Leo Strauss, the cabal of neocon zealots, and a whole lot more
Fri, 2007-08-31 06:30
#1
N.Beltov
Leo Strauss, the cabal of neocon zealots, and a whole lot more
Fri, 2007-08-31 06:30
#2
N.Beltov
There's an interesting article regarding political scientist Leo Strauss. Strauss was very influential over many of the ideologues associated with the current Bush administration. Strauss was known as a proponent of the Platonic noble lie, of explicating the idea that great thinkers have two meanings to their writings, a popular one and an "exoteric" one, and so on.
There's a Canadian connection here as well. Shadia Drury, from the University of Regina, has written extensively about Strauss.
[url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/leostrauss/]Defending Strauss - J Englander[/url]
Fri, 2007-08-31 09:48
#3
I don't think Strauss has very much to do with the neoconservatives. A lot of discussion on that question has been quite uninformed.
Strauss was a very interesting political theorist. He was distressed, as many were, with the collapse of values in Europe, a collapse which he thought resulted from the Enlightenment as interpreted by Nietszche.
Strauss was aware that some source of value is required for human action in the world; otherwise ethical and unethical actions are indistinguishable. Then, everything becomes a question of "My party right or wrong" or "My country right or wrong" or "My self-interest right or wrong" with the words "or wrong" deleted.
If there is no distinction between right or wrong, "civilization" becomes a question of which group interest you decide to advance...on the basis of pure personal choice, not ethics.
Strauss thought he had discovered an alternative source of ethical "right" in classical thought, and in particular, in the Arab philosopher Al-Farabi.
I don't believe the neocons follow any of this, other than perhaps the idea that liberalism doesn't have values, while conservatism has God as its foundation.
Strauss was a reactionary, but never a liberal or a neo-liberal/neo-conservative. The whole idea of value to be decided by a "market" struck him as ridiculous; why should the ignorant masses determine the value of things by supply and demand?
Strauss is well worth reading. His views on Macchiavelli and Hobbes are worthwhile, as is his book "Natural Right and History". I think he was probably a kind of clerico-fascist, with the "clerico" replaced by "Platonist."
Fri, 2007-08-31 09:53
#4
I've never understood what is really meant by "neocon." In Canada it seems to mean American-style conservative. In the US it seems to mean hard-line Likudniks and/or former liberals turned conservatives.
Fri, 2007-08-31 09:59
#5
There have been many articles which have argued that Strauss' critics have misinterpreted him. Yet, the link in the first post exposes a grim fascist face by giving a link to Strauss' 1933 letter to Karl Loweth (at the time Strauss was escaping Nazi Germany and emigrating to the US):
Strauss:
"And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to the "droits imprescriptibles de l’homme" [i.e. "inalienable rights of man” - quoted from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Aug. 26, 1789.] to protest against the shabby abomination...."
Even if one can come up with a generally benign version of Strauss and his writings, what counts in the real world of deception and criminal imperialism is not Strauss, but what his policy-making followers decide to interpret as Straussian.
Fri, 2007-08-31 10:06
#6
quote:
Even if one can come up with a generally benign version of Strauss and his writings, what counts in the real world of deception and criminal imperialism is not Strauss, but what his policy-making followers decide to interpret as Straussian.
Well, I certainly wouldn't apply that dictum to Marx.
In fact, if you decide to interpret a thinker only according to what his acolytes have done in the real world, you will necessarily lose a fair bit of value in the extended writings of Marx, Nietszche, Strauss, or even Jefferson.
One should read thinkers for what they say, and not abandon the writings and let "policy-makers" form our ideas about them.
Fri, 2007-08-31 10:30
#7
My point, Jeff, is that in practice, a political philosopher's exact opinions are secondary to existing power structures that claim guidance from that philosopher. For example, understanding the finer points of Marxist writing would not be much comfort to you in a Stalinist gulag.
Fri, 2007-08-31 13:27
#8
quote:
I've never understood what is really meant by "neocon."
True conservatives should support a small government, balanced budgets, protection of civil liberties and little or no intervention in other nation's internal affairs.
Neo-conservatives typically support a large, interventionist government, huge deficits, reduction in civil liberties, and military action against other nations as the basis of foreign policy.
Fri, 2007-08-31 16:07
#9
Agreed.
Neocons are the evil wicked cousins of the conservatives!
