Jews don't do revelation. Ecstacy, maybe -- if you are a Chassid, but that wasn't Strauss's schtick. He was with the Vilna Gaon, not the Baal Shem Tov. Maybe he wanted to believe but -- contrary to your theory -- was actually traumatized and agonized by the death of God. Nietzsche found it liberating (Now I don't have to deal with at that mealy-mouthed Pietist crap!) but for a lot of people the realization that we are really all alone in a big empty universe that doesn't care about us and has no purpose except what we make up for ourselves really hurts. The advantage of this reading of Strauss, its "fit" with his esoteric teaching, is that it is precisely this fact that he thinks the hoi poloi will not be able to bear. Isn't taht classic projection -- that it was Leo who wasn't able to bear it?
Yeah, he was humorlesss. But so was Heidegger, whom Arendt adored even after he turned Nazi. Leo was a schmuck, OK, but what about Martin? True, Heidegger had an aesthetic sense. His later writer is quite beautiful in German. (Sein und Zeit, however . . . .) But frankly the Germans have never been strong on humor. Arendt too. Or either, for that matter. The Austrians, that's different. But we are not talking about Austrians here.
jks
--- Chuck Grimes <cgrimes at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (1999)
> Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of
> the World (a wonderful
> read!)
>
> ken
> --------
>
> Yeah, I have the Arendt bio and have read it. The
> trouble is that
> Bruehl in subtle ways didn't understand some
> diminsions of
> Arendt, so she couldn't render certain passages very
> well. For
> example, Bruehl didn't understand the poetry and she
> didn't understand
> what Arendt and Heidegger were doing together.
>
> I am having a similar problem with Strauss. I am
> still brooding on
> what he wanted out of Judaism. I suspect he expected
> to be convinced
> of the actuality of revelation. I am almost certain
> he never had such
> an experience and he is extraordinarily blind to the
> aesthetic
> dimensions of life. It's like he has a fundamental
> block, so he can't
> feel anything. Oh, he can get angry and pissy, but
> he has no lyrical
> moments, ever. There is nothing funny about him. He
> can be sarcastic,
> but otherwise he is irony deficient.
>
> I have no doubt at all why Arendt told him to buzz
> off. Leo was a
> dower putz.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the Spinoza cite.
>
> Chuck Grimes
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