These are a collection of essays on Strauss’ conception of liberalism and liberal education. He contrasts modern liberalism, which he sees as having merged with value-free science, with ancient liberalism, which sought out the “right way” to live and the search for “the truth”. Strauss uses his usual method of deep reading, plucking out timeless strands from Plato’s “Minos”, Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things”, Maimonides’ “The Guide of the Perplexed”, Marsilius’ “Defender of the Peace”, and Spinoza’s “Theologico-political Treatise” amongst others. Purposefully, he chooses pagan, Epicurean, Jewish, Christian, and post-Enlightenment texts. He seeks to prove that “the finished product of a liberal education is a cultured human being.” His view is that every generation has access “to the greatest minds [but] only through the great books…. We are compelled to live with books. But life is too short to live with any but the greatest books.” And a liberal education is more than just memorization and indoctrination, it is treating texts with care, purpose, and criticism. He is unabashedly elitist. “Modern democracy, so far from being universal aristocracy, would be mass rule were it not for the fact that the mass cannot rule, but is ruled by elites…. Liberal education is the counterpoison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart.” Strauss elevates esoteric knowledge above the convictions of the masses. “It demands from us the boldness…. to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity.” This is no trivial matter because “Plato’s suggestion [is] that education in the highest sense is philosophy. Philosophy is quest for wisdom or quest for knowledge regarding the most important, the highest, or the most comprehensive things; such knowledge, he suggested, is virtue and is happiness…. The gentlemen regard virtue as choiceworthy for its own sake, whereas the others praise virtue as a means for acquiring wealth and honor.” Ancient liberalism stood apart from society, but respected it. “The greatest enemies of civilization in civilized countries are those who squander the heritage because they look down on it or on the past; civilization is much less endangered by narrow but loyal preservers than by the shallow and glib futurists who, being themselves rootless, try to destroy all the roots and thus do everything in their power in order to bring back the initial chaos and promiscuity. The first duty of civilized man is then to respect his past.” Still, Strauss quotes Plato approvingly, “the wise men ought not to obey the laws as his rulers but ought to live freely.” Furthermore, “by denying the dependence of man’s thought on powers which he cannot comprehend, classical political philosophy was irreligious.” The philosopher stands aloof from the city, but cannot live without its protection. “Moderation will protect us against the twin dangers of visionary expectations from politics and unmanly contempt for politics. Thus it may again become true that all liberally educated men will be politically moderate men.” In Strauss there was always this tension between discovery and tradition, between the esoteric and accepted conventions, and between the individual and the city. “Originally, a liberal was a man who behaved in a manner becoming a free man as distinguished from a slave. According to the classic analysis, liberality is a virtue concerned with the use of wealth and therefore especially with giving: the liberal man gives gladly of his own in the right circumstances because it is noble to do so, and not from calculation; hence it is not easy for him to become or remain rich…. Most men honor wealth and show therewith that they are slaves of wealth; the man who behaves in a manner becoming a free man comes to sight primarily as a liberal man in the sense articulated by Aristotle. He knows that certain activities and hence in particular certain sciences and arts- the liberal sciences and arts- are choiceworthy for their own sake, regardless of their utility for the satisfaction of the lower kinds of needs. He prefers the goods of the soul to the goods of the body. Liberality is then only one aspect of, not to say one name of, human excellence or being honorable or decent. The liberal man on the highest level esteems most highly the mind and its excellence and is aware of the fact that man at his best is autonomous or not subject to any authority.” Even more pure, more isolated, more esteemed, and more estranged from the city than the life of the liberal gentleman was the life of the philosopher. “The gentleman as gentleman accepts on trust certain most weighty things which for the philosopher are the themes of investigation and of questioning…. Whereas the gentleman must be wealthy in order to do his proper work, the philosopher may be poor…. [Therefore,] philosophers will be ruled by the gentlemen, that is, by their inferiors…. [because] the end of the city is…. not the same as the end of philosophy.” The search for truth is an individual quest and therefore cannot be a political end. It is the goal for the liberally educated elite, but hardly achievable in one’s lifetime. “Given the fact that philosophy is more evidently quest for wisdom than possession of wisdom, the education of the philosopher never ceases as long as he lives; it is the adult education par excellence.”
No comments:
Post a Comment