Gottfried contra Straussians
by modestinus
Paul Gottfried has spent what might seem to some as an inordinate amount of his academic life quarreling with (if not outright decrying) the students of Leo Strauss (“Straussians” for short). Gottfried has, at times, blamed his (and others’) lack of career advancement on the Straussians, arguing that they thuggishly control the purse strings of conservative foundations while holding positions of power at elite universities and well-regarded liberal arts colleges. Several of Gottfried’s substantive writings take direct issue with the interpretations and methods of Straussians and his more popular political pieces frequently attack the political movement which is allegedly aligned with Straussianism: neoconservatism. Gottfried, after all, is a paleoconservative, an intellectual hangover from the seemingly defunct “Old Right” in America; he has witnessed first hand the dual assult made on his orientation in the academy: One from the Left, and the other from the (New) Right. Straussianism is a major force from the Right–one that Gottfried still feels compelled to deal with after all these years. His rancor has now been poured forth into a single work, Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America (Cambridge University Press 2012), and now the counter-attack against Straussianism–this time from the (Old) Right–begins. What will it mean in the end? Probably nothing, but it’s a fun read nonetheless.
At well under 200 pages, Gottfried’s quasi-academic polemic can be cleared in a matter of hours. Its tone is often vitriolic, but the prose flows freely. Most of the book shifts back and forth from engaging in substantive critiques of Straussian hermeneutics to reminding readers what a bunch of assholes Straussians are. Gottfried also rains down indignation on the Straussians for failing to engage in serious academic debate with their critics. When they are attacked by the Left, they cry persecution; when they are assailed by the Right, they scream betrayal. These tactics, according to Gottfried, have gotten old and so it is little wonder that fewer and fewer academics are even bothering to seriously read and review Straussian works. The Straussians are content to preach to the choir, or so says Gottfried. Because they control the editoral boards at academic presses and journals, Straussian scholars needn’t worry about getting their work published. And for those Straussians who can’t hang in the academy, there is always work available in Washington.
This is, I admit, a rough sketch of a book that deals in a considerable number of generalizations loosely bolstered by anecdotes. Noting that fact is not tantamount to saying that Gottfried is substantively wrong in many of his conclusions concerning Straussianism. The problem is that he leaves too many doors open for Straussians to plausibly claim that his work is nothing more than a byproduct of spite, not reason. Gottfried has his favorite Straussians to pick on (e.g., Harry Jaffa and Harvey Mansfield), but he ignores others who are, arguably, just as important (.e.g., Seth Benardete). He also speaks in generalities and fails to fully appreciate a reality that has been clear to the academic eye since at least Catherine and Michael Zuckert’s The Truth About Leo Strauss: There is no monolithic “Straussianism”; it is school divided by geography which, in turn, points to substantive disagreements on many Straussian themes: reason and revelation; the nature of modernity; the goodness of the United States (or not); etc. While Gottfried is aware that there are some “defectors” among the Straussians (e.g., Stanley Rosen), a good deal of his book lives (or dies) by the existence of a fairly unified Straussian front that is neither at risk of being chased out of the academy with pitchforks nor likely to give up their privileged spots at various elite institutions.
Is this right? Maybe, or maybe not. One thing that Gottfried fails to highlight (though he does hint at this) is the “signal degradation” within Straussianism. Given that we’re well into the third (or fourth) generation of Straussians, it’s probably not surprising to learn that few in the newer generation(s) have come anywhere near matching the contributions and insights of the early Straussians (to say nothing of Strauss himself). Benerdate is, perhaps, the only Straussian whose output matches his teacher’s in terms of originality and complexity (though that’s a debate for another time, I suppose). Gottfried also fails to pay sufficient attention to the “European Straussians” or, simply, European scholars who happen to be interested in Strauss. Surely they cannot be part of this “Straussian coalition” Gottfried rails against, nor can they be accused of being infected by “group think,” at least to the extent that many of them came to Strauss out of their own volition and not because they were “inspired” by some fantastic Straussian professor. Many of the European Straussians are critical of not only Strauss’ work, but the work of his students. Some have advanced radically different interpretations of Strauss that conflicts directly with the “received doctrine” of the Straussian school.
