Talk:Leo Strauss/Archive 1

message: The quote attributed to Seth Benardete is misattributed.  This is a quotation from Norman F. Maclean's A River Runs Through It.  Benardete uses it as the epigraph to his book Socrates' Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic.  It's certainly off the mark to consider this a remark on esotericism!  I suggest that it be removed.  --Clayt 21:06, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate quotation 

message: I removed the list of external links because they seem to totally violate the NPOV aim of Wikipedia. Many are not even close to being objective, yet even worse, they really are not about Leo Strauss, rather about his quote/unquote followers. I think its a shame such an odd collection of links try to argue a point that doesn't really belong in this article. Guilt by association is beneath the purpose and best practises of Wikipedia. That's just my two cents, and I have no doubt others may sincerely belief they have the right to include the links, but from someone fresh to this article, it strikes me as a very petty, odd debate that says much more about the current American ideological war, than the life and thought of Leo Strauss. More effort should be placed on articulating Strauss' own thought, instead of bending over backwards to smear him with the actions of Wolfowitz et al.--Mikerussell 04:53, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: I see no reason why the last revert by Rexrexilius was made.  I'm not challenging the revert per se, as I know very little about Strauss, and maybe such minor quibbling is actually relevant.  But it looks as though the revert had no real justification, and information put in by 65.5.234.26 was lost because of it.  Again, let me say that I might be wrong, and the revert was justified, but I'd like to see justification on the talk page whenever a revert is done which erases actual content.  Eric Herboso  21:16, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert Justification 

message: OMG.  More content has been removed from this article.  Maybe it is justified, maybe it isn't.  I don't know enough about Strauss to say for sure.  But I would point out that from what I've read and been taught, the content removed about Strauss' interpretation of Plato is legit.  However, I stress again that I am not well versed enough to say anything for sure.
For the record, the following was removed from this article by 68.77.108.147 as his only edit.
"[Strauss was greatly influential on] the American neo-conservative movement. Several of his former students, such as Paul Wolfowitz, now hold high positions in the Bush administration." was changed to "Strauss was greatly influential in America".  And the following was completely erased:
Strauss believed that in Plato's Republic, the representative of Plato's true thinking on politics and society was not Socrates, as is generally thought, but Thrasymachus. Strauss believed that Plato used Socrates (who argued that justice was the implementation of goals that led to the greatest harmony, and thus to happiness) to display skill in making the weaker argument appear better, whereas Thrasymachus' argument that justice was the exercise of power was the argument that Plato actually believed to be the stronger one.
7.6.05: If someone could show this to be true then it ought to be in here, but it can't be because its not true. I doubt any of the people who edit this entry even known what book this assertion is based on. 
It is this second erasure of content that bothers me the most, as I have always heard that this was in fact Strauss' actual viewpoint.  But again, I do not know much about Strauss.  I am reintroducing the content in a way that hopefully will not be further contested, and placing a copy of the original content on this talk page for future reference, in case it, too, gets deleted.Eric Herboso  16:06, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for addressing this anon edit. I added that part in the intro about Wolfowitz and the neocons. If indeed Wolfie was not one of his students, I stand corrected, but it seems to me to tremendous lacuna not to mention his influence on the US neocons. As for the Plato text, by all means return it; a citation might contribute to its permanence. -- Viajero 17:11, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More content removal 

message: In an article  in the journal Logos  Nicholas Xenos quotes a letter from Strauss to Karl Löwith:
Strauss wrote to Löwith in May 1933, five months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor and a month after implementation of the first anti-Jewish legislation, that “Just because Germany has turned to the right and has expelled us,” meaning Jews, “it simply does not follow that the principles of the right are therefore to be rejected.  To the contrary, only on the basis of principles of the right—fascist, authoritarian, imperial [emphasis in original]—is it possible in a dignified manner, without the ridiculous and pitiful appeal to ‘the inalienable rights of man’ to protest against the mean nonentity," the mean nonentity being the Nazi party.
Xenos concludes:
Strauss was somebody who wanted to go back to a previous, pre-liberal, pre-bourgeois era of blood and guts, of imperial domination, of authoritarian rule, of pure fascism.
If this is true then elaboration in the main article on Strauss' views on fascism would provide valuable insight in to where his political and philosophical views stem from.  noosphere 21:36, 2005 July 31 (UTC)
Ok, since this has recieved no objections or comment in the nearly two months since I posted it, I'm putting it in the main article.  noosphere 12:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you referring to the earlier mention of the Southern Strategy?
Yes. In order to carry the South, one has to be anti-intellectual and racist? --BohicaTwentyTwo 14:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strauss and fascism 

