7. Letter on Thoughts on Machiavelli by Leo Strauss

February 9, 1960 Dr. Ivan R. Bierly

National Book Foundation

Dear Ivan:

Leo Strauss’s Thoughts on Machiavelli does not have, it is true, many of the weaknesses that I recently adumbrated in his What is Political Philosophy?, for it is supposed to be dealing with his one strong point: the adherence to political philosophy and ethics against modern, relativist “Machiavellianism.”⁴⁵ Supposed to, I say, because this is the promise of his introduction, a promise that is really never fulfilled. And furthermore, while the book is not really strong on this one point of virtue, it exhibits other grave flaws in Strauss’s thinking that only become evident in this particular book.

First, something should be said about the manner, the texture, the methodology of this book, which is really so absurd as to be almost incredible. It is based on the assumption, explicitly made at some points, that Machiavelli was a true Devil-figure, i.e., that he was evil, and that within this framework, he was all-wise, all-seeing, omniscient, etc. In short, a true Lucifer of titanic proportions. Taking his two books The Prince and The Discourses together, the result is that whenever Machiavelli contradicts himself in any way or omits something of note or puts in a particularly weak (to Strauss) argument or makes an error, Strauss immediately and persistently assumes that this simply couldn’t be and that there must be some deep, twisted, hidden meaning to all this.

This is the Straussian method, and this is virtually the one method of textual analysis that he uses here. He had done similar things with Hobbes, Locke, etc., but not nearly so virulently. Now, it is true, as Strauss points out, that in those days, radical thinkers (i.e., thinkers against the usual stream) were wont to be circumspect, because they were in considerably more danger than they are today. But it is one thing to look for circumspection and quite another to construct a veritable architectonic of myth and conjecture based on the assumption of Machiavelli as an omniscient Devil, writing on a dozen different layers of “hidden meaning.” The Straussian ratiocination is generally so absurd as to be a kind of scholar’s version of the Great Pyramid crackpots or of the kind of screwball historians that flourish in the American Mercury. Strauss’s methodology is to genuine history of political thought as astrology and numerology are to genuine astronomy.

If this seems extreme, I shall give a couple of examples of the almost excruciatingly crackpot nature of Strauss’s scholarship (a crackpottiness that has to be discovered by rather careful reasoning, it is true, because of the density of the Straussian style.) These are two of innumerable examples.

First, Strauss’s flight into numerology. On page 48, he remarks on what is to him the strange and wondrous fact that Machiavelli’s Discourses have 142 chapters, the same number of chapters of Livy’s History. To me, this is not at all surprising, since the Discourses are proclaimed to be a commentary on Livy’s History. But this is enough for Strauss. This “strange fact” he says, “makes one wonder whether the number of chapters of the Prince is not also significant.”⁴⁶ This somehow gives Strauss the clue that there will be a linkage between the Prince and the 26th chapter of the Discourses. (Note the odd “reasoning”: “Since the Prince consists of twenty-six chapters and the Prince does not give us any information as to the possible meaning of this number, we turn to the twenty-sixth chapter of the Discourses.” Note the “since,” as if this had the sweet logic of a syllogism.) Naturally, in this 26th chapter, Strauss finds mention of a “new prince,” which sends him off on a lengthy flight of fancy—presented by him as scientific theory—where the true key to the Prince is found deep in the 26th chapter of the Discourses. On and on we go, until finally, on page 52, Strauss makes his crazy numerology explicit: “This is not the place to give further examples of Machiavelli’s use of the number 26 or, more precisely, of 13 and multiples of 13. It is sufficient here to mention some further features of his work which would seem to indicate that numbers are an important device used by him.”⁴⁷ And off we go further expecting at any moment to be introduced solemnly to the Mysteries of the Great Pyramid and the manacle of Dr. Fu Manchu.

I grant that this is a particularly wild instance, but it is typical of the crackpot methodology that Strauss employs throughout. For example, in another place, Strauss says that Machiavelli, dedicating his Prince to Lorenzo de Medici, called upon him to “lead Italy to the promised land” by liberating her from barbarian rule and unifying her. To a sane reader, I submit, this is a complimentary call on Lorenzo to be another Moses. But to Strauss’s odd mind, this is really a sly dig at Lorenzo, for after all Moses wasn’t so great: he died before reaching the Promised Land. Therefore (sic), Machiavelli was really slyly deprecating Lorenzo as not good enough to reach the Promised Land, and subtly saying that only he, Machiavelli, was good enough. Another typical example of Strauss’s nonsensical ratiocination.

