A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.
Leo StraussRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how the Jewish people's experiences serve as a profound commentary on the concept of redemption.
In this quote, Leo Strauss suggests that the Jewish people symbolize a unique existential reality where their historical suffering and trials illustrate a deeper philosophical truth regarding redemption. Instead of being a promise of salvation, their collective experience reveals the complexities and often harsh realities of life, leading to the contemplation of what it means to be 'chosen' not for privilege but as a testament to life's challenges.
Themes
JudaismRedemptionSufferingExistentialismChosenPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on existential philosophy, I referenced this quote to illustrate the complexities of suffering.
More from Leo Strauss
All quotes →No bloody or unbloody change of society can eradicate the evil in man: as long as there will be men, there will be malice, envy and hatred, and hence there cannot be a society which does not have to employ coercive restraint.
Leo StraussRead
If the highest things are unknowable, then the highest capacity or virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom.
Leo StraussRead
The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.
Leo StraussRead
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Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?
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I doubt that religion can survive deep understanding. The shallows are its natural habitat. Cranks and fundamentalists are too often victimised as scapegoats for religion in general. It is only quite recently that Christianity reinvented itself in non-fundamentalist guise, and Islam has yet to do so.
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Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division.
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It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken pubic support....When the doubt or fear expressed concerns not the success of a particular enterprise but of the whole social plan, it must be treated even more as sabotage.
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We cannot afford to spend millions and millions over nuclear arms when there is poverty and unemployment all around us.
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