http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=18038

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For Strauss, ''religion is the glue that holds society together'', said Drury, who added that Irving Kristol, among other neo-conservatives, has argued that separating church and state was the biggest mistake made by the founders of the U.S. republic.

''Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing'', because it leads to individualism, liberalism and relativism, precisely those traits that might encourage dissent, which in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. ''You want a crowd that you can manipulate like putty,'' according to Drury.

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The only Strauss I've read is quotations in the work of others, although I've read a little Alan Bloom, which I think is the medium through which many of the Bushites received Strauss as well.

From that sampling, he sounds to me a bit of a parody of Voltaire, as well as the other figures Drury lists. Voltaire also believed that the mass of the people in all times and all places always had been and always would be sunk in superstition, and he feared the credulousness of the mob. For that reason, he also wanted people believing in a simple good God (his deism) and a Philosopher King (the earthly reflection of the simple good God) -- who, while being a kindly father to the mass of the people, had to be enough of a philosopher to recognize that there was a thin layer of intellectuals out there on the cutting edge of thought (Voltaire first among them, of course) who might have to be protected from the superstitions of the people.

Given his very different situation, though (wars with both the C18 French Catholic church and the aristocracy of the ancien regime), Voltaire's politics led as a side-effect to his enlightened campaign for religious tolerance, and inspired the much more liberal-minded thinkers of the next two generations (most of whom misread him, but usefully so). He had a horror of war and bloodshed and torture. He was a deeply humane man. He also wrote brilliantly. On all those scores, he was obviously as different from the Straussians as can be.

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('lance, your New Yorker link is outdated, perhaps?)

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the idea that all the old texts of political thought (which Strauss treated as sacred texts) had hidden meanings, secret commentaries by the Masters which were hidden from those who did not read CLOSELY.

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Now, on this one score I note a connection between Straussian political philosophy and literary/cultural criticism/theory of the early and middle C20.

One of the central techniques of Anglo-American formalism -- what was known as the New Criticism -- is also called close reading. I don't think any of the formalists went so far as to believe that texts had "hidden meanings," certainly nothing as hermetic as "secret commentaries by the Masters," but they did demonstrate that reading with close attention to form and formal details produced quite different and richer readings than other kinds of commentary.

(I happen to believe they were right on that score, if rigid.)

I know Voltaire mainly from reading him for years as a graduate student. I know Gay the same way.

Voltaire's deism was not a cover for atheism. Sometimes it was political, but more deeply it was connected to his interest in Newtonian science, and his life-long struggle to understand whether God and Newton could/should be reconciled.

Among the philosophes, there were surprisingly few atheists (and none of them the major thinkers) until the generation younger than Diderot and Rousseau, or almost two generations younger than Voltaire.

Rousseau was never an atheist; both Diderot and Voltaire went to great lengths in their last years to ensure that they would be buried in sanctified ground.

“Kojève's rabid glorification of Jacobinism, Bonapartism, and purgative violence has clearly made its mark on the war party apparatus in and around the Cheney-Wolfowitz cabal. Defense Policy Board "revolution in military affairs" guru Newt Gingrich's recent violent attack on Secretary of State Colin Powell and the entire Near East Bureau of the State Department is one graphic incident of the group's impulse to purgative violence. Bloom intimate Wolfowitz' dozen-year promotion of Hitlerian "preventive war" is another, even more ominous example. “

Quoted from http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3018cheney_fr_conx.html

It is interesting to observe a group of people who are tying to put Plato’s Noble Lie in to effect; even if Bush does not seem to be the most likely candidate for Philosopher King.

/Start needless filler/
According to Woodward, as the post 9/11 State of the Union speech was being crafted David Frum came up with "axis of hatred" to refer to Iraq (and just Iraq), the axis having something to do with state sponsored terrorism, terrorists and WMD. Some other flunky switched it to "axis of evil" and Rice, not wanting it to sound like it was a declaration of war and to give the Iraq war-planning some cover suggested that Iraq not be the only state specifically targeted. Hence, N Korea and Iran were thrown in for good measure but Rice didn't like Iranian inclusion 'cause, you know, unlike like Dear Leader's and Saddam's state, Iraq has got a lot of ayatollahs, moderate and hardline, and it's got a lot of people that get elected every once in a while (even if they aren't all that powerful).

