Several readers point out that Leo Strauss was indebted to Nietzsche. Fair enough. Though I do think it’s one thing to admire a philosopher and agree with some of his descriptions and its another to buy into his prescriptions. It’s also worth noting that Strauss’ influence has been significant in America and upon American conservatism (and not just on the “neocons” — Willmoore Kendall, after all, was an acolyte of Strauss’). But, Strauss himself hardly comes out of the American tradition or the Anglo-American conservative tradition generally, even if his influence on both has been large. Anyway, I thought this email was very useful:
Dear Mr. Goldberg,
Of course, the relationship is complicated and Strauss is no ordinary conservative, but I think that it’s fair to say that Strauss took Nietzsche and Nietzsche’s critique of rationalism very seriously. The best sources are Werner Dannhauser’s Nietzsche’s View of Socrates and Lawrence Lampert’s Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. The Amazon link for the latter is here.
For the former (out of print), it’s here.
It’s also probably worth looking at what Allan Bloom has to say about Nietzsche, to whom there are more explicit references in The Closing of the American Mind than there are to, say, Plato.
Shadia Drury (who has become a poisonous nutty Strauss-hater, as opposed to merely a poisonous Strauss-hater) also, if memory serves, insists upon the Nietzscheanism of Strauss and his students (especially the “East Coast” variety.
The response to the argument that Straussianism is a kind of Nietzscheanism begins with Strauss’ respect for America, amply documented in Deutsch and Murley’s Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime. I’ve also written on Strauss and America in Lawler and McConkey’s Faith, Reason, and Political Life Today; my contribution is entitled “Leo Strauss, America, and the End of History.”
Here’s the Amazon link to Deutsch and Murley.
Here’s the link to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0739102230/qid=1101576933/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/102-6442631-6426511?v=glance&s=books
“>Lawler and McConkey.
Best wishes,
Joe Knippenberg
Oglethorpe University
Atlanta, GA