I'm beyond tired of God *and* the US founding fathers. What is Meacham's point anyway? He strikes me as one of those faux-reasonable Episcopalians who's really as demented a True Believer as any fundamentalist.
Carl
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I was mildly plowed last night, so the post was not very clear. Faux-reasonable is exactly right... I am in the middle of J. Israel's Radical Enlightenment (342p) which is turning out to be too long (810p) and has too many detailed minor characters. The central theme is the hundred or so years between Spinoza and Diderot.
It is a fascinating period because it bares directly on the political, social, and intellectual founding of the United States.
What I am trying to do is conceptualize that period and put the US into it as byproduct, or artifact. But not seen as is usual here from the view of an American historian---rather outside the US historian's view. England, the United Provinces (Netherlands), France and Germany all reacted differently to this foment of faith v. reason, and were changed by it---while they were also at war over geo-political power, sea power, trade, colonialism and the rise of the high bourgeoisie---merchants, bankers, traders, ... capitalism.
The point is that Strauss in his first book attempts to re-write Spinoza as a Jewish philosopher---despite the fact Spinoza was cherem---cast out or ex-communicated by the chief rabbi of the Talmud Torah---the first synagogue in Amsterdam. (BTW, does this building still exist? Also interesting, Spinoza grew-up and lived down the block, and Rembrandt lived around the corner.)
Strauss's pov is as a German Jew in Weimar who is probably an atheist or about to become one and is trying to re-interpret his Jewish identity as he is writing this book. He is also reacting to his experiences (mostly bad) with the German Zionists of the 20s.
Strauss was writing under a sponsorship by Julius Guttmann (Berlin 20s) who wrote The Philosophies of Judaism (later at Uni of Jerusalem). Guttmann disputes Strauss's interpretation of Spinoza in a later essay, that I would love to find in an English translation---if anybody out there knows where this essay is---that would be a very welcome find.
Personally all this history and its movements are completely foreign to me. I learned a very watered down version in US history and poli sci courses that had no depth at all. In the US version, the founding fathers were simply escaping the European religious wars and had in mind a milder, more reasonable, and more domestic brand of religious practice. Go to church on Sunday and forget about it the rest of the week... More or less like my family in the 50s.
The missing elements in the US school version of this history are the philosophical or philosophical political tracts on the subject (beyond some of Locke)---a point of view that Strauss is trying to create in his version of Spinoza. And as far as I can tell Spinoza himself is never mentioned in US political sciences courses, or in academic philosophy. For example, my copy of Strauss's Spinoza was a used library copy that had an empty checkout sheet. A first US edition, published Schocken Books in 1965 (English trans) it was in mint condition and never been read. This book has only recently been re-published as a paperback by Uni Chicago Press.
CG