Abstract
Modernity is not identical to the crisis of Western civilization. It is a set of ill-conceived ideas that ultimately lead to that crisis. In its heyday or golden age, modernity is bold and self-confident. The first crisis of modernity erupts when confident exuberance gives way to self-doubt. Jean-Jacques Rousseau articulates this doubt, and Strauss therefore regards him as the representative of the first crisis of modernity.
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Notes
Allan Bloom, ‘An Outline of Gulliver’s Travels’, in Joseph Cropsey (ed.), Ancients and Moderns: Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss (New York: Basic Books, 1964).
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels and Other Writings (New York: The Modern Library, 1958).
Nietzsche, Lise and Abuse of History trans. Adrian Collins (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1949, 1957) pp. 6, 7.
Leo Strauss, ‘The Three Waves of Modernity’, in Hilail Gilden (ed.), Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo Strauss (New York: Bobby-Merrill, 1975).
Leo Strauss, ‘Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization’, Modern Judaism, vol. 1 (1981) p. 27.
See Leo Strauss, ‘Correspondence Concerning Modernity: Karl Lüwith and Leo Strauss’, Independent Journal of Philosophy, vol. 4 (1983) p. 107.
Heidegger, ‘Letter on Humanism’, trans. Edgar Lohner, in William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken (eds), Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (New York: Random House, 1962) p. 288.
See Jonathan Glover, What Sort of People Should There Be? (New York: Penguin Books, 1984); see also my review of Glover’s book in Review of Politics, vol. 47, no. 2 (April 1985) pp. 285–8.
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© 1988 Shadia B. Drury
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Drury, S.B. (1988). The Crisis of Modernity. In: The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19128-4_8
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