The Power of Nightmares (BBC2 Weds night)

agreed on both posts above...obviously i was quoting safire to disagree with him. actually i don't know what prompted me to read his piece, but hey, i guess it's good to see what the other side is plotting sometimes.

anyway: round 2 please!

reading that i can't help thinking that people who beleive what they read in books are dangerous.
people who disregard the evidence of their own experience and base their beleifs on what they read=nutters. in fact people who beleive things=nutters. why don't they just leave us alone?

The Videos are available here if some have not seen it.

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=4281

Regarding Strauss
http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle08022003.html

oliver craner said:

The documentary was anything but an in-depth account of Leo Strauss's ideas or method: Curtis has simply given you a crude caricature to work with.

Both of you sucumb to the classic mistake of over-emphasising Leo Strauss. Why not Allan Bloom? Why not Albert Wohlstetter? Why not George Schlutz? Why not people involved with policy making in the Reagan Administration? Or the Nixon one?

If it has to be Strauss, then why not Plato, or Machiavelli, or Hobbes, or Locke? Maybe then at least you'd get around to engaging with Strauss. And, perhaps, effectively countering him.

Incidentally, I know that I'm a worse person than Leo Strauss.

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some would argue that every thinker is responsible for his epigones. maybe. but i agree with oliver crane that the bbc doc "power of nightmares," which i've read in transcript but have not seen in video, provides only a crude caricature of strauss . . . .

if resort to secondary literature you must, then i'd recommend, w/ some reservations, Anne Norton's "Leo Strauss and The Politics of American Empire" (Yale, 2004).

and if you can track down the essays, Gregory Bruce Smith's "Leo Strauss and the Straussians: An Anti-Democratic Cult?" (PS: Political Science and Politics, June 1997) , and Robert Pippin's "The Modern World of Leo Strauss" (Political Theory, August 1992)

but if you can find the time, i'd suggest reading Strauss himself. whatever his politics or final positions, he is without question intricate, subtle, profound . . . .

for most, i'd suggest beginning with his book "natural right and history."

for people with a particular interest in plato, spinoza, machiavelli, or hobbes, strauss has books on each of these thinkers . . . .

also, strauss' "on tyranny," though it begins as a commentary of xenophon's "hiero," contains in its published form an extensive debate with kojeve concerning the modern state, liberal democrary, the end of history, the last man, etc

and the u. of chicago edition of schmitt's "concept of the political" also contains leo strauss' critique of schmitt's thesis . . . .

but getting back to what the bbc doc says about strauss, i can only reply that strauss is a notoriously difficult thinker to pin-down to any final position (largely because, like Derrida, he presented himself as a scholar-commentator, writing about other texts, not writing in his own name) . . . . if anything, strauss' thought pivots around "eternal" questions, reason vs revelation, ancients versus moderns, the relationship of philosophy to the city, without ever resolving these questions . . . . whether he is for (1) plato (philosophy as man's highest end and the best way of life); (2) nietzsche/machiavelli (philosophy as will to power); (3) heidegger/revelation; (4) some eccentric brand of judaism; or (5) position 2 read into position 1 == i imagine very few people can say with certainty strauss' final position

clearly strauss accepts much of the nietzschean/heideggerian critique of modernity (and liberal democracy), but then so does every other interesting thinker of the past 100 years

as for the political views of strauss' students, it is clear that many of his most prominent students were/are political conservatives. but they're not monolithic in their conservatism. joseph cropsey is not harvey mansfield is not allen bloom is not harry jaffa. and many of his other students, say stanley rosen, are not identified with political commitments. and still others are on the left, albeit not nearly so prominent as his conservative students ------ but really, if you're looking for the story of the movement from Strauss to (1) the so-called Straussians and the Neo-Conservatives now making U.S. policy, as distiingusihed from (2) students of Strauss and of his writings and interpretive techniques. . . . then consult the Anne Norton book, that is, the real story of American neo-conservatism is the APPROPRIATION of Strauss by people like Irving Kristol, the use of his name to give pedigree to a program largely at odds with his thought