Bush went on to pooh-pooh that objection, apparently saying Iran is a threat to peace (worse than Pakistan I guess... you know he's the foriegn policy specialist) but Iran is different since, "there is a freedom movement in Iran and because Iran is relatively open compared to other countries that are run by, you know, theocratic people, because of the Internet, the Diaspora here from the United States and Iran." I'm not sure what he is saying (freedom in Iran is solely based on an ex-pat community and the Iranian equivalent of Salem Pax?) but for a guy that thinks he's doing God's work (I know Bush claimed his favourite philosopher is Jesus, I know Woodward's book states people were drawn to Bush because of his religious imagery (P86, Michael Gersons) but a reliable attribution through google escapes right now) he might not think he's a God so he technically disqualifies himself from the theocratic label. In my books, though, prophets or disciples that are heads of state aren't far removed.[Yes the above paragraph isn't structured well]

/end needless filler/

This is a Bush quote I want to impart: "Let me make sure you understand what I just said about the role the United States. I believe the United States is the [Woodward's emphasis] beacon for freedom in the world. And I believe we have a responsibility to promote freedom that is as solemn as the responsibility is to protecting the American people, because the two go hand-in-hand. No, it's very important for you to understand that about my presidency."

Don't believe my summation of Woodward's book? P87-88

Keep talking about Leo Strauss and Hobbes and whatever, but if the neocon clique in Washington are really Straussian, well,... could someone kind of prove it? I know people don't like to consider cultural influence in deciding why a president, or a newspaper, does this or that (deference here to above posters, not specifically directed to anything above) but in order to believe that would be to dismiss cultural theory and philosophy altogether.

Question (for another thread): is the Iraqi invasion oil based or Straussian?

Sorry for the interjection (edited to clean up my post a bit):

[ 10 July 2004: Message edited by: clockwork ]

This is area where I likely disagree with many on this board. I think many people make a big deal over the Bush’s administration’s ties to corporations, and seem to think that much of what they have done has been motivated by those interests; reference the all the discussion about the Afghani pipeline, and Iraqi oil. I disagree with that thinking. I think that this administration is the most ideological in recent history. I think that when they say they want to bring freedom to various parts of the world, they mean it; however it is the freedom to be formed in the image of the US. For them, like Hobbes, freedom is from, rather than freedom to. Freedom can only be secured under a strong controlling government. Stability, is very important for this viewpoint; to keep the population free, they may/will have to be told some type of noble lie. They may have to be given a founding myth. Strauss, focused a great deal of his attention on the founding fathers, as part of his myth for America.

Schmitt, who was the major political philosopher for the Reich, and had direct ties to Strauss through Kojève; thought that a nation always has to posit an Other. Politics without conflict could not exist. If fact for Schmitt, an idea could only become political is people where willing to fight for it. He comments that even pacifism could only reach the point of becoming a political movement when pacifists were willing do violence to end violence. I think that most people can figure out who the administration has posited as an Other.

I think that this is the world view that controls the White House at the moment. I think reducing them to corporate shrills is down playing the threat; and is approaching the issue from a very shallow perspective.

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Originally posted by Hinterland:
“Is the Iraqi invasion oil based or Straussian?”

Who says it has to be one or the other? I think a combo-number is a really attractive selling feature among the players in and supporters of the Bush administration. I happen to think that whoever came up with idea of it being both is a genius. An evil genius, but a genius nonetheless.

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I think that when they say they want to bring freedom to various parts of the world, they mean it; however it is the freedom to be formed in the image of the US.

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I'd say the only one in the administration who actually believes that is the president. All the rest have their eye on the big prize; profit. The appeal to freedom is as it has always been, a cover for corporate pillage. Ideology is useful only so long as it positively affects the bottom line. In Iraq's case, if it wasn't for the oil, there would be no invasion, period. The ideology of the neo-cons is plain, and it is consistent historically to the ideology of plunder capitalism upon which the United States is founded. The Bush Doctrine is really just Manifest Destiny for the 21st century.

I mean, has there ever been an ideology which doesn't advocate placing power in the hands of those who advocate it?

I don't doubt the sincerity of the neocon loonies: I'm sure they believe they're guiding the world to some kind of magnificent nirvana. It's just a happy coincidence, in their minds, that they'll happen to engorge themselves on wealth and power in the process.

According to Chomsky, if one reads the now-released archives of the internal planners of the Soviet Union, one finds that more often than not they really, genuinely believed their own bullshit. They were defending the proletariat against the Wall-Street-warmongers, pushing the world towards classless utopia, blah-blah-blah. I don't doubt the internal documents of the Dubya regime, once they're eventually declassified, will reveal similar self-serving hallucinations.

