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What Was Leo Strauss?

Peter Minowitz

Santa 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

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ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online
DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2011.611754

What Was Leo Strauss?

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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 controversy 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 proffered 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 interpretations 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.

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 multigenerational 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 intended 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 incantations 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 controversial 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 occasionally 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 becoming close to Allan Bloom as an undergraduate at Cornell.4
From 2003 on, ignorant and inane statements about Straussian conspiracies were appearing in prestigious publications,
including the New York Times, Harpers Magazine, and the
Chronicle of Higher Education; such statements were also

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 an e migre, 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 German 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 unsurPeter Minowitz is at Santa Clara University.
218

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OctoberDecember 2011, Volume 40, Number 4

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 President Bushs eye, Drury published two books about Strauss.5
Because I have attacked her so relentlessly in Straussophobia, I shall here offer only a few comments. First, Drury is
a 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, moreover, 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. Regarding his followers, she asserts that Straussians embrace
perpetual war so that they can imagine they are gods entertaining themselves with the mutual slaughter of the mortals
on their television screens.6 Such outlandish statements also
pervade what Drury has written and said in less scholarly
venues.
In a recent professional triumph, Drury was chosen to review 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 devotees of StraussPaul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Abram
Shulsky, and Lewis Scooter Libby emerged as paradigms
of Straussian politics (410).8 Drury ends the review with a
bizarre accusation: that Xenos was in many ways a victim
of the secrecy that has lowered the level of intellectual discourse between the defenders and critics of Strauss (411).
Although Xenos does provide painstaking textual analysis, 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 of Political Theory, a flagship journal; her 2004 book, Leo Strauss and the
Politics of American Empire, was published by Yale University Press; and this book received glowing reviews in both
Political Theory and 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 Straussians for the Iraq War. Her three main transgressions are
these. First, she offers an 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

219

otherwise distorts important works written by Wolfowitz,

Carnes Lord, and comparable figures. Her interpretative errors 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 Straussophobia, I attributed the corruption of inquiry to causes
such as the following: impatience; partisan zeal; the propensity 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 Condoleezza Rice, his former protege at the University of Denver, as an unrepentant war criminal. For Gilbert, the major
Straussian sins are warmongering, racism, and the promotion of tyranny in the Oval Office. Gilbert is writing a book
about Strauss, and he has been posting long discussions on
his blog (http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/). Although he regularly offers claims that I regard as flagrant
overstatements,13 Gilbert has made at least four major contributions 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 letters, 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. Schmitt
and 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 cryptographer 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, authoritarian, [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

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 commentator has done. Although various scholars have argued
that Strauss sympathized with the proto-Nazi agenda of Carl
Schmitt, 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 announces he underwent a change of orientation that he had
first expressed in his 1932 article about 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 philosophers who were willing if not eager to say farewell to reason (SCR 301/LAM 2567). Because Strauss here stresses
that the shift augmented his interest in the writing strategies 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 dismiss reason without saying farewell to it; he argues, shockingly, that
Strausss Nietzschean orientation was abandoned primarily
under the influence of Heidegger, who departed from Nietzsche by embracing both anti-Semitism and German nationalism (cf. RCPR 31, TWM 98).
Among the passages that Altman marshals in defending
this thesis are Strausss assertions that Heidegger had vanquished 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 embraced both the Enlightenment and the Weimar Republic.22
The RCPR lecture makes no mention of the year of the debate, 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
ruling the planet had proved delusoryand that an appalling
world society controlled either by Washington [soapy advertising] or Moscow [iron compulsion] appeared to be
approaching (RCPR 412).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 discoveries concerning the art of writing equipped him to promote
major themes from Jacobi, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Heidegger 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

Perspectives on Political Science

world-embracing and possibly nihilistic elements that divide 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 AngloAmerican traditions.28 Altman is wise, furthermore, to emphasize that Strauss refrained from publishing his essay on
Nietzsche (SPPP 17491)and his description of Heidegger as an outstanding thinker (SPPP 30)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 Altman sometimes struggles to accommodate them. For example, Altman quotes SPPP 168 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 catastrophes and horrors that disfigured the era in which Strauss
lived.34 Altman also fails to accommodate WIPP 241, where
Strauss states that insanity prevailed again as Germany
entered the Third Reich, [l]ed politically by Hitler and intellectually by Heidegger.35 But Altman does raise potent
doubts about Strausss widely cited claim that Nietzsche, by
impelling his readers to choose between irresponsible indifference to politics and irresponsible political opinions,
prepared a regime which, as long as it lasted, made discredited 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), and
Strauss 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 remained discredited.37 Altmans interpretation,
however, fails to acknowledge that Strauss is likening preNazi 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 suggest that, in Altmans view, Strauss would have welcomed
a fascist revival.40 On the other hand, Altman acknowledges
the difference between annihilating a theoretical foundation 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 overthrowing 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 difficult to deny that Strauss labored to prevent the principles of