also, much of the distrust of Strauss is connected to his theory of esoteric/exoteric writing. certainly his interpretations of past thinkers are disturbing -- in some cases (like Locke, like Xenophon), it does seem that Strauss does serious violence to the text; in other cases (like Machiavelli, like Plato), his approach may well be correct ------- of course to really assess Strauss' readings of philosophic texts, you have to study the texts closely in conjunction with Strauss' commentary -- that is, this is the very same procedure that you have to use in assessing Derrida's readings . . . . AND OF COURSE, most people are not going to make the investment in time and effort (myself included, sadly) -- for most readers, the experience of strauss' profound cunning and insight is reason enough to read him (but won't entitle you to defend or attack his interpretations of this or that past thinker)

and last, i should add that Strauss exerts through his writings a strange charisma (the intoxicating effect of his intellectual cunning), and that charismatic men attract all kinds of followers, some first class, some mediocre, others power-hungry and ambitious

and one last point -- nothing could be further from Strauss that the neo-conservative enterprise to "ennoble" America by fighting "evil" in Iraq (as "Power of Nightmares" presents the matter) -- Only when fought b/w relative equals is war ennobling. And even if so fought, in the age of technology everything about war is so altered that perhaps even wwii was not, in the end, noble or ennobling -- So Strauss would have criticized the invasion of Iraq both on prudential grounds and because the war, as experienced by most Americans watching on tv, is the very opposite of ennobling

as for Oliver Craner's wider views on the global situation and the war in iraq, i find his arguments worth taking seriously and hope that others here will continue to take his arguments up

as for my own position on the global situation, i'm not sure what to think . . . . but my inclination is to believe that the terrorism threat, especially here in America, has been way over hyped -- so if anything, i'm sympathetic to the argument of "Power of Nightmares," except for the scapegoating of Leo Strauss

jesus christ craner, how long is this response going to be, you've been writing it for half an hour!

Hey. Phew. Yowza.

I only just caught this, Dominic, and I'm impressed! (I bet that makes your day!) How come you know so much about Strauss eh eh?

Tackling a couple of Strauss books last year left me pained but wanting to go right back to the beginning. So I am. But that's another story.

The Anne Norton book was good for all the (hilarious) gossip (toga parties in Bloom's college boarding house!) but I didn't think it was all that.

Plus, I think your (good) potted summary of Strauss happens to illustrate why the documentary's caricature was a deliberate and almost mendacious misrepresentation.

I think this documentary (when not simply stating the obvious) is full of deliberate distortions. Curtis is easily as cynical as Perle.

The blanket, goggle-eyed acceptance of his pernicious conclusions rather dismays me.

Well, slightly.

I'm at work dealing with public people. Are you fucking spying on me Vandross?

oliver craner said:

How come you know so much about Strauss?

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(1) i've read several of his books

(2) i don't confuse his account of somebody else's position w/ his own position (e.g., "noble lies")

(3) probably more open to strauss than i o/w would have been as i took courses in college w/ (1) a student of cropsey and (2) a student of rosen

(4) at same time strauss and his milieu "fascinate" me -- (a) emigre intellectuals who moved from east to west, i.e., russia to paris, germany to u.s. -- strauss, arendt, kojeve, koyre, nabakov, frankfurt school, hans jonas -- they all had so much more depth & verve than their anglo-american contemporaries; (b) plus strauss' sustained friendship & correspondence w/ opponents -- kojeve, carl schmitt, gadamer, gershom scholem -- as well as the high regard that first-generation frankfurt school had for strauss -- suggests to me an essential difference b/w the character of strauss & the character of the so-called straussians (and then there's the very strange personal enmity b/w strauss & arendt, whose orientations are so similar -- except that strauss counsels prudence & arendt ecstatic or revolutionary action); (c) plus the weird symmetry b/w strauss & derrida, the way both bring a kind of "talmudic" spirit to heideggerian deconstruction of the tradition

(5) should add that i've had "bad experiences" w/ reading strauss, especially his work on xenophon -- think that he may have gone slightly mad or perhaps lost his intellectual acuity in the 1960s

(6) i probably would have tried to go to grad school for this kind of thing had i not had serious emotional difficulties in my last year of college -- and then closed myself off from philosophy for a few years -- then tried to do the "sensible" thing by going to law school -- and now not at all pleased w/ the options i've given myself

oliver craner said:

Tackling a couple of Strauss books last year left me pained but wanting to go right back to the beginning. So I am. But that's another story.