[ 31 August 2007: Message edited by: mary123 ]
Fri, 2007-08-31 16:31
#10
The essential thing about Strauss is that he also believed that lying, or better, misleading the populous through their common mythology is the perfectly logical right of their elites, as the masses can only be responsible for forming a line or a mob. Therefore anything he writes can be taken however our elites choose to take it.
Seriously, saying that "we" "need" certain "common" values or there will be total anarchy is just a standard conservative refrain, but in his case, completely miss the more liberal democratic position that, unless those values are freely shared in the first place, the values themselves may nolonger reflect what they were once supposed to (read above) and unless they can be freely debated, tested or chosen they remain as suspect as any other arbitrary claim to authority.
[ 31 August 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 00:52
#11
I think Strauss' followers in the White House have used his philosophy as an excuse to abuse power and trample democracy. What we're left with since chickenhawk neoconservatives dreamed up PNAC and joined with neoLiberalers are millions of innocent people dead and dying because of greedy, opportunistic, warfiteering capitalist pigs. Lyndon Larouche is right, paleocons are the children of satan disguised as morons and whose Washington consensus hangover from the 1990's is causing Latin America to choose leftist leadership and anyone who appears to be on the left. The struggle for democracy continues.
[ 02 September 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 08:24
#12
Identifying "neoconservativism" as just being a cover for oldfashioned "greed" is problematic since the movement is ideologically and agenda driven.
Although self-interest corporate wealth, corruption and greed is part and parcel of any ruling power group (Richard Perle is one of many that jumps to mind here), the most powerful opposition to the neoconservative aim to restructure the middle east comes from traditional corporate and ecomomic interests that see neocon policy as disasterous for for the US economy and interests.
It's unlikely, for example, that these voices of traditional corporatism (or the paleoconservatives) will disuade the neocon driven Bush administration from a major air attack on Iran's military and infrastructure--even though the political and economic fallout will likely be disastrous for the US.
See, for example, Jim Lobe's recent article on the friction even within "neocon central", American Enterprise Institute. A snippet quoted here:
"AEI: Caught Between Its Likudist Heart and Its Corporate Head
Today’s quotation in the Financial Times attributed to Danielle Pletka, the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), was a stunner. “If we …begin to sanction foreign companies through more stringent sanctions in the Iran Sanctions Act, I think there will be serious repercussions for our multilateral effort.”
Whatever would possess AEI and Pletka, who personally has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic cheerleaders of the rapidly spreading state divestment movement against companies doing business in Iran, to offer a cautionary note about adopting unilateral sanctions, let alone stress the importance of preserving multilateral unity with limp-wristed European allies in dealing with a charter member of the “Axis of Evil”? Judging from its provenance at what must be considered Neo-Con Central, it certainly couldn’t be common sense.
In fact, Pletka’s observation probably reflects growing tensions between AEI’s corporate contributors, many of whom are represented on its board of trustees, on the one hand, and, on the other, the hard-line neo-conservative views of its foreign-policy fellows, such as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Joshua Muravchik, and Pletka herself; academic advisers, such as Gertrude Himmelfarb, Eliot Cohen, and Jeremy Rabkin; and its board chairman, Bruce Kovner...."
edited to add link:
[url=http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=54]Jim Lobe[/url]
[ 02 September 2007: Message edited by: contrarianna ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 08:48
#13
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Identifying "neoconservativism" as just being a cover for oldfashioned "greed" is problematic since the movement is ideologically and agenda driven.
I disagree. I don't think there is any underlying ideology for neo-conservatives. I think, as I said before, and as was demonstrated by Iraq, they will test-drive any number of rationales and ideologies for a given agenda item until they find one that resonates. As was admitted by Wolfowitz as to the stated initial reason for the Iraq war: "We settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason."
Later, as it became clear that was a lie, it was al-Qaeda, democracy, and, today, the Shiite crescent. No lie is too big or too small.
But what are the ideological determinants for the neo-con agenda? The one that is most widely acknowledged is Zionism -- the US foreign policy under the neo-con agenda is driven by Israeli interests. But that wouldn't explain energy policy, environmental policy, Christian right alliance, and a host of other policy issues.
If the neo-con agenda is deconstructed, what emerges is a cabal of well placed, well heeled, elites pursuing an agenda that weakens America, economically, politically, militarily, and socially, destabilizes the middle-east and draws the world closer to a wider war, and seeks to undermine domestic democratic processes while undermining the legendary system of "checks and balances". For what?
