texts from which he learned the art of writing

likewise deliver important lessons between the lines.58

Can one provide a compelling account of Strausss influ-

ence withoutconceding that he formulated meticulous and

supremely imaginative interpretations of several illustrious

authors? I never met, heard, or saw him, but I am confident in

saying that, if he harbored Nazi views, he did not share them


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with his students.59 Even if his heart pined for some form

of fascism, he would need brilliant scholarship to attract his

American disciplesand to train them in unmasking his

secrets.60 With a nod to Altman, Strausss critics should en-

deavor to read him as patiently and as attentively as he read

hisLieblinge. Both foes and friends of Strauss can hope that

he will be remembered, not as a Caesarian Gewaltmensch,61

but as an educator who helped us listen to still and small

voices (LAM25).

APPENDIX: STRAUSSOPHOBIA IN THE

DEMOCRATIC-INDIVIDUALITY BLOG

What was Leo Strauss? This question will continue to be

debated fiercely, if not always scrupulously, and I wish that I

could offer a definitive answer. Although no one denies that

Strauss was an unusually inspirational teacher who offered

bold new interpretations of Plato, Xenophon, Machiavelli,

et al., those interpretations will remain controversial. People

will continue to disagree, furthermore, regarding the follow-

ing questions: where the mature Strauss should be placed

on the political spectrum, whether he was inclined to takefirm stands on major policy issues, and whether he intended

to promote regime change. For Alan Gilbert, however, the

answers are clear.

Here follows a three-passage sampledrawn exclusively

from Gilberts two above-cited articles in Constellationsof

inflammatory and irresponsible accusations.62 The passages

also appear in Gilberts blog (the page numbers cited below

are from the articles):

Plato seems friendlier to a rule of law [sic] as a second-bestregime than Strauss or his followers do (112).

Robert A. Goldwins chapter on Locke (in Strausss and

CropseysHistory of Political Philosophy) exaggerates Lock-ean prerogative as if Locke had been, not an advocate ofrevolutionagainst tyranny but somehow, a precursor of VicePresident Cheney (80).

Along with Goldwin and Walter Berns, Strauss organized apublic policy conference that affirmed states rights againstthe Brown v. Board of Education decision (79).

I shall respond here only to the last entry, in which Gilbert

is discussing the 1961 Chicago conference that spawned

Goldwinscollection,A Nation of States: Essays on the Amer-

ican Federal System (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1961/1963).63

This conference deserves careful examination because it il-

luminates Strausss interest in addressing specific issues of

public policy, because Strauss and his followers are regularly

accused of racism,64 and because fierce debate is again raging

about the proper scope of the U.S. national government.

As Gilbert elaborates in another posting, where he states

that Strauss cooperated with the crude and murderous

racism . . .of the segregationists,65 one of the four confer-

ence speakers was James Jackson Kilpatrick, the well-known

journalist who wrote The Southern Case for School Segre-

gation(New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1962). In the pub-

lished version of his talk (The Case for States Rights),

however, Kilpatrick does not say a word about segregation,

integration, race, or the Brown decision;66 nor does he emit

even a whiff of racism. His main theme is the threat to free-

dom and local diversity that a centralized national govern-

ment poses. He maintains that all governments are oppres-

sive; he thinks its obvious that government is a necessary

evil (91); he touts the Declarations rights to life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness (92); he claims that the Found-

ing Fathers wanted to restrain all governments (100); and

he asserts that the self-evident desire to restrain all gov-

ernment pervades the U.S. Constitution (98). In the samespirit, he celebrates the diverse postures that different states

might adopt regarding voting age, divorce laws, pollution, la-

bor conditions, and public education. States and localities, he

adds, are always . . . closer to the people than is the central

government (103), partly because institutions such as refer-

endum and recall tend to ensure that local government can

be controlled in a way that the central government cannot

(104).

Granted, Kilpatrick was a prominent segregationist who

here makes an impassioned plea for states rights in the after-

math ofBrown; a wedge for school segregation, furthermore,

may appear in his celebration of that sense of close com-

munity which is the starting point of political well-beingaconcern he also attributes to the Framers of the Constitu-

tion (100). But we must never forget that, although Brown

represented a major intrusion by the Supreme Court into

state legislation, it placed restrictions ongovernment. Only

with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were private businesses

throughout the United States banned from practicing racial

discrimination. Kilpatricks exhortations for liberty, had they

been directed against the Civil Rights Act, would be easier to

swallow than his endorsement of state-mandated segregation.

Gilberts aspersions are even more problematic because

Kilpatrick was the only segregationist who spoke at the

conference. When the Goldwin collection was published,

it also included essays by four of Strausss studentsMartinDiamond, Herbert J. Storing, Harry V. Jaffa, and Wal-

ter Bernsalong with essays by Russell Kirk and Morton

Grodzins.67 Of these, only the Kirk piece (The Prospects

for Territorial Democracy in America) makes a plea for de-

centralization and states rights, and Kirk says nothing that

even implies a critique of federally mandated desegregation

(4366). When one reads the essays by Strausss students,

one sees Diamond touting the Founding, Storing criticizing

Kirk, and Jaffa criticizing Kilpatrick.68

The essay by Walter Berns, The Meaning of the Tenth

Amendment (13961), is the only Straussian piece that

evinces meaningful sympathy for either Kilpatrick or Kirk.

