[lbo-talk] re: neocon economists

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sun Apr 20 00:26:51 PDT 2003


Unfortunately I haven't got to any Strauss yet, only analysis of his work. I had to order the Drury book Justin suggested since the local stores were out of stock.

In the meantime, here is an excerpt that helps explain what I was referring to as natural order in the previous post:

13 Nature involves these two aspects: the pre-philosophic awareness of the citizen, and the philosophic detachment of the philosopher. Central to Strauss's concern is the relation of these two sides: how is the philosopher connected to the city? It can sometimes appear that Strauss places on one side the city as given to the fulfillment of the needs of "one's own," and, on the other side, the philosopher, free and independent of the city in his self-sufficient knowledge. However, it is precisely in contrast to such a "pre-Socratic" or Epicurean understanding that Strauss presents what he calls Classic Natural Right.(41) The relation of philosophy to the city is transformative of both sides. Strauss sees that philosophy arises from the city through the questioning of the ancestral. The closed world of opinion necessary to the life of the city is brought into question through the recognition that there is a plurality of ways of life. The philosopher can, therefore, apparently serve the city: a) through assuring the city of the foundation of its ways in nature; and b) by making the city aware of the standards of nature so that it may improve itself. Equally, there is a turn towards the city from the side of philosophy, as philosophy grows self-aware: the city is the condition for the philosophic life. The philosopher is a citizen as well as a philosopher. Indeed, Strauss argues, that it is in this double movement that the philosopher is led to an awareness of the full heterogeneity within nature, and above all of the difference between the human and the non-human.(42) More than this, this double movement produces the possibility of philosophy's moving beyond the impotence of merely recognizing the fundamental problems, to a knowledge of the actual standards at work in natural right.

14 So there appears to be a natural symbiosis of philosophy and civic life; but while philosophy, according to Strauss, may wish to give this impression to the city, it is in fact at best only a noble lie. The way of the philosopher is utterly in contrast to, and destructive of, the way of the citizen. The philosopher leads a life open to the whole; the citizen's virtue and nobility depend upon his attachment to the closed world of his city. The citizen requires of the philosopher that he confirm as natural the virtues by which he, the citizen, lives. The philosopher knows those virtues to be groundless in the sense intended by the citizen.(43) That is to say that what applies to the closed horizons of the city cannot be grounded in the open or natural horizon of the philosopher. The citizen must believe certain things about the world which, while false, are necessary to the very being of the citizen. Strauss sees that deception is necessary, but not as simple manipulation by the philosopher for any nefarious or extra-civic purpose; rather, the philosopher "lies" in order to preserve and enhance the life of the citizen, while at the same time safeguarding the place of philosophy. That the structures or virtues necessary to a properly human life within the city are not grounded in metaphysical "ideas" that stand outside the city is not to say that these structures are "not susceptible of rational legitimization."(44) Rather, the very necessity of these virtues for civic life--a necessity exposed in the interaction between the philosopher and the city--provides the rational legitimization of these virtues. The political virtues are thus grounded in the nature of man as a political animal. However, for exactly the same reason, they are applicable to the philosopher only insofar as he is a political animal.''

(http://www.swgc.mun.ca/animus/1998vol3/robert3.htm)

So, it doesn't take much imagination to see it is just a matter of substituting some current professional expert like an economist, some neocon think-tank policy wonk or some other policy specialist for Strauss's philosopher, and we pretty much have the arrangement of the US governing classes with their breeding pens in the high brow elite academic institutions like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

Chuck Grimes



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