The cryptic cold war realism of Leo Strauss

Abstract

This paper seeks to shed light upon recent controversies concerning Leo Strauss' alleged influence on contemporary American and global politics. It exposes and analyses Strauss' trenchant critique of liberal modernity and then offers a critical discussion on the nature of his legacy and the reception of his ideas in the United States since the 1950s. It is argued that although there are very good reasons to be anxious about the political implications of his ideas, when understood in the cultural and intellectual context of Weimar Germany and post-war America, Strauss’ philosophical enterprise is more ambiguous than it has been suggested by his most fervent detractors in recent feuds over America's ‘war on terror’. To the extent that Strauss has anything to do with contemporary politics and international relations, the analysis presented here suggests that his influence has less to do with the Bush administration's war cabinet than with the long-drawn efforts of neo-conservative intellectuals to foment the political and socio-cultural conditions that have facilitated the ‘re-nationalisation’ of America and its incremental departure from the socio-economic and geopolitical pacts of the post-war period since the 1970s.