Berns protests the New Deal law that was invoked to fine a

farmerwho fedhis familywith wheat that exceededa produc-

tion quota (1401), and faults the claim that the Commerce

Clause gave Congress the power to constrain a snack bar

in a remote recreational facility on a small Arkansas lake

(141).69 Berns also mentions the 1957 book (The Sovereign

States: Notes of a Citizen of Virginia) in which Kilpatrick

had protested theBrowndecision (1412), but he commends

only two of itstheses: that the Supreme Court lacks the power

to repeal any portion of the Constitution, and that the Tenth

Amendment70 must therefore be given its full meaning

(150). Berns, furthermore, proceeds to argue that Kilpatrick


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exaggerates the impact this amendment should have in re-

straining the national government (1501, 15861).

In his 8/17/09 posting, Gilbert deftly skewers Kilpatricks

evasions and hypocrisy.71 He also quotes from an unpub-

lished letter that Strauss wrote to Goldwin on 12/24/60, be-

fore the conference. Strauss here lauds the Kilpatrick paper

because its main argument (local diversity) is not met in

any of the three other papers, and so there is room for discus-

sion (he adds that it was not Goldwins fault that the StatesRights position is presented in only one paper).72 In addi-

tion, Strauss faults the Grodzins paper because it doesnt

explore the desegregation issue and the whole question of

whether these kinds of matters can legitimately be settled

by the Supreme Court. Writing to Goldwin on 2/13/61, fur-

thermore, Strauss expressed interest in arranging a debate

about social science and its political consequences in the

last generation, including the findings of SS [social science]

which allegedly demand desegregation; Strauss specifically

suggests that someone from the deep south be included.

Without designating a specific letter, finally, Gilbert relays

Strausss complaining (to Goldwin) about Browns contro-

versial reliance on social science, particularly the doll exper-iments conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark.

These letters to Goldwin show that Strauss harbored

doubts about the way desegregation had been imposed. I

can find almost no support, however, for Gilberts statement

that the 1961 conference affirmed states rights against the

Brown v. Board of Educationdecision (79). When he al-

leges that Strauss was cooperating with crude and murder-

ous racism, finally, Gilbert both distorts and demonizes.

Strauss has been dead for almost forty years, and neocon-

servatives are now reviled even more than neoliberals, so

one can hope that the debate about his legacy will someday

proceed without the sloppy slandering that provoked me to

writeStraussophobia. Commentators who approach Strausscalmly and carefully will not only reduce the volume of

stupidity in the world (RCPR 121). They will reduce the

appeal of racism and fascism, both of which elevate anger at

the expense of laughter and learning.

NOTES

1. Ishall use the following abbreviationsfor Strausss works: CM=TheCity and Man(Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964); LAM=Liberalism Ancientand Modern (New York: Basic Books, 1968); NRH= Natural Right and

History(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953); OT= On Tyranny,revised and expanded, edited by Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); PAW= Persecution and the

Art of Writing(New York: The Free Press, 1952); RCPR = The Rebirth ofClassical Political Rationalism: Essays and Lectures by Leo Strauss, editedby Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989);SCR=Spinozas Critique of Religion(New York: Schocken Books, 1965; the Ger-man original was published in 1930);SPPP = Studies in Platonic PoliticalPhilosophy, with an Introduction by Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1983);TM= Thoughts on Machiavelli(Glencoe, IL:The Free Press, 1958); TWM = The Three Waves of Modernity, in HilailGildin, ed.,Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss (Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merill, 1965); WIPP = What Is Political Philosophy? And OtherStudies(Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959).

2. Peter Minowitz,Straussophobia: Defending Leo Strauss and Straus-sians against Shadia Drury and other Accusers(Lanham, MD: LexingtonBooks, 2009). I would like to thank Timothy Burns, Michael Chiang, Tim-othy Lukes, and Max Minowitz, who provided acute feedback on variousversions ofWhat Was Leo Strauss?

3. In a remark thatEmbeddedhighlights, Kristol wrote (a few monthsafter the U.S. invaded Iraq) that President Bushs advocacy of regimechange . . . is a not altogether unworthy product of Strausss rehabilitationof the notion of regime (Steven J. Lenzner and William Kristol, What WasLeo Strauss Up To? Public Interest153 [Fall 2003]: 38).