As one paleconservative wrote in a recent column: follow the money.
The net beneficiaries of the neo-con agenda are a few well placed and well connected global corporate interests to which virtually all members of the cabal have interests.
It is an amazingly complex heist. While the world is trying to figure out the motivations of the thugs, the bank is being emptied. Once you acknowledge it is nothing more than a bank robbery, albeit with many, many diversions to keep the police busy, everything becomes simpler and the pieces all fall into place.
I would encourage everyone to watch Iraq for Sale on youtube ( [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szrrbLQpE9s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) just to get a taste of the extent and direction of the coup that occurred in the US in 2000.
[ 02 September 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 09:30
#14
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]
I disagree. I don't think there is any underlying ideology for neo-conservatives. I think, as I said before, and as was demonstrated by Iraq, they will test-drive any number of rationales and ideologies for a given agenda item until they find one that resonates. As was admitted by Wolfowitz as to the stated initial reason for the Iraq war: "We settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." Mess ][/b]
You have mistaken cynical propaganda messaging for the "unworthy" public for the ideological belief of the "elite". This is an oversight highlighted by your quote from the Straussian Wolfowitz where the "noble lie" reigns and deceit is an ideological virtue.
Here is a quote from fellow neocon, and good friend of Wolfowitz, Christopher Hitchens from his first column in Slate in the heady buildup to the Iraq war:
"Machiavelli in Mesopotamia:
The case against the case against "regime change" in Iraq.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Thursday, Nov. 7, 2002, at 3:05 PM ET
Part of the charm of the regime-change argument (from the point of view of its supporters) is that it depends on premises and objectives that cannot, at least by the administration, be publicly avowed. Since Paul Wolfowitz is from the intellectual school of Leo Strauss—and appears in fictional guise as such in Saul Bellow's novel Ravelstein—one may even suppose that he enjoys this arcane and occluded aspect of the debate. For those lacking a similar gift for hidden meanings, the best way to appreciate the unstated case for war may be to examine the criticisms leveled by its opponents...."
Sun, 2007-09-02 10:04
#15
Frustrated Mess
quote:
You have mistaken cynical propaganda messaging for the "unworthy" public for the ideological belief of the "elite".
But again, what is the "ideological belief"? The very fact that one can't be readily articulated supports my proposition that there is not one. Again, I think you are looking at petty criminals, no matter how well placed on the social and political ladders, and expecting intellectual reason where there is only base greed.
Cheney himself articulated neo-con interests: "the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies." [url=http://www.studien-von-zeitfragen.de/Zeitfragen/Cheney_on_Oil/cheney_on_... speech[/url]
Cheney, as you might recall, has interests in a number of corporations involved in military contracts, inside and outside of Iraq, and in "reconstruction" projects inside Iraq that has seem literally billions siphoned off.
At what point do people stop looking for the reasons and instead focus on the effect? If anything, the neo-cons are masters of sleight of hand.
Sun, 2007-09-02 10:44
#16
I think there exists a definitive ideology for the palecon chickenhawk cabal and their Liberal Democrat ebablers. It's a variation on the imperial-colonialist theme that arose after the second world war, and it was a necessary adaptation to the old way of financing wars of conquest and imperialism.
It was essential to British empire, for example, to maintain a powerful navy. They used a rule of thumb that they would always spend at least twice as much on battle ships as their two closest military rivals, France and Spain. Since the second world war, the Yanks are spending many times more than ten or twenty of their nearest military rivals. Keynensian-militarism accounts for half of U.S. taxpayer expenditures every year. The hawks ran out of enemies at the end of the cold war to justify this colossal waste of taxpayer's money.
Socialism for the rich, or Keynesian-militarism in America is what's been driving their economy since the end of laissez-faire capitalism. How would they even go about weaning the superrich off of billions in taxpayer handouts every year ?. It would cause great hardship among the richest and most powerful in North America on down through lower levels of the economy, and on a similar scale to what neo-Liberal economic shock treatment has had with laying waste to so many developing world economies. The third world gets Washington consensus voodoo for neo-Liberalism while the superrich in America continue to worship secretly at the alter of Keynes for their own sake.
Sun, 2007-09-02 12:04
#17
Frustrated Mess
quote:
I think there exists a definitive ideology for the palecon chickenhawk cabal
Yes, well, what about the neo-cons?
