Midnight in the Garden of American Heroes
Added 2021-01-23 21:25:09 +0000 UTCMatt and Sam explain West Coast Straussianism, the school of thought behind one of the last acts of the Trump administration: the release of the "1776 Report," the Right's shabby response to the 1619 Project and blueprint for how the American Founding should be understood and taught. Where did this approach to conservatism come from? Why are its adherents so enthusiastic about Trump? How do they understand the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and U.S. history? And why are they obsessed with "identity politics"?
Sources:
Harry Jaffa, "American Conservatism and the Present Crisis," Claremont Review of Books, Spring 2003
Publius Decius Mus, "The Flight 93 Election," Claremont Review of Books, September 2016
Steven Smith, "Hidden Truths," New York Times, August 23, 2013
John J. Miller, "The House of Jaffa," National Review, January 12, 2015
Kathryn and Michael Zuckert, The Truth about Leo Strauss: Political Philosophy and American Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2006)
Comments
It's so fun to go back and listen to the oldies! I feel like I gain way more insight from old episodes, now that I've learned so much from you guys. Thanks again :)
Dan Anderson
2022-11-26 02:23:46 +0000 UTCThanks so much for this, guys -- the deep dives into the conservative intellectual world are always my favorite episodes. I hope y'all will do an episode on Strauss before long!
Hunter McClure
2021-05-04 16:57:15 +0000 UTCIt seems that I stumbled into my classes on Modern Political Ideologies. Seeing Sorel's name above caught me off guard. I just finished the piece on the West Coast Straussians, and it's all so very true. Well done. Funny story: I was running late to job talk at Vanderbilt from a new graduate from the University of Chicago, one of Cropsey's students (Strauss's writing partner). Throwing my backpack down, beside the far end of the seminar table, I caught most of the presentation, about Plato's work discussing the weaving together of a political community. She asked if there were any questions and I could feel the room wasn't going to offer any, so I asked, "So, are you a Straussian?" She looked appalled like I had slurred her good name, and said, "I believe in a close reading of the text." She was in her mid-to-late 30s, didn't drive, and had taken almost 10 years to finish her doctorate. Later, we developed some rapport, even going to the pub on campus when American Pie came on the speakers. She seemed amazed as everyone sang the words, commenting, "This is like an instantaneous community." I could tell that she had probably never been in a bar before. It makes me wonder if that kind of sheltered life is a prerequisite to the kind of naivete and sensibility. The whole libertarian/natural rights perspective meshes well with the kind of West Coast Straussian mentality. It's like reading Ayn Rand to them. They live in a make-believe world. You can import anything into the "natural rights" arguments. There are no guardrails. That's why they like Trump.
Joe
2021-02-12 23:02:04 +0000 UTCThis is tangential, but this episode made me realize how much I’d love for you to get Mike Duncan or Patrick Wyman on the pod to talk about the role of antiquity in the conservative imagination. All three of your podcasts have been insightfully getting me through quarantine!
Pranav
2021-02-07 15:50:21 +0000 UTCThis is so fascinating I am dying to share this with a number of people who I feel need to know this intellectual history. Please consider making this episode available to the public in the not-to-distant future :))))
Brenton Yeates
2021-02-02 20:43:41 +0000 UTCThis all sounds very [Jonah] Goldbergian. I remember reading Liberal Fascism when it came out and buying into this idea that progressives, especially Woodrow Wilson, were unmoored relativists teetering on the edge of the abyssal nihilism. He also name drops Dewey, Herbert Croly, and all the other influential pragmatist/progressive thinkers who basically made the United States a much better place for the average laborer (wanton disregard for natural rights notwithstanding!) I wonder if [Jonah] came up through the same institutions as these other scholars in the West Coast Straussian tradition.
Brenton Yeates
2021-02-02 19:34:02 +0000 UTCVery well done, not nerdy at all! On the subject of not trusting the American public with the truths of history, I wonder if either of you have read the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James Loewen? He’s a former history teacher who wrote this book as a critique of everything most American history textbooks leave out. When he taught his students about racism in America he expected anger, but instead there was mostly gratitude. Loewen would make a great guest!
Mark K
2021-02-02 02:49:57 +0000 UTCGreat show. Being an indian immigrant, i have no idea about the history of the political parties. Always a great listen. Much more “nerdy” as u guys say but really suits my style of understanding the history behind current events. Keep up the good work. GO KYE!!!!!
telugubmw
2021-02-02 00:25:46 +0000 UTCI am listening to a free online course from Hillsdale College that shows all the features you pointed out with the 1776 commission report.