4. As I emphasize in Straussophobia, 249, 33, Wolfowitzs interestschanged at Chicago, and he wrote his dissertation about nuclear-powereddesalinization plants in the Middle East; his advisor was Albert Wohlstet-ter, the number-crunching and globe-trotting IR-theorist. In a widely citedarticle, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour M. Hersh proclaimed, erroneously,that Wolfowitz earned his doctorate under Strauss (Hersh, Selective Intel-

ligence,New Yorker, 12 May 2003, 48). This error continues to reverberatein the most august venues, e.g., John R. Wallachs review ofThe CambridgeCompanion to Leo Strauss in the book-review journal of the American Po-litical Science Association (Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 2 [June 2010]:6689). Drawing on William Pfaff as well as Hersh, Wallach also repeatsthe widespread but poorly grounded allegation that Elliott Abrams, DouglasFeith, Robert Kagan, and Richard Perle are Straussians (Wallach highlightsthe influx of Straussians who worked for George W. Bush and/or agitatedforthe Iraq War). More embarrassing errorsappear in J.G. Yorkand MichaelA. Peters, eds.,Leo Strauss, Education, and Political Thought(Madison, NJ:Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011), despite the academic imprint.In the piece written by co-editor Peters, one reads that Wohlstetter wasamong Strausss proteges, that Francis Fukuyama studied with Strauss,and that Fukuyama spent time with Alexandre Kojeve in the 1950s (184,200, 201). Fukuyama never met either Strauss or Kojeve, and was only eightyears old as the 1950s came to a close.

5. Shadia B. Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss(New York: St.

Martins Press, 1988);Leo Strauss and the American Right(New York: St.Martins Press, 1997); I shall hereafter abbreviate these books, respectively,asPILSand LSAR.

6. Shadia B. Drury,The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss , updated edition(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), xxxvii, li.

7. Perspectives on Politics 7, no. 2 [June 2009]: 40911.8. Wolfowitz has repeatedly denied that he is a Straussian, and there

seems to be no evidence whatsoever for Drurys claim that Libby is a self-proclaimed devotee. For a critique of allegations that Libby is a Straussian,see Straussophobia , 217n62;the assessmentI offeredthere coheres perfectlywith the carefully researched and vastly more extensive account of Libbythat James B. Stewart provides inTangled Webs: How False Statements AreUndermining America(New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 121262, 4358.Straussophobia also challenges the proposition that Kristol and Shulskymasterminded U.S. foreign policy.

9. Fortunately for Drury,the above-mentioned APSAbook-review jour-nalselected John Gunnell,a goodfriend ofhers(sherefers tohim asJack in

the acknowledgments toLSAR), to review Straussophobia(Perspectives onPolitics 8, no.3 [September 2010]: 9434);Gunnellbarelyacknowledges herdebts to him, and even misstates what I had written about them (seeStraus-sophobia, 17n37). In her latest publication on Straussher contribution tothe above-discussed 2011 collection edited by York and PetersDrury con-tinues to describe Libby as a Straussian, she adds the patently false claimthat William Kristol was serving in the Bush administration, and she main-tains that Strausss influence has fueled endless speculation that the 9/11attacks were an inside job (Shadia B. Drury, Taming the Power Elite, inYork and Peters,Leo Strauss, 176).

10. Anne Norton,Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire(NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). For the effusive reviews, see theofferings byLarryN. George (Political Theory 34, no.3 [June 2006]:4018)and Bart Schultz (Ethics115, no. 4 [July 2005]: 838). Nortons term on theAPSA Council runs from 2010 to 2012.

11. In the wordsof DavidSchaefer, misquotation isa farmoreegregiousoffense when one avoids even providing references to the pages one is

borrowing from (Schaefer, The Ass and the Lion, Interpretation 32,no. 3 [Summer 2005]: 293).

12. Norton,Leo Strauss, 222.13. In the Appendix, I provide a small sample and offer a response to

Gilberts inflammatory charge that Strauss abetted the murderous racismof Southern segregationists. Gilbert and I have become email correspon-dents, and I regularly send him nitpicky memos.

14. When discussing Plato, Gilbert sometimes echoes Strauss: onehas to learn the Delphic meanings of the dialogues, take in what one canof the force of the spoken word, the word written upon the soul, not

just the written word. One cannot read a dialogue, even persistently, andwrestle with surface arguments as if they alone were the issue (they areoften contradictory or incomplete). Instead, one must follow out the wholemeaning, including the setting, and the elliptical comments (Alan Gilbert,The Divine, the Charioteer and Writing in the Phaedrus, Part 2, 12/23/10,


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http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2010/12/divine-charioteer-and-writing-in.html).

15. Alan Gilbert, Do Philosophers Counsel Tyrants? Constellations16, no.1 (March 2009): 10624 (on 5/13/09, Gilbert posted this pieceon his blog, at http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-philosophers-counsel-tyrants.html). On pages 7881 of the Constella-tions volume, Gilbert provides an introduction to Strausss 1933 let-ter, which is reprinted on pages 823 (Gilbert posted the introductionon 5/11/09 at http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/05/leo-strauss-and-principles-of-rightan.html). Strausss letter is available onlineat http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/07/letter 16.html; for my analysis of it,

see Straussophobia, 15463.16. The German text of the 23 June 1935 letter appears on pages 64850

of the third volume of Strausss Gesammelte Schriften, edited by Heinrichand Wiebke Meier; the German text, accompaniedby an English translation,was published in Volume 5/6 of the Independent Journal of Philosophy(1988): 1825.

17. Laurence Lampert,Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1996).

18. William H.F. Altman, The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and Na-tional Socialism(Lanham, MD:Lexington Books, 2010). Altman previouslypublished a batch of articles on Strauss. I assessed one of them LeoStrauss on German Nihilism: Learning the Art of Writing,Journal of the

History of Ideas 68, no. 4 (October 2007): 587612in Straussophobia,846. Altman teaches Latin at a public high school in Lynchburg, Virginia,and recently completed his Ph.D. at a university in Brazil; his is an odysseythat might seem farfetched even in a Dan Brown novel.

