Leo Strauss

[kevinherbert]

One can only shudder to think how long the neocons would've ruled the US & international affairs if the internet hadn't come along & hurried their exposure.

Now to get rid of them..it will be difficult, but it's underway.

[kevinherbert]

Strauss = Trotsky = secret elites = evil

[hegemoniuspiper]

@kevinherbert u forgot mickey mouse

[kevinherbert]

@hegemoniuspiper : but Mickey's alive & well in you quite obviously.....cheese anyone?

[hegemoniuspiper]

@kevinherbert wait, that mouse have never been alive. Dont tell me u believe anything u see on television

[packerfan748]

leo strauss is basically the reason we invaded iraq when it boils down to it, strauss is the founder of the neo con movement, just another crackpot intellectual who was convinced he had it all figured out

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

@packerfan748

Strauss was not the source of neo con movement (there are even leftist Straussians) plus articles written showed he never advocated invasion for occupation as the University of Chicago has verified.

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap he fails, in my point of view, because he confuse technical policy under given economic historic circumnstances and the real object of politics, which is not any specific social situation nor any specific political institution, but the study of relationship between actors dealing with a choice and decision scenario, whatever the case is. He confuse policy with politics and fails on ethi

certainly not going further than the mere principle of conservation

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

@hegemoniuspiper

Strauss refuted historicism as a movement and was all too concerned with decision making which was why he thought modernity had gotten out of control. Again, you are difficult to follow as you seem to amalgamate things sporadically together and then disclude them. If you have some footnotes it would be easier to see what you are getting out with some examples or some of Strauss' scholastic works as a reference.

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap i know u may find it difficult to follow my observations,but just if you took them in a very scholastic way.U may be a Strauss filologist, but u could be missing some of the point.It is obvious he had a pessimist conception of the human world, his admiration for Machiavelli says it all.To put it short, he believed his task was to provide the legittimate elite in power a series of ideological tools to keep the mass under control, because human nature is bad

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap so he was more concerned about the policy process then the actual underlaying politics' issues.He was one of these so called "realists" who had always been proven to be in fact defending a very specific conception of human relationship and society: we would live under the constant threat of chaos, anarchy, revolution and there's a neverending struggle for power between everyone whose sole object is the power itself, which then legittimate itself

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap In this conception, force appear to be the only real principle in politics, the only realthing politcs need to know and study in each of its aspects.This is a very reductive view of what politcs in fact is, it subestimate other important factors responsible for the development of human society and institutions, more important then the mere administration of the means of power and force.But he believed the mass deserved protection and beautiful lies...

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap so, if u consider it with attention, u may well say leo strauss conception go extraordinarily well toghether with ideas such the manipulation of public opinion, for instance, and the building up of an institutional fachade, may it be democratic, behind which the real power core, hidden away, moves the wires of control for its own interest and conservation. Strauss conception can well have inspired dirty intelligence products as the 9/11 appears to be

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap and that's no saying i approve his philosophy. Part of his works, in mypoint of view, consist mostly of a rethoric display of moral principles he doesnt dare to doubt or discuss, and that may be interesting as any confession can be, when talking about the exoteric side of philosophical writing as about historicism, in a way that ends up in paradoxes.Doesnt history exist? Can just myths really exist? ...

If u have clues u r interested about post me

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap to conclude, i dont get confused about what's interesting in any research, as Strauss'. I know his critic and analysys of historicism is articulated, as i know historicism is nothing but one of the idelogical orientation the political research took in the last century. But i look at Strauss view fundations and outcomings, to grasp what it actually means, politically, philosophycally, scientifically and historically

Let me know in case what u think and know

[MsPingu112]

I wish I could be his student. I agree with him that the current 'liberal' society is forging its own destruction.

[videoclog]

So the neocons wanted a Perry Mason and what they got was George W. Bush.

I wouldn't even order a glass of water in a neocon restaurant.

