“Four Reigns” by Kukrit Pramoj (translated by Tulachandra)

This novel is a Siamese classic. It follows the life of a minor royal courtier, Phloi, from her birth to her death, through the reigns of the four monarchs she lives under. A reoccurring theme of the novel is the nature of life’s impermanence. As a child, Phloi was assigned to one of the minor Princesses in Rama V’s court. ““I am not all that fond of jewelry,” Sadet said with a plaintive sigh. “But you can imagine how tongues would wag if I went about unornamented. So I wear them, without much enjoyment, which doesn’t prevent me from fussing and fuming when they get lost or broken. Aren’t we funny creatures, Phloi? How we cling to our possessions! And be it a precious gem or worthless pebble, if we let ourselves become too attached to it we suffer when it’s gone.”” Years later, in the reign of Rama VI, speaking to her husband, Prem, Phloi maintains her reverence and respect for the monarchy. “It’s only because I don’t like flatterers and fawners that I don’t want to become one myself. You and I, Khun Prem, will always be loyal to the throne, as were our grandfathers and grandmothers before us. We are Nai Luang’s loyal subjects and it follows that we’re going to be loyal subjects to his wives and children.”

In Rama VII’s reign, her youngest son, Ot, explains to his uncle, Phoem, what he appreciates about Siam after returning from his studies in England, “The muang nok rich are many times richer; that’s the difference. The very rich over there are so monumentally, colossally rich that they would consider what we call a very large fortune here somewhat laughable. On the other hand, our poor people are much more fortunate than theirs. Life in a cold climate can be brutal when you don’t have money. Here food is easy to come by—fish in the water everywhere, fruit and vegetables growing wild, a bowl of rice-and-curry costing practically nothing. Here with the sun shining a poor man in a loin cloth sitting under a shady tree is cool and comfortable. His wealthier neighbor may even be dressed the same way, for rich or poor, we all like our cool comfort, don’t we?” However, Ot’s older brother, An, upon his return from studying law in France, has a slightly different view, “There are enough men with ability and expert knowledge in this country, but they don’t rise to where that can exercise effective leadership because they haven’t got the push and pull needed in our society. So what have we got? We’ve got men with little competence but lots of family influence together with old men with obsolete ideas running the country for us.” Perhaps Phloi’s brother, Phoem, puts living through the ups and downs of life’s challenges the best, “The world turns and turns, Mae Phloi. The pendulum swings. Let us enjoy our roast duck.”

“American Pastoral” by Philip Roth

This is a grotesque Jewish-American bildungsroman of sorts. Roth’s novel depicts the inner and outer nature of man and his utter infathomablity to other humans. We are completely alone in this world, incomprehensible to even those closest to us, all the while going through our own lives. We, humans, are utterly unknowable to each other. “The Swede had got up off the ground and he’d done it—a second marriage, a second shot at a unified life controlled by good sense and the classic restraints, once again convention shaping everything, large and small, and serving as barrier against the improbabilities—a second shot at being the traditional devoted husband and father, pledging allegiance all over again to the standard rules and regulations that are the heart of family order…. He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach—that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again…. Stoically he suppresses his horror. He learns to live behind a mask. A lifetime experiment in endurance. A performance over a ruin. Swede Levov lives a double life…. The brutality of the destruction of this indestructible man. Whatever Happened to Swede Levov…. And in the everyday world, nothing to be done but respectably carry on the huge pretense of living as himself, with all the shame of masquerading as the ideal man.”

