Being in some ways a follower of Leo Strauss, I get it when he says that there are, in politically difficult times, two interpretations of a text. There is the superficial meaning, and there is the actual message that the author has in mind but cannot say what he thinks just like that. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it. In either case, an amazing film that had me in for the whole two hours plus.
The movie is Straight Outta Compton. At Rotten Tomatoes 90% from the critics and 95% from the audience. A respectable but lower 8.3 at IMDb.
There is an interesting argument that I think belongs to Leo Strauss, in which he says many of the great philosophers cannot be read straight, but must be seen to have written in a kind of code, because to say exactly what they meant would have landed them in major difficulty. I am not amongst the great philosophers, but I know the feeling. There are some things I don’t say, and others that are said in a way that is intended to diminish the dangers such thoughts must cause. No one is infinitely brave. We all wish to see another day and to continue earning our pitiful incomes and leading our lives without interruption. But we know the kind of world we are in, and hope to shape things for the better. And so we write, but on some things are not entirely straightforward. But to depend on others to see our intended irony, or to deduce what we really mean when we have written words that are intentionally obscure, is, I know, ridiculous.
I have gone back to read William Buckley’s God & Man at Yale which is astonishing, not just because he was 24 when he wrote the book in 1950, but mostly because it speaks to our own times with perfect foresight. He was writing about one form of totalitarianism while we are dealing with another. But his Chapter 4 on “The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom'” is so exactly stated that you would think he was observing us today. I found much of it astonishing, but this was right to the point:
“Democracy may not be truth, but so far as at least Yale University is concerned, it is the nearest thing to truth that we possess, so that while a faculty member is perfectly free to point out the limitations, defects, and weaknesses of democracy, as is right and proper, he is not privileged, at the margin, to advocate the abolition of democracy in favour of totalitarianism.” [p. 155]
From which he went on to say:
“Truth does not necessarily vanquish. Truth does not carry within it an antitoxin to falsehood. . . . Truth can win only where people are temperamentally and intellectually disposed to side with it, for the mere act of recognizing it as such does not entail the wilful act of attaching allegiance to it” [p. 157].
His point being that there is right and wrong, and it is our duty to stand up for what is right, and suppress what is unarguably wrong. So one more quote, and then that’s that:
“I hasten to dissociate myself from the school of thought, largely staffed by conservatives, that believes teachers ought to be ‘at all times neutral.’ Where values are concerned, effective teaching is difficult, if not impossible, in the context of neutrality; and further, I believe such a policy to be a lazy denial of educational responsibility.
“I believe, therefore, that the attitude of the teacher ought to reveal itself, and that, assuming the overseers of the university in question to have embraced democracy, individualism and religion, the attitudes of the faculty ought to conform to the university’s.” [p 181]
A wholly different world, since there is little doubt democracy, individualism, and religion, as Buckley understood them, are today opposed by administrations and faculty alike.
And while I’m at it I might mention this very long, but incredibly insightful, post put up online the other day: C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism by David J. Theroux. You can read the text, or if you prefer, watch the video below which is the better option.
I will just include this from the last part of the address since I think it is so pertinent to the way that economics is now studied and taught. It’s a trivial example, as these things go, but not without serious significance:
For Lewis, science should be a quest for knowledge, and his concern was that in the modern era science is too often used instead as a quest by some for power over others. Lewis did not dispute that science is an immensely important tool to understand the natural world, but his larger point is that science cannot tell us anything that is ultimately important regarding what choices we should make. In other words, Lewis shows that “what is” does not indicate “what ought” to be. Scientists on their own are not able to address moral ethics, and all social and political questions are exclusively questions of morality. Lewis furthermore viewed as nonscience, or scientism, all those disciplines that attempt to replicate the scientific method to analyze man: “[T]he new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. . . . If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. . . . Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about science. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man’s opinion no added value” (“Is Progress Possible?” pp. 314-15).
Law of Markets 