What was Leo Strauss up to?

Public Interest, Fall, 2003 by Steven Lenzner, William Kristol

Confronted by the appalling alternative that man, or human thought, must be collectivized either by one stroke and without mercy or else by slow and gentle processes, we are forced to wonder how we could escape from this dilemma. We reconsider therefore the elementary and unobtrusive conditions of human freedom.

Though one should not underestimate the practical utility of Strauss's recovery of the term "tyranny," the tyranny that On Tyranny is chiefly designed to counter is of the unobtrusive kind. Strauss went on to write in his 1970 study Xenophon's Socratic Discourse: "Our age boasts of being more open to everything human than any earlier age; it is surely blind to the greatness of Xenophon. Without intending it, one might make some discoveries about our age by reading and rereading Xenophon." To fulfill this dual purpose of opening our eyes to Xenophon's greatness as well as to the limits of our age, Strauss offers in On Tyranny less an argument than a display: for the character of Xenophon's achievement reveals itself above all in the product of his art.

Socrates and Machiavelli

The Hiero seems to be an unprepossessing 22-page dialogue between a disheartened tyrant, Hiero, and a well-meaning poet, Simonides. The tyrant denounces tyranny. The poet urges the tyrant to rule justly. Simple; edifying; dull. To read Strauss's interpretation and to find out instead that the work is a subtle psychological drama between a wary tyrant and a wise and politic teacher of the art of ruling--a drama that masks a broad teaching on the relation between politics and wisdom--is to undergo a sobering lesson in humility.

Strauss parades before us one telling detail after another to persuade us of his author's rhetorical mastery, providing seemingly countless examples of Xenophontic literary devices. Among these, to name a few, are: various types of meaningful silences, intentional ambiguity, dissimulation, the significance of centrally placed speeches, inexact repetitions of earlier statements, use or non-use of the first person singular, concealment of a work's plan, and so forth. All the more sobering thus is Strauss's introductory statement that "Xenophon uses far fewer devices than Plato uses even in his simplest works."

No modern reader of any sensitivity can come away from On Tyranny without feeling something like awe at the power of Strauss's exegesis--his ability in a non-arbitrary manner to get so much out of what seems so little. On Tyranny thus teaches the reader how to study a classic text, while inducing in him a sense of the need to do so.

The tyrant Hiero is wary of the poet Simonides: tyrants always fear those of great abilities. As for the wise in particular, Hiero says the tyrant "fears that 'they might contrive something.'" Thus when Simonides questions him on the desirability of tyrannical life, Hiero takes the opportunity to highlight tyranny's drawbacks, if mildly at first: He aims to nip in the bud any temptation for tyranny that the wise poet may possess. Simonides is not impressed. As the poet shows greater and greater indifference to the drawbacks of tyranny, Hiero becomes increasingly alarmed. The tyrant thus gradually ratchets up the defects of his way of life. They so fail to move Simonides that a point is reached at which, half in despair, Hiero declares that "the tyrant can hardly do better than to hang himself." At this point, Simonides--as befits "a humane poet"--takes over the conversation and begins to teach Hiero how to rule well as a tyrant.