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Nathan Tarkov On Strauss PDF
Nathan Tarkov On Strauss PDF
the philistine" as well as against "the dreams of not on his interpretations of classical political
the visionary." He warns both against smugly philosophy but on his own observations and
thinking that our own society is perfect and judgments—judgments not necessarily differ-
against recklessly dreaming that we are achiev- ent from those of other observers who had not
ing a future perfect society. Strauss did not studied classical political philosophy. Strauss'
identify the American political order with "the judgments may have been protected from cer-
best regime according to nature" ofthe classical tain illusions by his philosophical studies, but
political philosophers. Far from encouraging they were not, as we shall see, protected from
his listeners to adopt an uncritical stance to- being proven wrong by subsequent events. Just
ward the American or any other actually exist- as Strauss noted in the 1942 lecture that per-
ing political order, he warns, sons adhering to different political philosophies
could come to the same conclusions about
As long as philosophy was living up to its in- policy, so persons with the same understand-
nate standard, philosophers as such, by their ing of political philosophy can come to differ-
merely being philosophers, prevented those ent conclusions about policy, depending on the
who were willing to listen to them from iden- extent and reliability of the information they
tifying any actual order, however satisfactory possess and their judgments ofthe Hkely course
in many respects, with the perfect order: po- of events.
litical philosophy is the eternal challenge to Strauss' title in 1943, "The Re-education of
the philistine. Axis Countries Concerning the Jews", was also
not ofhis choosing. So he narrowed the topic to
But the more urgent danger, he thought, came Germany as the only Axis country of which he
from modern utopianism. which had firsthand knowledge, and also broadened
it to include the re-education of Germany not
is bound to lead to disaster because it makes only concerning the Jews but first and foremost
us underestimate the dangers to which the concerning Nazism and liberal democracy. He
cause of decency and humanity is exposed introduced the lecture by saying that the topic
and always ivill be exposed. The foremost was not very important compared with repara-
duty of political philosophy to-day seems to tions, relief and emigration, and he added that
be to counteract this modern utopianism. it was also "an iffy question" because answers
depended on the war being won, on the sur-
Political philosophy bears on political prac- vival of Anglo-American-Russian cooperation,
tice in one more crucial way. Strauss says: "We and on the bulk of Germany not being occu-
do not need lessons from that tradition [of pied by the Red Army. (By November 1943 vic-
political philosophy] in order to discern the tory was more easily foreseen than in July 1942:
soundness of Churchill's approach e.g. but the German forces at Stalingrad had surrendered in
cause which Churchill's policy is meant to de- February, Italy had surrendered in September,
fend would not exist but for the influence of and Allied forces were advancing in the South
this tradition." In other words, the liberal dem- Pacific and the Aleutians.)
ocratic polities that protect civil liberties were After making these important qualifica-
unthinkable without the Western tradition of tions, Strauss went on to argue that the mass
political philosophy. ofthe Germans had been moved not by Nazi
doctrines but by the prospect ofa solution to
all of Germany's problems by a short and de-
cisive war—in short by the conviction "that
The Re-Education of Germany
large scale and efficiently prepared and per-
man cities." Allied victory, followed by a just, Furthermore, he argues, "If the Germans were
stern and stable peace, culminating in trials to submit to re-education by foreigners, they
ofthe war criminals, would be the refutation would lose their self-respect and therewith all
of the Nazi doctrine and would uproot Nazi sense of responsibility. But everything depends
education. on making the Germans responsible."
Strauss then argues that the re-education of While the re-education of Germany should
Germany concerning the Jews was only a par- be exclusively the affair of Germany, Strauss
ticularly difficult part of the general question argues, "the security of the non-German na-
ofthe re-education of Germany, the purpose of tions against the repetition of German aggres-
which was for the Germans not only to reject sion, must be exclusively the affair ofthe non-
Nazi doctrine but to discover the true doctrine: German nations." The Allies could influence
liberal democracy. Strauss asks whether liberal the re-education of Germany after the war
democracy would appeal to the Germans, and only by showing the Germans "by vigilance
answers in a gloomy afterthought penned at the in arms that all prospects of German world
bottom ofthe page: "A German form of collec- domination and even of German expansion
tivism perhaps—an authoritarian regime ofthe have^oKf, and have ^onc forever", thereby driv-
bureaucracy based on a resuscitated authoritar- ing Germany back to the cultivation of its own
spiritual tradition.
