Strauss was not a moderate, at least in the US context. Here is what he said in class on October 13, 1964, a few months after the 64 civil rights laws were passed: "For crude purposes I have always called myself a conservative, if not a reactionary, because I am not afraid of words."
Yeah, I'd call him a conservative and even reactionary but within the context of liberal democracy. My point is that he wasn't as radically right-wing as most leftists and a few other commentators (like John Mearsheimer) make him out to be, as he's occasionally painted as some sort of rabid anti-modernist who despises everything that happened following the French Revolution. This is one of the things that his academic defenders will be quick to rebut against his detractors from the left, and unless Strauss really was using "esoteric" speech to disguise his intentions occasionally, they're almost certainly correct to defend him from such claims.
A lot of people were unhappy about 1964 laws. Look no further than Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential Candidate. And for once, esoteric reading of the 1964 laws is justified - instead of forbidding racial discrimination they actually introduced merit-free affirmative system and the disparate impact rule. Which the US legal system has only now started to distance itself from.
Strauss was not a moderate, at least in the US context. Here is what he said in class on October 13, 1964, a few months after the 64 civil rights laws were passed: "For crude purposes I have always called myself a conservative, if not a reactionary, because I am not afraid of words."
Yeah, I'd call him a conservative and even reactionary but within the context of liberal democracy. My point is that he wasn't as radically right-wing as most leftists and a few other commentators (like John Mearsheimer) make him out to be, as he's occasionally painted as some sort of rabid anti-modernist who despises everything that happened following the French Revolution. This is one of the things that his academic defenders will be quick to rebut against his detractors from the left, and unless Strauss really was using "esoteric" speech to disguise his intentions occasionally, they're almost certainly correct to defend him from such claims.
A lot of people were unhappy about 1964 laws. Look no further than Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential Candidate. And for once, esoteric reading of the 1964 laws is justified - instead of forbidding racial discrimination they actually introduced merit-free affirmative system and the disparate impact rule. Which the US legal system has only now started to distance itself from.