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OctoberDecember 2011, Volume 40, Number 4

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 monstrosities that utopianism and misguided revolutions can
spawn. In Liberal Education and Responsibility, for example, Strauss seems to echo his above-quoted complaint
about Nietzsches contributions to irresponsible political 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 (LAM 266). 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 permanencies 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 moderate mood (WIPP 267). Altman argues ingeniously that
this radical historicist is Strauss; for Heidegger, adds Altman, the authentic and inauthentic modes of Dasein qualify
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 position that, because even the possibility of raising the question 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 classical 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
being eternal; when Strauss includes the natural order of the
human soul among the unchangeable things that can help
us distinguish right from wrong (LAM 13), 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 evident principles accessible to man as man (NRH 19). Strauss
appears to insist, contra Alexandre Koj`eve and others, that
human beings have a nature that is associated with certain fundamental and even permanent/eternal problems or
alternatives,50 and he maintains that, because the most radical historicism entails oblivion of eternity, it also entails
estrangement . . . from the primary issues.51 Strauss might

221

seem sympathetic when he conveys Heideggers view that

Greek philosophy, by assuming that the whole is essentially intelligiblethat the grounds of the whole . . . are
alwaysultimately spawned the noxious modern attempt to
promote human mastery of the whole (RCPR 43; 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 conspiracy 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 (WIPP 12) can ward off key challenges from historicism. It can also serve as the political, or
popular, treatment of philosophy (WIPP 934), promoting
truly independent thinking (PAW 23) while attempting to
persuade society that philosophers are neither atheists nor
subversives (OT 2056). Both types of political philosophy
can thrive in universities, and neither requires a creative call
to creativity designed to promote a new planetary aristocracy (WIPP 54) or the transvaluation of all values (TWM
96). Although Strauss in On Classical Political Philosophy
accentuates, via an emphatic I say, that the politic presentation 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? (WIPP 12).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 analogous phenomena.54 Such a denial might bring Strauss closer
to the types of historicism according to which it is impossible for human thought . . . ever to grasp anything eternal
(NRH 12), 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 (OT 212).55 This same denial, however,
can help demolish the cruder historicisms that project a rigid
and rational path to historyor deny that anyone can escape
his/her historical context. For Lampert, indeed, Strauss was
a magisterial interpreter who demonstrated that some exalted
thinkers consciouslyand quite creativelyexaggerated the
primacy of being over becoming.56 Even if Altman has delineated Strausss debts to Nietzsche and Heidegger accurately,
one can argue that Strausss account of the history of political 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 insights (NRH 223).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 influence without conceding 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

222

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 endeavor to read him as patiently and as attentively as he read
his Lieblinge. 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 (LAM 25).

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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 following questions: where the mature Strauss should be placed
on the political spectrum, whether he was inclined to take
firm 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-best
regime than Strauss or his followers do (112).
Robert A. Goldwins chapter on Locke (in Strausss and
Cropseys History of Political Philosophy) exaggerates Lockean prerogative as if Locke had been, not an advocate of
revolution against tyranny but somehow, a precursor of Vice
President Cheney (80).
Along with Goldwin and Walter Berns, Strauss organized a
public policy conference that affirmed states rights against
the 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
Goldwins collection, A Nation of States: Essays on the American Federal System (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1961/1963).63
This conference deserves careful examination because it illuminates 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 conference speakers was James Jackson Kilpatrick, the well-known
journalist who wrote The Southern Case for School Segregation (New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1962). In the published 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

Perspectives on Political Science

even a whiff of racism. His main theme is the threat to freedom and local diversity that a centralized national government poses. He maintains that all governments are oppressive; 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 Founding Fathers wanted to restrain all governments (100); and
he asserts that the self-evident desire to restrain all government pervades the U.S. Constitution (98). In the same
spirit, he celebrates the diverse postures that different states
might adopt regarding voting age, divorce laws, pollution, labor 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 referendum 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 aftermath of Brown; a wedge for school segregation, furthermore,
may appear in his celebration of that sense of close community which is the starting point of political well-beinga
concern he also attributes to the Framers of the Constitution (100). But we must never forget that, although Brown
represented a major intrusion by the Supreme Court into
state legislation, it placed restrictions on government. 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 studentsMartin
Diamond, Herbert J. Storing, Harry V. Jaffa, and Walter 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 decentralization 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
farmer who fed his family with wheat that exceeded a production 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 the Brown decision (1412), but he commends
only two of its theses: 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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OctoberDecember 2011, Volume 40, Number 4

