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The Straussian Moment
Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, author of the essay “The Straussian Moment,” describes how the ancients believed in the power of the intellect and the weakness of the will, but how today we believe the opposite. We want machines to do the thinking, because we don’t trust rationality.
26 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2007
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May 22, 2022
This is a summary, not a review due to space constraints. My comments are limited to the specific point on 'modernised religion'.
Peter Thiel's (PT) paper starts with the 9/11 attack, and how a liberal democracy was wonded by a bunch of determined, crazy and suicidal individuals who operated outside norms of liberal engagement. He states that this event signalled to the West that the rules of engagement hadchanged. He questions the transfer of wealth, and aid from liberalized developed world to the third , non-liberal world. He says, that ex-ante, the transfer made sense, that it would help keep off the communist movements. But he says, that ex-poste, it makes no sense. All it did, was add to the coffers of third world dictators, and the money circulated back to the west, in terms of deposits in Swiss Banks. [RS: He fails to see that in some cases, such as Greece, Japan, Western E, it succeeded, and it is only in certain countries in South America and Middle East where PT's observation is correct.]
He argues that there is a need to recognize that there DO exist groups who are evil, who are not rational, and who seek to fight even if comes at the cost of their prosperity and lives.
[Rs: is reminiscent of Android 16's line in DBZ- "there are those who words alone cannot reach"]
He states that the perpetrators in case of 9/11 were millionaires - like Osama Bin Laden. Foreign aid programmes couldn't have prevented this. He recognizes the conflict between the Greek and Roman philosophy, on one hand, which is the philosophy of action, and Christian Philosophy on the other, which is the philosophy of faith, and contemplation. Roman philosophy condemns errors of practical affairs - economic, and military errors, while Christian Philosophy condemns sins of faith. But he says, in Modern times, we have rejected both.
He argues,as we had repeated conflicts in Europe on the questions of human nature, .. to avoid conflict... over time West relegated these questions to the sidelines as private matters, outside the public sphere. This was a wise decision. Since it allowed the West to focus on economic and technological progress. They didn't solve the original question, they merely relegated it to the sidelines. To quote Peter:
"Inexorably, questions of virtue and religion became private questions; polite and respectable individuals learned not to talk about them too much, because they could lead to nothing but unproductive conflicts. For the modern world, questions about the nature of humanity would be viewed on par with the struggle among the Lilliputians about the correct way to cut open an egg. Hobbes, the first truly modern philosopher boasted of how he deserted and ran away from fighting in a religious war; a cowardly life had become preferable to heroic but meaningless death. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, had been an important part of the old tradition; henceforth it would be seen as nothing more than an old lie. And so the Enlightenment understood a major strategic retreat. If the only way to stop people from killing one another about the right way to open an egg involved a world where nobody thought about it too much, then the intellectual cost of ceasing such thought seemed a small price to pay. The question of human nature was abandoned because it is too perilous a question to debate"
Moving beyond the question of human nature, Peter argues the West,filled the gap by focusing on, techology and capitalism which brought it prosperity. The philosopher who was the embodiment of this new tradition, according to Peter, was John Locke (the intellectual founder of the US, according to PT)
He says, that Locke takes a politically convenient path to religion. He does not reject God, because then the liberal principles he proposes would never have been accepted (RS: Comment I agree, see the story of Thomas Paine).
Neither, does he agree with the dogma and rigidity of the old traditions. So how does one move away from the dogma of the old traditions without inviting the wrath which follows, when one rejects these dogmas? According to PT, Locke introduced reasonableness within religion, and unknowingly (for the masses, maybe even for him), changed religion. Therefore, he did not reject religion, because he termed it unreasonable. He merely interpreted it reasonably. . It is very similar to what the Indian Courts do with respect to regressive religious practices, by applying the artificial and nonsensical 'essential religious practices test. Whichever component of religion is challenged as regressive, and is truly regressive, is discarded, and prohibited by the Court, not by saying that the Constitution finds primacy over religion, instead by saying that this regressive practice was never a part of religion in the first place. The essential religious practice test, where the court is actually discarding what it considers regressive, by disguising it as non-essential.
