The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss. - book reviews

National Review, August 18, 1989 by Charles R. Kesler

The real issue here is not whether particular paleo-cons are nativist or anti-Semitic, much less whether particular neo-cons are hypersensitive. Everyone involved in this debate agrees that anti-Semitism is wrong; it is a doctrine without defenders. But this consensus cannnot endure if its grounds are allowed to be undermined. Paleocons as well as neo-cons have an interest in keeping this consensus and the conservative movement itself intact. The problem is that such vices as anti-Semitism and nativism are a constant temptation whenever virtue goes unexplained and unchampioned. When reason, equality, and natural rights (including the right of religious freedom) are contemned in the name of a monolithic and unrestrained "tradition," the ground for evil has been prepared.

As I say, the neo-conservatives in particular have not been very successful at articulating the larger questions at stake, partly because they have been unwilling to undertake the positive defense of American principles that is required. They need to say in broad daylight why nativism and anti-Semitism-errors with which they charge the paleo-conservative movement are un-American, hence also unconservative. Such a declaration would invite a reconsideration of some of the principles they have shared half-heartedly with the paleo-cons. After all, the neocons have always stopped short of the paleo-cons' and the Old Right's open break with Lincoln and his interpretation of the Declaration of Independence. Yet only Jaffa and the Western Straussians have vigorously contested this attack on Lincoln and the role of equality in the American political tradition. The neo-cons, like the Eastern Straussians with whom they have so much in common, have been content to keep their discontents private, and to hope for the best. But the logic of the debate carries it more and more clearly in the direction of the classic North-South struggle within conservatism, And the border states must eventually choose sides.

As American conservatism in all its branches comes to terms with the thought of Leo Strauss, it will also have to come to terms with the principles of natural right in the American political tradition. Certainly there is no more urgent task confronting conservatives than the application of these principles to the civil war within our own ranks.