exaggerates the impact this amendment should have in restraining the national government (1501, 15861).
In his 8/17/09 posting, Gilbert deftly skewers Kilpatricks
evasions and hypocrisy.71 He also quotes from an unpublished letter that Strauss wrote to Goldwin on 12/24/60, before 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 discussion (he adds that it was not Goldwins fault that the States
Rights position is presented in only one paper).72 In addition, 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, furthermore, 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 controversial reliance on social science, particularly the doll experiments 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 Education decision (79). When he alleges that Strauss was cooperating with crude and murderous racism, finally, Gilbert both distorts and demonizes.
Strauss has been dead for almost forty years, and neoconservatives 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
write Straussophobia. Commentators who approach Strauss
calmly 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. I shall use the following abbreviations for Strausss works: CM = The
City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964); LAM = Liberalism Ancient
and 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 of
Classical Political Rationalism: Essays and Lectures by Leo Strauss, edited
by Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); SCR =
Spinozas Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1965; the German original was published in 1930); SPPP = Studies in Platonic Political
Philosophy, with an Introduction by Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); TM = Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, IL:
The Free Press, 1958); TWM = The Three Waves of Modernity, in Hilail
Gildin, ed., Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merill, 1965); WIPP = What Is Political Philosophy? And Other
Studies (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959).
2. Peter Minowitz, Straussophobia: Defending Leo Strauss and Straussians against Shadia Drury and other Accusers (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2009). I would like to thank Timothy Burns, Michael Chiang, Timothy Lukes, and Max Minowitz, who provided acute feedback on various
versions of What Was Leo Strauss?

