Straussian Summer School

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

Politics, News

4.6 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonah Goldberg has realized that, if you name drop Leo Strauss enough, you’re eventually going to have to explain who you’re talking about. As the benevolent educator of The Remnant masses, Jonah has conspired with Steven Smith, a Straussian expert and professor of political science and philosophy at Yale University, to deliver this deep dive on the life and work of Leo Strauss. Jonah and Steven dig into the fundamentals of Strauss’ work, the debate between the East Coast and West Coast Straussians, the value and potential in fusionism, and Harry Jaffa’s various quirks. Plus: the flaws with the Great Man Theory and some gossip on the heavy hitting intellectuals of the 20th century. Show Notes:—Steven Smith: Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism—The Liberties Journal: “What is a Statesman?”—Take Steven’s Yale University course on political philosophy from your couch!—Irving Kristol’s 1952 review of Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing in Commentary Magazine The Remnant is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including Jonah’s G-File newsletter, regular livestreams, and other members-only content—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.
0:18.0	Can you digger?
0:27.7	Greetings to your listeners.
0:28.9	This is Jonah Goldberg, host, with the Remnant podcast, brought to you by the Dispatch and Dispatch Media.
0:33.2	With all the events going on in Washington with the big, beautiful and the events going on overseas in Gaza and Ukraine, in our longstanding tradition of counter programming, we thought this was a great time to ask who was Leo Strauss.
0:49.1	As you may recall, Leo Strauss's name comes up here quite a few times, has come up here quite a few times.
0:53.9	And I get asked, what is Straussianism quite a bit, which is always an invitation to go
0:59.5	through into a deep rabbit hole. I got grilled by my daughter recently, who had some Strausian
1:05.1	professors to explain Strausianism, and it made me realize that I should really just do this
1:08.9	podcast, which I've been thinking about for a very long time. And so it occurred to me, I, some listeners will recall I was at Yale.
1:17.4	I was a pointer journalism fellow. I don't know exactly what that was, but it meant I had to do a panel
1:24.5	and take a very long train ride. And at dinner, I met Stephen Smith,
1:30.0	who is, we've discovered that parts of his Yale bio are outdated. So if I get something wrong,
1:37.2	he'll correct me. But I believe he's still the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science
1:42.1	and Professor of philosophy.
1:49.0	He's written a ton of books, including Hegel's critique of liberalism,
1:53.5	Spinoza liberalism and Jewish identity, and more relevant for this, perhaps.
1:59.5	He wrote Reading Leo Strauss and the Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss.
2:01.9	He has a new book coming out, which maybe we'll have him back for, called Why Statesmanship Matters. And if you're interested, I'll plug it
2:07.6	again at the end, but he also has a Yale course online of intro to political philosophy.
2:13.7	And so with all of that out of the way, Stephen Smith, welcome to The Remnant.
2:17.7	Thank you, Jonah. It's a pleasure here to be with you.
	...

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