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Misreading Ryn (Again)

Anyhow, the contradiction of the day is this: if the ideas of Leo Strauss and Harry Jaffa are somehow behind the Bush doctrine and the Iraq war, why are Harry Jaffa and so many of his students critical of the Bush doctrine and the Iraq war? While many students of Strauss happen to agree that […]

Anyhow, the contradiction of the day is this: if the ideas of Leo Strauss and Harry Jaffa are somehow behind the Bush doctrine and the Iraq war, why are Harry Jaffa and so many of his students critical of the Bush doctrine and the Iraq war? While many students of Strauss happen to agree that the conflict in Iraq was necessary or justified on the basis of national security, this is a prudential argument, not a philosophic one. When it comes to the philosophic argument that democracy, in a radical and unqualified sense, is inherently good, right, and true and ought to be exported by force throughout the world—well, of course this is a dangerous idea, and this is exactly what Professor Jaffa and many of his students have argued against. ~Matthew Peterson

Mr. Peterson casts Prof. Ryn’s distinction of conservative and neo-Jacobin, and Ryn’s criticism of Jaffa and Strauss, strictly in terms of the Iraq war, which is not entirely correct. These are connected, but not nearly as simply as Mr. Peterson claims. He seems to imagine that if he can show that Harry Jaffa and others at Claremont have expressed reservations about the more lunatic aspects of current policy in the Near East, then he will have acquitted them of the charge of neo-Jacobinism. Alas, no.

Mr. Peterson goes down this road because he misunderstands Prof. Ryn, and actually does not seem interested in understanding. What is the connection Prof. Ryn actually makes between Straussian ideology and the disastrous foreign policy unfolding before us? He tells us here (hat tip to Daniel McCarthy for pointing out this article):

Led by the Straussians, neoconservatives have long tried to transfer the patriotism of Americans from their historically formed society to the ideological America more to the neoconservatives’ liking. They have tried to make the so-called Founding, including the work of the framers of the Constitution, seem the implementation of an ahistorical idea conceived by anti-traditional lawgivers. In recent decades the neoconservatives have even tried, with considerable success, to redefine American conservatism accordingly. Far-fetched though it may sound, they have, in effect, persuaded many Americans of limited education to think of conservatism as celebrating a radical understanding of America. Irving Kristol’s son William has long argued that, for America to be able to carry out its universalist ideological mission in the world, American government must have great military and other governmental might.

So we see that he charges the Straussians with offering a flawed, ideological interpretation of the early republican period that has paved the way for others who view America as an ideological or propositional nation with a similarly ideological mission in world history. If the Straussians are not exactly the terrible simplifiers that have been let loose on the world, they have helped create the intellectual atmosphere that makes the terrible simplifiers not only somewhat credible but acceptable as conservatives. Which, of course, they are not.

Mr. Peterson makes a lot of other hot-headed and false claims about what we supposedly confused “neo-traditionalists” believe, to which I may return later, though I suspect any answer I give would only result in an even more contemptuous reply. My short answer to some would be: Lincoln was a tyrant, as anyone who actually respects the Constitution could admit without shame, and the Declaration of Independence does indeed make some philosophical claims that are not, or are not necessarily, true. Against Prof. Ryn he makes the charges that he made “sloppy, misleading, and unprofessional remarks” in his talk in Philadelphia. That’s quite a charge, and he hasn’t even come close to backing it up. If Mr. Peterson wants to see what sloppy, misleading and unprofessional looks like, he can re-read his most recent post.

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