Saving Strauss
To label criticism of Leo Strauss and his influence on modern American politics as anti-Semitic, which Adam Kirsch does in this sad article, is simply bizarre. Strauss may have been a central figure but many (or most) of the people who follow his ideas or influenced them are not Jewish (Plato, Hegel, Kojeve, Fukuyama). There’s simply no way to salvage a thinker whose favorite TV show was Gun Smoke.
From the article:
The anti-Semitism behind the current wave of Strauss hatred, like the anti-Semitism that drives so much talk about the neoconservative “cabal” in Washington, is barely even veiled. There is no mistaking the insolent glee with which some of his critics (or, better, his slanderers) associate Strauss, a refugee from Nazi Germany, with the greatest enemies of the Jews. Tim Robbins, in his recent play “Embedded,” portrays characters based on Messrs. Wolfowitz and Perle shouting “Hail Leo Strauss,” in an echo of the Nazi salute. Last year, a BBC documentary called “The Power of Nightmares” compared Strauss to Sayyid Qutb, the ideological godfather of Hamas.
This comparison, made in Power of Nightmares—which screens on June 9th and 10th at SIFF, and must not be missed (it is the best documentary I’ve seen since Roger and Me)—is convincing. The director, Adam Curtis, doesn’t even hint at Strauss being tied to some shadowy Israeli agenda. His Jewish origin is not brought up once. Strauss’s ideas are not Jewish ideas, they are simply bad ideas, whether they come from the Republic or the more rigid sections of Philosophy of Right.
Well it is always easier to play the bigot card than to formulate an actual argument against your detractors.
Comparing Strauss to Nazis is rash, but it's not anti-semetic-it's a fair comparison of two similar ideologies.
What a tard.