223
3. In a remark that Embedded highlights, Kristol wrote (a few months
after the U.S. invaded Iraq) that President Bushs advocacy of regime
change . . . is a not altogether unworthy product of Strausss rehabilitation
of the notion of regime (Steven J. Lenzner and William Kristol, What Was
Leo Strauss Up To? Public Interest 153 [Fall 2003]: 38).
4. As I emphasize in Straussophobia, 249, 33, Wolfowitzs interests
changed at Chicago, and he wrote his dissertation about nuclear-powered
desalinization plants in the Middle East; his advisor was Albert Wohlstetter, the number-crunching and globe-trotting IR-theorist. In a widely cited
article, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour M. Hersh proclaimed, erroneously,
that Wolfowitz earned his doctorate under Strauss (Hersh, Selective Intelligence, New Yorker, 12 May 2003, 48). This error continues to reverberate
in the most august venues, e.g., John R. Wallachs review of The Cambridge
Companion to Leo Strauss in the book-review journal of the American Political Science Association (Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 2 [June 2010]:
6689). Drawing on William Pfaff as well as Hersh, Wallach also repeats
the widespread but poorly grounded allegation that Elliott Abrams, Douglas
Feith, Robert Kagan, and Richard Perle are Straussians (Wallach highlights
the influx of Straussians who worked for George W. Bush and/or agitated
for the Iraq War). More embarrassing errors appear in J.G. York and Michael
A. 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 was
among Strausss proteges, that Francis Fukuyama studied with Strauss,
and that Fukuyama spent time with Alexandre Koj`eve in the 1950s (184,
200, 201). Fukuyama never met either Strauss or Koj`eve, and was only eight
years 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,
as PILS and 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 selfproclaimed devotee. For a critique of allegations that Libby is a Straussian,
see Straussophobia, 217n62; the assessment I offered there coheres perfectly
with the carefully researched and vastly more extensive account of Libby
that James B. Stewart provides in Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are
Undermining America (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 121262, 4358.
Straussophobia also challenges the proposition that Kristol and Shulsky
masterminded U.S. foreign policy.
9. Fortunately for Drury, the above-mentioned APSA book-review journal selected John Gunnell, a good friend of hers (she refers to him as Jack in
the acknowledgments to LSAR), to review Straussophobia (Perspectives on
Politics 8, no. 3 [September 2010]: 9434); Gunnell barely acknowledges her
debts to him, and even misstates what I had written about them (see Straussophobia, 17n37). In her latest publication on Straussher contribution to
the above-discussed 2011 collection edited by York and PetersDrury continues to describe Libby as a Straussian, she adds the patently false claim
that William Kristol was serving in the Bush administration, and she maintains that Strausss influence has fueled endless speculation that the 9/11
attacks were an inside job (Shadia B. Drury, Taming the Power Elite, in
York and Peters, Leo Strauss, 176).
10. Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). For the effusive reviews, see the
offerings by Larry N. George (Political Theory 34, no. 3 [June 2006]: 4018)
and Bart Schultz (Ethics 115, no. 4 [July 2005]: 838). Nortons term on the
APSA Council runs from 2010 to 2012.
11. In the words of David Schaefer, misquotation is a far more egregious
offense 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 racism
of Southern segregationists. Gilbert and I have become email correspondents, and I regularly send him nitpicky memos.
14. When discussing Plato, Gilbert sometimes echoes Strauss: one
has to learn the Delphic meanings of the dialogues, take in what one can
of the force of the spoken word, the word written upon the soul, not
just the written word. One cannot read a dialogue, even persistently, and
wrestle with surface arguments as if they alone were the issue (they are
often contradictory or incomplete). Instead, one must follow out the whole
meaning, 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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224
http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2010/12/divine-charioteerand-writing-in.html).
15. Alan Gilbert, Do Philosophers Counsel Tyrants? Constellations
16, no.1 (March 2009): 10624 (on 5/13/09, Gilbert posted this piece
on his blog, at http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/05/dophilosophers-counsel-tyrants.html). On pages 7881 of the Constellations volume, Gilbert provides an introduction to Strausss 1933 letter, which is reprinted on pages 823 (Gilbert posted the introduction
on 5/11/09 at http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/05/leostrauss-and-principles-of-rightan.html). Strausss letter is available online
at 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 Heinrich
and Wiebke Meier; the German text, accompanied by 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: University
of Chicago Press, 1996).
18. William H.F. Altman, The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010). Altman previously
published a batch of articles on Strauss. I assessed one of them Leo
Strauss 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 odyssey
that 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, at
SCR 4/LAM 227; cf. RCPR 301 and Altman, German Stranger, 4134.
20. Another new book that portrays Strauss as a dire political menace is
C. Bradley Thompson (with Yaron Brook), Neoconservatism: An Obituary
for an Idea (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2010). Although the authors adopt the
common 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 Rands
demonstrative science of ethics, which offers an absolute, permanent,
certain, and secular moral code that grounds individualism and economic
laissez-faire (293n7), they portray neoconservatism as a duplicitousand
quasi-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 and
zeal. Consider, e.g., what it says about me: Taking political correctness
to ever-new heights, one of Strausss defenders has written an entire book
on what he calls Straussophobia. Such caricatures . . . border on infantile
demonology (56). Thompson and Brook encountered my book late in their
work and probably examined it hastily; I look forward to providing a more
detailed discussion of them in Straussophobia: The Sequel.
21. These Zionist pieces did not become readily accessible until the
publication of Leo Strauss: The Early Writings (19211932), edited and
translated by Michael Zank (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002). As both
Lampert and Altman elaborate, the early Strauss was also a resoluteand
fairly openatheist. For Lamperts overview, see Nietzsches Challenge
to 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 nothing
about Cassirers politics, he hammers on the respects in which Cassirer
lacked greatness (WIPP 246). In the RCPR lecture, Strauss moves quickly
from his comment about Cassirers lostness and emptiness at Davos
(RCPR 28) to his characterization of Heidegger as the only great thinker in
our time; in elaborating Heideggers impact, Strauss asserts that all rational liberal philosophic positions have lost their significance and power
(RCPR 29; emphasis added). For Strausss longest discussion of Cassirer,
see WIPP 2926.
23. With sleuthing, one can deduce the year from the WIPP chapter.
Because of Strausss vivid portrayal of Davos in this chaptera memorial address for his friend and colleague, Kurt Riezler, who attended the
conference as a featured speakermany commentators have assumed that
Strauss was there. According to Peter Gordon, however, Strauss was not
present (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 to
matters of philosophy alone (Gordon, Continental Divide, 37; cf. 329, 332,
364). On Heideggers enmeshment with National Socialism, see Emmanuel
Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, trans. Michael
B. Smith (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). In reviewing this