message: Shadia Drury's account of Straussianism is full of invective and paranoia.  A more reasonable account is in Anne Norton's Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, more of an insider critique of Allen Bloom's influence on the neoconservatives.  Also good are Jenny Strauss-Clay's remarks on her father's politics.  Drury is more or less a Da Vinci coder.
The problem of interpretation with Strauss is that he openly talked about how philosophers have covert meanings and throughout his works hints at possible underlying motivations and so forth.--Monty Cantsin 07:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anne Norton 

message: From the Notable Documentaries section:
:However, the documentarist fails to seriously engage the political philosophy taught by Leo Strauss--instead drawing on polemical secondary source texts to make inferences about the character and teachings of Leo Strauss.
:Though interesting in-and-of-itself, the documentary is not recommended for those interested in a serious appraisal of the teachings of Leo Strauss.
All of this is POV. noosphere 22:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable Documentaries 

message: There are a couple of places in the main article where Strauss is referred to as "postmodern", but there is only one sentence in the article that I can find (in the  What might Straussianism be? section) that seems to attempt to justify, in any way, the characterization of Strauss as "postmodern":
:2. Strauss as a Post Modernist, but conservative. There is also a very notable skepticism about modernism, and the idea that what is written more recently supersedes was is older.
To me this sounds much more reactionary than postmodern.  From the Wikipedia entry for reactionary:
:More specifically, the term "reactionary" is frequently used to refer to those who want to reverse (or prevent) some form of claimed "progressive" change.
Although postmodernism is also skeptical about modernism it is not nostalgic about the days of old.  Instead (from the Wikipedia entry on postomdernism), postmodernity is understood as:
:the culmination of the process of modernity towards an accelerating pace of cultural change, to a point where constant change has in fact become the status quo
and
:is broadly defined as the condition of Western society after modernity
What Strauss seems to reject is not modernism, but postmodernism, but he calls it "nihilism":
:Strauss taught that Liberalism, strictly speaking, contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which in turn led to a sort of nihilism--a kind of decadence, value-free aimlessness, and hedonism which he believed he saw permeating through the very fabric of contemporary American society.
:In the belief that 20th century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to revive Classical Political Philosophy (essentially the Socratic-Platonic-Aristotelian corpus, but one freed from the Scholastic hermeneutic)
While, (from the article on postmodernism):
:The term postmodernism is also used in a broader pejorative sense to describe attitudes, sometimes part of the general culture, and sometimes specifically aimed at critical theories perceived as relativist, nihilist, counter-Enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relationship to critiques of rationalism, universalism, or science. It is also sometimes used to describe social changes which are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of philosophy, religion, and morality.
It is clear that what Strauss is reacting against is postmodernism, not modernism.  And he does so with nostalgia towards the past (ie. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), which is reactionary.
The next point of difference is Strauss' claim that texts have a "true teaching":
:Strauss maintained that philosophers very often concealed their true thoughts beneath a surface (or exoteric) teaching. Careful study would reveal the true or esoteric teaching.
This is in direct opposition to the postmodernist claim that:
:...no Western philosopher has been able to successfully escape from this large web of text and reach the purely text-free "signified" which they imagined to exist "just beyond" the text
:Postmodernism has an obvious distrust toward claims about truth, ethics, or beauty being rooted in anything other than individual perception and group construction.  Utopian ideals of universally applicable truths... give way to provisional, decentered, local petit récits which, rather than referencing an underlying universal truth... point only to other ideas and cultural artifacts, themselves subject to interpretation and re-interpretation. The "truth", since it can only be understood by all of its connections is perpetually "deferred", never reaching a point of fixed knowledge which can be called "the truth."
In fact, the wikipedia article on postmodernism actually refers to Strauss, but only as a "modern thinker" with the "related idea" that a text has multiple meanings.  The difference, of course, as explained above, is that Strauss claims he can get to "the truth", while postmodernism rejects it.
Therefore, I suggest we remove the word "postmodern" from the main Strauss article and replace it with "reactionary". noosphere 21:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Postmodern or reactionary? 

message: Where was he born? Was it called Kirchhein or Kirchhain? The article says Kirchhein, what sounds strange to me. I checked the German article, where it says Kirchhain (which makes more sense). I checked some external links and couldn't find it, please, somebody verify and correct if necessary. Ben  T/C  16:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, it's Kirchhain. Both spellings exist for German villages and towns (as do Kirchheim, etc.), but the one Strauss was born in is Kirchhain, near Marburg in Hessen. Clossius 13:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kirchhein or Kirchhain? 

