Leo Strauss and the American Right

By Shadia B. Drury

Book Overview

In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German Jewish emigr�nd scholar, who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement. Strauss influenced the work of Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, as well as Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312217838
• ISBN13: 9780312217839
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The Atheists in the White House

I have a somewhat different take on this book than the other reviewers. I am struck by the idea that the Straussians neoconservatives, who have seized strategic positions in the U.S. Government and the Republican Party, fundamentally agree with the Secular Humanists about the nature of religion (i.e., that there's no god out there to rapture us away, much less lecture us about right and wrong). They just disagree with the Humanists about the advisability of telling ordinary people the truth, pretending instead that increasingly absurd and delusional christian beliefs like the ones promoted by the Left Behind novels are worthy of respect, as long as christians who hold such fantasies vote Republican. (By contrast, UFO cultists who promote similar scenarios about mass alien abductions are ridiculed.) In other words, Neocons view religion as a useful tool for keeping the rabble in line, including the unsophisticated religious politicians who support their agenda. I find this crypto-Atheism contemptible, though also complimentary in a back-handed way. Intelligent people in many times and places have arrived at Atheism by following their own inquiries into the nature of reality. Strauss and his followers just add further support to the legitimacy of the Atheist discovery, though their systematic dishonesty about it has led to harmful consequences in the real world. The increasingly Atheistic populations of Western Europe, where even American christians readily visit for vacation, show that advanced societies can function well without religion, empirically falsifying the Straussian prejudice that the sheep need superstitions while their shepherds can handle Atheism.

Postmodern Conservativism

The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power. According to Drury, a particularly striking strategy of Straussian conservatives is their struggle to identify and mythologize American traditions. She points out that while Burke had the last remnants of feudalism to extol as a naturally just system, American conservatives have been forced to create a ?traditional? America out of whole cloth. To do so, according the Drury, Strauss's followers have invaded history departments across the US where they have been working hard to uncover "tradition" in the beginnings of America ? a difficult task given that America was the first truly modernist state. Nevertheless, these historians, depending upon which ax they are grinding, rewrite American history either to prove that colonial America was feudal, or to prove the Founding Fathers were not Dei

Good Book If Viewed As A Narrow Survey

This survey book is not nearly the slanderous piece that many of the reviewers of this site would have you to believe. Instead, Professor Shadia Drury, who is a Canadian political theorist of a liberal democratic stripe, admittedly sets out to demonstrate the differences between two ostensibly related ideologies: "neo-conservatism" and "classical liberal democracy." According to Drury, the former is the logical "American" manifestation of Leo Strauss's philosophy and the latter is the worldly stalwart & hegemonic target of Strauss's attack. It must be said that Drury seems to spare, on the whole, the tradition of European Conservatism from analysis, although Drury does reference this tradition in order to contrast it with neo-conservatism. This absence is the weakness of an otherwise fine survey.Drury may be called a popular corrupter by some (indeed, the repetitious writing leaves a thing to be desired), but this book is an honest survey of Straussian Philosophy and Classical Liberal Democracy, in the sense that the book contrasts Strauss's ideas against the backdrop of his enemy, classical liberal democracy. It is true that many modern conservatives (but usually not libertarians) may take offense to Classical Liberal Democracy, but so do modern liberal democrats. To illustrate this, allow me to give two examples and one comment: (1) Modern Liberals may be disturbed that the source of MODERN governmental welfare may not be Marx or, even, Enlightenment Liberalism, but the European conservative political ideologues of the 19th century--for example, Bismarck. (2) Likewise, American Conservatives may wince at the idea that they are really a new breed of ideologue who are only distantly related to the European Conservative Tradition and who have, instead, adopted the ideas of late 19th Century Social Darwinism and 20th Century nationalism. Modern Libertarians, on the other hand, may nod their heads to Drury acknowledging the bastardized lineage of both modern liberals and neo-conservatives, although ultimately Drury drops hints of an affinity for modern liberalism.As one may see, Drury's descriptions and conclusions may disturb many modern political ideologues. Consequently, Drury's book is a valuable, although not unprecedented, contribution to the American canon; however, it may face opposition from modern liberals and neo-conservatives.

As Deep as a Frozen Creek

This book is stuck somewhere between authentic scholarship and a popular television-type investigative report. I cannot help but thinking Shahida Drury was duped into updating her earlier, more scholarly executed work on Leo Strauss, by the publisher who wanted to cash in on contemporary, and now out of date, political moods. The book is very short (included in the total page count is her Notes section and her Index), skimming the surface and regurgitating thread-bare arguments; however, I think she truly believes what she writes. The good professor is the 'city' and she comes up against 'the philosopher' and accuses him of unjust things in a more sophisticated and learned way than the political men ever could. She is Thraymachus, her anger at Strauss is honest and not totally without cause, for Leo Strauss, the little old, refugee Jew, really was a dangerous man. He was dangerous because philosophy is dangerous and this book testifies to how constant and true or perrenial that fact remains. I encourage anyone to read this book to see that I am not simplifying or rationalizing the text. Here is the clash that has marked civilization since the death of Socrates.

Outstanding work by Shadia Drury shed light on Leo Strauss.

Shadia Drury has exhibited first-rate scholarship on a figure who has traditionally been hard to pin down. She has captured the thought of Leo Strauss in all of its subtleties in ways that no other scholar has been able to do. Drury has especially done a superb job of explaining Strauss' philosophical elitism in her explanation of his virulent attacks on liberalism, his affinity with Carl Schmitt, his duplicitous division of knowledge between the esoteric and the exoteric, and the cult-like nature of his teaching style. As subtle and enigmatic as Strauss is, his influence on the authoritarian Right in America cannot be underestimated. And she has rightly shown that this influence is not a healthy one. Many of Strauss' supporters have been in the vanguard of the Culture War that the authoritarian Right has unleashed on the United States. Drury deserves to be congratulated for her careful and accurate scholarship on this figure. I highly recommend her book as must reading for all who wish to be informed about the danger to freedom that is coming from the Right.