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i have a similar game plan -- that is, i've read a lot of 1940s & 50s strauss, but want to go back to 30s:

(1) read spinoza, i.e., the ethics & perhaps political-theological treatise -- then read strauss & deleuze on spinoza -- think deleuze's spinoza book may be a good entry point into his thought -- that is, i find "thousand plateaus" intermittently brilliant but for the most part impossible to follow -- have gotten the impression that deleuze is much clearer writer in his studies of other thinkers

(2) then read strauss' hobbes book -- probably against nobbio's book on hobbes (UNLESS somebody here has a better suggestion?)

ALSO you may want to investigate Cropsey's book on Plato -- which i intend to do a piece on someday in my rather pathetic & neglected blog

BUT SADLY, my ambitions for reading far surpass the reading that i actually accomplish, i.e., i need to get some order in my life, some kind of daily routine, such that i devote the same set hours every day to reading

That stuff Norton writes about the Heidegger-Arendt-Strauss love triangle is fascinating, isn't it?

I like a bit of gossip.

Yes, interesting and informative Dominix...

I'm fascinated with Strauss, too( and btw I didn't think the doc necessarily scapegoated Strauss - his position came over as complex and serious, not at all glib and facile - for that we have Mark Steyn ). I've been reading a book on Strauss and Schmitt. I also have one on Strauss and Nietzsche at work. Will report back when I've processed em.

Bergson [OT]

dominic said:

have gotten the impression that deleuze is much clearer writer in his studies of other thinkers

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How is he on Bergson? I met someone in Tokyo last year and we got onto the subject of Henri Bergson and it turns out he's taught in schools in Japan, part of the syllabus in fact. Largely ignored in the UK as far as I can ascertain.

I've read De Landa on Deleuze in Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, wherein he discusses ATP, Anti-Oedipus and What is Philosophy, but he doesn't mention Bergsonism.

I haven't seen "The Power of Nightmares", but does the recent bombing of London have any implications for what people have argued in this thread, about the lack of terror threat in Britain.

Nick Cohen argues that it does in the Guardian this weekend:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,16141,1525261,00.html

"All kinds of hypocrisy remained unchallenged. In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him.

I'd say the 'power of nightmares' side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend and it's better to stick with the wider delusion."

cohen is right. i don't agree with everything he says, but the power of nightmares argument that, because it isn't as tightly drilled as SMERSH, al-qaeda doesn't exist, was always dubious. (also bizarre: why latch on to strauss?) quite clearly there is a terrorist threat, and while the doc provided some brilliant insights, its general claims about the politicians' need for power underpinning the new security scenario were plain wrongheaded.

There's a threat, and always was, but never the kind or scale of threat posited by, in particular, American politicians. Refer back to the invented islamist terrorists in the states which the documentary covered so well.

There's a connection between our illegal occupation of Iraq, and our being a target, but we would probably have been a target anyway (being the junior partner to Amerikkka and all that).

The doc didn't say "al quaeda doesn't exist", it said it doesn't exist in the way politicans (continue to) say it exists, as a discrete organisation.

And so on and so forth. The fact that the terrorist threat manifested itself does not mean that politicians do not exaggerate and distort that threat in specific and self-serving ways. Nor does focusing on "the enemy within" actually help to reduce the terrorist threat: ultra-islamist nutters would have got nowhere with recruiting cannon fodder without the gobsmackingly stupid and self-damaging blunders of the west in Palestine, Iraq anbd elsewhere.

i dunno how palestine gets dragged into this, really. i agree about US politicians, but i don't think the british government has overstated the terrorist threat that much, and i never got the impression AQ was as tightly organized as the IRA from them. it is deadly surely *because* it's decentralized and out of control.

Here is a rather different take on Qutb.
http://www.redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/MB.htm

Found it as a reference in this "short story"
http://www.rense.com/general66/blair.htm

henrymiller said:

i dunno how palestine gets dragged into this, really.

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Because it's an issue that angers the entire muslim world, rightly, and is the number one reason why they can recruit cannon fodder so easily, especially from nice integrated middle class muslim families who don't look like terrorists.

plenty of people all over hampstead are angered, 'rightly', by palestine too, but there's a fatal lack of clarity in what you're saying: i'm thinking people driven to bomb buses in london by the situation (highly dubious proposition) are likely also to be against the very idea of israel in the first place, which takes us into a different place. but where does the 'rightly' come from? what are you affirming here?