Perspectives on Political Science

book, Steven B. Smith (editor of The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss)
says that if Faye is even partially correct that Heideggers concepts cannot
be understood apart from their Nazi usages, this should prove a troubling
conclusion for those like myself who have looked to Strauss precisely as
an antidote to Heideggerianism (Smith, Nazi or Philosopher, Claremont
Review of Books [Spring 2010]: 66). Smith may be retreating from his earlier
claims that Strauss was one of the best friends democracy has ever had
and had always regarded modern liberal democracy as the best practicable solution to the theologico-political problem (Smith, Reading Leo
Strauss [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006], ixx, 127). Because
both are such thoroughly political animals, Fayes Heidegger resembles
Altmans Strauss; Altman never acknowledges Strausss laments that philosophy, the humanizing quest for the eternal order, became a weapon
(NRH 34) and that the political philosopher became more and more
indistinguishable from the partisan (NRH 192). Gordon is wise to worry
about commentators who pursue an allegorical strategy of interpretation,
whereby a disagreement concerning a philosophical problem is treated as if
it were nothing but an outward manifestation of political struggle (Gordon,
Continental Divide, 357).
25. Nazism, adds Altman, appealed to Straussand presumably to
Heideggerpartly because its elite could conduct an atheistic reenactment of religion with both a Messiah-figure and a Chosen People. Altman
first presented this argument in The Alpine Limits of Jewish Thought: Leo
Strauss, National Socialism, and Judentum ohne Gott, Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy 17, no. 1 (2009): 146. In the fifth chapter of The
German Stranger (The Last Word in Secularization), Altman challenges
the widespread view that, when Strauss describes the deep pit lying below the natural cave that classically symbolized the natural obstacles
to philosophy (PAW 155), he is describing historicism or some other postMachiavelli outlook (cf. WIPP 71, 737; also see Altman, German Stranger,
3867). According to John J. Ranieri, the second cave (for Strauss) is constituted by Christianity (Ranieri, Disturbing Revelation: Leo Strauss, Eric
Voegelin, and the Bible [Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009],
2324). Altman pushes further, arguing that the second cave is revelation
generally 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 invokes
the well-known praise Strauss issues at TM 13 for the surface of things;
Altman elsewhere emphasizes the last words of the 1962 SCR preface, where
Strauss notes that, in composing the original 1930 book, he had failed to
read Spinoza literally enough (SCR 31/LAM 257; cf. SCR 26/ LAM 251
on Hermann Cohens difficulties in understanding Spinoza).
28. Consider, for example, the liberalism-friendly passages in Strauss
that use we or us rather than I or me; for a memorable foray by
Altman, see German Stranger, 3558.
29. Strausss essay on Beyond Good and Evil was first published in
Interpretation in 1973, the year of his death. The paeans to Heidegger that
Strauss provides in RCPR (279, 412) are part of a 1956 lecture that was
published by Thomas Pangle in 1989. In the comparable passages from
WIPP (2456), which were initially published in 1956, Strausss focus on
Kurt Riezler dilutes the praise of Heidegger. Although Heidegger seems to
be an important antagonist in the first chapter of NRH, his name appears
nowhere in the book. In the 1962 preface to SCR, however, both Heidegger
and Nietzsche figure prominently.
30. I shared my criticisms and corrections with the author, who responded
quite appreciatively.
31. OT 194, LAM 24, TWM 98. It likewise brings comfort to think that
Strauss voted for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and perhaps also in 1956 (see
Straussophobia, 1845, 2145nn324).
32. SPPP 168, WIPP 55, WIPP 2401, RCPR 301, SCR 3/LAM 226.
33. Altman, German Stranger, 107n164, 286n32, 467.
34. Cf. OT 23 on the horrors of the twentieth century and LAM 213
on Hitler Germany. Needless to say, Altman places great weight on NRH
423, where Strauss states that [a] view is not refuted by the fact that it
happens to have been shared by Hitler (German Stranger, 69, 1534,
1579).
35. In response to my harping on this denunciation, Altman added a footnote in which he argues that the word againcoupled with the discussion
Strausss subsequent sentences provide of Germanys defeat in World War
IIwould permit a very different and more literal interpretation: the insanity that prevailed was Germanys defeat in the two World Wars (German
Stranger, 406n15). One may concede to Altman that the again introduces
uncertainty and that the paragraph opens by invoking the first wars outcome
for Germany (Imperial Germany went down in defeat and collapsed). But
Germany entered the Third Reich years before it lost World War II, the
outcome of that war was not preordained, and Strausss essay says nothing

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OctoberDecember 2011, Volume 40, Number 4