[americanliberal09]

so this is were conservatism begin hmph i see were conservatives get their sick kicks from

[pimpjuicehere]

this is how liberals thinks. step one: they didn't like the iraq war; step 2: blame someone, namely a shadowy group known as neocons; step 3; link neocons to leo strauss; step 4: make goofy analyses of strauss, ridicule but never show how any of his conclusions were wrong; step 5: make crappy documentaries

there you have it. according to liberal/progressives highly intelligent reasoning: strauss is evil because the iraq war was bad.

[mff8785]

I love the cheesy espionage/detective tv show music and the Film Noir lighting and shading and the risque content. It's as if they are portraying Strauss to be as foolish or misguided as Inspector Clouseau.

How great is Rosen for restoring Strauss back into the realm of the "Ordinary" by discussing Strauss in light of Perry Mason and Gunsmoke?

By the way, does anyone no of any other video footage or audio recordings of Rosen?

[PikSokolit]

NEOCONS ARE COMMIE EX DEMOCRATS. NOT THE REAL RIGHT WING>

[2001perseus]

Here we go again! Another "great thinker," who's conclusion is that an elite should control the masses through deception. His unstated conclusion being that conscience is an abstract irrelevance in pursuit of a higher ideological goal. That is exactly the process of reasoning that defines Islamic Jihad. So what values does Islam or the west preserve by both pursueing the rehashed philosophy of Fascism? As Jihad were marginalised by the masses they despised, so one day will Straussians be. NO!

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

Instead of listening to Shadia Drury criticisms, which are objectively baseless, and which also are 95% of all sources lised by Anti-Straussians. I defy anyone to refute Strauss on a TEXTUAL basis of his work on a either an Objective or Practical scale.

[AndreaismyTrueLove]

@thinkbeforeyouleap Oh god, here we go. Objectivism is such utter and complete wank I can't describe it. It's an interesting experiment to grab a hold of an 'Objectivist' and see how they wriggle when you force them through to logical conclusions.

[socraticstatic]

@AndreaismyTrueLove Surely it's not the same to be an 'objectivist' in all things as it is to have the ability to view things objectively from time to time, for the sake of reason? Instead of being the pro-anti, I think what he is asking is that you challenge the text itself. If that is not possible, neither is reasonable discourse.

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

@AndreaismyTrueLove

Actually what is complete wank is radical empricism derived from modernity that turns reason and belief, rational into irrational, so that all is relative and no prioritization of thought is possible forcing every deduction made to be inconclusive. Everyone who reads his books never refutes him and the ones that complain never read Strauss. Shadia Drury, his chief critic is the biggest scholastic fraud who held an academic chair. So, make me wriggle

[waytoocool]

does anyone know what the theme music after the Perry Mason clip, at 4:10 in this video?

[milne007]

Oh this is priceless! Love the music early on - Strauss creeping around in a trench coat. It would be Pink Panther, if it weren't all so sinister. So funny.

[EuclidianProposition]

There are only shots of women from 1:42 to 2:10. Is that meant to make the narration seem more sinister? LOL sexism.

[eugdog106]

did the maker of this documentary ever read natural right and history?

[K2nsl3r]

no; or if he did, he failed to understand it.

[scotty123123]

This television program is joke. Read his books instead!

[mendelbot]

The argument that Strauss should be interpreted through fourth-hand media portrayal of the reputation of his students' writings on his works on other philosophers is a ludicrous dishonesty.

I would go even further than Scotty and argue that Strauss would probably want us to read the people about which his books are written than his own works.

[zuesthelessor]

this bastard was a hardcore Trotskyite and the most destructive force to influence others with a Talmudic agenda

[fsjonsey]

"The Jews, They're in my head! They're under my bed! They watch me sleep at night!" - zuesthelessor, 2009

[Redman1225]

It's a bit of a tragic irony that Strauss himself noted the tendency for followers to distort the ideas of a great thinker; it seems the same thing is happening to him... it's not just individual freedom that pulls society apart, it's also the rise of historicism and the social sciences, which increasingly professed that facts and values had to be distinguished. ie.. you must accept relativism and nihilism as necessary consequences. I think Strauss would have serious doubts about today's neocons

[gosciu555]

yeah right, he's just as bad as they are.

