``A great work of philosophy always grows out of some core problem, although sometimes the author himself cannot identify it or state it clearly. And every great work of philosophy has a central powerful thesis driving the argument. There will then be an elaborate fretwork of definitions, distinctions, criticisms of predecessors, and the like, sometimes quite clever and often difficult to master. But none of that surface argumentation is very important, and it never matters if there are contradictions in it.
My job as commentator is twofold - first, to find that core problem and central thesis, and second, to discover an argument that can sustain the thesis, even if the author never actually succeeds in articulating it in the text. In effect, what I try to do is to make the great philosopher more perfect, more successful, than he actually was, by reconstructing, and if necessary even inventing, the argument as he should have stated it. Most great philosophers, I believe, have brilliant intuitions that they are only partially successful in bringing to the level of explicit expression. They see more than they can say. If my commentary is successful, it will say clearly what they have had the genius to see, and I will then be able to hold this idea up to readers and show it to them in all of its conceptual beauty...''
http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2010/04/memoir-fifth-installment.html
Why do I find this important and interesting? Because Wolff represents the polar opposite of Strauss and makes a near perfect foil. They are essentially motivated to write on a theory of state, which in the background draws upon their personal concept of a theory of human nature.
They both wrote during a crisis of a national state. Wolff did so during the 1960s. Strauss did so beginning in Weimar, and then repeated also during 1960s.
The central idea for Strauss is not the reconstruction of classical political philosophy as he imagines it should be. His central or core concept is this theory of state. If you go back and read Strauss's work on Zionism and his critque of Spinoza you will be able to see this theory in the making. This is the intellectual connection between the practical politics of the neoconservatives and the Israel righwing. It's not that they are Straussians. Many have probably never heard of him. The underlying connection is a Whiteman Identity struggling with its profound insecurity in worlds with peoples who are not like them, and in fact probably dislike them.
This sounds like I am over privilaging psychology, but both the US necons and the Israeli Right act like a group mind that has somehow become or is based on a collective identity. So that's the identity, pretending it is a person, that I am dealing with when I study Strauss. Wolff in many ways represents his own era of the 1960s very well---I think of him as an individual, but who also represents the period and the political battles, another group mind-identity---the very one that circumscribes its antagonist, the righwing reaction.
Meditate on it another way. Consider that Strauss more or less reproduced an authoritarian Roman republic complete with its military mind set.
There is an interesting geneology to this concept of state, because it is essentially reproduced in the Old Testment in the first five books. I forget where, Deuteronomy(?) the tribal elders are assigned their appointed duties. The only one I remember is Levy, keeper of the laws(?). Spinoza re-extracts this mode of government out the OT and makes his concept of a republic with some changes (I forget what)---because it was the last name of my climbing partner for twenty years.
It takes awhile to realize that the OT is a political text, complete with a theory of state, with a constitution, national colors, the correct wood for the beams, the layout for the main meeting rooms. They even give the proper dimensions (what the hell is cubit?).
We are an authoritarian Roman republic cum empire complete with its military mind set. That is essentially what both the US and I assume Israel has become. Now the counterforce, following Wolff, we arrive at his concept of anarchical state, a state I presume I would enjoy living in, since I visted such thing once.
Why is it so necessary to stick to this roman republican-imperial ideal? Because it preserves the identity and privilages of our ruling elite. Ian was dead on when he noted Wolff's In Defense of Anarchy. What a nice flash that was.
What do they fear? The cultural threat of the Other, which is precisely what an anarchical state provides. But cultural threat is far too loose a term, because it is an entire constellation of imminant social-psychological values that run entirely counter to the those of the ruling elite. Now the economists will argue what does that have to do the actual or concrete system of wealth and class were the `real' war is waged?
Here's a sloppy answer. The dominance of neoliberal ideology as the proper superstructure for the US, depends on us masses believing in it as an ideal. We the masses must believe this doctrine, in order to follow its disciplines of work and merit. Yet what the current depression displays in broad ugly terms is the architectural collapse of this ideal. It doesn't work in practice, it doesn't work as theory, or as ideal. Work hard, die poor. Master the great canons, make yourself as smart as you want, spend decades trying to understand your world, in other words follow the merit system, and you still end up last, unless you become a brillant proponent of this stupid ideology, or you started out with enough money to last a lifetime.
It is quite remarkable to me, that my economic progress over the last forty-seven years amounts to a simple fact. I can barely survive, without a roomate. Now there is a life achievement worth noting. That's pretty much were I started as a twenty year old kid and needed roomates.
Anyway, there are just great things to find in Wolff's memoirs. Unfortunately the organization of his web pages is confusing in the extreme---but they are well worth sorting out.
CG