to associate insanity with Germanys defeat in either war; regarding both
wars, Strauss seems to emphasize the decline they created for the West
or Europe (WIPP 2401; cf. CM 23 and RCPR 31 on European/Western
decline). Just a few pages earlier, furthermore, Strauss touted the efforts
Kurt Riezler had made, by attempting to dissuade Germany from entering
World War I, for the preservation of peace (WIPP 239).
36. The regime Nietzsche allegedly prepared, obviously, is the Third
Reich, although Strausss essay never uses this term (nor does it mention
Nazism or National Socialism); earlier, however, it invokes both [t]he
biggest event of 1933 (WIPP 27) and Hitlers Germany (WIPP 35).
37. Altman, German Stranger, 433. We should likewise resist the temptation to equate discredited democracy with the Weimar Republic. When
Strauss introduces the paragraphs parade of regimes, which appears three
sentences before the sentence that invokes the golden age, he is addressing
Nietzsches fierce, pre-Weimar polemics against modern politics: democracy, along with socialism, communism, conservatism, and nationalism
(WIPP 55).
38. For a longer and more democracy-friendly interpretation of the
golden age material, see Straussophobia, 1524; note the complexities created by Strausss use of again at both WIPP 55 (democracy looked again
like the golden age) and WIPP 241 (insanity prevailed again). Regarding
RCPR 31, Altman would presumably stress the difficulty of specifying the
antecedents of the phrase, the movements just referred tomovements
we 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 the
connection between wisdom and moderation by invoking the sacrifices we
must make so that our minds may be free (xvi).
43. Altman might suggest that moderation (in Strausss eyes) was threatened as soon as Christianity undermined the classical/gentlemanly education Strauss describes in LAM 101 (on moderation, responsibility, and the
praise of democracy and constitutionalism in LAM 24, see German Stranger,
3558). If Heidegger remained entangled with Christianity while touting
Sein zum Tode, anguish, conscience, and guilt (SCR 12/LAM 237), perhaps Strausss non-Christian classicism equipped him with greater serenity or sublime sobriety (WIPP 28). On Strausss warnings about visionary expectations, cf. Catherine and Michael Zuckert, The Truth about Leo
Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy (Chicago: University 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 writings
after 1937, when he was living in America, typically exude so much quiet
grandeur (OT 185, WIPP 27), gentle humor, and Socratic spirit that they
extinguish any desire I might have to march in the streets, let alone to crack
heads.
44. Altman passes over Strausss statement that the founding of modern Israel was a blessing for all Jews everywhere (SCR 5/LAM 229). In
response, Altman could argue that Strauss, as an atheist, did not believe
in blessings (German Stranger, 167n110, 275). For Altmans subtle confrontations with Strausss disparaging remark that Nazism had no other
clear principle except murderous hatred of the Jews (SCR 3/LAM 226),
see German Stranger, 912, 734, 114, 1689, 201, 2558, 287, 299300,
5113 (cf. 237, 240, 2834, 443n197, 472, 525, and 527n49 on metaphysical anti-Judaism). On the prospect that Nazism was the prisoner of its
anti-Semitic ideology (SCR 7/LAM 230), see German Stranger, 234n47 and
452n33.
45. On Hitler, see Altman, German Stranger, 247, 2578, 299, 308n31,
311n40, 316, 3236, 406n15, 407, 418n89, 4512, 5156. Among other
things, Altmans Strauss would have no reason to accept the biological/racist
elements of Nazi anti-Semitism; even Heidegger appears to have rejected
these.
46. Altman, German Stranger, 418 (Strauss invokes the permanent characteristics of humanity on WIPP 26). To accommodate Strausss abovequoted lament that Germany in 1933 abandoned both wisdom and moderation, Altman ends up suggesting that [t]he biggest event of 1933 (WIPP
27) centered on Heidegger rather than Hitler (German Stranger, 419). On
the lesson of 1933 (a phrase from SPPP 34), also see Altman, German
Stranger, 18194, 41323.
47. Altman, German Stranger, 417 (the manuscript version was still more
vulnerable to the criticism I have sketched). Strauss once characterized
classical philosophy as nonhistoricist thought in its pure form, and
he obviously labored to consider the problem of historicism from its
perspective (NRH 33). He elsewhere asserts that practically the whole

