I found the positive and negative media coverage curious back then and wondered what Strauss and his student Allan Bloom would have thought of Strauss' purported inspiration for justifying the wars.
We'll never know, but when I saw Strauss purposely name-checked/dropped in the Thiel New Yorker article, it made me remember Bloom, with whom I took two classes: an introduction to political philosophy and a graduate seminar on Aristotle's Politics. I've read several of Bloom's books - The Closing of the American Mind, Giants and Dwarfs as well as his translations and commentaries on Rousseau's Letter to M. D'Alembert and Plato's Republic. I also had a few conversations with him during office hours back in 1992, the year before he passed away. Of Strauss' writings, I've read Natural Right and History, Note on the Plan of Beyond Good and Evil, the essay on Genesis, many of the essays in History of Political Philosophy (which he edited with Joseph Cropsey) and The City and Man. I've also read two of Shadia Drury's critiques of Strauss (which are well-worth reading), as well as a collection of essays on Closing. I know this represents a subset of both men's oeuvres - Strauss was incredibly prolific - but...well...I think they are reasonably representative of their thinking and interests.
I'm writing this not as a critique of neo-conservatism or of libertarianism, or of conservatives, the Bush administration or, for that matter, of any liberals. It's simply meant to clarify what I feel are some misconceptions of Bloom and Strauss, who were wary of philosophy being simplified and co-opted by special interest groups and politicians looking for academic and intellectual justification for their often wrong-headed beliefs. In fact, one of Bloom's main arguments of Closing is that the Left used an astounding misinterpretation of Nietzsche to support a watered-down version of relativism that logically precluded anyone from judging or valuing anything - from individuals, to the arts, to regimes - even as these very people thought their relativism an unassailable truth. Ironically, Bloom claimed, this was precisely the opposite of what Nietzsche had argued: the supremacy of certain individuals and forms.
Here's some of what I remember, filtered through the haze of 20 years ago:
-Strauss and Bloom were primarily interested in understanding regimes and their citizens - how particular regimes cultivated particular types of citizens and their relationships to the government and to each other. This type of study was categorized as "political philosophy" and was not limited to understanding secular government and society (established through reason and natural right), but also included studying those governed by divine belief (established through God's command as relayed through the Bible). They thought such serious study a critical component of understanding human nature and purpose, the highest calling of philosophy - answering the fundamental, permanent questions, like "What is the good life?"
-Strauss and Bloom both held that the two primary progenitors of these two forms of government were the Greeks and Jews via ancient Athens and Jerusalem, respectively. Strauss wrote more than Bloom about Jewish thinkers and writing, including essays on Spinoza, Maimonides and Genesis, but Bloom, clearly an acolyte of Plato and Rousseau, also respected the value of belief in the divine, as believers possessed a sound moral foundation, even if it wasn't founded on reason (and reasoning), that was a critical component of civil society. In this regard, he was not unlike Rousseau whose chief concern about the Enlightenment and the arts (First Discourse, Letter to M. D'Alembert) was that it would undermine civil society's critical belief in the divine...even as he composed operas.
-To Bloom's mind, at the very least, the religious - even casual believers - felt comfortable discerning right from wrong, an act contemporary casual relativists would deem "judgmental" and against their purported, though ultimately superficial openmindedness. Thus, Bloom was respectful of religion even if he himself wasn't a believer. Consequently, he felt that one could be a non-believer without necessarily being a nihilist; natural right, discerned through reason, could also provide humanity (and societies) a moral foundation. I think he also believed that although these two traditions were markedly different, that they could co-exist, though not tension-free, in a democracy like the United States (or Athens 5th Century B.C.).
-Strauss and Bloom's great interest and study of regimes seems to imply that government is important - very important, as it helps determine the character of its citizens, something that Tocqueville clearly noticed in Democracy in America. Some forms of government are more desirable (demonstrably better) than others, but Strauss' thinking does not appear to support the principles of libertarianism (and/or limited government). In fact, early in Closing, Bloom dismisses the Ayn Randian form, when he claims that many female college students cite "The Fountainhead" as a favorite, not recognizing its decidedly illiberal, inegalitarian implications. It is not clear to me that Strauss or Bloom believed in a diminished government, though they were against the range of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century - fascist and communist - which they felt didn't align with natural rights or divinity. I don't know why Thiel was reading Strauss - beyond his being on conservatives' reading lists - but in any case, it is not because Strauss was libertarian. For what it's worth, I've always felt that people on the left could learn a lot by reading Strauss (and Bloom).
