Kadish Workshop in Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory: Patrick Deneen, University of Notre Dame

Cold War Right Liberalism: The Case of Leo Strauss and the Straussians

Abstract 

Recently, Samuel Moyn of Yale University has contended that the left is suffering under truncated political ambitions due to the baleful influence of the intellectual architects of Cold War Liberalism. In this paper I argue that his diagnosis of the left applies far more accurately to the right, in the form of a comparable form of “Cold War Right Liberalism.” While (echoing Moyn’s account) many voices contributed to the anti-eutopian form of Cold War Right Liberalism, I focus in this paper on the pronounced influence of Leo Strauss (and secondarily Allan Bloom) on the formation both of the political views and the institutional form of modern day “right liberalism.” I particularly focus on Strauss’s innovative and “ironic” reading of Plato’s Republic, which appears to endorse the more limited aspirations of liberal democracy even as it regards that regime as one that deeply degrades the citizenry. The apparently unmitigated enthusiasm of almost all of Strauss’s students and their students for (right) liberalism is thus either a testimony to the subtle esotericism of his teaching or conscious silence about that aspect of his interpretation. Either way, like Moyn’s proposal for the left, I conclude by challenging the contemporary dominance of Cold War (Right) Liberalism.

About Patrick Deneen, University of Notre Dame:

Patrick J. Deneen holds a B.A. in English literature and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University. From 1995-1997 he was Speechwriter and Special Advisor to the Director of the United States Information Agency. From 1997-2005 he was Assistant Professor of Government at Princeton University. From 2005-2012 he was Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, before joining the faculty of Notre Dame in Fall 2012. He is the author and editor of several books and numerous articles and reviews and has delivered invited lectures around the world.

Deneen was awarded the APSA’s Leo Strauss Award for Best Dissertation in Political Theory in 1995, and an honorable mention for the APSA’s Best First Book Award in 2000. He has been awarded research fellowships from Princeton University, Earhart Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Virginia.

His teaching and writing interests focus on the history of political thought, American political thought, liberalism, conservatism, and constitutionalism.

His widely-discussed 2018 book, Why Liberalism Failed, has been translated into over twenty languages and was praised by former President Barack Obama.

About the workshop:

A workshop for presenting and discussing work in progress in moral, political, and legal theory. The central aim is to provide an opportunity for students to engage with philosophers, political theorists, and legal scholars working on normative questions. Another aim is to bring together people from different disciplines who have strong normative interests or who speak to issues of potential interest to philosophers and political theorists.

The theme for Spring 2025 is “Critics of Liberalism,” and we will host scholars working in Philosophy, Law, History, and Political Science. Our underlying concern will be the normative critiques of substantive liberal ideas from both the left and right, as well as staunch defenders of liberalism.

This semester the workshop is co-taught by Joshua Cohen and Desmond Jagmohan.