225
thought of the past was radically unhistorical (WIPP 68); cf. NRH 13 on
the unhistorical approach that prevailed in all earlier philosophy.
48. WIPP 61; cf. NRH 13840, 1912.
49. Cf. NRH 234 regarding the unchanging framework that persists in
all changes of human knowledge; on the fundamental perspectives that are
coeval with human thought, see NRH 32, 35; cf. LAM 31 on chaos, cosmos, and the perishing of universes. For a thoughtful recent attempt to sketch
Strausss perspective on eternity, see Peter Augustine Lawler, What Is
Straussianism (According to Strauss)? Society 48, no. 1 (2011): 507 (available 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 NRH
30 on the historicist denial that the whole has a permanent structure.
Even classical conventionalism, according to Strauss, derived from the
idea of philosophy as the attempt to grasp the eternal, i.e., to answer the
question of the all-comprehensive truth (NRH 12); also consider NRH 34
on the quest for the eternal order, NRH 89 on the first things, NRH
125 on the fundamental alternatives, WIPP 70 on the fundamental and
universal questions, WIPP 2289 on the fundamental problems, LAM 63
on unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature
of things, and LAM 312 on the permanent grounds or character of the
processes by which social institutions might progress.
51. WIPP 55 (emphasis added). Cf. NRH 18 on how historicism culminated in nihilism, in mans becoming absolutely homeless; Strauss later
likens what historicism does to render man oblivious of the whole or of
eternity with what Hobbes had done to link the conquest of nature with the
unintelligibility of the universe (NRH 1756).
52. See, e.g., OT 1012, 196, 201; CM 201, 612; LAM 67; WIPP
11, 389; NRH 32, 356; and RCPR 2356, 260. For the record, Strauss
maintains that Heidegger was less smug about Greek philosophy than was
Franz Rosenzweig (SCR 910/LAM 2334; cf. RCPR 28). On Strausss debts
to Heideggers interpretations of Aristotle, see Rodrigo Chacon, Reading
Strauss from the Start: On the Heideggerian Origins of Political Philosophy, 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 Responsibility 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 Philosophy
and 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 the
deeper meaning obliterates the substantive and anti-historicist one.
zek has added his voice to this chorus, asserting that, for
54. Slavoj Zi
Strauss, [t]he true, hidden message contained in the great tradition of
philosophy 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 zek, Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks,London Review of
ture (Zi
Books, 20 January 2011, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n02/slavoj-zizek/goodmanners-in-the-age-of-wikileaks; the article was reprinted in the April 2011,
issue of Harpers Magazine, where the quoted passage appears on page 13).
55. Cf. NRH 29, where Strauss states that historicism denies the possibility of both theoretical metaphysics and philosophic ethics or natural
right.
56. Strausss detonations do not, like Heideggers Destruktion, discredit
and reduce to rubble the great books they investigate; instead, they elevate
both the books and their authors. Strausss writings demonstrate the possibility of philosophy by leading his reader into the fact of it. . . . Strauss opened
his fist in a way that enabled his reader to experience, to a degree, Strausss
own experiences with the text, his own recovery of what had been communicated by the greatest minds (Lampert, Nietzsches Challenge, 604;
cf. Pangle, Leo Strauss, 45, and Catherine and Michael Zuckert, The Truth
About Leo Strauss, 1278, 1326). Lamperts Strauss is far less oriented
toward regime change than Altmans Strauss is.
57. Martin Woessner maintains that, by placing the whole history of
philosophy into a different frame of reference, Heidegger reconfigured
the realm of the possible (Woessner, Heidegger in America [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011], 282). Because he also maintains that
Strauss approached the history of philosophy in a distinctly Heideggerian
way, trying to cut through the layers of sediment via a kind of bedazzled
New Criticism (54, 55; cf. 62), perhaps he would entertain the hypothesis
that Strauss reconfigured the history of political philosophy.
58. Unlike most Strauss-bashers, Altman concedes that Strauss provides
useful and perhaps invaluable guidance as an interpreter of Aristophanes,
Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Given the sloppiness Drury demonstrates in embellishing and/or butchering what Strauss
wrote, it is not surprising that she grants him relatively little credit as

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226
either a reader or a writer. If Altmans account proves to be definitive,
however, several of Drurys major claimse.g., that Strauss was greatly
indebted to Schmitt and Heidegger as well as to Nietzsche (LSAR 6472,
8296), that he Nietzschefied his ancients (PILS 170, 181), and that he
used Machiavelli as a mouthpiece (PILS 117, 1201)stand vindicated.
Although Drury in an interview apparently described Strauss as a Jewish Nazi (Jeet Heer, The Mind of the Administration, Part One: The
Philosopher, Boston Globe, 11 May 2003, H1, http://www.boston.com/
news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/05/11/the philosopher/), her Strauss is more
hostile toward both Heidegger and the Holocaust than Altmans is (see LSAR
46, 657, 69, 72). Paul Gottfried, a learned and eloquent spokesman for the
right-wing critics who deploy contextualism against Straussian hermeneutics, brusquely dismisses Altmans attempt to portray Strauss as an inveterate enemy of liberalism (Cryptic Fascist? American Conservative, February 2011, 479, http://www.amconmag.com/blog/leo strauss fascism). Like
Drury, Woessner trumpets Strausss debts to Heideggerian pedagogy, and
faults the elitism, secrecy, and cultlike devotion that both thinkers allegedly cultivated (Woessner, Heidegger in America, 63; cf. 44, 54, 61, 64);
Woessner nevertheless assumes that Strauss condemned Nazism, lauded
Socratic rationalism, and believed that Heideggers rejection of the latter
accelerated his plunge into nihilism (54, 57, 58n 60, 59, 277). Woessner, in
any case, errs when he asserts that Strauss espoused the doctrine of natural
law (601).
59. Altman seems to think that Strauss guarded his Nazi sympathies
quite carefully even in his personal dealings. Now that the new Leo
Strauss Center is posting recordings and transcripts of Strausss courses
(http://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/), the public can join the hunt for hidden WMDs. On the desirability of treating Strausss writings as being more
definitive than the things he said to his students, see Heinrich Meier, Leo
Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), xix.
60. If, as Altman argues, Strauss was following Strausss Machiavelli in
pursuing a long-range plan of corruption (TM 16870), rigorous scholarship might have been essential (cf. Straussophobia, 1023, 163, 2424,
250, 2858). Recall the conclusion of the introduction to On Tyranny, in
which Strauss expresses his hope that a future generation, properly trained
in their youth, will not need cumbersome introductions like On Tyranny
in order to understand Xenophons art. By leaving so many is for his
students to dot (OT 28), indeed, Strauss has helped many of them wage their
Publish or Perish campaigns.
61. Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Bose, 207.
62. See pages 2 and 715 above.
63. As he admitted to me via e-mail, Gilbert inadvertently wrote in Constellations that Strauss et al. organized multiple conferences that affirmed
states rights; a celebrated new book relays Gilberts account of the conferences as if it were settled fact (Jean-Francois Drolet, American Neoconservatism: The Politics and Culture of a Reactionary Idealism [New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011], 545). Unless otherwise indicated, I shall
be quoting and citing the widely used second edition of the Goldwin collection, which was published in 1974; unless otherwise indicated, the passages
I quote also appear verbatim in the 1961/1963 edition (in my copy of the
latter, the copyright specifies both years, and Goldwins preface was written
in November, 1962). Although the Rand McNally boilerplate for the 1974
edition claims that the essays were prepared for the Public Affairs Conference 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: America
in Fearful Times (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 1824; Mark Lawrence
McPhail, Zen in the Art of Rhetoric: An Inquiry into Coherence (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1996), 506; Floyd W. Hayes, III, Politics and Education in
Americas Multicultural Society: An African-American Studies Response
to Allan Bloom, Journal of Ethnic Studies 17, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 724;

