PLURALISM AND FAITHWaiving reservations about his use of the termmass, I agree that liberal education
makes an indispensable contribution to the nobility of democracy. The issue is: What
type of nobility to foster? What kind of civic virtue to nourish? A chapter entitled ‘‘The
Liberalism of Classical Political Philosophy’’ provides insight into Strauss’s view. Here
Strauss reviews a book by Eric Havelock on liberalism in classical Greek political philoso-
phy. Havelock writes before the philosophy of John Rawls had achieved hegemony among
liberal academics in America. Strauss, while rebuking Havelock for ‘‘unsurpassed shallow-
ness and crudity’’ in his reading of Greek classics, also gives us an idea of how the ‘‘mod-
ern liberalism’’ of which Havelock is a prototype looks to him.^2 My purpose is not to
defend Havelock’s reading of ancient Greek thinkers but to probe Strauss’s account of
modern liberalism through his critique of Havelock.
Havelock, he says, thinks that every value is ‘‘ ‘negotiable’ because he is extremely
tolerant.’’^3 Strauss himself wonders whether tolerance can be spread so widely, ‘‘whether
Tolerance can remain tolerant when confronted with unqualified Intolerance.’’^4 The mod-
ern liberal also asserts, crucially, ‘‘that man’s being is accidental to the universe,’’^5 though
he is mistaken if he imagines that most classical Greek thinkers agreed with him. The
modern liberal also thinks ‘‘that man’s nature and therewith morality are essentially
changing.’’^6 Strauss, reasonably enough, objects to Havelock’s critique of Plato for not
having set forth liberalism before criticizing it. ‘‘Plato failed to set forth the liberal view,’’
Strauss says, ‘‘because the liberal view did not exist.’’^7 Plato criticized sophistry, not liber-
alism. But why did he use myth as well as argument to do so?
We on our part suggest this explanation. Plato knew that most men read more with
their ‘‘imagination’’ than with open-minded care and are therefore much more bene-
fited by salutary myths than by the naked truth. Precisely the liberals who hold that
morality is historical or of merely human origin must go on to say... that this
invaluable acquisition... is ‘‘too precious to be gambled with’’: the greatest enemies
of civilization in civilized countries are those who squander the heritage... ; civiliza-
tion is much less endangered by narrow but loyal preservers than by the shallow and
glib futurists, who, being themselves rootless, try to destroy all roots and thus do
everything in their power in order to bring back the initial chaos and promiscuity.
The first duty of civilized man is then to respect his past.^8Again: ‘‘There is undoubtedly some kinship between the modern liberal and the ancient
sophist. Both are unaware of the existence of a problem of civilization, although to differ-
ent degrees. For Protagoras supplies his assertions with important qualifications which do
not come out in Havelock’s paraphrases.... The utmost one can say about his whole
discussion is that it sheds some light on present day liberalism.’’^9
In this context, he offers his most grave objection to Havelock and, by implication,
to modern liberalism:
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