19. The inner truth description of Nazism comes from Heideggers

Introduction to Metaphysics. Strauss quotes it, apparently with contempt, atSCR4/LAM227; cf.RCPR301 and Altman,German Stranger, 4134.

20. Another new book that portrays Strauss as a dire political menace isC. Bradley Thompson (with Yaron Brook),Neoconservatism: An Obituary

for an Idea (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2010). Although the authors adopt thecommon view that Strauss opposed both Heidegger and Hitler (757, 923,97, 206, 213, 249), they regard Strauss as the godfather of neoconservatism(6, 10, 99, 137, 142, 2404). Inspired by their confidence in Ayn Randsdemonstrative science of ethics, which offers an absolute, permanent,certain, and secularmoral code that grounds individualism and economiclaissez-faire (293n7), they portray neoconservatism as a duplicitousandquasi-fascisticpersuasion animated by scorn for America (23, 27, 28,47, 137, 142, 149, 150, 204, 239, 240, 24751). The book is detailed,informative, witty, and well-written, but it is regularly marred by haste andzeal. Consider, e.g., what it says about me: Taking political correctnessto ever-new heights, one of Strausss defenders has written an entire bookon what he calls Straussophobia. Such caricatures . . . border on infantile

demonology (56). Thompson and Brook encountered my book late in theirwork and probably examined it hastily; I look forward to providing a moredetailed discussion of them inStraussophobia: The Sequel.

21. These Zionist pieces did not become readily accessible until thepublication ofLeo Strauss: The Early Writings (19211932), edited andtranslated by Michael Zank (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002). As bothLampert and Altman elaborate, the early Strauss was also a resoluteandfairly openatheist. For Lamperts overview, see Nietzsches Challengeto Philosophy in the Thought of Leo Strauss, Review of Metaphysics 58,no. 3 (March 2005): 589, 592.

22. Altman, German Stranger, 1647. Although Strauss says nothingabout Cassirers politics, he hammers on the respects in which Cassirerlacked greatness (WIPP 246). In theRCPR lecture, Strauss moves quicklyfrom his comment about Cassirers lostness and emptiness at Davos(RCPR28) to his characterization of Heidegger as the only great thinker inour time; in elaborating Heideggers impact, Strauss asserts that all ratio-nalliberal philosophic positions have lost their significance and power

(RCPR29; emphasis added). For Strausss longest discussion of Cassirer,seeWIPP2926.

23. With sleuthing, one can deduce the year from the WIPP chapter.Because of Strausss vivid portrayal of Davos in this chaptera memo-rial address for his friend and colleague, Kurt Riezler, who attended theconference as a featured speakermany commentators have assumed thatStrauss was there. According to Peter Gordon, however, Strauss was notpresent (Peter E. Gordon, Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010], 343; cf. 97, 317).

24. Altman is not persuaded by Gordons claim that, [a]t least at Davos,the confrontation between Heidegger and Cassirer remained confined tomatters of philosophy alone (Gordon,Continental Divide, 37; cf. 329, 332,364). On Heideggers enmeshment with National Socialism, see EmmanuelFaye,Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazisminto Philosophy, trans. MichaelB. Smith (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). In reviewing this

book, StevenB. Smith(editor ofThe Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss)says that if Faye is even partially correct that Heideggers concepts cannotbe understood apart from their Nazi usages, this should prove a troublingconclusion for those like myself who have looked to Strauss precisely asan antidote to Heideggerianism (Smith, Nazi or Philosopher,Claremont

Review of Books [Spring 2010]: 66).Smith may be retreating fromhis earlierclaims that Strauss was one of the best friends democracy has ever hadand had always regarded modern liberal democracy as the best prac-ticable solution to the theologico-political problem (Smith, Reading LeoStrauss [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006], ixx, 127). Becauseboth are such thoroughly political animals, Fayes Heidegger resembles

Altmans Strauss; Altman never acknowledges Strausss laments that phi-losophy, the humanizing quest for the eternal order, became a weapon(NRH34) and that the political philosopher became more and moreindistinguishable from the partisan (NRH192). Gordon is wise to worryabout commentators who pursue an allegorical strategy of interpretation,whereby a disagreement concerning a philosophical problem is treated as ifit were nothing but an outward manifestation of political struggle (Gordon,Continental Divide, 357).

25. Nazism, adds Altman, appealed to Straussand presumably toHeideggerpartly because its elite could conduct an atheistic reenact-ment of religion with both a Messiah-figure and a Chosen People. Altmanfirst presented this argument in The Alpine Limits of Jewish Thought: LeoStrauss, National Socialism, and Judentum ohne Gott,Journal of JewishThought and Philosophy17, no. 1 (2009): 146. In the fifth chapter ofTheGerman Stranger(The Last Word in Secularization), Altman challengesthe widespread view that, when Strauss describes the deep pit lying be-low the natural cave that classically symbolized the natural obstacles

to philosophy (PAW155), he is describing historicism or some other post-Machiavelli outlook (cf. WIPP 71,737; also seeAltman,German Stranger,3867). According to John J. Ranieri, the second cave (for Strauss) is con-stituted by Christianity (Ranieri, Disturbing Revelation: Leo Strauss, EricVoegelin, andthe Bible [Columbia, MO:University of MissouriPress, 2009],2324). Altman pushes further, arguing that the second cave is revelationgenerally and was thus introduced by Judaism.

