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scooper
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Subject: The Theologico-Political Problem
Conservative religious intellectuals in America seem to have become fond of Leo Strauss and Isaiah Berlin for their having given arguments for including the insights of revealed religion (particularly insights of both orthodox Judaism and orthodox Christianity) in public debate, legislation, and jurisprudence. And they may have a point. But they may also have engaged in a subtle Occidentalism (hatred of the West and Westerners) as evidence by the following quote from Steven J. Lenzner's review of Heinrich Meier's Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem:
This charge that bourgeois liberalism lacks authenticity because it lacks passion, this strife-seeking in the name of a higher cause (for Schmitt any cause, for Strauss the cause of God) echoes the sentiment that underlies the self-hatred of Western intellectuals for the same West that underlies their intellectual tradition.
I have yet to read any of Strauss' writings, or those of Berlin. But I fear that they tread on dangerous ground, that may not be so far separated from the current enemies of the West, who also believe they are acting in the name of revealed religion. In any case, I would appreciate any insight and guidance as to where to start, and what to select from their large corpus of writings.
Liberalism, according to Schmitt, was above all a rejection of the political, the characteristic distinction of which he held to be the division into "friends" and "enemies." Such a life - lacking in the passion and committment that would lead one to die for a cause - seemed to Schmitt a rejection of all that was high and vital in man. .... Strauss was no more attracted to a debased liberalism than was Schmitt, but he sought not to negate it, but to ascend from it.
This charge that bourgeois liberalism lacks authenticity because it lacks passion, this strife-seeking in the name of a higher cause (for Schmitt any cause, for Strauss the cause of God) echoes the sentiment that underlies the self-hatred of Western intellectuals for the same West that underlies their intellectual tradition.
I have yet to read any of Strauss' writings, or those of Berlin. But I fear that they tread on dangerous ground, that may not be so far separated from the current enemies of the West, who also believe they are acting in the name of revealed religion. In any case, I would appreciate any insight and guidance as to where to start, and what to select from their large corpus of writings.
Because there is more to Religion than pleasing your Imaginary Friend.