Beyond this there is the matter of Gottfried’s substantive critiques of Straussian hermeneutics. According to Gottfried, the Straussians’ greatest weakness is their “a-historicism,” that is, their refusal to look at historical context as a means of informing their interpretations. Gottfried accuses Strauss (and his epigones) of holding too hard to a belief in static meanings for concepts like “justice.” But is that true? Yes, Strauss believed in something along the lines of “authorial intention” in his interpretations, but that doesn’t mean Strauss believed there was a single concept of “justice” that meant the same thing in every author through the centuries. What Strauss appeared to believe was that to understand what Plato or Machiavelli meant by “justice” meant reading their works closely, teasing out their meaning(s) of the concept, and then testing whether or not the arguments they present support such a conclusion. Strauss was also very aware of the radical conceptual shifts that took place at the advent of modernity (which he identifies with Machiavelli and, from there, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau). Moreover, Strauss did look at historical context in his interpretations. After all, one of the central theses of Straussianism is that many (most?) philosophers wrote esoterically; that is, they wrote in a careful manner to conceal their more startling claims from the masses at large. To understand esotericism in a particular author means to understand the context in which he wrote. The context provides clues on what he is concealing (and how). Gottfried doesn’t seem to appreciate this aspect of Straussianism, or at least not enough.
In the end, Gottfried’s book is an interesting, though rather flawed, attempt to expose and attack Straussianism. Gottfried deserves a great deal of credit for not collpasing his argument into an outright conspiracy theory, though it must be noted that he flirts with that posture. Some of Gottfried’s “analysis” comes off like sour grapes and so he is likely to fall easy prey to Straussian counterattacks. Further, like many critiques of Straussianism, he fails to make the sort of distinctions among the “camps” that the Straussians themselves have been forced to confront over the past several decades. Still, one can hope that Gottfried’s critique might prove to be a useful launching pad for further critical engagements with Straussianism. Though Gottfried is surely right to point out Straussian hesitation to meaningfully respond to critics, perhaps an onslaught of Gottfried-esque attacks is what’s needed to awaken the Straussians from their apparent dogmatic slumber.
I always saw those who cried “Straussian Neo-Cons are the devil!” to be similar to be like the people who claim that there is a giant New World Order conspiracy orchestrated by lizard people. Then again Gottfried is a Von Mises Institute member- hey it is not like Ron Paul supporters or Austrians to be prone to conspiracy theories!
I think it was probably Paul Gottfried more than anyone else who really turned me off to paleo-conservatism. That whole movement seems to basically be his personality writ large- namely a bunch of old and very bitter men.
I’ve only read a few of Gottfried’s books (and articles), so I really can’t say much about him overall. He’s a solid writer and polemicist, but that may be all he really is — which would also go some distance to explaining why he has spent the bulk of his academic career in relative isolation. Gottfried’s best contribution to date has been his work on Carl Schmitt, which is one of the few Anglophobe books to take Schmitt seriously without attempting to appropriate various concepts as tools of the (New) Left. That is to say, genuinely conservative readings of Schmitt on this side of the Atlantic are few and far between. Liberals — for understandable reasons — detest him; the Left thinks he’s their new darling. The Right — the Right that Gottfried is a part of — doesn’t really know what to do with him.
For years I avoided the “Straussian” label for the simple fact that I have read enough “Straussian” works to know that they hardly form a united front. In various online arguments, I have adopted the view that “Straussian,” at its lowest level, simply means someone who takes Leo Strauss’ thought seriously. But even that doesn’t get you very far since there is an emerging group of scholars who take Strauss seriously without really agreeing with him on much of anything. Also, my very brief “review” didn’t dwell on several other interesting points of Gottfried’s work, such as casting Strauss as primarily a critic of modernity and Western decadence. That theme is very present in several of Strauss’ works from the 1940s and 50s, though it fades almost completely away during the last decade or so of his writing career. Those works are, to be sure, some of the most obscure and difficult Strauss ever penned. A certain clan of his adherents believe they carry the “true Strauss,” the “full Strauss” who finally shed himself of all pretensions and started to write fully as a philosopher. Then there are others (others that I am somewhat in agreement with) who see the later Strauss as a man who, due to age and health afflictions, lost a lot of his intellectual power and struggled to regain the coherency present in his earlier works. Biologically speaking, that view makes sense; however, it doesn’t sit well with Straussians of the strict observance since it implies that something more than Strauss’ intention could have been at work in shaping his final books and articles.
For the record, I am much less “enthusiastic” about Strauss today than I was when I first discovered him nearly a decade ago. I still have a lot of appreciation for what I learned from him (and his students). A long time ago, on a blog far, far away, I wrote in some depth about how my encounter with Strauss occurred — “providentially” — at the time I returned to Christianity. No true-blue Straussian would accept such a wayward path as “authentic,” but there is still a part of me that believes my intellectual curiosity and spiritual longing converged on him for a reason. There are worse youthful indiscretions, I suppose.
Is there any record of this blog from long ago?
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