26. Altman,German Stranger, 1323, 44792, 50910; cf. TM 8693,102, 110, 118, 1434 on Machiavellis use of the ancients.

27. Altman, German Stranger, 256, 42. In 256n100, Altman invokesthe well-known praise Strauss issues at TM13 for the surface of things;Altman elsewhere emphasizesthe lastwords of the 1962SCR preface, whereStrauss notes that, in composing the original 1930 book, he had failed toread Spinoza literally enough (SCR31/LAM257; cf.SCR 26/LAM251on Hermann Cohens difficulties in understanding Spinoza).

28. Consider, for example, the liberalism-friendly passages in Straussthat use we or us rather than I or me; for a memorable foray by

Altman, seeGerman Stranger, 3558.29. Strausss essay on Beyond Good and Evil was first published in

Interpretationin 1973, the year of his death. The paeans to Heidegger thatStrauss provides inRCPR(279, 412) are part of a 1956 lecture that waspublished by Thomas Pangle in 1989. In the comparable passages fromWIPP(2456), which were initially published in 1956, Strausss focus onKurt Riezler dilutes the praise of Heidegger. Although Heidegger seems tobe an important antagonist in the first chapter ofNRH, his name appearsnowhere in the book. In the 1962 preface to SCR, however, both Heideggerand Nietzsche figure prominently.

30. I shared my criticisms and corrections withthe author,who respondedquite appreciatively.

31. OT 194,LAM24, TWM 98. It likewise brings comfort to think thatStrauss voted for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and perhaps also in 1956 (seeStraussophobia , 1845, 2145nn324).

32. SPPP168,WIPP55,WIPP2401,RCPR301,SCR3/LAM226.33. Altman,German Stranger, 107n164, 286n32, 467.

34. Cf.OT 23 on the horrors of the twentieth century and LAM213on Hitler Germany. Needless to say, Altman places great weight on NRH423, where Strauss states that [a] view is not refuted by the fact that ithappens to have been shared by Hitler (German Stranger, 69, 1534,1579).

35. In response to my harping on this denunciation, Altmanaddeda foot-note in which he argues that the word againcoupled with the discussionStrausss subsequent sentences provide of Germanys defeat in WorldWarIIwould permit a very different and more literal interpretation: the in-sanity that prevailed was Germanysdefeatin the two World Wars (GermanStranger, 406n15). One may concede to Altman that the again introducesuncertainty and that the paragraph opens by invoking the first wars outcomefor Germany (Imperial Germany went down in defeat and c ollapsed). ButGermany entered the Third Reich years before it lost World War II, theoutcome of that war was not preordained, and Strausss essay says nothing


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to associate insanity with Germanys defeat in either war; regarding bothwars, Strauss seems to emphasize the decline they created for the Westor Europe (WIPP2401; cf. CM23 and RCPR 31 on European/Westerndecline). Just a few pages earlier, furthermore, Strauss touted the effortsKurt Riezler had made, by attempting to dissuade Germany from enteringWorld War I, for the preservation of peace (WIPP239).

36. The regime Nietzsche allegedly prepared, obviously, is the ThirdReich, although Strausss essay never uses this term (nor does it mentionNazism or National Socialism); earlier, however, it invokes both [t]hebiggest event of 1933 (WIPP27) and Hitlers Germany (WIPP35).

37. Altman,German Stranger, 433. We should likewise resist the temp-

tation to equate discredited democracy with the Weimar Republic. WhenStrauss introduces the paragraphs parade of regimes, which appears threesentences before the sentence thatinvokes the golden age, he is addressingNietzsches fierce, pre-Weimar polemics against modern politics: democ-racy, along with socialism, communism, conservatism, and nationalism(WIPP55).

38. For a longer and more democracy-friendly interpretation of thegoldenage material,see Straussophobia, 1524; notethe complexitiescre-ated byStrausss useof again at both WIPP 55 (democracylookedagainlike the golden age) andWIPP241 (insanity prevailed again). Regarding

RCPR31, Altman would presumably stress the difficulty of specifying theantecedents of the phrase, the movements just referred tomovementswe should oppose (says Strauss) via [p]assionate political action.

39. Altman,German Stranger, 494, 516.40. Altman readily admits that Strauss preferred liberal democracy to

communism (Altman, German Stranger, 188n33, 3023, 334n117, 355,390).

41. Altman,German Stranger, 26, 516.42. When Strauss concludes his 1952 preface to the American edition of

The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis, he touts theconnection between wisdom and moderation by invoking the sacrifices wemust make so that our minds may be free (xvi).

