The Bootblack Stand
Plunkitt, George Washington
Book Review/Kent F. Moors The Indispensable Strauss Toward the end of the Republic, Socrates counsels that one must seek out a man who can teach the difference between what is valuable and what is...
...It is a massive, complex, and at times trying dialogue...
...It is his last major work...
...Strauss has elsewhere referred to this as logographic necessity—it is, in other words, necessary that each part of a Platonic dialogue be where it is...
...where confusion reigned, he projected order...
...Megillus has been educated in the traditions handed down by Lycurgus from Apollo...
...Book Review/Kent F. Moors The Indispensable Strauss Toward the end of the Republic, Socrates counsels that one must seek out a man who can teach the difference between what is valuable and what is not...
...To do so further requires that the legislator be able to identify what drives men to injustice-and what can prompt them to love justice above individual satiation...
...The Laws is Plato's most political work, for in its pages a city is founded through the act of legislating...
...One chapter is devoted to each of the 12 books of the dialogue: As with any Platonic dialogue, the Laws constitutes a movemant from beginning to end—that a problem is posed, a question raised, or a subject introduced, which unfolds progressively through discussion until the participants (and readers) are led to an understanding of truths higher than those possessed by opinion alone...
...Such is Strauss' accomplishment...
...Rule in the Laws is radically depersonalized...
...There is present a clear and intimate familiarity with Platonic language combined with a thorough and detailed understanding of the Laws as an organic whole...
...Justice is a political commodity, one which men hold in common...
...It is a fine tapestry woven with great care...
...More than a decade ago, Leo Strauss counseled this path: "Having arrived at the end of the Laws," he wrote, "we must return to the beginning of the Republic...
...In the first place it is difficult to know that the true political art must care not for the private but for the public...
...It is not without interest, therefore, that despite these compelling dimensions, the Laws has never received an intense degree of scholarly scrutiny by students of political philosophy...
...his mortal nature will prevent him from acting according to that insight and urge him on to prefer his private pleasure and ease to the common good...
...The significance of the Laws, andthe importance of Strauss' treatment of it, lies in the relationship it establishes between political order and legislation on the one hand, and political virtue and right opinion on the other...
...In this work, Plato chooses to examine the essence of the "real world" of political life...
...The dialogue begins after the journey has already commenced and ends before that journey is completed...
...The "city in speech" founded in the Laws, however, is shortly transformed into advice given to actual legislators and actual cities...
...All cities construct ideas of virtue and opinions concerning what is to be honored and cherished...
...0 34 The Alternative: An American Spectator March 197...
...You can get this remarkable 16-millimeter film on a free-loan basis by contacting Modern Talking Picture Service, 2323 New Hyde Park Road, New Hyde Park, NY 11040...
...We are now experiencing a renaissance of interest in political philosophy, particularly classical political philosophy, which owes its existence largely to the brilliance of Strauss and his erudite students...
...The lawgiver must know the soul of man, for this is also the soul of the city...
...No man's nature is sufficient for knowing what is conducive to political life and, if knowing it, for always being able and willing to do what . is best...
...Aside from the Phaedrus, the Laws is the only Platonic dialogue to occur outside...
...It is that dialogue in which the sinews of Greek civilization confront the awakened human intellect to produce a timeless tract on the subject of political order...
...These are elements of the dialogue which receive due and cogent consideration by Strauss...
...During the walk, the participants discuss law and government, subjects which will produce the founding of a "city in speech"—a city devised in discussion...
...That development transpires in the interchange between what is said (logos) and what is done (ergon...
...The able legislator is he who can accomplish these tasks without also sowing the seeds of political instability and disorder, for, unless the individual finds significance in the standards established in political life for -everybody, he will seek for them elsewhere on his own...
...Those legal institutions framed the character which saved Greece from Persian domination at Marathon, Plataiai, and Salamis...
...only the skillful and thoughtful scholar can show us its intricate detail without losing the overall design in the process...
...There are, perhaps, some reasons for this...
...Secondly, in recognizing the place of political virtue and right opinion, the Laws also commands that the legislator be able to identify the proper ordering of political man—the virtues of the citizen—and the proper perspectives which that ordering exhibits—the opinions of the citizen...
...The regime of the Laws is characterized by a rule of law, not of men...
...It is the only Platonic dialogue which begins with the word Theos ("God"), and during the dialogue's development, the treatment of the divine and sacred things constitutes the primary shaft by which the entire discussion of actual legislating (Books 4-12) is transfixed...
...of Athens...
...The Athenian, the youngest of the three, represents the latest of the hallowed Greek legal institutions...
...Still, as Strauss counsels parenthetically, this is not simply a dialogue in which Plato acts as a real political legislator would act: "As Socrates explains in the Phaedrus, saying to all human beings the same things is the essential defect of writings, a defect which is presumably remedied in Plato's writings: Plato's writings, including the Laws, are as remote as possible from the legislator's writings...
...The subject of the Laws revolves around the order of political life...
...In the Republic, a "city in speech" is constructed to assist Socrates and his interlocutors in the determination of what constitutes justice...
...These are institutions which can boast the likes of Solon and Pericles...
...Socrates in the Theaetetus claims that he is a midwife of philosophy—capable of bringing forth wisdom in others though barren himself...
