Surveys the German-American political philosopher’s primary teachings:

On political philosophy
• Political philosophy, which aims to replace opinion with knowledge, paradoxically pits the organic wisdom against rational inquiry
• The terrible truth of philosophy is there’s no objective need for it – the only critical necessity is intrinsic to its practice
• One of Strauss’ most enduring themes is Athens vs Jerusalem: Each is obligated to open itself to the other’s challenge. The two sides agree the need for morality, which is core to justice (and thus law). Athens is steadfastly moral; Jerusalem is alive to the possibility of revelation
• Jewish political thought evidences the particular rather than the universal. The Jewish state is modified exile. Strauss showed outward fidelity to Israel, inward commitment to philosophy, in order to combat atheism while preserving truth in knowledge
• Political thought is the first of the social sciences because human experience is practical, borne of action for a purpose (i.e., to preserve or to change). Political opinion presupposes a structured way of life, codified by law, underpinned by a theory of governance
• Justice is a mixture of freedom and coercion, or virtue and persuasion
• Straussian ‘esoteric reading’ is not a doctrine but a process. The emphasis on close reading, which may reveal hidden ideas and emphases, was taken from Heidegger. Politics is implicit in every text because texts are sure to be read in their social context
• Strauss avoided ontology, the nature of being. Not everything is permissible – thus political philosophy, not ontology, is the bedrock of humanity
• It’s safer to understand the low in light of the high (i.e., the ideal), in order to appreciate the best of man’s political traditions
• The experience of history and daily affairs cannot override evidence of simple right and wrong, which is the bottom of natural right. The problem of justice in every context persists
• The distinction between philosophy and ideology is the regard for permanent conditions of human nature – which makes some things insoluble
• Statesmanship is the highest non-philosophical pursuit: the pursuit of freedom and justice through prudence transcends lawyers, technicians, visionaries, and opportunists
• The cultivation of friendship (with one’s opposites) is imperative to practicing the craft

On the history of ideas:
• Like Burke, Strauss sided with the ancients because political thought is closest to the political community
• Classic political thought derives directly from the experience of newly conscious political society. Subsequent political philosophy was tempered by the traditions borne of the political context (i.e., the choices society made)
• According to the classics, honor is secondary to virtue and wisdom. Initiated by Machiavelli, the concern with virtu is shared by Strauss and also the ancients; but Machiavelli omitted the concern with moderation
• Plato’s Laws, Machiavelli’s Discourses, Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws put issues of ‘political education’ front and center, in an ‘institutional’ or regime-based approach
• Machiavelli broke with the ancients in 1) abandoning the concern for morality in society and justice in government, 2) elevating politics’ concern for security and consumption over ideals, and 3) positing nature (i.e., the environment) as something to be exploited by technology
• Machiavelli’s view that the means justify the ends eliminated morality and paved the way for tyranny. The modern American concern for freedom runs counter to Machiavelli
• Property unbounded from classic, medieval limits to acquisition is at the core of modern capitalism. Initiated by Locke, this was a big change in natural law: the central value of labor shifted the moral center of property from nature to creativity
• There are three waves of modernity: 1) Hobbes and Locke grounded politics in passion and self-preservation; 2) Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx shifted to historical processes, which are fixed (in contrast to malleable passions; 3) Nietzsche and Heidegger introduced radical historicism so as to reintroduce theology into politics. But the ‘accidental advantage’ of the ‘dead god’ enables the recovery of idealism
• The elasticity of Heidegger’s thought accommodates very bad political philosophy, ideology such as Nazism. Concern for being, versus for humanity, lead to indifference to tyranny. Thus Heidegger had dismissed ethics from the center of philosophy
• Strauss returns to the primacy of politics as a basis for criticizing Heidegger. Both held the West to be in crisis, Heidegger for its loss of culture – the spiritual decay facing Germany – Strauss because Western liberalism was being undermined by relativism and historicism
• Strauss recovered Plato as a source of modern liberalism, by showing Plato denied the possibility of a completely just city and by showing the dialogue as a vehicle of authorial intent – it’s the content that counts
• Natural Right and History seeks to restore natural right, in response to the inroads made by Heidegger’s relativism, to shore up liberalism’s defenses against tyranny. Natural right itself points toward admiring the excellence of the human soul for its intrinsic value, without regard for material conditions
• Strauss has been criticized for his focus on the end of a just society, which implies hierarchy (i.e., political inequality)

On liberalism and tyranny:
• The regime is core to classical political philosophy, both in a factual and a normative sense
• The completely open society will exist on a lower level than a closed society aiming at perfection
• Moral behavior arises from obligations to others, felt needs and strong attachments, not arbitrary commitments
• The Counter Enlightenment was an effort to save morality from determinism of reason. Divesting religion of its public character was a victory for the Enlightenment
• Liberal education is a ladder from mass democracy to ‘democracy of everybody’, but it is elitist and not egalitarian
• Liberalism entails a public-private divide. To abolish the liberal framework would be to pave the way to tyranny
• The contrast between core defense of personal liberty and agnosticism of personal liberty is symptomatic of the crisis of the West. The root problem is attenuated understanding of liberalism, triggered by Nietzsche and Heidegger, and refracted by Berlin
• From Carl Schmitt, Strauss learned to see politics defined as ‘friend or enemy’. A world without conflict would be conformist. When man abandons what is (seen to be) right in favor of comfort, he forsakes human nature
• Evil is ever present. Ideals require moral fervor but also political prudence. The revolutionary’s goal, post-Enlightenment, is to fix it now. The crisis of the West can be treated by prudence, by recourse to liberalism
• Social scientists haven’t recognized fascism and communism as modern tyranny
• The so-called fact-value distinction is at root of nihilism. Social science which can’t distinguish tyranny has no value
• Not only ideology but also science and technology (the conquest of nature) are instruments of social control. The path was blazed by Machiavelli, who sought to connect ‘virtu’ with the ancients albeit without moderation