“A History of the Island” by Eugene Vodolazkin (translated by Lisa C. Hayden)

This is an odd novel-length parable, told as a centuries-long history about a fairytale island, often enmeshed in political strife, strange rivalries, occasional conspiracies, on-and-off-again civil wars, and, occasionally, threatened by its mainland enemies, such as France. The royal couple, Prince Parfeny and Princess Ksenia, whose commentary is interspersed within this history of the island, are three hundred and fifty years-old and have lived through every change in the island’s history, political and otherwise. Princess Ksenia remembered, “Agafon the Forward-Looking spoke reluctantly to the princes about the impending pestilence and he said nothing about their deaths. He did not like looking ahead. Strictly speaking, the very nickname “Forward-Looking” was not given to him entirely fairly. Agafon looked in all directions simultaneously…. He saw coming events with the same clarity as he saw events that had already arrived. Possibly even more clearly because the imperfections of the human memory had not distorted them. History, Agafon taught, tells much more about the present than the past.” The court historian relates, “In our land, nothing worthy of notice happened during all those years. Is that not a sign of the authorities’ wisdom? Happy are the times that do not enter the annals. Blessed is he whose rule is unmarked by historical events, for nearly all of them are born of blood and suffering.” Prince Parfeny concludes, “Our discovery seemed so beautiful to us that we had no doubt of its truthfulness since beauty and truth accompany one another.”

“The Custom of the Country” by Edith Wharton

This is Wharton’s masterful portrayal of the social-climbing gold-digger par-excellence, Undine Spragg. The aristocratic New York world of old money that she is, at first, so eager to enter is best described through the eyes of her first husband, Ralph Marvell. “Ralph sometimes called his mother and grandfather the Aborigines, and likened them to those vanishing denizens of the American continent doomed to rapid extinction with the advance of the invading race. He was fond of describing Washington Square as the “Reservation,” and of prophesying that before long its inhabitants would be exhibited at ethnological shows, pathetically engaged in the exercise of their primitive industries…. Small, cautious, middle-class, had been the ideals of aboriginal New York; but it suddenly struck the young man that they were singularly coherent and respectable as contrasted with the chaos of indiscriminate appetites which made up its modern tendencies…. Nothing in the Dagonet and Marvell tradition was opposed to this desultory dabbling with life. For four or five generations it had been the rule of both houses that a young fellow should go to Columbia or Harvard, read law, and then lapse into more or less cultivated inaction. The only essential was that he should live “like a gentleman”—that is, with a tranquil disdain for mere money-getting.”

Throughout Wharton’s novel, it seemed that being entranced by Undine’s charms was many a man’s undoing, including her own husband, Ralph Marvell’s. “It was a point of honour with him not to seem to disdain any of Undine’s amusements…. He told himself that there is always a Narcissus-element in youth, and that what Undine really enjoyed was the image of her own charm mirrored in the general admiration. With her quick perceptions and adaptabilities she would soon learn to care more about the quality of the reflecting surface…. She would not take more risks than she could help, and it was admiration, not love, that she wanted. She wanted to enjoy herself, and her conception of enjoyment was publicity, promiscuity—the band, the banners, the crowd, the close contact of covetous impulses, and the sense of walking among them in cool security…. And with the sense of inevitableness there came a sudden wave of pity. Poor Undine! She was what the gods had made her—a creature of skin-deep reactions, a mote in the beam of pleasure…. That the reckoning between himself and Undine should be settled in dollars and cents seemed the last bitterest satire on his dreams: he felt himself miserably diminished by the smallness of what had filled his world.”

For all intents and purposes, Undine lived on a different plane than those with whom she inhabited her life. Her conceptions of reality simply did not always conform to theirs and life was often just a contest of wills. “It was impossible for Undine to understand a social organization which did not regard the indulging of woman as its first purpose, or to believe that any one taking another view was not moved by avarice or malice…. She could never be with people who had all the things she envied without being hypnotized into the belief that she had only to put her hand out to obtain them, and all the unassuaged rancours and hungers of her early days in West End Avenue came back with increased acuity. She knew her wants so much better now, and was so much more worthy of the things she wanted!”

“Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy” by Leo Strauss

This is a short collection of essays that Strauss had been compiling when he passed away. Although published posthumously, most of these pieces had been previously published in other venues and Strauss had already selected the order for their presentation in this collection. As usual, these essays mostly deal with a deep reading of the pre-modern philosophers, often with an esoteric interpretation. Strauss begins by stating that “political philosophy was concerned with the best or just order of society which is by nature best or just everywhere or always. [It] presents the relatively most perfect solution of the riddles of life and the world.”

