The Road to Iraq: Part 7
Leo Strauss, the German Jewish intellectual, wrote to another German scholar in May 1933 (five months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor and a month after passage of the first anti-Jewish laws):
Fascism, in 1933, was an authoritarian political ideology that placed individual and social interests subordinate to the interests of the state.
Authoritarianism was a form of social control characterized by strict obedience to the authority of a state.
Imperialism was the establishment of superiority, subordination and dominion over foreign peoples by a state.
In other words, Strauss was complaining that the Nazi's were just too darned far to the left for his tastes!
"And," you might ask, "just what does that have to do with Iraq?"
Well, Leo Strauss eventually found his way to the United States in 1936 and, from 1949 to 1969, was a faculty member of the University of Chicago specializing in political theory. In addition to fascism, authoritarianism, and imperialism being imperatives for the governmental state, he taught that the philosophers -- the special few political scientists who understood the real truths -- should control the state, but only indirectly so, leaving a figurehead selected from the masses (who could only form opinions as opposed to know truths) as the nominal political leader. Further, as the masses would never know the truths, it was acceptable, even necessary, for the philosophers to speak to the masses in a context different from the one that they spoke among themselves. That context, satisfying the masses opinions and enabling the philosophers to fulfill their separate agendas, could also acceptably include deliberate lies and deceptions as a means unto their ends.
Over the 20 years Strauss taught at the University of Chicago, a cadre of predominately Jewish students adopted some or all of his political theory and began seeking ways of putting it into practice. That cadre of Straussians includes (among others) Paul Wolfowitz, author of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and William Crystal , founder of the Project for the New American Century.
“Just because Germany has turned to the right and has expelled us, it simply does not follow that the principles of the right are therefore to be rejected. To the contrary, only on the basis of principles of the right — fascist, authoritarian, imperial — is it possible in a dignified manner, without the ridiculous and pitiful appeal to ‘the inalienable rights of man’, to protest against the mean nonentity.”The "us" expelled was the German Jews, and the "mean nonentity" was none other than Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party), now commonly known as the Nazi Party.
Fascism, in 1933, was an authoritarian political ideology that placed individual and social interests subordinate to the interests of the state.
Authoritarianism was a form of social control characterized by strict obedience to the authority of a state.
Imperialism was the establishment of superiority, subordination and dominion over foreign peoples by a state.
In other words, Strauss was complaining that the Nazi's were just too darned far to the left for his tastes!
"And," you might ask, "just what does that have to do with Iraq?"
Well, Leo Strauss eventually found his way to the United States in 1936 and, from 1949 to 1969, was a faculty member of the University of Chicago specializing in political theory. In addition to fascism, authoritarianism, and imperialism being imperatives for the governmental state, he taught that the philosophers -- the special few political scientists who understood the real truths -- should control the state, but only indirectly so, leaving a figurehead selected from the masses (who could only form opinions as opposed to know truths) as the nominal political leader. Further, as the masses would never know the truths, it was acceptable, even necessary, for the philosophers to speak to the masses in a context different from the one that they spoke among themselves. That context, satisfying the masses opinions and enabling the philosophers to fulfill their separate agendas, could also acceptably include deliberate lies and deceptions as a means unto their ends.
Over the 20 years Strauss taught at the University of Chicago, a cadre of predominately Jewish students adopted some or all of his political theory and began seeking ways of putting it into practice. That cadre of Straussians includes (among others) Paul Wolfowitz, author of the Wolfowitz Doctrine and William Crystal , founder of the Project for the New American Century.
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