Political philosopher Leo Strauss influenced American politics with his defense of classical natural rights and his view of a good society and of politics, according to Professor of Politics Thomas Wes
As part of a series that explores the people behind the ideals of the conservative movement, the Young Americans for Freedom hosted West to talk about the classical political views of Strauss, a German-American political philosopher who died in 1973. West said that although Strauss had a more “expansive influence on scholarship,” his views were conservative.
“He didn’t ever actually write anything like a conservative manifesto or ‘why I’m a conservative’ kind of thing,” West said. “He just dropped remarks at various places in his writings, typically writings devoted to some topic not American specifically. But Strauss is widely accused of, by his critics, being the godfather of neoconservatism.”
West said there is a “glimmer of truth” to this contention because one of Strauss’s students, Harvey Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard University, went on to teach prominent neoconservatives. Strauss, however, would have disagreed with many features of the modern conservative movement, such as a foreign policy that seeks to liberate oppressed populations.
“Strauss would never have thought that was a good idea, to walk into a country you know nothing about,” West said. “People think Iraq is like France. Iraq is a tribal Middle Eastern country that’s never at one time in its entire history known anything like political liberty. The idea of freedom of religion is utterly incomprehensible to anyone who lives in Iraq, and so on.”
Strauss was a Jew living in Germany during World War I and got involved in Zionism due to how the Jews were being treated in Europe. In thinking about Zionism, however, he also had to think about the truth of Judaism. The theological questions led him into philosophy and the main question for most of his career became concerned with the “proper way of life,” according to West.
“Is it to follow the divine commands of revelation or is it to question those commands and live a life of inquiry on your own?” West said. “That was Strauss’s lifelong question and he never gave it up. He took the side of philosophy throughout his life, but he always understood that’s not a self-evident thing to do, an obvious thing that one should follow one’s own reason, one’s independent thought, especially because reason is not able to figure out reality very well.”
This was Strauss’s “beginning point,” and in Germany at the time, the pillars of faith, science, and progress in the previous century were collapsing, West said. Many states were engaged in many of today’s issues, such as transgenderism and public recognition of the homosexual community. The government also wasn’t protecting natural rights and couldn’t understand how to deal with crime and starvation. West said this experience was one of the most formative in Strauss’s life.
“Strauss recognized this collapse of traditions going on around him as a dangerous thing and he could see that it was going to lead to all kinds of fanaticism. He saw the rise of communism and Nazism,” West said.
Throughout his career, Strauss defended the classical notion of “natural rights” and the idea that reason can figure out the basic principles of a good society. He didn’t like the focus on self-preservation and the modern state and thought they should “be subordinate to that which is higher in man,” according to West.
“He appreciated the way that the classics spoke centrally about the importance of the pursuit of virtue as the ultimate justification for and the end of political life. Perfection of the soul and mind and body,” West said. “Virtue goes together with happiness. Ultimate justification for virtue is the end of society; it’s not for its own sake, it’s because it leads to human well-being, both individually and for the whole community.”
Strauss believed that one condition for a good society is that the ethnic group is capable of living well and obeying the law. Strauss defended the idea of aristocracy or a benevolent monarchy as the best form of government, but he appreciated American constitutionalism. He proposed that we are “entering into an age of totalitarianism dominated by religious fanaticism,” West said.
“He was very bold thinking about ‘What are the threats coming in the future that we might not be aware of?’” West said.
Sophomore and YAF Vice President Ceanna Hayes said West was a great person to talk about Strauss because he made it so accessible.
“I like that he was able to bring it from a complex, intellectual level to a more easily understandable kind of level,” Hayes said. “He brought it down to layman’s terms and was able to make it something that mattered in the modern day.”
Sophomore Robert Laucius said he hadn’t known about Strauss before but the lecture made him more interested.
“I wasn’t surprised by anything, but I did enjoy just kind of expanding on things that I already had a rough approximation of,” Laucius said. “From what I understand, he already had some influence on the neoconservative movement; it was just interesting to learn how he did.”