Looking at Plato’s “Apology of Socrates,” Strauss begins by discussing philosophy beyond politics and on how a man must live virtuously, in general. He makes the assertion that Socrates insisted that “one must not when suffering injustice do injustice in turn…. Inflicting evil on human beings, even if one has suffered evil from them, is unjust, for inflicting evil on human beings differs in nothing from acting unjustly…. The cleavage among men is no longer that between knowers and ignoramuses, or between the philosophers and the non-philosophers, i.e., between the few who hold and the many who do not hold that the unexamined life is not worth living, but that between those who hold that one may not requite evil with evil and those who hold that one may, or even ought to, do it.”

In Strauss’ essay “On the Euthydemus” he discusses Socrates’ views on wisdom. When talking to his friend and patron Kleinias, Strauss interprets Socrates as claiming, “in all cases wisdom makes human beings fortunate…. Wisdom is, humanly speaking, omnipotent…. The mere use of good things will not suffice for making a man happy; the use must be right use; while wrong use is bad, non-use is neither good nor bad; right use is brought about by knowledge…. No possession whatever is of any benefit if its use is not guided by prudence, wisdom, intelligence; a man possessing little but using it intelligently is more benefited than a man possessing much but using it without intelligence…. Wisdom—and of course not honor or glory—is not only the greatest good; it is the sole good; only through the presence of wisdom and the guidance by it are the other goods good…. Since our happiness depends altogether on our wisdom and if virtue can be acquired by learning, learning, striving for wisdom, philosophizing is the one thing needful.”

Finally, Strauss moves his discussion to political philosophy, specifically. He states that Socrates felt that “justice seems to be the only good, the only virtue that is beneficent (on the whole) even if not guided by intelligence, perhaps because the laws which the just man obeys supply the lack of intelligence in the man himself…. Justice in contradistinction to courage and moderation cannot be misused.” However, Strauss ends his essay “On the Euthydemus” by stating that Socrates might have been a better cheerleader than teacher. “Socrates’ effort to determine the science which makes human beings happy has ended in complete failure. He has confirmed by deed the view of some of his critics that he was most excellent in exhorting men to virtue but not able to guide men to it.” Strauss finishes with a tantalizing thought about majorities and the politics of democracy. He states, “According to Socrates, the greatest enemy of philosophy, the greatest sophist, is the political multitude, i.e. the enactor of the Athenian laws.” Given Socrates’ end, this seems apt, even if in tension with his previous thoughts on just laws.

Strauss’ essay, “Xenophon’s Anabasis,” deals further with the practicalities of politics. Strauss contends that Xenophon often puts words in different speakers mouths for effect and that the “character” of “Themoistogenes of Syracuse is a pseudonym for Xenophon of Athens”, himself. Strauss states that Xenophon reports the Athenian Theopompos as saying, “the only good things which they have are arms and virtue, but their virtue would not be of any avail without the arms.” The speaker, “Theopompos,” is making the point echoed by Aristotle, “virtue, and especially moral virtue, is in need of external equipment.” Especially in politics, it does not do to have the moral high ground if you cannot execute your virtue.

Elsewhere in "Xenophon’s Anabasis,” Strauss discusses the role and comportment proper to a gentleman, by way of Proxenos. He states that Proxnos “believed to acquire through his actions with Cyrus [the Persian usurper] a great name and great power and much money; but he was obviously concerned with acquiring those things only in just and noble ways. He was indeed able to rule gentlemen but he was unable to inspire the soldiers with awe and fear of himself…. Proxenos seems to be more attracted to the noble acquisition of fame, great power and great wealth anywhere on earth to than to his fatherland,” Greece, whom he betrays. Two points of interest here are that Proxenos, the gentleman, is far from patriotic to his country of birth, but views his allegiance to whatever cause would advance him, with honor. Secondly, Proxenos might have been a great leader of gentlemen, but not of a mob of soldiers. In politics, one must tailor one’s words and actions to the situation. There are no absolutes.

