[b]Leo Strauss
One cannot refute what one has not thoroughly understood.[/b]
In other words, as thoroughly as he does.
For example:
Nihilism is the rejection of the principles of civilisation as such—I said civilisation, and not: culture. For I have noticed that many nihilists are great lovers of culture, as distinguished from, and opposed to, civilisation. Besides, the term culture leaves it undetermined what the thing is which is to be cultivated (blood and soil or the mind), whereas the term civilisation designates at once the process of making man a citizen, and not a slave; an inhabitant of cities, and not a rustic; a lover of peace, and not of war; a polite being, and not a ruffian.
And who has ever undertstood nihilsim as thoroughly as he did?
On the other hand, he has been dead now for nearly 45 years.
But what is the core of the political? Men killing men on the largest scale in broad daylight and with the greatest serenity.
Or with the greatest of rationalizations.
The Jewish people and their fate are the living witness for the absence of redemption. This, one could say, is the meaning of the chosen people; the Jews are chosen to prove the absence of redemption.
Comments anyone?
All human thought, including scientific thought, rests on premises which cannot be validated by human reason and which came from historical epoch to historical epoch.
Not counting your thoughts, Mr. Objectivist.
But dogmatism—or the inclination “to identify the goal of our thinking with the point at which we have become tired of thinking”—is so natural to man that it is not likely to be a preserve of the past.
Though some become tired of thinking sooner than others.