Perspectives on Political Science

and Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, 43. For a scholarly overview,
see Richard H. King, Rights and Slavery, Race and Racism: Leo Strauss,
the Straussians, and the American Dilemma, Modern Intellectual History
5, no. 1 (2008): 5582.
65. Alan Gilbert, Sotomayor, Brown v. Board of Education, the Social
Science of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, and Leo Strauss, August 17, 2009,
http://democratic-individuality.blogspot.com/2009/07/sotomayor-brown-vboard-of-education.html
66. Before he is through, Kilpatrick does cast aspersions on people who
weep tears for Mississippi while ensconced in the comfortable living
rooms of Scarsdale (107); he also sounds an alarm about faceless nationalizing and idiot yelps for equality (106). Apart from some differences
in capitalization, the 1974 version of Kilpatricks essay is identical to the
1961/1963 version.
67. The Grodzins essay was revised by Daniel Elazar for the 1974 edition.
From Gilberts posting, it appears that Grodzins and Jaffa (but not Berns)
delivered their papers at the conference; it also appears that Cropsey and
Diamondbut 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 brief
criticism of Kilpatrick (125), the titleThe Case for a Stronger National
Governmentis a rebuke to Kilpatricks essay, The Case for States
Rights (Jaffas essay appears immediately after Kilpatricks). Jaffa, moreover, touts Americas stake in providing educational opportunities to the
Negro child in Mississippi who might possess the gifts of a Nobel Laureate (107), stresses the national governments responsibility for assisting
the more than twenty million Americans who live on less than one dollar a
day (1156), and impugns the restrictions Barry Goldwater wanted to place
on federal power (109, 11720). Jaffas essay for the 1974 edition (Partly
Federal, Partly National: On the Political Theory of the Civil War) differs
markedly from the original. Among other things, it wields Lincoln (111)
and Walter Berns (117) against Kilpatrick, and it opens by suggesting that
Governor George Wallaces failed attempt to defy a federal court order and
to maintain the University of Alabamas ban on black enrollment signaled
the end of states rights as a potent force in American politics (109). By
highlighting our nations longstanding recognition that all people everywhere have a right to resist intolerable oppression, finally, Jaffa articulates
a thesis that was manifestly friendly to the Civil Rights Movement; even an
individual has a right of revolution grounded in nature (129).
69. This last sentence, which proceeds to invoke the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, was added for the 1974 edition; if Im not mistaken, Bernss essay is
otherwise 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, or
to the people.
71. LynchingKilpatrick is silent. Preserving shacks for schools
Kilpatrick doesnt mention it. No admission of blacks to the main colleges or law schoolsKilpatrick says nothing. Failure of the mortally
injured to get care at local hospitalsKilpatrick is silent. Beatings of
teenagers white and black who demonstrate for civil rights and the occasional
murderKilpatrick doesnt know about that. Gilbert plummets overboard,
alas, in asserting that [t]yranny is only worrisome for Kilpatrick . . . if it
works toward the equality of the rule of law.
72. If Strauss had been a fascist, he might have ridiculed Kilpatrick for
celebrating states rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the selfevident desire to restrain all government. Gilbert could reply that Goldwin,
in writing to Strauss on 12/17/60, noted that Kilpatricks assignment was to
argue that a reassertion of States rights would add to the essential strength
of the United States in its present situation: Gilbert infers that, in conveying sympathy for Kilpatrick, Strauss was indulging not racism but a concern for great-power politics; Strauss and Goldwin thought that affirming
states rights would strengthen white American unity and purpose in the
Cold War.