The letter by Strauss translated here is certainly revealing, though the comments section is, alas, quickly overun by zombies from the Strauss Cult reciting their mantras against the real scholars and philosophers. From the latter group, Tad Brennan (Northwestern) gets the prize for the single, best comment, which captures both Strauss and the cult rather well:
No one has any idea what Strauss meant.
But anyone who criticizes him is distorting what he meant.
Got that?
You know, I can see taking Strauss seriously as a cultural phenomenon--the way we might take Madonna seriously as a cultural phenomenon.
But as a thinker? There's just no there there--there's no coherent, comprehensible theory or doctrine that one can identify and assess. And that's what his supporters say in his defense!
(But when I say it, its part of the ubiquitous distortion.)
What there was, apparently, was a certain allure, a certain indefinable aura of intellectual mystery, a combination of disdain and come-hither that played on insecurities and made students want to be accepted.
Cool. And Madonna wore some fab outfits on her last tour, too.
If we're supposed to take this guy seriously as a thinker, his supporters had better try to identify some of his thoughts. Horton [translater of the letter] is at least trying to take him seriously in that way, and, whadyaknow, the thoughts look pretty ugly.
And so we get the retreat into claims of ineffability .
If you pore through all the comments, be aware that, as often happens with Straussians, Nietzsche gets particularly badly misrepresented. But I don't recommend perusing the comments.
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