The Straussian method alone, it seems to me, is enough to disqualify this book from National Book Foundation, or any other serious consideration, for that matter. Certainly if any book is a travesty on scholarship, this is it. But let us now push on from the method to the content of Strauss’s ideas and his differences with Machiavelli, which aren’t so good either. Now, it is true that Strauss criticizes Machiavelli for being amoral, pro-tyranny, interested only in social morality and the appearance of morality, etc. But the surprising thing to me was that there was really very little of this in the book, despite the promise of the introduction. For the main substance of the book is a bitter attack on Machiavelli, not for being unethical, but for being an atheist and a humanist. Strauss’s bitter quarrel is largely theological, an attack on Machiavelli for being the first thinker to be non-Christian, to dismiss the Bible as fairy tales, etc.

Now, to paraphrase Max Eastman’s classic review of Bill Buckley’s God and Man at Yale, I do not believe that it should be the function of the National Book Foundation to lead American intellectuals to Jesus.⁴⁸ Surely, there are innumerable sources where anyone who wants to can imbibe Christianity without having special grants to disseminate it. This purely theological quarrel, with no ethical overtones except the complaint that Machiavelli substitutes interest in man for interest in God, takes up the bulk of Strauss’s discourse on Machiavelli.

Finally, toward the end of the final chapter, Strauss leaves his favorite theme of Christianity betrayed, and turns to matters that concern us more: the ethical and the political. But even here, I found Strauss with as many or more bad points as good ones. For, he doesn’t really stress Machiavelli being pro-tyranny, amoral, etc. What he stresses as much or more, are the following complaints against Machiavelli: he is proselfishness of the individual, as against the older concern for the common good; he is pro-acquisitiveness, competition, material gain, and business activity, as against the older “virtues” of pure thought, leisure, etc.

Horror of horrors, in short, is that Machiavelli favors worldly gain, worldly comforts, the translation of thought into action in this world, as against mystical contemplation of God. The more I read Strauss’s attack, the more I concluded that Machiavelli had more good points in his philosophy than I had imagined. Pushing this viewpoint to its logical conclusion, Strauss denounces the modern, Machiavellian emphasis on applying science to this world in the form of advancing technology. Technological inventions are apparently evil to Strauss and should be repressed by society (represented, of course, by the State). This is the final measure of Strauss’s “conservatism.”

Here are some quotations to give some of the flavor of the Straussian position as he concluded his book. Contrasting (good) classical philosophy to (bad) modern philosophy as ushered in by Machiavelli:

In classical philosophy, “the superiority of peace to war or of leisure to business is a reflection of the superiority of thinking to doing or making.”⁴⁹

Wicked Machiavelli

achieves the decisive turn toward that notion of philosophy according to which its purpose is to relieve man’s estate or to increase man’s power or to guide man toward the rational society, the bond and the end of which is enlightened self-interest or the comfortable self-preservation of each of its members.⁵⁰

(Once again: must Strauss push me into being a “Machiavellian”?)

And finally, on the menace of inventions, here is how Strauss, in his concluding paragraph, describes the views of his obvious heroes, the “classical” philosophers:

The classics were for almost all practical purposes what now are called conservatives. In contradistinction to many present day conservatives however, they knew that one cannot be distrustful of political or social change without being distrustful of technological change. Therefore they did not favor the encouragement of inventions. ...They demanded the strict moral-political supervision of inventions; the good and wise city will determine which inventions are to be made use of and which are to be suppressed.⁵¹

(Lest you think he is referring to inventions for war, the fact is just the opposite; his heroes were forced by external conditions to encourage only inventions for war!)

All in all, then, I think it fair to say that Strauss’s Thoughts on Machiavelli is bad in content or ideological position; it is certainly an execrable piece of scholarship. It deserves a very strong recommendation against use in the National Book Foundation program.

Cordially,
Murray