Sun, 2007-09-02 12:35
#18
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]
Yes, well, what about the neo-cons?[/b]
Well someone up there said neocons are not ideologically-driven, and I can almost see where that's true. Conservatives in general lost their religion after 1929. American commentator and former William F Buckley protege, Michael Lind, said a few years ago that the basis for conservative doctrine was essentially borrowed from the communist manifesto. Conservatism in the U.S. in general was born of the deep south and is still based in religious revivalism and racism. However, some things have changed wrt economic policies since the New Deal era. "NeoCons" adhere to and practice Keynesian-militarism, or upside-down socialism for the rich with religious fervor.
NeCons have since joined forces with neo-Liberalers with recommending, forcing upon them really, a similar economic ideology for the developing world which failed miserably in North America and western world in the 1930's. And this is why we're seeing rebellion by nationalist forces against the IMF and WTO and cabal of world financiers in Latin America and other developing countries.
Sun, 2007-09-02 13:30
#19
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Well someone up there said neocons are not ideologically-driven, and I can almost see where that's true.
Yes, that was me.
quote:
"NeoCons" adhere to and practice Keynesian-militarism, or upside-down socialism for the rich with religious fervor.
See, I don't think they do. I think a lot of very rich Americans also fear the neo-con agenda which is why so many of them have turned against them including actors from across party lines.
If the neo-cons philosophy could be neatly summarized, I would call it Al Capone-ism.
Sun, 2007-09-02 14:14
#20
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]
See, I don't think they do. I think a lot of very rich Americans also fear the neo-con agenda which is why so many of them have turned against them including actors from across party lines.[/b]
The ones who do claim they are abandoning ship have the other war party to ensure U.S. hypocrisy and empire are safe. They're called Liberal Democrats, and they are the other party of plutocrats who have voted with Republicans for U.S. imperialism abroad and unhindered taxpayer spending on military. Mussolini once said that fascism is entertaining, a big show. And this is true of the U.S. with mainstream news media playing along for entertainment sake. Independent news is discouraged, especially when something like three out of four Bush family biographers end up suiciding themselves. The last was Gary Webb author of Dark Alliance.
The U.S. has more billionaires than any other country. The real Republican support base are some of the most powerful multinational corporations in the world: pharmaceutical companies - big energy - the military-industrial complex - prison-industrial complex - big sugar and big agribusiness. These Soviet in size transnationals have little to do with free market capitalism and rely mainly on government contracts, publicly funded research for scientific advancements and technology transfers and decades-long patent protections of what were more than often publicly-funded discoveries in medicine, science and technology since the beginning of the cold war.
And they aren't about to give any of this up anytime soon. They pay lip service to free market gods while practicing socialism for the rich. That's the basis of their ideology, which has undergone superficial alterations every so often over the last several decades. But Keynesian-militarism is still a large part of it. You call it Caponeism, and that's probably just as accurate.
[ 02 September 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 19:44
#21
[b]The Republic[/b]:
quote:
[i]"You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this will they rule who are truly rich not in silver and gold but in virtue and wisdom which are the true blessings of life." [/i]
Beltov:
quote:
...of explicating the idea that great thinkers have two meanings to their writings, a popular one and an "exoteric" one, and so on.
hmmmmm......
[url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/993329.html]
quote:
The truths discovered by the philosophic elite "are not fit for public consumption." Philosophy is dangerous and must conceal its chief findings. Philosophers must cultivate a mode of esoteric communication, that is, a mode of concealing the hard truth from the masses. "Only philosophers can handle the truth." The elite must, in a word, lie to the masses; the elite must manipulate them—arguably for their own good. The elite employ "noble lies," lies purporting to affirm God, justice, the good. "The Philosophers need to tell noble lies not only to the people at large, but also to powerful politicians." These lies are necessary "in order to keep the ignorant masses in line." Thus Strauss counseled a manipulative approach to political leadership. In sum, the media writers conclude, Strauss held that "Machiavelli was right." When read with "a skeptical mind, the way he himself read the great philosophers . . . Strauss . . . emerges a disguised Machiavelli, a cynical teacher who encouraged his followers to believe that their intellectual superiority entitles them to rule over the bulk of humanity by means of duplicity."