Catherine M Stanford
2021-01-30 00:45:48 +0000 UTCWe will definitely be coming back to this well!! Don't worry. (-Sam)
Know Your Enemy
2021-01-29 19:54:25 +0000 UTCThat's wonderful. That said, next time, we're coming for your dad's team!! (-Sam)
Know Your Enemy
2021-01-29 19:53:11 +0000 UTCExcellent question. One name that comes to mind is Samuel Goldman. Very smart, and doesn't pretend to be stupid when it serves him. (-Sam)
Know Your Enemy
2021-01-29 19:52:24 +0000 UTCThis is another one of those KYE podcasts that I had to listen to TWICE because I am just not enough of a nerd to take it all in on the first pass. Thanks for posting show notes, too.
Jerry Callen
2021-01-29 18:24:48 +0000 UTCGreat episode thanks guys!
Jesse Turri
2021-01-28 15:04:01 +0000 UTCAnother KYE super nerd here! Thank you for the history of West Coast Straussianism and the influence it has had on the (il)logic and faulty methodology of conservative thinking and arguments. This episode, possibly more than any other I've listened to so far, articulates in such helpful detail the mind of conversations, so much so that you helped me understand a few conservatives I have known and met over the years. Thank you! Perhaps a future bonus episode could be on the missing information referenced at the end of this episode? I would love to know more.
Karen Morano
2021-01-28 11:38:15 +0000 UTCThe west coast straussians strike me as very anti-Socratic and in this sense anti-philosophical. As you all highlight, they hardly mention the anti-federalists, lively debates between Madison and Hamilton, etc. Rather than teach civics Socratically/philosophically by introducing students to important debates and challenging students to enter into those debates, they instead teach civics as dogmatic commitment to narrowly defined principles.
Luke Mayville
2021-01-28 09:11:12 +0000 UTCReally appreciated the deep dive into the intellectual right. Also a lot of well deserved highlighting of projection and bad faith that suffuses conservative rhetoric and reasoning. One angle I’d love to hear more discussion of: what’s the role of understanding the framework of a movement which so often develops its frameworks as a way to retroactively justify its positions? Thinking a lot about the conservative “legal theory” opposing abortion, and the way they use/invent American history to justify themselves in ways that makes no sense to anyone trying to understand the issue in good faith.
Gabriel Edwards
2021-01-28 05:06:34 +0000 UTCListened to this with my east coast straussian father and he enjoyed it just as much as I did! Thank u KYE boys for a fun family activity😊
Raina W
2021-01-27 22:30:02 +0000 UTCThis podcast is fantastic.
Jacob Bailey
2021-01-26 02:56:29 +0000 UTCGuys - Great show...really enjoyed it. I agree with M. Miner above; truly nerdy and truly fascinating. A question for you, which I hope you'll consider answering. Are there any conservative writers currently out there who aren't embarrassingly bad? Lowry and a lot of the Nat Review guys just caved into Trumpworld for the most part, sharing with Douthat and Stephens at the Times the apparent need to try to excuse or explain Trump's actions, except the most egregious, in the light of "Well, if you squint at it in the right way, he might have a point. O.K. he's a complete shit, but Hey! look at China. Besides, what about this left-wing college student's embarrassing tweet?" D. Brooks just juggles banalities about lifestyles and platitudes about civilization and its (religious) discontents. Is there anyone on the other side who actually thinks about this shit, and who doesn't just dive into "Free Market good. Regulation bad. Bible is Truth. Derrida is Satan. etc., etc." Suggestions?
pixlaw
2021-01-26 02:10:16 +0000 UTCHi Peter, that's a good point you raise. What I was going for is that, while it's true that many conservatives talk about rights, there are strains of conservatism that are suspicious of "rights talk"—the quote about duties comes from Russell Kirk, for example. So I agree that my statement doesn't apply to all conservatives, but in context I was just trying to show how an emphasis on equality and natural rights makes some in the conservative coalition nervous. (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2021-01-25 21:01:28 +0000 UTCAbout 24 minutes in Matt says something like “conservatives like to talk about duties rather than rights” and then moves on. I’d like to hear more on that because that sounds backwards to me. It seems like they want to focus entirely on liberty to the exclusion of duty and obligations related implicitly to the very liberties they claim to support. I’m probably missing something fundamental here. Thoughts?