43. Altman might suggest that moderation (in Strausss eyes) was threat-ened as soon as Christianity undermined the classical/gentlemanly educa-tion Strauss describes in LAM101 (on moderation, responsibility, and thepraise of democracyand constitutionalisminLAM24,see German Stranger,3558). If Heidegger remained entangled with Christianity while toutingSein zum Tode, anguish, conscience, and guilt (SCR 12/LAM 237), per-haps Strausss non-Christian classicism equipped him with greater seren-ity or sublime sobriety (WIPP 28). On Strausss warnings about vision-ary expectations, cf. Catherine and Michael Zuckert, The Truth about LeoStrauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 2006), 67; and Thomas L. Pangle, Leo Strauss: An

Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy(Baltimore, MD: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2006), 9. I myself find that Strausss writingsafter 1937, when he was living in America, typically exude so much quietgrandeur (OT 185, WIPP 27), gentle humor, and Socratic spirit that theyextinguish any desire I might have to march in the streets, let alone to crackheads.

44. Altman passes over Strausss statement that the founding of mod-ern Israel was a blessing for all Jews everywhere (SCR5/LAM229). Inresponse, Altman could argue that Strauss, as an atheist, did not believein blessings (German Stranger, 167n110, 275). For Altmans subtle con-frontations with Strausss disparaging remark that Nazism had no otherclear principle except murderous hatred of the Jews ( SCR 3/LAM226),seeGerman Stranger, 912, 734, 114, 1689, 201, 2558, 287, 299300,5113 (cf. 237, 240, 2834, 443n197, 472, 525, and 527n49 on metaphys-ical anti-Judaism). On the prospect that Nazism was the prisoner of itsanti-Semitic ideology (SCR7/LAM230), seeGerman Stranger, 234n47 and452n33.

45. On Hitler, see Altman,German Stranger, 247, 2578, 299, 308n31,

311n40, 316, 3236, 406n15, 407, 418n89, 4512, 5156. Among otherthings, Altmans Strauss would have no reason to accept the biological/racistelements of Nazi anti-Semitism; even Heidegger appears to have rejectedthese.

46. Altman, German Stranger, 418(Straussinvokesthe permanentchar-acteristics of humanity on WIPP 26). To accommodate Strausss above-quoted lament that Germany in 1933 abandoned both wisdom and modera-tion, Altman ends up suggesting that [t]he biggest event of 1933 ( WIPP27) centered on Heidegger rather than Hitler (German Stranger, 419). Onthe lesson of 1933 (a phrase from SPPP 34), also see Altman, GermanStranger, 18194, 41323.

47. Altman, German Stranger, 417(the manuscript versionwas still morevulnerable to the criticism I have sketched). Strauss once characterizedclassical philosophy as nonhistoricist thought in its pure form, andhe obviously labored to consider the problem of historicism from itsperspective (NRH33). He elsewhere asserts that practically the whole

thought of the past was radically unhistorical (WIPP68); cf.NRH13 onthe unhistorical approach that prevailed in all earlier philosophy.

48. WIPP61; cf.NRH13840, 1912.49. Cf.NRH 234 regarding the unchanging framework thatpersists in

all changes of human knowledge; on the fundamental perspectives thatarecoeval with human thought, see NRH32, 35; cf.LAM31 on chaos, cos-mos,and the perishing of universes. Fora thoughtful recentattemptto sketchStrausss perspective on eternity, see Peter Augustine Lawler, What IsStraussianism(According to Strauss)? Society 48,no. 1 (2011):507 (avail-able online at http://www.springerlink.com/content/aw4873ng0436j235/).

50. See, e.g., NRH 234, 32, 35, 36; WIPP 389, 702; TM 14; OT

211; cf. NRH 29 on the solubility of the fundamental riddles and NRH30 on the historicist denial that the whole has a permanent structure.Even classical conventionalism, according to Strauss, derived from theidea of philosophy as the attempt to grasp the eternal, i.e., to answer thequestion of the all-comprehensive truth (NRH12); also considerNRH34on the quest for the eternal order, NRH89 on the first things, NRH125 on the fundamental alternatives, WIPP70 on the fundamental anduniversal questions,WIPP2289 on the fundamental problems,LAM63on unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the natureof things, and LAM312 on the permanent grounds or character of theprocesses by which social institutions might progress.

51. WIPP55 (emphasis added). Cf.NRH18 on how historicism culmi-nated in nihilism, in mans becoming absolutely homeless; Strauss laterlikens what historicism does to render man oblivious of the whole or ofeternity with what Hobbes had done to link the conquest of nature with theunintelligibility of the universe (NRH1756).

52. See, e.g.,OT 1012, 196, 201; CM201, 612; LAM67; WIPP

11, 389; NRH 32, 356; and RCPR 2356, 260. For the record, Straussmaintains that Heidegger was less smug about Greek philosophy than wasFranzRosenzweig(SCR 910/LAM2334; cf.RCPR 28).On Strausss debtsto Heideggers interpretations of Aristotle, see Rodrigo Chac on, ReadingStrauss from the Start: On the Heideggerian Origins of Political Philoso-phy, European Journal of Political Theory 9, no. 3 (July 2010): 2949,3012. For more comprehensive discussions, see Catherine H. Zuckert,Postmodern Platos(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 33, 47,52, 601, 66, 1302, 1646, 255, 256; Ralph C. Hancock, The Responsibil-ity of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age (Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 12230, 1356, 158, 159,1623, 1914,197210, 214, 21821, 245n151; and James F. Ward, Political Philosophyand History: The Links Between Strauss and Heidegger, Polity 20, no. 2(Winter 1987): 27395.

