Reply #3: Leo Strauss was a visionary [View All]

[Wetzelbill]

He had an apolitical view and specifically taught Plato in a much different manner. For example, in Plato's Republic, Strauss believed that Plato's real voice was Thrasymachus, who is the guy who argues for power and how people exist to genuflect to power etc. To quote him "Justice is the advantage of the stronger." Strauss believe Thrasymachus represented the city and state and it's laws, and was against philosophy in general.My interpretation is that Strauss didn't necessarily believe this was right, it was simply how things existed. He also believed that real power was behind the scenes and that you could essentially take a dim-witted, likable person, make him the face of everything, get him into a position of power and use the malleable dolt as a tool. Dan Quayle and George W. Bush ring a bell? So he taught some of these concepts as his own theory of how the world worked, and you then got all these guys like Wolfie, Bill Kristol etc, who spent their lives getting their heads dunked and flushed into toilets, and they got all hard at the idea of being modern day Rasputins or some shit. These guys took academic theories then perverted them to suit their own sick ambitions.

But Strauss in many ways was right. In Republic, Socrates spoke of how leaders should be intelligent and have their eyes opened to the rest of the world, they should be prepared and enlightened. He believed people had to open their eyes and strive toward another level of thinking. Thrasymachus believed that people should just submit to the powerful, and the powerful based on their power know what is right and should get away with anything as a result. Sound familiar? He wouldn't necessarily condone what they were doing, starting this war, wrecking the economy etc. (his daughter has argued he'd be very much against the Bush Administration) But he definitely would recognize their abuse of power, and the sense of entitlement and arrogance this administration and the Republican Party and all their corporate allies seem to have.