August 31, 2007

Strauss May Have Changed His Mind

Thanks to Ms. [Julie] Englander for a very thorough article on the Strauss controversy [“Defending Strauss,” August 24]. Unfortunately, it was not thorough enough. The author ignored the fact that Strauss quite clearly expressed his own political views in a letter to a fellow German-Jewish emigre in 1933. Furthermore this letter has been discussed extensively on the Internet: balkin.blogspot.com/2006/07/letter_16.html.

In the letter, Strauss declares that the excesses of the Nazi regime ought not discredit true right-wing principles, which he defined as “fascist, imperialist and authoritarian.” That he held such a view is incontestable; whether he changed his opinion after emigrating to the U.S. is the real question that his partisans and critics must ask.

Alice B. Tokeview

Oak Park

Julie Englander replies:

The letter from Strauss, like others, complicates the task of determining Strauss’s political views. Incidentally, whether or not his views changed over time will be the topic of a roundtable at the American Political Science Association’s meeting in Chicago this Saturday, September 1.

Not in Line With My Philosophy

I am misquoted in [“Defending Strauss,” by Julie Englander, August 24]. I most certainly did not describe Straussianism as “a pathology of American philosophy departments,” since it does not exist in any leading American philosophy department. Strauss was not, contrary to the article’s heading, a professor of philosophy, but a professor of political science, and the Straussian pathology and its attendant cult, which I discussed with Ms. Englander, operates exclusively in some American political science departments. Actual philosophers view Strauss exactly as I and Myles Burnyeat describe in the article.

Strauss may indeed have “many critics who persist in connecting him to all that’s wrong with American policy,” but I am not one of them. It strikes me as rather silly to attribute the venal criminality of the Bush administration to a not very good scholar of the history of philosophy. Unfortunately, this article, while informative and interesting, tends to contribute to the misapprehension that Leo Strauss and his acolytes know anything about philosophy or the “philosophical life.” The more interesting question is the sociological one of how this particular pseudo-scholarly cult has enjoyed such staying power in U.S. political science departments.

Brian Leiter

University of Texas, Austin

Julie Englander replies:

It’s true that Strauss, like most of those who have claimed him as an influence, taught in a political science department. I apologize if I led readers to believe that Leiter is among critics who connect Strauss with all that’s wrong with American policy. Leiter made it clear to me that he disparages Straussians not because they might be responsible for the war in Iraq but because their scholarship is so shoddy that he remains uninterested in reading any of the recent publications that attempt to set the record straight.

What Strauss Means to Them

Your cover piece last week, “Defending Strauss,” [by Julie Englander, August 24], while up to the Reader’s excellent standards, is simply beside the point.

It’s not about Strauss’s own views, but the views taken away by his students. (Marx was not a Marxist, etc.) And a significant number of the Bushies seem to consider themselves “Straussian.” So the question isn’t what Strauss thought, but what this malignant clique has decided for themselves that he meant.

Neil Rest

Chicago

Speaking of Displaced Communities

The first thing I noticed about Jesse Mumm’s extensive letter to the Reader [“A Piñata Can’t Speak for the Community,” August 24] about the lack of coverage of the resident Latino community in Logan Square [The Logan Square Issue, August 10] was that his signature contains the title “anthropologist.” I find it humorous that Mr. Mumm states indignation about the frustration of longtime Latino residents being displaced in the name of gentrification disguised as diversity. I always thought anthropologists that were worth their weight looked at the entire historical record. Had Mr. Mumm did that, he would have found that the Latinos actually displaced an established core of Scandinavian and eastern European families in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So the term longtime Latino residents somehow hits a sour note with me.

In addition, the Cuban influence in Logan Square in the early 70s was perhaps more significant than that of any other Latino group. Cubans represented a large cross section of hardworking people in blue- and white-collar jobs and many who owned their own businesses early in that transformation. There were even some notorious incidents. That there were halfway houses in Logan Square for Marielito boat people taken in by the benevolent President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s is an established fact. Back in the 1950s, Polish Constitution Day was a huge event in Humboldt Park drawing thousands of Polish locals. Flash cut to the 1970s and it became a Cinco de Mayo celebration. That Logan Square has gone full circle in over just a handful of generations seems lost on the anthropologist named Jesse Mumm.

Mike Koskiewicz

Portage Park

Put Strauss’s Ideas to Work

[Re] The article on Leo Strauss and his apparent effects or aftershocks [“Defending Strauss,” by Julie Englander, August 24].

Such questions are worth sustained study and critical discussion. If Strauss’s writings are indeed incisively relevant to these and a host of other serious questions, let those who draw inspiration from Strauss apply his teaching, as they understand that teaching, to the resolution of these questions. Such application would more clearly and usefully testify to the supposed import of Strauss’s work than intramural academic jousts contesting what Strauss himself did or did not intend to say.

David A. White

Department of Philosophy

DePaul University

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