Regarding Lew’s post on how the neocons lie about Cicero in order to invoke “ancient wisdom” to further their pet political causes, it is apparent that this is the defining characteristic of a “Straussian neocon.” They know that most Americans are ignorant of the classics but know enough about them to think quite highly of the wisdom of Cicero, Aristotle, Plato, etc. They posture as the Official Gatekeepers of this ancient wisdom and its applications to today’s world. Then they lie through their teeth about it and twist the words of the ancients to fit their preconceived political agenda.
A prime example is Harry Jaffa’s awful book on Lincoln. In it he claims that the political speeches of The Great Centralizer, who had only a few years of formal education, were somehow inspired by: Shakespeare, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Dante, Pascal, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Kant, Spinoza, Locke, Galileo, Edmund Burke, and Jesus Christ. And that’s a short list; there are dozens more. Lincoln didn’t actually quote any of these writers; Jaffa argues that he probably had their words of wisdom in mind at all times. And if you challenge him on this, as the late Mel Bradford did quite effectively, he and his barking acolytes will insinuate that you are probably a Nazi, a KKK sympathizer, or both. Jaffa does exactly this in his latest book where he mentions the late Professor Bradford.
All this name dropping makes the book seem awfully highbrow to the average reader, which is probably why the Conservative Book Club told me they sold only a mere 100 copies of it in the first two years it was out.
3:57 pm on February 3, 2004
