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Entry: The Neocons and Charles Maurras Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/leo_strauss_the_neocons_and_charles_maurras#6513 Post contents: As a graduate of UChicago who learned a great deal of my political science at the Committee on Social Thought, I think this is a very learned and impressive essay on the relationship between Straussians and neoconservatives, not to mention Maurras, a figure the latter would view with complete disdain. Mr. Gottfried's recognition that Straussian thought is either oblivious or hostile to the ethnic unity of European nations partly explains the neoconservative enthusiasm for the EU project that seeks to do away with them, perhaps as penance for past wrongs. Certainly, and correctly, the memory of WWII is central to Strauss's philosophizing. The reduction of all politics to a battle of abstract ideas is the first thing that turned me away from Strauss and toward Burke and Scruton. The second giveaway is the deafening silence on the role of Christianity in the development of European civilization. Strauss's topography moves from "ancient thought" (Greece, Rome never happened) to Machiavelli, a figure he uproots from the Italian countryside and turns into some kind of devil personally responsible for introducing the "realism" that led, through Hegel of course, to the collapse of Weimar. As much as Straussians complain about dumb journalists drawing a connection between them and Bush's foreign policy, the fact is that the hostility to "realism" is well embedded in their thought and forms the cornerstone of their critique of modernity. Strauss taught the limits of the ideal in his impressive theory of natural right, but his students have placed all emphasis on the Platonic ideal guiding the real, in part to counteract the “low horizons” Machiavelli introduced to modern politics. Thus is born an enthusiasm for grand political projects that is anything but conservative. One way or another, Plato's Republic is taken partly as proscription. (Those interested should compare Strauss with Hegel's brilliant analysis in the Phenomenology of the struggle between Creon and Antigone and the subsequent discussion of The Republic.) By the way, the main classroom at UChicago's Foster Hall, ground zero for all this, had a bookcase with every issue of Commentary since its inception. On the other hand, Francoise Furet, the great late historian of revolutionary France who did so much to rescue his discipline from Marxist orthodoxy and reintroduce Tocqueville, was also present, and that was a real boom. But I’m rambling. Really enjoyed the essay. Sent at: 2008 05 16