Only halfway through the lecture does
"A form of government which Strauss finally turn to his assigned topic, re-
education concerning the Jews. First he asks as
is merely imposed by a victo- a Jew speaking to other Jews, "How can a Jew
who has some sense of honor be interested at all
rious enemy will not last." in what Germans think about Jews?" And he
answers that until the Germans have purified
ian interpretation of Christianity perhaps—but themselves by spontaneously giving satisfaction
not liberalism." for what they have done—and Strauss said this
He warns further that "a form of govern- before the worst ofthe Holocaust occurred and
ment which is merely imposed by a victorious thus before its scale could have been known—
enemy, will not last." Instead, only Germans "no self-respecting Jew can, and no Jew ought
who remained in Germany (not exiles or for- to, be interested in Germany."
eigners) could do the re-educating because of I infer that Strauss later came to regard post-
German pride, differences between the German war Germany as having met this test given his
and Anglo-American intellectual climates, and own willingness to teach there, but he did not
German awareness of the differences between in 1943 see how Jews could return to Germany,
Anglo-American doctrine and practice (he re- being "separated, for a long time to come, from
fers to racial segregation in the United States the Germans by rivers of blood." He was, how-
and British policy in India), which led Ger- ever, willing to assume that "in some miracu-
mans to regard the Atlantic Charter as hypoc- lous way" Jews would again live in Germany
risy. (Since the Germans are not familiar with as German citizens, in which case his audience
the practice and spirit of compromise, they do might be interested in the re-education of Ger-
not know that a just law, even when not ob- many concerning the Jews.
served, acts as a humanizing influence.) More Again Strauss asks who is going to do the
generally, Strauss proclaims; re-educating. Not returning German Jews or
Jewish Americans {the Germans being well
A nation may take another nation as its model: informed about the strength of anti-Jewish
but no nation can presume to educate another feelings in America), but "only Germans can
nation which has a high tradition of its own. educate the Germans concerning the Jews."
Such a presumption creates resentment, and But which Germans? He considered German
you cannot educate people who resent your middle-class liberals too weak to do it. He notes
being their educator. that Catholicism was much less anti-Jewish in
Germany than in the United States, and sug- ish and Americans to re-educate the Germans
gests that the German Catholic clergy and a may have been right, but not his skepticism
part of the Catholic intelligentsia might be- about the willingness of the Germans to take
come significant agents of German re-educa- British and American liberal democracies as
tion concerning the Jews. By contrast, Strauss models. Strauss was wrong to think that the
notes, high school and college teachers, along German tendency to regard those democracies'
with the Protestant clergy, may have been the principles as hypocritical would prevent the
most important carriers ofthe anti-Jewish virus. Germans from adopting those principles them-
He writes off the teachers, who, having been at- selves. In this he may have been too skeptical
tracted by Nazi doctrines, unlike the masses, about the spread of democracy.
would not be refuted by mere defeat. Although
the Lutheran clergy had traditionally been anti-
Jewish, they had learned that anti-Judaism is
apt to lead to anti-Christianism, and so many
The Lessons of Communism
of them stood up against the Nazis. Strauss con-
cludes in an emphatically conditional sentence
that if the Protestant clergy realized that it must
S trauss discussed communism in the intro-
duction to The City and Man, written when
the West still felt endangered by the East and
abandon its hostility to Jews, and//^the war and a consensus of liberals and conservatives sup-
the defeat of the Nazis led to a reawakening of ported an anti-communist foreign policy. This
Christian faith and manners in Germany, "it discussion is part of his overall argument that
is not impossible, I believe, that the leaders of the crisis of the West makes a tentative return
German Catholicism and Protestantism will to classical political philosophy both necessary
make some efforts towards the re-education oF and possible. "For some time it appeared to
the Germans concerning the Jews." many teachable Westerners", he wrote, "to say
Strauss brings the lecture to a close on a nothing of the unteachable ones—that Com-
hopeful though still skeptical note: munism was only a parallel movement to the
Western movement—^as if it were its somewhat
But I would be unfair to those Germans who impatient, wild, wayward twin who was bound
did not waver in their decent attitudes, if I to become mature, patient, gentle." In this
did not report to you a remark a German view, communism shared the Western purpose,
made to me: that the mass ofthe Germans "stated originally by the most successful form
are simply ashamed of what has been done in of modern political philosophy" (by which
the name of Germany; and after the war Ger- Strauss referred to the modern liberalism of Ba-
many will be the most pro-Jewish country in con, Hobbes and Locke): to achieve continual
the world. If I were a German, if I had ever progress toward greater prosperity through the
heen a German, I might he perhaps in duty conquest of nature, the actualization of the
bound to have these hopes. If these hopes are universal right to develop ones faculties, and
not unfounded, the re-education ofthe Ger- "a universal league of free and equal nations,
mans concerning the Jews will be even super- each nation consisting of free and equal men
fluous, /shall not believe before I have seen. and women."
