The Nature of Political Theory

42 The Nature of Political Theory

the moderns) and a fear of the effects of modern political philosophy, political science,
and modern liberalism on the ancient tradition. This change from the ancient to the
modern was perceived as a crisis.^27
The notion of a crisis of the West appeared as a continuous motif in particularly
Strauss’s writings. The crisis of the West is, in fact, the crisis of political philosophy.
The crisis is that the West no longer knows where it is going; it has lost, or is in
doubt about its own fundamental values. Modern philosophy contributes to this
crisis, by adhering blindly to the relativizing beliefs in both natural science and mod-
ern historicism. For Strauss, however, every society needs universal values to remain
‘healthy’ (Strauss 1977: 3; Bloom 1980: 113). The central motif of classical political
philosophy was therefore universal moral values. It focused on the search for the best
life and an objective knowledge of the good, both facets denied by historicism and
positivism. These classical moral solutions will not though provide any contempor-
ary recipes. For Strauss, only we can find solutions to our problems. But classical
theory can be the starting point for the serious consideration of our problems. As
Strauss’s disciple, Allan Bloom, put it, ‘men live more truly and fully in reading Plato
and Shakespeare...because then they are participating in essential being and are
forgetting their accidental lives’ (Bloom 1987: 380). Political philosophy therefore
aspires to ‘build on the foundation laid by classical political philosophy, a society
superior in truth and justice’ (Strauss 1977: 9). It aspires to a kind of ahistorical
foundational wisdom.
However, for Strauss, political philosophy isnotdirectly the history of political
philosophy. There are two readings of the history of political philosophy in Strauss.
The first, corrupting version, is ‘historicism’, which contends that political philosophy
and history cannot ever be separated. Historicism, in alliance with modern political
science, undermines genuine political philosophy and turns it into ideology. Thus, for
Strauss, ‘the decay of political philosophy into ideology reveals itself most obviously in
the fact that in both research and teaching, political philosophy has been replaced by
the history of political philosophy. This substitution can be excused as a well-mean-
ing attempt to prevent, or at least to delay, the burial of a great tradition’ (Strauss
1977: 7–8). When historicism dominates the history of political philosophy, then,
for Strauss, the great tradition will inevitably become a series of foolish antiquarian
footnotes. The uncorrupted, second version of the history of political philosophy
is auxiliary to classical political philosophy. Political philosophy cannot be wholly
historically contingent. For Strauss, even if related to historical circumstances, it can
still embody a truth, which transcends those circumstances. Every political situation
‘contains elements which are essential to all political situations: how else could one
intelligibly call these different political situations “political situations” ’ (Strauss 1959:
64). The function of the uncorruptedhistoryof political philosophy is, therefore, first,
to understand the political philosophers as they understood themselves in terms of
their original intentions (Strauss 1959: 68; Bloom 1980: 128). As Bloom comments,
‘we must put our questions aside and try to find out about what were their questions’
(Bloom 1980: 123). Pre-eminently, we need the careful systematic study of texts—‘that
and not much else’ (Bloom 1980: 115). Second, regardless of historical contingency,