-Bloom was a great teacher, sometimes a provocateur in and out of class. He believed that liberal education, supported by studying the greatest thinkers, was fundamental to democracy; that's what inspired the initial essay and eventual book of Closing. He was quite funny, and you can get a sense of his lectures by listening to the multiple audio recordings of his lectures, which are free. I saw him have some great debates with hostile students, whom he'd de-fang with simple logic. One of my favorite memories was when he asked a young female student, "What makes you think you know more than Plato?" I went to Chicago an avowed liberal and, now in my early 40s, I'm still liberal, but at Chicago, I was forced to question my beliefs, to better understand their foundations, to think, to tackle the "great books" - not always grasping the subtlety of their meaning, but definitely taking something great away. This openness in the form of questioning, informed and inspired by "great books" and great teachers, was what Bloom and Strauss thought liberal education should be, and that it was fundamental to a democratic society (and government).
-Shadia Drury has argued - somewhat persuasively - that Strauss and Bloom believed in philosophy's preeminence in society (aligned to Plato's hierarchy in the Republic) and consequently that they hoped to increase their form of philosophy's influence in government, not unlike Machiavelli's desire to advise the prince in The Prince. I never discussed this with Bloom, so it could be true. That being said, I don't believe they were attempting to create a secret cabal to usurp political power. Actually, if Strauss and Bloom were so concerned about keeping the secret beliefs of the great philosophers secret, they would have been foolish to have written Persecution and the Art of Writing (which argued and illuminated that philosophers, to avoid being tried and killed, attempted to obscure their true beliefs in the face of offending people and governments [Socrates being put to death Athens being an example of philosophy not protecting itself]) and The Closing of the American Mind (which was an open critique of relativism on education, with a forward by a Nobel Prize winning, best selling American novelist!). Clearly, neither men were that concerned with secrecy...or they wouldn't have written these books, which remain in print decades after their deaths. It could make for a great Dan Brown novel though, and conspiracy theories abound.
-Bloom's critique of rock and roll seemed quite inspired by Plato, Aristotle and Rousseau, who recognized the incredible influence of music on young people's minds. Different "modes" made people feel different - could be ennobling for soldiers going to war; Aristotle wrote the better part of a book in the Politics on the subject. Bloom felt that rock and roll took advantage of young people's souls by appealing to what was base and untutored in them. Plus it was ubiquitous. Interestingly, Bloom told me that even though he loved and had an extensive classical music collection, he also enjoyed some of the classic pre-rock tunes - the Great American Songbook. As I walked with him across the quads of Chicago late in the day, with long shadows cast in front of us, he started singing "Me and My Shadow." I asked him what he thought of those songs, and he said they were nice and simple songs - not like rock.
-That Bloom was gay was apparently known to many "in the academy." I suspected that he had AIDS, as he had taken a leave of absence the year before I arrived at Chicago. That being said, I never felt that his sexual proclivity, which I didn't think much about in college, was inconsistent with his support of so-called family values. He simply believed that young people, himself included, benefited from having two parents at home. Children of divorced parents, he found as a teacher over many years, were more likely to hold strong opinions and be less open to questioning them - something that was sub-optimal in a liberal education, which was foundational to democracy. Again, this thinking was embraced by the Right and criticized by the Left, but I never felt that Bloom embraced the notion of "family values." Quite the contrary, he disliked the very use of the terms "values" and "cultures", which he thought strayed from their original words' true meaning and reflected unthinking relativism. He simply found that children raised by a family (parents who remain together and do not divorce) better prepared students for a liberal education.
I loved my experience at University of Chicago. I haven't spent much time thinking about everything I learned there, but taking classes with Bloom, Clifford Orwin, the great Greek translator David Grene, the cultural historian Karl Weintraub (who disagreed with Bloom on historical relativism), his wife Katy O'Brien-Weintraub, the great art historian Ingrid Rowland, philosopher Ted Cohen and critic-at-large and photographer Joel Snyder amongst many others, was so important to my intellectual development.
As I approach my 20th reunion next spring, it's great to remember how much I learned.
Thank you. I had forgotten I wrote it. Appreciate you reminding me.
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