It does not take the courageous step of simply saying "we don't care whether this practice is an essential part of your religion or not, what we do care about is whether the practice is regressive, and violates the rights of individuals, and if the religious practice does violate these rights, then we will ban them irrespective of your religious sentimentalities" .
But this approach might be politically difficult even today, so Locke's solution is understandable.
Needless to say, this position is logically inconsistent. My personal critique (different from Thiel), is that following a 'modernised religion' is a confused contradiction in terms. The first question to ask is why do we follow a set of religious practices? The answer to this question does not lie in the present or the future, but in the past. No matter what answer is given, it will be a variation of the point that (a) our ancestors did it, and this is our tradition (b) a supernatural entity in the past mandated it. To reiterate, no matter what variation is given, the central component of the answer is the past. But the problem is that religion, in its true form, does consist of regressive components, and stipulations. Take the example of Christianity:
Ephesians 5;22-24 "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything"
Leviticus 20:9 "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death"
The above, extracts are merely some examples of patriarchal, and primitive doctrines of religion. Similar examples are 1 Peter "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men". However, Christianity is not the only religion with primitive doctrines. There are other religions such as Islam (in its treatment of women, and other faiths), and Hinduism (see 'Varnas')
Put simply, the above extracts penalize homosexuality, females and child rights. Now, see what Locke says, as Peter reproduces in his paper:
Marriage remains an important compact, but "the Wife has, in many cases, a Liberty to separate from [the husband] ---------Command for children to honour their parents does not apply if the parents have been "unnaturally careless"
Locke, much like the Indian Supreme Court is not rejecting religious doctrine, but is reforming it by interpretation. Of relevance here, is the view of Robert Millikan from the book 'Living Philosophies':
"In the United States, organized religion has already undergone an amazing evolution, which shows its capacity to adapt itself to new conditions. It first sloughed off, or had cut away from it, the terrible incubus of political power when the complete separation of church and state was decreed by the far visioned men who made our Constitution. Second, to a considerable degree it has freed itself from the shackles that are imposed by central authority and vested rights, and has thus left itself free to evolve. "
Of relevance is his argument that religion has evolved to modern standards. In this context, it is my (and not PT's) critique of the above practice--You follow religion because of its ancient origins, but what you are following is the modern, reasoned version of religion, that has been refined, and evolved. You follow it because of its ancient, mystical origins, but you want it to fit your modern sensibilities. But if you are following religion because of its ancient, traditional origins, then shouldn’t you follow the original scriptures, in their entirety, including their regressive components? You can't be on both sides. You need to decide, what is more important, following an ancient tradition, or modern reason ? If it is the latter, then follow reason, and don't try to mold and evolve religion to your personal standard of reason. Be intellectually honest. To quote Sir Arthur Keith:
"Like other conservative-minded men, I tried to empty the new knowledge of science into the time-revered Biblical bottles. I know that many have succeeded, and still succeed, in doing so; but to my eye, the Biblical bottles, when modified to hold the wine of modern science, bear no resemblance to the Scriptural originals. To say that they are the same is to prostitute truth."
Of course, this is my critique and Thiel does not venture here (smartly), he merely observes, and details the phenomenon. Quoting PT:
" Locke’s conception of Christ is a world removed from that of the medieval passion plays or The
Passion of Mel Gibson; still, the character Locke attributes to Christ comports rather well with the character that one reasonably might attribute to Locke himself and the passionless world he set out to create. Over time, the country founded by Locke would do away with Christian religiosity even as it maintained many outward appearances of it. The United States eventually would become more secular and materialist, though most of its citizens would continue to call themselves “Christians."
He details the various ways, in which Locke, without rejecting Christianity, subconsciously pushed the populace towards skipping the question of religion and human nature, and instead focus on rights, and the economy. PT argues that for this reason, Western Society rapidly advanced - it followed the ideals of the Enlightenment philosophers - to focus on empiricism (by extension science), human rights, capitalism, economics, and so on.
