An American Agenda: Leo Strauss, Nietzsche and Neoconservatism

Darryl Naranjit examines the relationship between Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. He asserts that Strauss is deeply influenced by Nietzsche. 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? This 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”? Is Strauss the advocate of an American Empire?
Darryl Naranjit claims that Strauss completes Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of values” and therefore fulfills Nietzsche’s promise of redemption. Strauss, in this way, presents a political vision for America, one that can appropriately be called “An American Agenda”.