Strauss presents this Western purpwse as
In retrospect, we are bound to think that having become global:
the hopeful German whose remark Strauss re-
ported was for closer to the truth about post- It had come to be believed that the prosper-
war Germany than was Strauss himself Strauss ous, free, and just society in a single country
seems not to have appreciated that the experi- or in only a few countries is not possible in
ence of defeat might not only dispel the delu- the long run: to make the world safe for the
sions of National Socialism but impel Germans Western democracies, one must make the
to imitate the liberal democracies that liberated whole globe democratic, each country in it-
and occupied the western parts of Germany. self as well as the society of nations. . . . The
Strauss' skepticism about the ability ofthe Brit- movement toward the universal society or
the universal state was thought to be guar- Strauss insisted that communism had re-
anteed not oniy hy the rationality, the uni- vealed itself as Stalinism or "actually existing
versal validity, of the goal but also because socialism" rather than Trotskyism, which is
the movement towards the goal seemed to be "condemned or refuted by its own principle"
the movement of the large majority of men as an historical failure condemned by the prin-
on behalf of the large majority of men: only ciple of historical materialism. Strauss' advert-
small groups of men who, however, hold in ing here to the opposition between Stalinism
thrall many millions of their fellow human and Trotskyism suggests the thought that the
beings and who defend their own antiquated Western impulse to make the whole globe
interests, resist that movement. democratic rather than establish democracy in
a single country is the democratic equivalent
Strauss' explication of the global character of of Trotsky's "world revolution" as opposed to
the Western political purpose has been quot- Stalin's "socialism in one country."
ed in connection with recent American for- The belief in guaranteed progress toward
eign policy. For example, James Atlas, writing universal freedom and equality, Strauss con-
in the May 4, 2003 New York Times, claimed cedes, retained a certain plausibility "not in
of Strauss: "He believed, as he once wrote, spite of but because of Fascism." Fascism, un-
that 'to make the world safe for the Western like communism, presumably could be under-
stood (however imperfectly) by adherents of
the Western movement "as merely a new ver-
James Atlas simply sion of that eternal reactionism against which
it had been fighting for centuries." Commu-
misreads Strauss' view nism was neither simply pre-modern tyranny
nor Eastern despotism. Nor was it the anti-
of foreign policy. modern reaction, in the name of "throne and
altar" or master race, to the modern aspiration
democracies, one must make the whole globe toward freedom and equality. Strauss declares
democratic, each country in itself as well as that in the face of communism the West "had
the society of nations.' There's a reason that to admit that the Western project which had
some Bush strategists continue to invoke provided in its way against all earlier forms of
Strauss' name." evil could not provide against the new form in
Now, in the first place, I am not aware speech or deed." This puzzling sentence seems
that any "Bush strategists" have ever invoked to mean that whereas the Western movement
Strauss' name in support of their foreign policy. had effectively opposed older forms of tyranny
Moreover, Atlas simply misreads Strauss. Far in speech by enlightenment and by propagat-
from representing Strauss' own view, this ex- ing the ideals of universal freedom and equal-
plication approximates the view of Alexandre ity, and in deed by arming the large majority
Koj^e that Strauss had critiqued in his "Re- against the small groups who held them in
statement" in On Tyranny. Strauss presents that thrall, these means were insufficient against
view in the introduction to The City and Man communism, which also laid claim to those
only to immediately call it into question pre- ideals and also had mobilized and armed the
cisely because he rejected the apparent partici- masses.