Later in this essay, Strauss describes the scene after Xenophon has taken effective control of the entire mercenary Greek army on Asia Minor. Strauss speaks of interactions between “barbarous men whom [the Greek soldiers] had met on their march, the most remote from the Greek laws, for they did in public what others would do only when they are alone.” There was the idea of the Laws as being above private virtue and discretion for the Greeks but not for barbarians.

Strauss spent much of his career teasing out the implications of natural law. In his essay, “On Natural Law,” he states “by natural law is meant a law which determines what is right and wrong and which has power or is valid by nature, inherently, hence everywhere and always.” However, he then continues, “the primary question concerns less natural law than natural right, i.e. what is by nature right or just: is all right conventional (of human origin) or is there some right which is natural (physei dikaion)?” Did rights and law come to man when he created a society by covenant or were there laws and rights even within a state of nature? Strauss begins with Plato. “While Plato cannot be said to have set forth a teaching of natural law, there can be no doubt that he opposed conventionalism; he asserts that there is a natural right, i.e. something which is by nature just. The naturally just or right is the “idea” of justice…. A man (or rather his soul) or a city is just if each of its parts does its work well…. Only the wise man or the philosopher can by truly just…. Natural right in Plato’s sense is in the first place the natural order of the virtues as the natural perfections of the human soul…. Such assigning requires that the men who know what is by nature good for each and all, the philosophers, be the absolute rulers and that absolute communism (communism regarding property, women and children) be established among those citizens who give the commonwealth its character…. This order is the political order according to nature, as distinguished from and opposed to the conventional order.”

Strauss next contrasts a few other philosophers’ views of natural law. In Aristotle’s “Rhetoric” he defines ““the law according to nature” as the unchangeable law common to all men.” In “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle writes “natural right is that right which has everywhere the same power and does not owe its validity to human enactment.” As far as politics, Aristotle believed, “natural right is that right which must be recognized by any political society if it is to last and which for this reason is everywhere in force. Natural right thus understood delineates the minimum conditions of political life…. Natural right in this sense is indifferent to the difference of regimes whereas positive right is relative to the regime.”

The Stoics were the first Greek philosophers to make natural law an explicit theme of their works. For them, “the natural or divine or eternal law is identified with God or the highest god (fire, aether, or air) or his reason…. The virtuous life as choiceworthy for its own sake comes to be understood as compliance with natural law.” For the Stoics, all study of philosophy was a study in moral virtue. Positive laws that contradict the natural laws were invalid and must not be obeyed.

Finally, Strauss compares the ancient Greek conception with the Christian teachings of Thomas Aquinas. “In the Christian version, Stoic corporealism (“materialism”) is abandoned…. [However,] natural law retains its status as rational…. Natural law is clearly distinguished from the eternal law—God Himself or the principle of His governance of all creatures—on the one hand, and the divine law, i.e. the positive law contained in the Bible, on the other. The eternal law is the ground of the natural law…. As a rational being man is by nature inclined toward acting according to reason; acting according to reason is acting virtuously; natural law prescribes therefore the acts of virtue.” Just like for the Stoics, Aquinas, in the “Summa Theologica,” states that “a human law which disagrees with natural law does not have the force of law.”

Another one of Strauss’ recurring themes in his writings was the tension between Jerusalem and Athens. In this collection’s essay, “Jerusalem and Athens,” he comes about the conflict from a slightly different angle than his previous works. “According to the Bible, the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord; according to the Greek philosophers, the beginning of wisdom is wonder.” Strauss also contrasts the two viewpoints according to Nietzsche. “The peculiarity of the Greeks is the full dedication of the individual to the contest of excellence, distinction, supremacy. The peculiarity of the Hebrews is the utmost honoring of father and mother.” Strauss takes a close look at Genesis. He concludes, “man was not denied knowledge; without knowledge he could not have known the tree of knowledge nor the woman nor the brutes; nor could he have understood the prohibition. Man was denied knowledge of good and evil, i.e., the knowledge sufficient for guiding himself, his life. While not being a child he was to live in child-like simplicity and obedience to God.” Strauss contrasts Socrates with the Prophets. “The perfectly just man, the man who is as just as is humanly possible, is according to Socrates the philosopher and according to the prophets the faithful servant of the Lord. The philosopher is the man who dedicates his life to the quest for knowledge of the good, of the idea of the good; what we would call moral virtue is only the condition or by-product of that quest. According to the prophets, however, there is no need for the quest for knowledge of the good: God “hath shewed thee, o man, what is good.”” Finally, there is the question of their audience. “The prophets as a rule address the people and sometimes even all the peoples, whereas Socrates as a rule addresses one man.”

