In this book, Darryl Naranjit examines the relationship between Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. He asserts that Strauss is deeply influenced by Nietzsche and his idea of planetary rule. Naranjit also claims that Strauss has had an important influence on neoconservatism. There are a number of schools of thought on this influence. Some say that Strauss repudiates Nietzsche’s philosophy as the culmination of modernity’s immoderation; others say that, while repudiating Nietzsche publicly, Strauss is a private follower of Nietzsche who agrees that philosophical truth is destructive of the city and leads to nihilism. Philosophical truth is therefore a privilege of the wise and must be kept esoteric, hidden from the multitudes.
At issue is the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem, reason and revelation. Which is necessary for the good life? Is reason, manifested as philosophy, capable of finding out what is the good life? Or must this be left for revelation? The book argues that Strauss is influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy and he returns to Nietzsche as a means of combating Heidegger’s philosophy, which he sees as dangerous, as the philosophical ground of Nazism. Heidegger is Strauss’s ever-present adversary. In returning to Nietzsche, however, does Strauss embrace Nietzsche’s idea of “planetary rule”?
Strauss, we may say, completes Nietzsche’s ‘transvaluation of values’. He therefore fulfills the promise of redemption in Nietzsche, broadening his vision of a united Europe into a conception of the West united under the leadership of America. Strauss, in this way, presents a political agenda for America – what can appropriately be called an American Agenda.
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