message: Removed a bunch of original research and unsourced assertions from this article, and will do more. Babajobu 05:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Emergency surgery

message: This section is full of original research, POV, and lacks sources.  I'll give examples from the first paragraph, but the whole section is like this and is in need of a complete rewrite.  So, on to the first couple of sentences:
Let it first be said that Straussianism is not a formal "club" or "organization" like the American Automobile Association (AAA). One does not apply for membership; and one cannot be ostracized for failure to abide by Straussian principles.
Who says it is?  Who says it isn't?  To make these kinds of assertions is original research, POV, and is unsourced.
It is also not accurately described as being an "Intellectual School"
Who has described it as being an "Intellectual School"?  Who says this is inaccurate?  This can at least be rephrased to attribute these opinions and accusations to the people who made them, instead of offering our own opinion on whether such accusations are "accurately described" or not.
an accusation often made on the basis of two false principles: (a) That Leo Strauss taught a hermeneutic for reading, by which scholars could "uncover" the meaning of ancient texts; and (b) That Leo Strauss has disciples in academic circles that accurately represent the tone, significance, and/or content of his scholarship
Again, who's making this accusation and who says it's false?  Where are the sources for (a) and (b) ?
Those who make such assertions consider Allan Bloom to be one of the chief representatives of "Straussianism" (see Anne Norton, Shadia Drury).
So are the above assertions made by Norton and Drury?  If so the article should clearly state that.  As such it is not clear whether Norton and Drury called Straussianism a "club" or "organization", an "Intellectual School", accused it of teaching a "hermeneutic for reading" etc...
Thus, in order to undermine these fallacious claims, it is permissible to reference the written works and/or letters of Leo Strauss in addition to those of Allan Bloom
It's not the job of a Wikipedia article to "undermine" claims, nor to accuse them of being "fallacious".  The former is original research, the latter is POV.  If Bloom's claim contradicts Norton or Drury's claim it should, of course, be presented and cited, but without all the POV.
I could go on dissecting this section sentence by sentence, but I think you get the picture.  It's all like that, so needs to be radically rewritten, imo.  --noosphere 05:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'The Debate on "Straussianism"' section 

message: There are two paragraphs in "The Debate on Straussianism" section that are identical to two paragraphs in the "Strauss in the Public View" section. Alan Pascoe 21:13, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicated text 

message: These recommendations should be moved in to the bibliography, and the comments designating them as "good introductions" should be removed, as per WP:NPOV.  Recommending one book or article over another or referring to some as "good" is pure POV.  -- noosphere 03:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recommended Readings section 

message: This morning there was some massive re-editing done by 68.76.49.146.  The justifications given were that the edits were "more accurate", "more coherent", "more objective", etc...  however, no evidence was presented that it was in fact any of these things.
One particularly glaring POV edit was substituting a link to straussian.net for a whole host of bibliographic material, on the justification that this was a "better source".
Instead of merging new material with the information already in the article, much the existing material was simply deleted outright.  It's one thing to edit the content to make it more in accordance with WP:NPOV, reword it to flow better, and/or add new information, but another to outright destroy the hard work that has gone in to making this article in a massive, destructive, mostly unjustified re-editing.
I urge 68.76.49.146 to work with the community by integrating their new information of deleting information, to make small edits, justify them in detail, and wait some time for the community to build consensus on their edits before making more edits.  noosphere 15:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits by 68.76.49.146 

message: What is the purpose of the reference to this bizarre mix of people, in the section on Strauss in the "public view"?
:Not unlike Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Thomas Jefferson, Strauss believed that the vices of a democratic regime must be known (and not left unquestioned) so that its virtues might triumph.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.216.190.75 (talk • contribs) 2006-04-20 05:06:26 (UTC).
:If the article just came out and said Strauss criticized democracy he might be viewed in a negative light.  This way that perception is mollified by putting him in illustrious company.  -- noosphere 05:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Originally it was just Churchill and Shakespere I think, which was because they were people Strauss also mentioned in such contexts.--Andrew Lancaster 11:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public View section 

message: The discussion of Heidegger's revisions on Nietzsche includes the unexpected parenthetical "the nihilism that Nietzsche regarded as unmitigated tragedy." I am not sure if this is Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche (if so it could use a cite), but if it's not, and is instead the reading of whoever wrote it, I think it should probably be revised. Nietzsche thought it was a danger, thought Schopenhauer got caught in it, but never have I read any discussion of nihilism as "unmitigated tragedy." If anything, the ubermensch is the mitigation; more, it's the solution to this "tragedy." Not to mention, putting the word "tragedy" in Nietzsche's mouth is particularly worrisome, given his work on the subject. I don't know Heidegger well enough to work on the section, but could someone take a look at it?
Abrady 04:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nietzsche's Nihilism