(no subject)

[frandroid]

Both Brodie and Harper are graduates of the Calgary School, a group of University of Calgary political scientists including Tom Flanagan, another right-hand man to Harper, Barry Cooper, David Bercuson and Ted Morton. Neo-conservatives all, they follow the teachings of German-American political philosopher Leo Strauss.

Father of the neo-conservative movement, Strauss had a deep antipathy towards liberal democracy and its supposed moral relativism. He had a number of jarring beliefs: that society had to be governed by a small intellectual — and male — élite who would use “noble lies” to keep the rabble in check, that religion and fear must be used to control the masses and that perpetual war is humanity's natural condition. Little surprise that Straussians dot the highest reaches of the current U.S. administration.

Cuts targeted to keep the neo-cons on top [from rabble.ca]

Comments

[theoria.livejournal.com]

The article is incoherent, to say the least. The Calgary School isn't a "Straussian" school. The major centers of "Straussian-ism" in Canada are UoT and Carleton political science departments. Although, since Pangle left Toronto for Texas, the UoT outpost is much depleted, to say the least. (Although there is a junior Straussian up for tenure at Toronto, although I think she's in philosophy.)

Cooper, incidentally, got his PhD at York and wrote his dissertation - under the guidance of the eminent Hegel scholar, H.S Harris, on Kojeve, who, while a friend of Strauss', certainly did not agree with him (their correspondence, collected in the 2000 edition of Strauss' On Tyranny more than amply confirms this, but any attentive reader of both Strauss and Kojeve can see they hold absolutely incompatable positions!)

Cooper isn't even a Kojeve-an; he's a Voegelian. Most people have picked up on the Voegelin influence in neo-conservative thought, in part because Voegelin was as much a theologian as he was a philosopher. Good liberals don't read theology! (How mistaken they are.) And his membership in the "Calgary School" is much questioned: he spends his time in Vacouver at the Fraser Institute - for over a decade now, the FI has bought out Cooper's teaching commitments.

Few, other than journalists and herself, take Drury seriously. With good reason. (Her book on Kojeve is also a piece of shit.)

[theoria.livejournal.com]

While the article is, indeed, incoheren, I clearly meant to write "incorrect"!

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

This is so much outside my realm of knowledge it's not funny. But thanks anyway, I'll keep my antennae up.

[theoria.livejournal.com]

My point was: yes, they are bad people, but, if you are going to call them bad (which is correct), it is nonetheless imperative that you do so for the right reasons. The general commentary on Strauss and Straussianism reveals an absolute failure on the part of liberals (I won't say "the left"!) to actually engage with his thought and why powerful people have found it compelling. (Not to mention that it absolutely ignores the profound fractures within the Straussian school that, like all factions - the left included, results in violent explosions and defenses of the orthodoxy. All the same, someone as unexceptional as Diana Schaub (whose book, Erotic Liberalism is nonetheless worth reading - but not right now as I have it out from the library) can receive a senior appointment in the Bush administration. (In education, I think.)