Strauss Explained

My University experience was largely dominated by a program that was founded by an academic whose vocational pedigree is descended from Leo Strauss. The founder of the Torrey Honors Institute was taught by someone who was taught by Strauss. Strauss is not a mandated reading, however, in any of our standard curriculum. He is only used as a secondary source in highly specialized Plato classes. I never took one of those classes (the beauty of the medieval synthesis drawing me into other areas of study), so I have never read a book by Strauss.

Nevertheless, the description by this article - The Demonization of Strauss from the New York Sun - strikes me as likely correct. This is because my honor's program's main goal was to teach us to read and think critically: the methods described in this article as Strauss's methods were methods that I learned in that program. In short, the shoe fits.

Therefore, though I am generally skeptical when someone throws out the term "anti-semitic" within an intellectual debate, I feel that this article provides some warrant to that accusation. The accusations directed in Strauss' (and his descendant's) direction really do seem blindly hateful.