Sunday, February 26, 2006
Damn Obscurest
Another attack has been made in the war over whether Leo Strauss was Satan or not. This is an excellent article for the hopelessly geeky.
Of all the attacks on neo-conservatism, the Straussian angle is the weirdest. Strauss was a professor philosophy who taught a bizarre idea, and whose writings are obscure to the point of being opaque. The students of his students decided to start a war.
I know what Keynes said about old philosophers dictating the actions of seemingly practical men. However, the man in question is controversial because he taught that ancient philosophers were deliberately misleading in their writings so that only the few brilliant people would understand them. However, “There is a hidden meaning in The Republic” does not translate to “Invade Mesopotamia.”