Peter Kurze
2021-01-25 07:04:10 +0000 UTCI'm a small town construction worker with virtually no postsecondary education, and even I can (mostly) follow you guys. I love y'all for making the strange, strange world of conservatism understandable. Proud KYE nerd!
Dan Anderson
2021-01-24 22:49:35 +0000 UTCReally great episode on another aspect of conservatism I knew nothing about but seems relevant as ever, you both connected so many dots here. Keep the nerd shit coming! We love it, we’re here for it.
John Zayatz
2021-01-24 21:12:30 +0000 UTCYes, totally agree,, that was the part where I wanted to slow it down and focus in ... how natural law seems to animate conservative thought regarding the founding (and hence the role of our government ), in some ways, but not in others... (something like that)
Matt
2021-01-24 20:29:42 +0000 UTCYes! The subtleties of differentiating between “natural rights” and its rile
Matt
2021-01-24 20:23:52 +0000 UTChttp://www.logosjournal.com/xenos.htm “Leo Strauss and the rhetoric of the war on terror”
Matt
2021-01-24 20:17:34 +0000 UTCThank-you guys so much for this ep! In particular, Matt, your familiarity with these ideas and ability to communicate them so well often makes me feel like I'm back in a super compelling grad school seminar. This is exactly what I come to from the pod, so please don't apologize for being "nerdy" lol
Joel
2021-01-24 18:11:07 +0000 UTCOh my, 17 min in, and I need a diagram.
Sam Murphy
2021-01-24 17:12:37 +0000 UTCGood stuff. What’s the song on the outro?
Jimmy Eberle
2021-01-24 16:20:26 +0000 UTCthis kinda stuff is why I listened to this show in the first place honestly, so dont apologize. need more of this and less of the BS that I already see on twitter
Roger
2021-01-24 15:28:11 +0000 UTCFantastic! Some reflections from my own experience as a recovering conservative still with a pulse on the Right: 1. You can see KYE distinctions here in the contrasting focus among East Coast Straussians and affiliated institutions and writers (AEI, Reformicons, David Brooks, Never Trump) for Scalia and West Coast Straussians on Thomas. Former, for all of his faults, broadly accepted the New Deal, always operated with a hint of irony (jokes that no one truly be a consistent originalist), and (at least in rhetoric) emphasized the need for judicial deference towards the economic and social policies established by democratically elected legislatures. Contrast this to Thomas' ambition for a Natural Law jurisprudence to essentially overturn the entire statecraft and policy architecture of the 20th Century. 2. East Coast Straussians and affiliated groups/individuals are far more composed of Catholics and Jews relative to Claremonsters. Given those ethnic groups' experiences of American history. there is still lingering respect in these circles for FDR and midcentury pre-Great Society/New Left liberalism inevitably influenced by Progressivism. Finally, you can imagine far greater skepticism of demagogic American populist movements with a strong Protestant edge!
David Jimenez
2021-01-24 04:23:08 +0000 UTCMatt at the end: "So nerdy, I apologize to listeners" Me at the end: "Wow, I’m nerding out and I love it" Thanks for another great explainer! Keep it up
William Miner
2021-01-24 04:20:08 +0000 UTCI seem to recall Bill Barr started some sort of commission on "natural rights" about a year or two ago, and I remember thinking that sounded quite ominous but I didn't really understand why. This definitely helps, but it would be amazing to hear more on that whole concept.
Mackenzie Goodwin Tran
2021-01-24 03:01:01 +0000 UTCanother banger
Aaron Thorpe
2021-01-24 03:00:06 +0000 UTCI agree!
Mackenzie Goodwin Tran
2021-01-24 02:59:03 +0000 UTCThis was great, learned a lot from this. The point about conservative projection is really accurate. The conspiratorial domination-oriented secret agenda they accuse progressivism of harboring is a literal reflection of what they themselves are very obviously doing. Easy to see why the 1619 Project got them so spooked.
Blake Wessinger
2021-01-24 02:45:29 +0000 UTCLove this, really helps explain the roots of a lot of conservative argumentation on the more Trump-curious side of things. Would love to hear more episodes especially on "natural law" in the conservative mind, how that gets interpreted, etc.
Hannah
2021-01-24 00:53:54 +0000 UTCA very fine episode. The report just about made me go insane because it was so inaccurate and yet so banal that there was nothing really to get riled up about. Having it all put into words was very helpful. Would have liked to have heard a definitive counterhistory to the one the Straussians tell, and maybe more fussing with the association of fascism and communism the report makes.
Marc Schneider
2021-01-24 00:31:06 +0000 UTC