pation of communism in the Western purpose The second stage ofthe Western understand-
as radically misleading. He proclaims instead: ing of communism, succeeding the illusion that
"We see that the victory of Communism would it was a parallel movement to the liberal West,
mean indeed the victory of originally Western was, according to Strauss, the view that,
natural science but surely at the same time of
the most extreme form of Eastern despotism." while the Western movement agrees with
Instead of being the wayward immature twin Communism regarding the goal—the univer-
of Western liberalism, Strauss saw communism sal prosperous society of free and equal men
as its all too capable evil twin. and women—it disagrees with it regarding the
of the West is not the same as their abandon- tyranny that may render expectations of uni-
ment, and should not be, warns Strauss, be- versal freedom and equality premature and
cause "a society accustomed to understand even dangerous.
itself in terms of a universal purpose cannot
lose faith in that purpose without becoming
completely bewildered." The moderation of
Western universalism Strauss suggests dif-
A s can be clearly seen from these three texts,
Strauss believed that reasonable policy
was not derived from political philosophy, so it
fers both in theory and in practice from the makes little sense to expect to derive a reason-
relativism he warned against, and that has be- able American foreign policy today from his
come so widespread today. explications of classical political philosophy.
Strauss argued elsewhere against univer- His own statements about what reasonable for-
salist political projects not merely as a con- eign policies would have been in his time did
cession to temporary obstacles, but because not claim to be so derived. The introduction to
a universal state was likely to be a universal The Gity and Man leads not to a specific policy
tyranny. He presented the classic view that prescription but to a warning that "we cannot
political freedom reasonably expect that a fresh understanding
of classical political philosophy will supply us
becomes actual only through the efforts of with recipes for today's use. . . . Only we living
many generations, and its preservation re- today can possibly find a solution to the prob-
quires the highest degree of vigilance. The lems of today."
probability that all human societies should be What Strauss did say about foreign policy
capable of genuine freedom at the same time hardly resembles the errors with which he has
is exceedingly small. For all precious things recently been charged. First of all, he spoke
are exceedingly rare. An open or all-compre- not of unilateral American foreign policy or
hensive society would consist of many soci- American hegemony or even American na-
eties which are on vastly different levels of tional interest, but in 1942 and 1943 of the
political maturity and the chances are over- policy o f t h e United Nations" (the wartime
whelming that the lower societies would drag Allies, not the post-war organization), "the
down the higher ones. . . . The prospects for liberal powers", "the Anglosaxon nations and
the existence of a good society are therefore the other nations interested in, or dependent
greater if there is a multitude of independent on, Anglosaxon preponderance", and in 1963
societies than if there is only one independent of "the West." Furthermore, he stressed the
society. impossibility of imposing a lasting form of
government through conquest, the obstacles
More simply, the classical view warned that "no to the democratic education of one people by
human being and no group of human beings another posed by differences of political tra-
can rule the whole human race justly."^ dition and intellectual climate, and the need
Strauss did not rule out the transformation for re-education toward liberal democracy to
of communism into something other than be the work ofthe people involved rather than
tyranny, but his comparison of the confron- of foreigners or exiles. And Strauss seems to
tation between the West and communism to have erred in the direction of underestimat-
that which existed "during the centuries in ing, not overestimating, the prospects for the
which Christianity and Islam each raised its spread of liberal democracy—exactly the op-
universal claim but had to be satisfied with posite fault from that with which he has re-
uneasily coexisting with its antagonist" sug- cenrly been charged. Strauss can remind us
gests he expected that confrontation to last of the permanent problems, but we have only
a great many years. He probably would have ourselves to blame for our faulty soltitions to
been as surprised as were most other observ- the problems of today. <£/
ers by the speed with which communism col-
lapsed. But he would not have been surprised ^On Tyranny, pp. 208-11; Natural Right and His-
to see the West confronted with new forms of tory, pp. 131-2, 149.