Leo Strauss, Destroyer of Judaism

[ellens]

This is veering far off course from Leo Strauss, but when it comes to the power of the mass media, optimistic predictions are usually wrong. Historian Barbara Tuchman concluded before she died that the invention of television had largely been a disaster for the US, except as a consolation for the elderly and hospitalized, who can't get around. I tend to agree with her. TV was supposed to make the world smaller and nicer by showing everyone what people are really like, so you don't need to rely on negative stereotypes and hearsay. In many respects, it only makes the negative stereotypes more believable because you see them everyday on TV, rather than once in awhile.

Moreover, it makes the have nots much more envious and enraged at the power of the haves because they have to watch them everyday on TV and watch their lifestyles, etc. I remember reading a great article that David Mamet wrote in the Village Voice a couple of years ago called, "Why I am no Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal." What finally motivated him to give up brain-dead liberalism was listening to NPR everyday and their romanticization of Muslim fanatics and the Palestinians. It enraged him in a way that print journalism probably wouldn't.

On the other hand, Saturday Night Live probably has a beneficial effect on peaceful coexistence, so I suppose you could argue it both ways.

[lzzrdgrrl]

Television gives you society without having to deal with people. It's synthetic culture - providing the comforts and mental stimulations of same without any of the social obligations and responsibilities. It basically turns us all into the invalid and the elderly by marginalising us into isolation and turning our critical thinking into putty......

[Pseudoplotinus]

Enjoying this thread. Read some of Strauss and found him interesting, but his premise of exotericism, that the great writers recorded their true thoughts in their works only cryptically for later writers who knew how to read exoterically, struck me as a tad too magical and gnostic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ellens, but I do believe Dr. Hanson was a fellow traveler of the Neo-conservative clique, in fact I recall hearing him described as one on occasion (presumably an honorific since he isn't Jewish). Come to think of it, I've called my self a Neo-Con on occasion (also not Jewish). To quote Irving Krystol, a Neo-Conservative is a former liberal who was mugged by reality. The fact the Neo-Conservatism came into it's own after the country got mugged by geo-political reality on 9/11 explains itself. The fact that it fell out of favor eight years later, is a more interesting question. Exactly how was it discredited? I think the answer has more to do with war fatigue than sinister Straussian string pullers being exposed. Regarding Straussian Atheism, if anyone has read any of Jaffa's stuff, I think they would have a hard time characterizing him as a closet atheist.

Finally, it's interesting that Neo-Conservatism has gone from sinister puppet master to collective scapegoat. As someone who still associates with the term (I suppose I take pleasure defying the fashions) I watch the news and read the papers, and find little comfort in the Obama administrations lame attempts at employing soft-power (smart-power?) alternatives. At the end of the day, I think the Neo-Cons will come out the better for it, but only after the efforts of its many critics, who are now in power, are given their opportunity to be mugged ...

[ellens]

Pseudoplotinus,

I still support Commentary Magazine and go to their dinner every year, so I definitely would like to see this movement revived. They helped to bury limosine liberalism, especially of the New York variety, back in the 1970's and 80's. People tend to forget that. That was their greatest accomplishment, in my view, and as you mention, Irving Kristol was their godfather and was a good deal more attractive than John Podhoretz, the current 'el capitan'. Providing an intellectual style and substance to the assault on liberalism so it wouldn't look like all conservatives in America are Southern rednecks was an achievement. They plus William Buckley made it respectable for an intellectual person to be conservative. Years ago, it wasn't respectable at all.

But they overreached and their nationbuilding in Iraq is turning into a disaster. On the other hand, everything in the MidEast turns into disaster when you try to be nice to the Arabs. Obama will end up looking as bad as the NeoCons, and then they may revive themselves, I hope. But I do think the playing with religion for electoral gain or merely for posing sake is not a good stand for them. That is John Podhoretz' view and won't change under him. He reeks of cynicism. They need some new leaders, but I suppose mama and pappa will have to depart from the scene before that happens. Familialism is not just a disability of Sicilians.

[Simple Minded]

Television gives you society without having to deal with people. It's synthetic culture - providing the comforts and mental stimulations of same without any of the social obligations and responsibilities. It basically turns us all into the invalid and the elderly by marginalising us into isolation and turning our critical thinking into putty......

