Bi-Weekly Discussion - PHIL 401: Leo Strauss & Carl Schmitt

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in...

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This meetup is titled "PHIL 401" like an upper-level college course because I'm tentatively imagining it as the third in a series of discussions where we delve into some lesser known political thinkers that wouldn't typically be covered in an introduction 101-level course on political philosophy. Specifically, we'll look at older thinkers (mostly dead now) whose ideas have recently been revived and try to figure out why some people feel they're relevant to today's concerns. (The previous entries in the PHIL 401 series include a meetup on Nietzsche back in Oct. 2024, one on James Burnham & Christopher Lasch in June, and one on Oswald Spengler & Julius Evola in July.)

This meetup will focus on Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt, two 20th-century German thinkers whose ideas have become influential among both American & Chinese political thinkers.

In the 1st section,

In the 2nd section,

In the 3rd section,

Please note this discussion will focus on aspects of Strauss & Schmitt's philosophies that have been recently revived or reinterpreted, and why that's happened over the last decade or so, rather than trying for a more comprehensive approach you'd see in a typical college philosophy class. The videos & articles I've linked under each section are intended to give you an idea of how/why some intellectually-inclined conservatives today are attracted to Schmitt or Strauss, but also how today's Chinese intellectuals & CCP party members have been influenced by these two thinkers.

RELEVANT MATERIALS FROM PAST MEETUPS:

In June 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Is 'Constitutional Conservatism' Dying?" In the 3rd section, we looked at the dispute between the East Coast Straussians who are mostly neoconservatives and oppose Trump and the West Coast Straussians (a.k.a. the "Claremonsters" who are based around the Claremont Institute) who support Trump. We discussed whether this split was rooted in the philosophical differences between Leo Strauss's chief disciples (Harry Jaffa & Allan Bloom), or was merely related to the East Coast Straussians living & working closer to the centers of power in NYC & DC where foreign policy issues loom large, while the West Coast Straussians were living in a state (California) where Republicans quickly lost power in the 1990s amid an influx of legal & illegal immigrants from Latin America.

Back in May, we had a meetup entitled "WWII Revisionism & The Right: Why Are Neocons & Populists Debating Churchill and the Holocaust?" In the Intro section, I explained that the recent debates over Tucker Carlson & Joe Rogan hosting podcaster Darryl Cooper to discuss his contrarian views on WWII are part of a "new brand of right-wing historical revisionism, which often includes a rejection of the Founding Fathers & formerly admired Republican presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower & Ronald Reagan; a sympathetic view of far-right governments of the past like the Confederacy, Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain & Pinochet's Chile; and admiration for a variety of reactionary intellectuals of the past (e.g. Joseph de Maitre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt)."

Back in October, we had a meetup entitled "Is America Sliding Into Authoritarianism?" and in the 4th section we discussed the view of some right-wing pundits that what their counterparts on the left perceive as an authoritarian takeover is in fact a "conservative counter-revolution" which draws upon "unitary executive theory" and seeks to reverse the left's "long march through the institutions". This relates to Carl Schmitt's thinking about the "state of exception" and the "unbound executive" we'll discuss in this meetup.

We haven't discussed Chinese political philosophy in past meetups, but we have discussed the ways in which the rise of China had confounded Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis published amid the fall of the Soviet Union that predicted liberal-democracy had permanently won the contest of ideas. China's rise relates to questions of whether authoritarian governments may be better at enabling economic growth than democracy, and whether the citizens of an efficient authoritarian government can be truly happy even if they're not "free". Check out the 2nd section of our 2018 meetup entitled "Are We In a Global Democratic Recession?", the 2nd section of our Jan. 2024 meetup entitled "The Economics & Politics of Happiness", and the 2nd section of our meetup from Mar. 2025 entitled "What Is/Was The Liberal International Order?"

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over some of Leo Strauss & Carl Schmitt's major works and the ideas contained therein, as well as their reception & reintrepretation by both Western & Chinese thinkers. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about XX minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. LEO STRAUSS'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & ITS INFLUENCE ON THE NEOCONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT IN AMERICA:

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1.) Jonah Goldberg w/ Steven Smith, "Who Was Leo Strauss?" (video - 1:21:21, listen to 34:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWWKgj-K9xA

• Harvey C. Mansfield, "The Legacy of Leo Strauss After 50 Years: Why there are Straussians but not Straussism"
  https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-legacy-of-leo-strauss-after-50-years/
• Francis Fukuyama, "A Chilling Prediction by Leo Strauss: Today’s post-liberals hate liberalism but lack a coherent alternative"
  https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-chilling-prediction-by-leo-strauss
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