Leo Strauss was a 20th century German-American scholar of political philosophy, and widely known for his work on talking about eternal truths, and how the modern canon of philosophy was nihilistic and somewhat worthless. Students of his see an element of the esoteric in ancient philosophy, wherein philosophers like Plato show Socrates as the villain of the stories he’s in and writers like John Milton make Satan’s worldview the most compelling, and only superficially wrong, because openly saying what they really think is blasphemy. Take Galileo, commonly cited as one of the defenders of the heliocentric theory. Interestingly, the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is a discussion, where the last word is given to Simplicio, defender of the geocentric theory. Galileo’s trial for heresy was not because of his ideas, but because of how he failed to mask sufficiently his disdain for the official positions of the day.
In conversations about free speech, both sides often take what officials and spokespeople are saying at face value. There’s almost a self-righteous disbelief that those motivated by something would ever fudge the numbers, or weight the die in their favor. If one was to notice any trends about how this works, they’d see it everywhere. Deception, if prominent, would likely exist in many different spheres of life, and once one is awakened to it in one sphere, they may see it everywhere. Since I am no heretic, and I’ve updated my beliefs considerably since college, this may not be applicable anymore.
Anyways, the Strauss I’ve been paying attention to is Neil Strauss, also ironically named. His Twitter bio says something to the effect of most of my books, people put another cover on in order to read them in public. Strauss is most widely known for writing The Game, where he appeared to evangelize a community of pick-up-artists. His book sales, courses, and general career success can largely be attributed towards this publication, but it also remains a topic of impolite conversation. Now established, Strauss has wanted to put some distance between his present and past work. His more recent books, like The Truth, appears to be almost a mea culpa.
And yet, Strauss continues to write and think.
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