Strauss also included his essay, “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil” in this collection. “For Nietzsche, as distinguished from the classics, politics belongs from the outset to a lower place than either philosophy or religion.” It is not a subset of philosophy, but below it. “Whereas according to Plato the pure mind grasps the truth, according to Nietzsche the impure mind, or a certain kind of impure mind, is the sole source of truth.” There is no natural law. “The world in itself, the “thing-in-itself,” “nature” is wholly chaotic and meaningless. Hence all meaning, all order originates in man, in man’s creative acts, in his will to power.” The world does not exist objectively, but must be interpreted. “The world of any concern to us is necessarily a fiction, for it is necessarily anthropocentric; man is necessarily in a manner the measure of all things.” Nietzsche contradicts Socrates about the nature, purpose, and goodness of knowledge. For Nietzsche, “knowledge cannot be, or cannot be good, for its own sake; it is justifiable only as self-knowledge: being oneself means being honest with oneself, going the way to one’s own ideal.” Nietzsche believed in different morals for different human beings. He despised “the morality stemming from timidity; that morality is the morality of the human herd, i.e. of the large majority of men.” He spoke of the “herd-instinct of obedience which is now almost universally innate and transmitted by inheritance.” Nietzsche denied that there is one true nature to man. “All values are human creations.” Passivity and amelioration will make man weak. “Suffering and inequality are the prerequisites of human greatness…. Hitherto suffering and inequality have been taken for granted, as “given,” as imposed on man. Henceforth, they must be willed.”

Strauss dives back into political philosophy proper with his essay, “Niccolo Machiavelli.” Strauss makes the case that Machiavelli’s ethics are a return to the ancients, to a pagan ethics. “That rediscovery which leads up to the demands that the virtue of the ancients be imitated by present-day men, runs counter to the present-day religion [Christianity]…. the virtues of the pagans are only resplendent vices.” For Machiavelli, Livy’s histories are his Bible. “Our religion has placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and the disparagement of the human things, whereas the ancient religion has placed the highest good in greatness of mind, strength of body, and in all other things apt to make men most strong.” The Christian virtues might be fine for the individual, but not for politics and not for the ruler of men. “If one wishes that a sect or a republic live long, one must bring it back frequently to its beginning.” For Machiavelli, that beginning was ancient Rome. “Men were good at the beginning not because of innocence but because they were gripped by terror and fear.”

The final essay in this collection is Strauss’ introduction to a new edition of Hermann Cohen’s book, “Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism.” This neatly essay brings together Strauss’ passions for religion, reason, esoteric writing, deep reading, and the Jewish traditions. In Cohen’s discussion on the fellowship of man, Strauss brings out the point that “for the prophets and the psalms it is poverty and not death and pain that constitutes the great suffering of man or the true enigma of human life…. Poverty becomes the prime object of compassion.” On prayer, Strauss states, “the soul and inwardness of the Law is prayer. Prayer gives life to all actions prescribed by the Law…. Prayer is the language of the correlation of man with God. As such it must be a dialogue while being a monologue…. If all other purposes of prayer could be questioned, its necessity for veracity, for purity of the soul cannot.” Finally, Strauss ends, “truthfulness requires knowledge, and our knowledge is imperfect. Therefore truthfulness must be accompanied by modesty, which is the virtue of skepticism…. He who is humble before God is modest toward men.”