Jeffrey Neuzil
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Messages
- 53
Adorning Sparta: On A Re-conception of What it Means to Be an American
I should preface my observations here with two points. What I have sought to do in this essay is to suggest some lines of investigation that may assist certain governmental agencies or private researchers in providing what may be an important explanatory backdrop to certain events which occurred in the past and may have laid the groundwork for the future political horizon of the United States as well. Secondly, in naming as I have certain institutions and scholars of such institutions, I mean in no way to suggest that those scholars or those institutions possessed knowledge of any of what I suggest: I mean only to be providing "an"—n.b., not "The"—interpretation of the meaning and impetus for certain of these political facts. That interpretation could be wrong or misguided, and I put it forward in the spirit of inviting dispute (not violence, of course, for who would succumb to the argumentum ad bacculum: only those, I suppose, who have been able to say a complete, and not, partial "farewell to reason"—to make a personal confession, I, for one, am in the latter camp, seeing both the need to at some point relax the restraints of reason in the service of human well-being, but just as much the need to never surrender a "classical" conception of reason as a well moderated use of reason at least in the sphere of practice and action.
In the course of my academic work as a political science student, I encountered a number of significant questions arising from the work of what I have called the Chicago School or The University of Chicago. These questions—and indeed the nature and meaning of the work of, for example, The Committee on Social thought remains a mystery to me?—are in profound need of clarification; all the more so as it appears that they go to the very heart and meaning of our “liberal” democracy. But, more than this, these questions and the answers that are given to them may affect the very future and perpetuation of those institutions. One area of vital importance and critically in need of investigation is the purpose for which what has been come to be called the Carl Schmitt revival came about. Based on preliminary research on my part, I have rather seen this revival to be connected to an attempt, or perceived attempt to subvert the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights—which rights are in a variety of ways not only jeopardized, but already ineffectual at best, if not already completely vitiated. In view of the grave nature of this matter and the possibility that this institution in conjunction with others the names of which, I feel certain, would emerge in any fair-minded inquiry of sufficient force and scope, I am seeking to secure the signatures of United States citizens who are interested in furthering the preservation and integrity of our liberal and democratic institutions, and to the degree that those institutions have been already compromised—by, for example, the Patriot Act—we seek the redress of these wrongs: Up to and including, of course, well-documented incursions into the privacy of United states Citizens, nowhere more apparent than in the practice of secretive—possibly illegal—wiretapping as well as the video surveillance of citizens known to be interested in the question of the nature and direction of the future trajectory of our liberal democratic institutions. I would like to indicate what I take to be some (though this list is not exhaustive) of the areas that should be addressed—they are eleven in number plus one (which I will submit here in several sequeled installments due to "space"contraints):
1. The Nature and meaning of now deceased Professor Leo Strauss' work.
2. The relationship of his work to Neo-conservatism and to the crisis we face today in the Middle east.
3. A clarification of the connection of the first two issues in relation to the Committee on Social thought—with a view to determining what relationship this entire node of apparently politically motivated academic scholarship bears to a potential "project."
4. Supposing that some relationship or project can be discerned, what impact or connection does such a project bear to the long-standing relationship of the University of Chicago's devotion to the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
5. What relationship do all of the above mentioned thinkers (unified or otherwise) have to our Liberal democratic tradition and heritage: In other words, is it sympathetic or subversive of it, and, if subversive in what way (in this connection it is interesting to consider what one of Leo Strauss' finest students says in the introduction to his interpretation to Plato's Republic, where Professor Rosen offers a cogent refutation of the Strauss-originated or inspired teaching that the Republic of Plato was meant as a comedy of sorts, not to be taken as a serious proposal for political action; and he also uses the terms "conspiracy" and "anti-democratic" in connection to the teaching of the Republic in addition to in another of his works enigmatically stated that Strauss taught his University of Chicago students that, "Philosophy had not begun yet!).
I should preface my observations here with two points. What I have sought to do in this essay is to suggest some lines of investigation that may assist certain governmental agencies or private researchers in providing what may be an important explanatory backdrop to certain events which occurred in the past and may have laid the groundwork for the future political horizon of the United States as well. Secondly, in naming as I have certain institutions and scholars of such institutions, I mean in no way to suggest that those scholars or those institutions possessed knowledge of any of what I suggest: I mean only to be providing "an"—n.b., not "The"—interpretation of the meaning and impetus for certain of these political facts. That interpretation could be wrong or misguided, and I put it forward in the spirit of inviting dispute (not violence, of course, for who would succumb to the argumentum ad bacculum: only those, I suppose, who have been able to say a complete, and not, partial "farewell to reason"—to make a personal confession, I, for one, am in the latter camp, seeing both the need to at some point relax the restraints of reason in the service of human well-being, but just as much the need to never surrender a "classical" conception of reason as a well moderated use of reason at least in the sphere of practice and action.
In the course of my academic work as a political science student, I encountered a number of significant questions arising from the work of what I have called the Chicago School or The University of Chicago. These questions—and indeed the nature and meaning of the work of, for example, The Committee on Social thought remains a mystery to me?—are in profound need of clarification; all the more so as it appears that they go to the very heart and meaning of our “liberal” democracy. But, more than this, these questions and the answers that are given to them may affect the very future and perpetuation of those institutions. One area of vital importance and critically in need of investigation is the purpose for which what has been come to be called the Carl Schmitt revival came about. Based on preliminary research on my part, I have rather seen this revival to be connected to an attempt, or perceived attempt to subvert the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights—which rights are in a variety of ways not only jeopardized, but already ineffectual at best, if not already completely vitiated. In view of the grave nature of this matter and the possibility that this institution in conjunction with others the names of which, I feel certain, would emerge in any fair-minded inquiry of sufficient force and scope, I am seeking to secure the signatures of United States citizens who are interested in furthering the preservation and integrity of our liberal and democratic institutions, and to the degree that those institutions have been already compromised—by, for example, the Patriot Act—we seek the redress of these wrongs: Up to and including, of course, well-documented incursions into the privacy of United states Citizens, nowhere more apparent than in the practice of secretive—possibly illegal—wiretapping as well as the video surveillance of citizens known to be interested in the question of the nature and direction of the future trajectory of our liberal democratic institutions. I would like to indicate what I take to be some (though this list is not exhaustive) of the areas that should be addressed—they are eleven in number plus one (which I will submit here in several sequeled installments due to "space"contraints):
1. The Nature and meaning of now deceased Professor Leo Strauss' work.
2. The relationship of his work to Neo-conservatism and to the crisis we face today in the Middle east.
3. A clarification of the connection of the first two issues in relation to the Committee on Social thought—with a view to determining what relationship this entire node of apparently politically motivated academic scholarship bears to a potential "project."
4. Supposing that some relationship or project can be discerned, what impact or connection does such a project bear to the long-standing relationship of the University of Chicago's devotion to the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
5. What relationship do all of the above mentioned thinkers (unified or otherwise) have to our Liberal democratic tradition and heritage: In other words, is it sympathetic or subversive of it, and, if subversive in what way (in this connection it is interesting to consider what one of Leo Strauss' finest students says in the introduction to his interpretation to Plato's Republic, where Professor Rosen offers a cogent refutation of the Strauss-originated or inspired teaching that the Republic of Plato was meant as a comedy of sorts, not to be taken as a serious proposal for political action; and he also uses the terms "conspiracy" and "anti-democratic" in connection to the teaching of the Republic in addition to in another of his works enigmatically stated that Strauss taught his University of Chicago students that, "Philosophy had not begun yet!).
