Some years back I studied Leo Strauss and other writers on which the neocon movement based their justification for lying to the public.
In 2007 I published this paper in which I used Strauss as reference for he had lots of good things to say: Causality and complexity: the myth of objectivity in science.
Abstract
Two distinctly different worldviews dominate today's thinking in science and in the world of ideas outside of science. Using the approach advocated by Robert M. Hutchins, it is possible to see a pattern of interaction between ideas in science and in other spheres such as philosophy, religion, and politics. Instead of compartmentalizing these intellectual activities, it is worthwhile to look for common threads of mutual influence. Robert Rosen has created an approach to scientific epistemology that might seem radical to some. However, it has characteristics that resemble ideas in other fields, in particular in the writings of George Lakoff, Leo Strauss, and George Soros. Historically, the atmosphere at the University of Chicago during Hutchins' presidency gave rise to Rashevsky's relational biology, which Rosen carried forward. Strauss was writing his political philosophy there at the same time. One idea is paramount in all this, and it is Lakoff who gives us the most insight into how the worldviews differ using this idea. The central difference has to do with causality, the fundamental concept that we use to build a worldview. Causal entailment has two distinct forms in Lakoff 's analysis: direct causality and complex causality. Rosen's writings on complexity create a picture of complex causality that is extremely useful in its detail, grounding in the ideas of Aristotle. Strauss asks for a return to the ancients to put philosophy back on track. Lakoff sees the weaknesses in Western philosophy in a similar way, and Rosen provides tools for dealing with the problem. This introduction to the relationships between the thinking of these authors is meant to stimulate further discourse on the role of complex causal entailment in all areas of thought, and how it brings them together in a holistic worldview. The worldview built on complex causality is clearly distinct from that built around simple, direct causality. One important difference is that the impoverished causal entailment that accompanies the machine metaphor in science is unable to give us a clear way to distinguish living organisms from machines. Complex causality finds a dichotomy between organisms, which are closed to efficient cause, and machines, which require entailment from outside. An argument can be made that confusing living organisms with machines, as is done in the worldview using direct cause, makes religion a necessity to supply the missing causal entailment.
A lot has happened since 2007 and I am rather cocky about how well I nailed it back then. Among other things I was trying to digest just what role Strauss actually played in laying an intellectual foundation for the many levels of deceit that arose out of the neocon writers.
Strauss went back to the ancients to resurrect the justification for the Noble lie:
Plato presented the Noble Lie (γενναῖον ψεῦδος, gennaion pseudos) in a fictional tale, wherein Socrates provides the origin of the three social classes who compose the republic proposed by Plato; Socrates speaks of a socially stratified society, wherein the populace are told "a sort of Phoenician tale":
. . . the earth, as being their mother, delivered them, and now, as if their land were their mother and their nurse, they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack, and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth. . . While all of you, in the city, are brothers, we will say in our tale, yet god, in fashioning those of you who are fitted to hold rule, mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious — but in the helpers, silver, and iron and brass in the farmers and other craftsmen. And, as you are all akin, though for the most part you will breed after your kinds, it may sometimes happen that a golden father would beget a silver son, and that a golden offspring would come from a silver sire, and that the rest would, in like manner, be born of one another. So that the first and chief injunction that the god lays upon the rulers is that of nothing else are they to be such careful guardians, and so intently observant as of the intermixture of these metals in the souls of their offspring, and if sons are born to them with an infusion of brass or iron they shall by no means give way to pity in their treatment of them, but shall assign to each the status due to his nature and thrust them out among the artisans or the farmers. And again, if from these there is born a son with unexpected gold or silver in his composition they shall honor such and bid them go up higher, some to the office of guardian, some to the assistanceship, alleging that there is an oracle that the city shall then be overthrown when the man of iron or brass is its guardian.
Socrates proposes and claims that if the people believed "this myth . . . [it] would have a good effect, making them more inclined to care for the state and one another." This is his noble lie: "a contrivance for one of those falsehoods that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now talking, some noble one. . . ."
Many may be surprised that truth was not as big a thing as we try to make it even back then. But it was Strauss who excited the neocon writers and gave them what they needed even though he probably would cringe to see what they have done with it:
Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether it is true that noble lies have no role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. Are myths needed to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure a stable society? Or can men dedicated to relentlessly examining, in Nietzsche's language, those "deadly truths," flourish freely? Thus, is there a limit to the political, and what can be known absolutely? In The City and Man, Strauss discusses the myths outlined in Plato's Republic that are required for all governments. These include a belief that the state's land belongs to it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately and that citizenship is rooted in something more than the accidents of birth. Seymour Hersh also claims that Strauss endorsed noble lies: myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society. In The Power of Nightmares, documentary filmmaker Adam Curtisopines that "Strauss believed it was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation."
These are powerful ideas and their role in today’s politics seems to have been lost in the far more shallow rhetoric being used by almost everyone involved in the electoral struggles that are ongoing.
It is rather astounding that such a clearly “end justifies the means” set of ideas has its roots among so many intellectuals.
My approach to this is from my worldview as a scientist and I reject it without reservation as I did in 2007. Things have not gotten better since then and the neocon sloppy intellectual argument has been loosely incorporated into almost all of what constitutes today’s politics.
The one exception is Bernie who rejects this entire worldview and sees it as a root cause for most of our problems.
In recent weeks I have seen Bernie criticized for his stance and that has happened so often as a snide kind of put down by people here who seem to not appreciate Bernie’s honesty. Much of what I read from opponents of the Clinton worldview seems to instinctively react to this neocon undertone without addressing it up front.
One irony here is that those who embrace the neocon ideology in one form or another tend to deny that they are exercising the Noble Lie in their rhetoric. This makes for some very big failures in communication for both sides are muddy about what the issue really is.
Back in 2007 the neocon writers were more clear and more up front about why they were defending the Noble Lie approach.
Today there is far more heat than light in our political discourse. Nevertheless we still do not need a weatherman to tell us which way the wind is blowing.