[/url]
I don't believe this "noble truth" was used by Plato in the context used here? I would think this more Shakespearean [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]
[url=http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2007/08/24/the_controversy_surrounding_le_... critics argue that] Straussians agreed with their guru, a scholar of Plato, that there are "truths [that] can be comprehended only by a very few, and would be misunderstood by the masses." Thus the "noble lie" (a phrase from Plato's Republic that Strauss liked to use) that [the Bush administration] told the American public: Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and we've got to go in there, whatever the cost.[/url]
[ 02 September 2007: Message edited by: forum observer ]
Sun, 2007-09-02 19:57
#22
[i]"They[Chileans] can't be trusted with democracy."[/i] -- the doctor to the madman and CIA
Political conservatives and their warped views on democracy never change.
Mon, 2007-09-03 15:50
#23
quote:
My point, Jeff, is that in practice, a political philosopher's exact opinions are secondary to existing power structures that claim guidance from that philosopher.
Well, philosophy is not reality. But philosophy ought to be understood in itself, and for the illumination it brings. So, I enjoy talking about Strauss and his thought, not about what "existing power structures" claim he thought.
Generally, it is pretty clear that few here have read a word of Strauss, and so are beating up on a strawman. If one have any interest in being intellectually honest, it is important to try to respond to the actual arguments of the philosopher, not the caricature. That involves learning the actual arguments.
If people learn to respond to the actual arguments, they will probably learn something; but if they just blather on about Paul Wolfowitz and Iraq, they are neither learning anything, or teaching anything either.
By the way, a serious Canadian book about Strauss was written by Daniel Tanguay at the University of Ottawa; because it was written originally in French, it has not had the impact it should have, but is far superior to the usual crap. [url=http://www.frenchculture.org/index.cfm?genre_id=2&sub_genre_ID=4&page_id... on strauss[/url]
Mon, 2007-09-03 16:47
#24
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
[b]Well, philosophy is not reality. But philosophy ought to be understood in itself, and for the illumination it brings. So, I enjoy talking about Strauss and his thought, not about what "existing power structures" claim he thought.[/URL][/b]
Ya, I don't see how we could possibly blame the lizard people, some of whom were actual students of Strauss, a political philosopher. It's like those students and colleagues of Friedrich von Hayek at the Chicago School who went out into the world and applied his free market fundamentalism. Hayek and Friedman told Maggie that she should use Pinochet's Chile as a model for completing her own free market project in Britain.
Tue, 2007-09-04 18:10
#25
Fidel: "Ya, I don't see how we could possibly blame the lizard people, some of whom were actual students of Strauss, a political philosopher. It's like those students and colleagues of Friedrich von Hayek at the Chicago School who went out into the world"
That's an interesting question actually, reading what a philospher says may be onething, his theoretical rationales etc as opposed to how they might have been applied to the real world etc, but at what point are they responsible when they are in fact proposing ideas [i]intended[/i] for the real world of politics? And what about when they openly call for misleading the masses to be governed, can such an academic really claim innocence when that's exactly what happens but predictably fails to work in the best interests of society as a whole? I suppose it depends on how closly his/her acolytes follow his instructions but with guys like Leo Strauss how could the rest of us ever know for sure?
[ 04 September 2007: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
Tue, 2007-09-04 19:11
#26
Yes, I think Leo Strauss provided hawks with the intellectual and political justification for invading Iraq. And then it was another Chicago School intellectual whose ideas instructed them on what to do once the country was in their hands. It's not all that different to what happened in Chile with the military coup and removal of a democratically elected leader who had a slightly different nationalist economic agenda back then before 9-11-73. Milton Friedman wrote an anti government anthem entitled Capitalism and Freedom. Conservatives loathe anything that involves the public good and democratic choice in general.
Strauss, von Hayek and Friedman were speaking to would-be plutocrats and power elite on the right of the political spectrum not ordinary people, imo. Commentators and economists said after the 16 year-long experiment in Chile that Chicago School political economy and democracy are incompatible.
Tue, 2007-09-04 19:41
#27
Well, I do intend on reading more by him, but I doubt I'll find any more illumination beyond the anti-democratic justifications he gave his more successful students. Could be useful.
Sun, 2007-09-09 08:04
#28
[i]that one didn’t invent these sorts of things, that one discovers them.[/i]......
quote:
"I’m a Platonist — a follower of Plato — who believes that one didn’t invent these sorts of things, that one discovers them. In a sense, all these mathematical facts are right there waiting to be discovered."[b]Donald (H. S. M.) Coxeter[/b]
If the basis of one's argument is flawed on the grounds of what was said by Strauss, then ultimately the argument in itself is flawed? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]