[Jitpring]

Yes, as Benedict XVI has observed:

"We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

[Jessymandias]

as opposed to somebody elses ego and desires.

[gosciu555]

@Redman1225

A GREAT THINKER? Are you fucking kissing me? YOu retarded kids think its funny to pork around in evil? What is wrong with you idiots, this guy was a full blown NAZI he was Carl Shmitts prodigy. Nothing "twisted" about it.

[Moun10eer14]

@gosciu555 Yeah, I bet he was a Nazi. I'm sure he would have been the first to murder his parents...

[kk789789789]

@gosciu555 my god gosciu55, he was jewish, do you know how many excellent Jewish students Schmitt had in his courses before he became a nazist?! Do you happen to know Walter Benjamin for example? Have you ever read with what admirration he wrote of the intellectual capacities of his great teacher Carl Schmitt? Do you happen to know that Hannah Arendt (brilliant political theorist and jewish as well) was the 'prodigy' of Heidegger (another self-proclaimed nazist) and also his lover for a while?

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

@gosciu555

Not even close, his entire extended family was wiped out in the Holocaust, he fled to England because of Nazism, and spent the course of his scholastic career explaining how totalitarianism developed.

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap leo strauss is a severe pessimist, before than conservatorist. He assume the individual quest for power and the nation's quest of power are an inherent immutable component of human nature and condition, but that's not true. It is true under certain specific circumstances. He assume anarchy is the natural condition for men and the rest is temporary, arbitrary veil upon it.His very philosophical basys are not much different from Hobbes

[thinkbeforeyouleap]

@hegemoniuspiper

Actually, your off by a mile, his first book was on Hobbes where he then recanted it and later said Machiavelli was the founder of Modern political thought. Strauss was never a pessimist, he thought reason could solve all if we devoted ourselves to it in the classical tradition as "the city in speech". Your thoughts are so scattered that I can't follow your premises so if you maybe quote some of his works with footnotes I might get an idea of what you going.

[hegemoniuspiper]

@thinkbeforeyouleap add He refused historicism mainly to reject any ethical analysys and broad evaluation of real socio economic conditions, and did so in the name of a specific ideology which believe in the sole legittimacy of an elite and its self sufficient power as the ultimate goal. That's what made him a conservative ideologist, and to me also an uncomplete, very debatable researcher. Making ideology, he disregarded much else of what political research is about

[allymetoo]

In fact, you will see, that those Ideas actually come from elsewhere like Bertrand Russell ( A pseudo Scholar ) and The Eugenicist Movement.

I believe that Leo was a sincere and objective scholar.

[allymetoo]

I believe that Strauss has been character assassinated.

( Possibly from the same arm which initially had financed him )

To use him as a scapegoat for the evil deeds of the neocon cabal just seems to me a convenient Lie.

I want to study this man's writings in depth.

His perceptions on Plato's Republic are very profound, in that he concludes that the Utopian City State was never meant as an Ideal to copy from.

[Emassei]

Allymetoo, that was probably the most intellectually honest thing I have ever heard on here. Instead of blaming Leo Strauss for the current failures in american policy, one should, as you said, "study the man's writings in depth." This level of inquiry just does not occur to some people, they simply want their scapegoat. Mob law ruled by the passions or the quick wit is a horrible basis for the rule of ethics and of law.

[gosciu555]

please tell me you're kidding.

[theheathyfella]

Strauss was a fascist who needed to intellectualise his insecurities to seek his own paranoid agenda.

Only fools agree with Strauss and Berlin and Marx.

If we dont put are own fascist agenda in place then evryone will destroy each other.

Blinkered shite put about by people who have no self determination.

Fuckin' weak.

There is no altruism or integrity,where all born evil.

Sounds like the same crap fundamentalist christians excuse to control people.

Same psychology.

Same doctrine.