So too the internet....

My amygdala loves you.... at least the virtual me loves the virtual you....

As long as we never actually meet, it will be good, better than reality could ever be.

I think... it might be better this way....

[total issues]

You lot hate modernity. I remember life before television - as a child, it was only just becoming affordable for working class Brits (we got a "telly" when I was nine). It was dull, I blame the measurable rise in IQs in recent decades - the Flynn effect- on the mental stimulation of television and computer games.

It seems to have an even more important impact in rural India - liberating women

[Pseudoplotinus]

Ellens,

As a rule I find a pre-occupation with intellectual respectability often comes at the sacrifice of actual practical discernment. It usually means finding respectability among whatever happens to be the reigning sensibility coming out of the ivy league industrial complex - a sort of intellectual sausage factory that I think bears an amazing resemblance to Plato's mythical cave, except in this case the projectors are being operated by multi-culturalists. Hence when the buildings started falling in Manhattan a lot of academic ink was spilled cogitating over why 'we' were to blame, the academy simply had no categories with which to explain what had just happened. The rare exceptions were Huntington, Bernard Lewis and the NeoCons. What the latter appreciated was that the world outside the cave was essentially Hobbesian. And more significantly that this Hobbesian world had just demonstrated an ability to sneak inside the cave and blow itself up and take a lot of us with them. This still seems to be a difficult thing for academics and intellectuals to fully appreciate as instanciated by the latest curfuffle over Juan Williams and NPR. And I might also add that it seems to be ignored in your last post. Forgive me if I misunderstood but you seem to assume that the problems of the Arab world are largely self-contained, and that we can actually choose to disengage without any prospects of that dysfunction exploding once again within our own borders. While I can appreciate how appealing that may be to hold, it seriously ignores the hard reality memorialized by the rather large crater in downtown Manhattan.

[ellens]

No, I don't think the problems of the Arab world are self-contained at all. They have spent 60 years demonstrating to the world that they do not want to be left to themselves to be miserable. They want to SHARE their misery with absolutely everyone by blaming it all on Israel and having everyone else do likewise. It hasn't helped them a bit. If they hadn't received all the "respect" and "sympathy" from an uncomprehending outside world, and had been left to their own devices, they might have made some effort to solve what ails them. What ails them, as Spengler has written about many times, is a civilizational crisis that comes from within and can only be solved that way, if at all.

No foreigners bearing gifts are going to solve their cultural crisis. That is what I meant. Their problems will be with us until their countries are gobbled up by other powers, as they once were in the past. The Turks have just joined the list as one prospective gobbler, resuming their old Ottoman role. America will be a meddler or enabler but can't possibly be a gobbler because it has no taste for imperialism and is too far away to merely expand, in a fit of absent-mindedness, over an unguarded border. I agree with Edward Luttwak's advice, that he wrote many years ago in Commentary and other magazines, that the best thing for policy makers in Washington is to ignore the Arabs as much as possible, and to stop all peace processes. The more attention they get, the less they will focus on the internal causes of their terrible condition. Nothing can be done by any outside power to solve what is wrong with their culture. The best thing that can be done with them is controlling the fallout when their countries start to fall apart from within, while perhaps encouraging this, in certain cases. If the Indians controlled the Arabian peninsula, you would never have to worry about OSL.

[Victor]

Hey folks, I've taken "IT" UP on myself to give the cleaning lady the day off and "IT" is not because she knows more about Strauss than I do but let's be fair, I told her, I know that his name is Leo and that must count for something.

ellens
>>I agree with Edward Luttwak's advice, that he wrote many years ago in Commentary and other magazines, that the best thing for policy makers in Washington is to ignore the Arabs as much as possible, and to stop all peace processes. The more attention they get, the less they will focus on the internal causes of their terrible condition. Nothing can be done by any outside power to solve what is wrong with their culture.<<

An unguarded border you say ellens! What are the chances that outside alien forces might infiltrate and start promoting pluralism and tolerance, including gay rabbis and gay marriage and that count only lead to more problems. Right?

I hear ya! Be nice sinner vic if you know what's good for you!?

Peace