...Such order requires that the legislator both understand the needs of the city and produce a structure through which the necessities of order are preserved from the vicissitudes of individuals' demands and gratifications...
...Even here, the common good must supersede the private good...
...One must first understand the exoteric development —what is said and what happens—before proceeding on to the dialogue's deeper esoteric meanings and import...
...The "city in speech" here constructed is one which seeks to ascertain the ingredients of stable political rule...
...yet they must also bear the responsibility for the likes of Cleon and Cleomedes...
...For those who think otherwise, who prefer to employ subjective ideas rather than the actual dialogue as a starting point, The Argument and the Action of Plato's "Laws" provides a valuable reprimand...
...These are three old men, presumably wise in the ways of their respective traditions...
...Secondly, if someone acquires this fundamental insight of the political art...
...Rather, it is an intriguing examination of the complex development of the Laws, and the manner in which that development comes to, pass...
...To seriously consider this fundamental question—a question which not only plagued the classical age but also plagues our own—one must turn to the Republic where Plato presents us with another city, and, another founding...
...This is the only place to begin if one wishes to master the dialogue, as Strauss has constantly reminded us throughout his decades of work with Plato...
...They do so always with an eye toward their own preservation...
...We learn quite early (at the end of Book 3) that Cleinias is to be of ten delegated the task of founding a Cretan colony...
...Such preservation of the common good is possible only if proper legislation establishes a foundation for political life which seeks to elevate the whole of the city over its parts...
...Not all who participate in a Platonic dialogue become philosophers, but all are touched and changed by the experience...
...For those who have considered themselves students of political philosophy during the past few generations, that man has been the late Leo Strauss...
...The Laws develops as the discussion develops...
...The long discussions in the Laws on the subjects of regard for the divine, education, and reward and punishment indicate the clay the best legislator must employ in molding a regard for justice...
...The very discussion of law and government, therefore, takes on added importance when their backgrounds are considered, as they are in the dialogue...
...We are deliberately led away from the obvious question—can the individual who possesses a well-ordered personal existence exist in the regime constructed in the dialogue...
...there is nothing without meaning...
...There is nothing out of place...
...Each theme is predicated upon what has already taken place, and each points toward those which still are to come...
...The Laws is also Plato's longest work, and, if classical tradition is to be our guide, his last...
...Plato takes us on a highly orchestrated and integrated journey from the realm of appearance—that which seems to be—to the realm of truth—where one apprehends what is...
...The title is instructive...
...In the former case, Strauss deftly traces the dialogue's statement on how political order is established and in what ways that order is maintained...
...We have in these three characters the representation of three great Greek legal systems...
...It chooses to deal both with the argument—the development of discussion in, the The Argument and the Action of Plato's "Laws" by Leo Strauss University of Chicago $10.75 Laws—and the action—the deeds demanded by that discussion...
...The Argument and the Action of Plato's "Laws" was completed in 1971, twoyears before Strauss' death...
...The best legislator, therefore, is one who can direct citizens' attentions to that which binds them together...
...It is the only dialogue in which the juxtaposition of the divine presence and the neces32 The Alternative: An American Spectator March 1976 sities of political life occupies a central, perhaps the central, theme...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator March 1976 33 and high position...
...What immediately impresses the reader of Strauss' indispensable guide to the Laws, perhaps its most striking characteristic, is the way in which the original Greek text is mirrored so closely in the commentary...
...516) 437-6300...
...There is scarcely consideration of the order of an individual's own existence...
...The work of the most noble laws," Strauss writes, "consists precisely in inducing people to hate injustice and to love justice itself or at any rate not to hate it...
...For the discipline of political science, a discipline which had radically severed itself from its essential foundation, Leo Strauss was the "gadfly" par excellence...
...As Strauss comments: "Men's laying down laws and living according to laws are indispensable if they are to differ from savage beasts: The reason is this...
...Cleinias, as one who will contribute to the founding of an actual city, may be considered a prospective "real world" legislator...
...In other words, is it possible for the good man to be also a good citizen in this city...
...Cleinias carries with him on this journey the legal traditions handed down by Minos from Zeus...
...The Athenian Stranger, on the other hand, while instructing Cleinias-in the most important tasks of a legislator, will not himself found a real city...
...Still, it must be recalled that they are-also the same legal institutions which produced the Athenian Empire and precipitated what Thucydides justly titles the "great war...
...While the Athenian Stranger is unquestionably one of philosophic persuasion, the dialogue is almost cornpletely bereft of philosophic discussion...
...This movement is tightly structured about both the matter under discussion and the capabilities of the interlocutors...
...This is not, however, merely a retelling of the dialogue...
...Where there was darkness, he brought light...
...It is the only dialogue in which the principal character actually engages in political activity during the course of the discussion...
...The legislator sets down the standards but does not himself reap the benefits of power FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY For the first time on film the roisterous tale of Adam is finally available in a full-color 28-minute documentary shocker entitled "Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations...
...Here on the island of Crete, the oldest Greek civilization, three old men embark on a walk from the ancient city of Knossos to the even more ancient sacred cave of Zeus—an Athenian Stranger, the Cretan Cleinias, and Megillus, a Spartan...
...The Athenian Stranger appears to serve a similar function on the political level in the Laws...
Vol. 9 • March 1976 • No. 6