53. I shared this point with Altman, whose manuscript claimed that thedeeper meaning obliterates the substantive and anti-historicist one.

54. Slavoj Zizek has added his voice to this chorus, asserting that, for

Strauss, [t]he true, hidden message contained in the great tradition ofphilosophy from Plato to Hobbes and Locke is that there are no gods,that morality is merely prejudice, and that society is not grounded in na-ture (Zizek, Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks,London Review of

Books, 20 January 2011, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/good-manners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks; the article wasreprinted in the April 2011,issue ofHarpers Magazine, where the quoted passage appears on page 13).

55. Cf.NRH29, where Strauss states that historicism denies the possi-bility of both theoretical metaphysics and philosophic ethics or naturalright.

56. Strausss detonations do not, like HeideggersDestruktion,discreditand reduce to rubble the great books they investigate; instead, they elevateboththe books and their authors.Strausss writingsdemonstrate the possibil-ity of philosophy by leading his reader into the fact of it. . . . Strauss openedhis fist in a way that enabled his reader to experience, to a degree, Strausssown experiences with the text, his own recovery of what had been com-municated by the greatest minds (Lampert, Nietzsches Challenge, 604;

cf. Pangle,Leo Strauss, 45, and Catherine and Michael Zuckert, The TruthAbout Leo Strauss, 1278, 1326). Lamperts Strauss is far less orientedtoward regime change than Altmans Strauss is.

57. Martin Woessner maintains that, by placing the whole history ofphilosophy into a different frame of reference, Heidegger reconfiguredthe realm of the possible (Woessner, Heidegger in America [Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2011], 282). Because he also maintains thatStrauss approached the history of philosophy in a distinctly Heideggerianway, trying to cut through the layers of sediment via a kind of bedazzledNew Criticism (54, 55; cf. 62), perhaps he would entertain the hypothesisthat Strauss reconfigured the history ofpoliticalphilosophy.

58. Unlike most Strauss-bashers, Altman concedes that Strauss providesuseful and perhaps invaluable guidance as an interpreter of Aristophanes,Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Given the sloppi-ness Drury demonstrates in embellishing and/or butchering what Strausswrote, it is not surprising that she grants him relatively little credit as


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either a reader or a writer. If Altmans account proves to be definitive,however, several of Drurys major claimse.g., that Strauss was greatlyindebted to Schmitt and Heidegger as well as to Nietzsche (LSAR6472,8296), that he Nietzschefied his ancients (PILS 170, 181), and that heused Machiavelli as a mouthpiece (PILS117, 1201)stand vindicated.Although Drury in an interview apparently described Strauss as a Jew-ish Nazi (Jeet Heer, The Mind of the Administration, Part One: ThePhilosopher, Boston Globe, 11 May 2003, H1, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/05/11/the philosopher/), her Strauss is morehostile toward bothHeidegger and the Holocaustthan Altmans is (seeLSAR46, 657, 69,72). Paul Gottfried, a learned andeloquent spokesman forthe

right-wing critics who deploy contextualism against Straussian hermeneu-tics, brusquely dismisses Altmans attempt to portray Strauss as an inveter-ate enemy of liberalism (Cryptic Fascist?American Conservative,Febru-ary 2011, 479, http://www.amconmag.com/blog/leo strauss fascism). LikeDrury, Woessner trumpets Strausss debts to Heideggerian pedagogy, andfaults the elitism, secrecy, and cultlike devotion that both thinkers al-legedly cultivated (Woessner,Heidegger in America, 63; cf. 44, 54, 61, 64);Woessner nevertheless assumes that Strauss c ondemned Nazism, laudedSocratic rationalism, and believed that Heideggers rejection of the latteraccelerated his plunge into nihilism (54, 57, 58n 60, 59, 277). Woessner, inany case, errs when he asserts that Strauss espoused the doctrine of naturallaw (601).

59. Altman seems to think that Strauss guarded his Nazi sympathiesquite carefully even in his personal dealings. Now that the new LeoStrauss Center is posting recordings and transcripts of Strausss courses(http://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/), the public can join the hunt for hid-den WMDs. On the desirability of treating Strausss writings as being more

definitive than the things he said to his students, see Heinrich Meier, LeoStrauss and the Theologico-Political Problem(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2006), xix.

60. If, as Altman argues, Strauss was following Strausss Machiavelli inpursuing a long-range plan of corruption (TM16870), rigorous schol-arship might have been essential (cf. Straussophobia, 1023, 163, 2424,250, 2858). Recall the conclusion of the introduction to On Tyranny, inwhich Strauss expresses his hope that a future generation, properly trainedin their youth, will not need cumbersome introductions like On Tyrannyin order to understand Xenophons art. By leaving so many is for hisstudents to dot (OT28), indeed, Strauss has helped many of them wage theirPublish or Perish campaigns.

