Leo Strauss and the Straussians.(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: Readers of Matthew Sharpe's "Leo Strauss and the 'New American Century'" (September 2004) are entitled to wonder whether all philosophers engaged in politics do harm.

Following Richard Rorty, Sharpe raises the spectre of the loss of liberal democracy precisely because of what the liberal democracies may do to protect themselves in the event that "a nuclear explosion at some point destroy[s] a major Western city". The implication seems to be that this would follow if the liberal democracies were to choose to retaliate.

Surely this question is one capable of resolution only in the light of the particular circumstances of such an awful event and not one for philosophers to determine in advance. It is hard to see how Kantian generalisation or publication of maxims could be other than a distraction in making such fateful choices and thus a hindrance and a harm to those same liberal democracies. Perhaps it is fortunate, as the article points out, that Australians on the whole regard philosophers as at best a useless lot.

On the other hand, readers would be wrong to conclude that Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a pernicious citizen. His maxim was, "liberal education seeks light and must therefore shun the limelight". He thus abstained from politics, unless engagement in politics includes criticism within the academy of professors who teach notions such as, for example, that "ideas alone" (propaganda, one might say) "can change the world".

Dr Sharpe does not directly say that Leo Strauss engaged in politics. But he invites us in effect to conclude that Strauss taught others pernicious political maxims such as ...