[gosciu555]

I went to school with some of these followers of this guy. they are nuts and they are the epitomy of the dangers of wolf like individualism. during the gulf war they were shamelessly talking about how the iraqis are going to like it and have a wonderful "economy" and on and on. all the wile getting off on dominating these people. they are hitlerians, there are two ways about it. Check out tarpley's video on "neocon fascist madmen"

[Jitpring]

Kindly tell us just which Strauss books you've read.

[JohananRaatz]

One of my professors was one of the original students of Leo Strauss. As he was teaching philosophy I noticed something peculiar about the way he taught it. I couldn't put my finger on it until I properly understood Strauss. I now feel indebted to him as he was the one who first introduced my to Straussianism. Straussianism properly understood is a far more rich political philsophy than what is presented here.

It's a shame it's gotten a bad name in some circles.

[rabmunch]

What is "straussianism properly understood"?

Who ever heard of such a thing?

There are simply Strauss' great books and his thoughts, and the there are those who think they follow him. These followers do not all get along or agree, either.

Such a popular hatred and slander of Strauss was inevitable. Certain academics made it their career to make him into an anathema. I knew them too. Their motives were in the gutter. Victory of the gutter, as usual.

[crazycatfguy]

How can you like Strauss without believing in tyranny? Are the people who consider themselves to be the "elite" right in lying to their people and creating perpetual war to create the nationalism to unify the ignorant masses?

[crazycatfguy]

How can you like Strauss without believing in tyranny? Are the people who consider themselves to be the "elite" right in lying to their people and creating perpetual war to create the nationalism to unify the ignorant masses?

[Facade19]

I absolutely agree with you. My mentor during my undergraduate time (just graduate btw) was trained by one of the last students of Strauss, a second generation Straussian if you will (that is my mentor). There are things which I have learned just by observing the seriousness my mentor that I have not witnessed with any other professor. I am so grateful for having been introduced to Political Philosophy, Strauss and in particular to Irony.

[breckandy]

I've got a pair of his jeans

[DESchneyer1989]

I am a student at the University of Chicago. Amazing institution, but you can sense the Straussian influence in the Political Science department.

[RisikoR]

I read up on Strauss, viz. "on tyranny" and "natural right and history". although his stance on reason, e.g. "when you cultivate reason, you cultivate nihilism" (1953) is quite frankly depressing, his take on tyranny and freedom is uplifting and extremely inspiring. Don't mistake today's neocon doctrine for true Straussian philosophy; they cherry picked! read him and know this for yourself.

[matgooly]

a zionist that manipulates fear, although thankfully he is dead now: however his teachings led for more and more lies, he would have been proud of cheneys 911 inside job

[prrolg]

Somebody tell me where I can find or read that Leo Strauss was against individualism.

[EuclidianProposition]

I can't find any such thing...yet. I've only gotten so far in my readings. The impression I have so far is that he was more against popular culture than individualism.

[fscxxx]

In Natural Right & History and in most of his longer essay, Strauss argues that in order to defend modern democracy one must not be a flatterer of modern democracy, and that one must guard against the dangers of excessive licentiousness - ind. liberty - in order to preserve a liberal (constitutional) regime. He feared America could degenerate into Weimar Germany. The Brit announcer is a modern Liberal and misses Strauss's point, but he's not altogether wrong either.

UChicago grad, polisci.

[lunaimee]

Be sure to watch the entire three-part series. You can get it in the U.S. through Wholphin, a DVD of short films put out by McSweeney's (the first 2 parts are free with issue 2 and 3, and the 3rd part will be in issue 4). Issues 2 and 3 are discounted right now at their website.

[911truthnc]

9/11 Was An Inside Job! Strauss a paid agent of the NWO. None of these neocons could have taken root without the support of the global elite criminals. Power Of Nightmare Has a bit of disinformation. Trying to exonerate Clinton on his cocaine adventures in Mena AK. Clinton is as big of criminal as 41 & dubya.

[chordchaser]

This is fascinating. It's a solid foundation for a really good Twilight Zone episode—or America Version 2.007. I'll come back and check out the rest of your vids. (I sent you info on new Ron Paul files I posted.)