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Originally posted by Rand McNally:
Business, helped bring Hitler to power, under the notion that they could control him. When push came to shove, ideology trumped business.

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I agree. Also, though of course I have no way of knowing for sure, I suspect that Dick Cheney in his private moments either yawns or snorts at the ideologues, all the ideologues (and I think that there must be more than one camp; Bush is already a camp unto himself), much as their interests dovetail with his and would seem to into the indefinite future -- not that his future is going to be all that long, of course.

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While I wouldn't disagree that some of both (greed and ideology) is the cause of the war, what came first? If it's oil based, why now? Here we have Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, all in senior level positions in government, all seasoned cold war veterans of the previous generation, associated with (when out of power) Fukuyama, the Clash of Civilizations guy, Woosley Jr, the "WWIV" guy, and some guy that apparently has been pushing for Saddam's overthrow since the early eighties (edited: point being these other guys outside the admin aren't fixated on Iraq but Islam in general). I wonder what else I could add if I actually read up on the others.

Saddam was a Soviet client that was wooed by the US in the eighties to fight Islamic radicalism as represented by Iran (or, if you like, maybe not wooed, but since the Saddam was fighting the radicals anyway, what's wrong with a little helping hand?). Terrorism as funded by (then) Iraq and Iran and Saudi Arabia, etc, is the very thing that 9/11 becomes the epitome of a failed foreign policy in regards to Islamic states. Afghanistan isn't a good example for setting straight because it's one of the poorest nations on earth and would require good money to use as example to other Islamic countries (plus, as I gather, Afghans don't consider themselves Arab and Arab's vice versa). Iraq can be made a great example because it's sitting on an easily extractible oil reserve that is second only to Saudi Arabia (hence can be a cheap state to reform) and has a Sunni and Shiite population to influence (which influences the Islamic states around all it's borders).

I've come to the conclusion that the overriding imperative for war is ideology. I don't doubt that some on the bandwagon are there to make a buck, but I'm starting to think Cheney ain't one of them. Complaints about Haliburton profiting in Iraq would, I think, need to be weighed with it's past in profiting from the American government in general.

I guess a good question might be to speculate on the reaction to the staged Saddam statues thing. Did all the proponents on PforNAC considered it a publicity coup to line their pockets, or did they believe it was real, or did they think it's a bonus to run on the American propaganda network in the Arab world? Is that Arab propaganda station just there to secure oil supplies to the US (I've read that the US eats up only 20% of the Saudi oil output, or there abouts)?

The next question might be who isn't a Straussian and was still a war proponent. And how much do detractors of the war differ from Struassian thought?

[ 14 July 2004: Message edited by: clockwork ]

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Briody's most valuable service, though, is to trace clearly and succinctly the lineage of the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, the Leviathan LOGCAP that has evolved into what he aptly calls "America's Super Contract" of military construction and services, grown out of the privatizing craze led by then-secretary of defense Dick Cheney in the wake of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. How Halliburton-Brown & Root worked the system to gain that multibillion-dollar colossus, how it in effect designed its own contract, and how it has arrived at a de facto monopoly dominance the United States Government is unwilling to reject and unable to curb, is one of the more haunting sequences in U.S. history.

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Originally posted by clockwork:

If it's oil based, why now?

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Because now is when they could do it. Which is the reason if they're ideologues, too.

Last time most of these guys were in any position of power the media was slightly less of an echo chamber, the Dems were slightly less supine, there wasn't a convenient massive terrorist attack to exploit the aftermath of . . . and above all, the cold war was still on and the USSR would have gotten very upset at such a step.
Fukuyama's "end of history" translates roughly for these people as "There are no opposing ideologies/major powers left. Finally there's nobody who can stand in our way if we decide to take whatever we want!!!"

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Earlier this month, Francis Fukuyama, author of "The End of History" and one of the most influential thinkers associated with the movement, surprised many by delivering a lengthy attack on the neoconservatives' longstanding arguments in support of the war in Iraq, including their confidence in building a democracy there and their assessment of the threat from Islamic radicalism.

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Mr. Krauthammer, for his part, argued that Mr. Fukuyama's essay did not amount to much of a critique at all. "His recalibrations are astonishingly empty," he said, arguing that Mr. Fukuyama's criticisms were undercut by his ultimate endorsement of the same neoconservative views.

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