61. Friedrich Nietzsche,Jenseits von Gut und B ose,207.62. See pages 2 and 715 above.63. As he admitted to me via e-mail, Gilbert inadvertently wrote inCon-

stellationsthat Strauss et al. organized multiple conferences that affirmedstates rights; a celebrated new book relays Gilberts account of the con-

ferences as if it were set tled fact (Jean-Francois Drol et,American Neocon-servatism: The Politics and Culture of a Reactionary Idealism [New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 2011], 545). Unless otherwise indicated, I shallbe quoting and citing the widely used second edition of the Goldwin collec-tion, which was published in 1974; unless otherwise indicated, the passagesI quote also appear verbatim in the 1961/1963 edition (in my copy of thelatter, the copyright specifies both years, and Goldwins preface was writtenin November, 1962). Although the Rand McNally boilerplate for the 1974edition claims that the essays were prepared for the Public Affairs Con-ference Center at Kenyon College, the conference took place in Chicago,where the Public Affairs Conference was housed until 1967.

64. See, e.g., Brent Staples, Undemocratic Vistas, New York Times,28 November 1994, A14; Earl Shorris, The Politics of Heaven: Americain Fearful Times(New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 1824; Mark LawrenceMcPhail,Zen in the Art of Rhetoric: An Inquiry into Coherence(Albany, NY:SUNY Press, 1996), 506; Floyd W. Hayes, III, Politics and Education inAmericas Multicultural Society: An African-American Studies Response

to Allan Bloom,Journal of Ethnic Studies17, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 724;

and Drury,Leo Straussand the American Right, 43.For a scholarlyoverview,see Richard H. King, Rights and Slavery, Race and Racism: Leo Strauss,the Straussians, and the American Dilemma,Modern Intellectual History5, no. 1 (2008): 5582.

65. Alan Gilbert, Sotomayor,Brown v. Board of Education, the SocialScience of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, and Leo Strauss, August 17, 2009,http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/07/sotomayor-brown-v-board-of-education.html

66. Before he is through, Kilpatrick does cast aspersions on people whoweep tears for Mississippi while ensconced in the comfortable livingrooms of Scarsdale (107); he also sounds an alarm about faceless nation-

alizing and idiot yelps for equality (106). Apart from some differencesin capitalization, the 1974 version of Kilpatricks essay is identical to the1961/1963 version.

67. TheGrodzins essaywas revisedby DanielElazarfor the1974edition.From Gilberts posting, it appears that Grodzins and Jaffa (but not Berns)delivered their papers at the conference; it also appears that Cropsey andDiamondbut not Strausswere present.

68. Jaffas essay for the 1961/1963 edition was written in the fall of 1960(108n1). Although it emphasizes the Cold War and conveys only a briefcriticism of Kilpatrick (125), the titleThe Case for a Stronger NationalGovernmentis a rebuke to Kilpatricks essay, The Case for StatesRights (Jaffas essay appears immediately after Kilpatricks). Jaffa, more-over, touts Americas stake in providing educational opportunities to theNegro child in Mississippi who might possess the gifts of a Nobel Lau-reate (107), stresses the national governments responsibility for assistingthe more than twenty million Americans who live on less than one dollar aday (1156),and impugns the restrictions BarryGoldwater wanted to place

on federal power (109, 11720). Jaffas essay for the 1974 edition (PartlyFederal, Partly National: On the Political Theory of the Civil War) differsmarkedly from the original. Among other things, it wields Lincoln (111)and Walter Berns (117) against Kilpatrick, and it opens by suggesting thatGovernor George Wallaces failed attempt to defy a federal court order andto maintain the University of Alabamas ban on black enrollment signaledthe end of states rights as a potent force in American politics (109). Byhighlighting our nations longstanding recognition that all people every-where have a right to resist intolerable oppression, finally, Jaffa articulatesa thesis that was manifestly friendly to the Civil Rights Movement; even anindividual has a right of revolution grounded in nature (129).

69. This last sentence, which proceeds to invoke the 1964 Civil RightsAct, was added for the 1974 edition; if Im not mistaken, Bernss essay isotherwise identical to the 1961/1963 version.

70. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, orto the people.

71. LynchingKilpatrick is silent. Preserving shacks for schoolsKilpatrick doesnt mention it. No admission of blacks to the main col-leges or law schoolsKilpatrick says nothing. Failure of the mortallyinjured to get care at local hospitalsKilpatrick is silent. Beatings ofteenagerswhite andblack whodemonstratefor civil rights andthe occasionalmurderKilpatrick doesnt know about that. Gilbert plummets overboard,alas, in asserting that [t]yranny is only worrisome for Kilpatrick. . . if itworks toward the equality of the rule of law.

72. If Strauss had been a fascist, he might have ridiculed Kilpatrick forcelebrating states rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the self-evident desire to restrainallgovernment. Gilbert could reply that Goldwin,in writingto Strausson 12/17/60, noted thatKilpatricks assignment wastoargue that a reassertion of States rights would add to the essentialstrengthof the United States in its present situation: Gilbert infers that, in convey-ing sympathy for Kilpatrick, Strauss was indulging not racism but a con-cern for great-power politics; Strauss and Goldwin thought that affirmingstates rights would strengthen white American unity and purpose in the

Cold War.

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