This peace, argues Peter, was broken from the point of 9/11 attacks. Peter says:
" Nothing should stop us from enjoying the prosperous tranquility of the capitalist paradise we have built for ourselves. Since September 11, our peace has been broken. For there remains another very important boundary whose existence the American people had forgotten about the rest of the world and its deep division from the West, The non-Western world had not yet seen the Peace of Westphalia. The progress of the Enlightenment has occurred at different rates in different pans of the world And in that world outside the West, questions of religion and the purpose of humanity remained central; even in 2001 the greatest fear was not the fear of a painful death but the fear of what would happen in one in the life after that death. And so, a religious war has been brought to a land that no longer cares for religious wars. Even President Bush, who styles himself a religious conservative, cannot bring himself io believe that it is religion that really matters:
“|T}his great nation of many religions understands our war is not against
Islam or against the faith practiced by the Muslim people.
Where Bush downplays the differences bin Laden emphasizes them,contrasting the world of pure Islam and the world of the decadent West in themost extreme way imaginable:
[T]he love of this world is wrong. You should
love the other world . . . die in the right cause and go to the other world.’
Unfortunately, bin Laden is not simply an irrelevant crackpot of the sort that one might find screaming at the bemused spectators in Hyde Park. For bin Laden, unlike Locke, hard questions of morality and conduct need no postponement; their answers are clear and resolution cannot be delayed. Bin Laden is a passionate man of wealth and power, so that his personal example reminds us of the boundary cases Locke so readily dismissed. Indeed, the oil industry, the source of bin Laden’s wealth, presents one of the most glaring examples that run counter to Locke’s felicitous generalizations. For most of the value of oil exists simply in nature, so that the “labor that humans add by extracting and refining this oil is proportionately quite small.."
From here onwards, PT argues that the world is inherently political, and taking sides is necessary, because if you don't take sides, and undertake actions then you will be obliterated - "when we don't make a choice, we still make a choice". PT reproduces the following extract from Schmitt:
"In Russia, before the Revolution, the doomed classes romanticized the Russian peasant as a good, brave, and Christian muzhik . . The aristocratic society of France before the Revolution of 1789 sentimentalized "man who is by nature good and the virtue of the masses . . Nobody scented the
revolution, it is incredible to see the security and unsuspiciousness with which these privileged spoke of the goodness, mildness, and innocence of the people when 1793 was already upon them—spectacle rididcule er terrible"
Schmitt argues, and PT agrees, until "there is an invasion by aliens from outer space, there can never be a world state that politically unites all of humanity" - in their opinion, it is a "logical impossibility".
To this end, Schmitt argues, and PT agrees, that when you have an enemy who does not play by the rules of the game, who believes in the destruction of the enemy (the West), then the West needs to start taking action, and cannot stop at half measures. There are certain enemies which are irrational. You cannot expect to appeal to their rational side. This argument can be seen in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine today, where it becomes clear that certain countries/individuals cannot be reasoned with.
But here lies the problem according to Schmitt, and Peter Thiel, when one side has subscribed to modernist, and enlightenment traditions, the very subscription to such traditions means that
(a) such side would be confused as to what purpose/ideal the side is fighting for;
(b) the side would consider fighting with the enemy contrary to their values and therefore gravitate towards avoiding such fights;
( c) that the elevation of rationality would involve self-preservation, and by extension the avoidance of war - much like Hobbes who boasted about fleeing battle.
These are significant problems according to PT since numerical or technological superiority is irrelevant, if the intensity of belief in destroying the enemy is (understandly) less than the intensity of the enemy. (ISIS and so on). In other words, the diffusion of enlightenment values in Western Culture would result in the West approaching its enemies, in the manner of Chamberlain, and not Churchill.
Till here, it appears that Peter is hinting that West, for its survival, must adopt the primitive and Machiavellian approach of entering the arena and beating the 'enemy'. The problem according to PT- is that any victory in the arena will be hollow, since the very entry into the battlefield, will destroy the enlightenment values that the West stands for. Therefore PT says, that we are at an impasse. Quoting him:
"Let us recapitulate. The modern West has lost faith in itself. In the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment period, this loss of faith liberated enormous commercial and creative forces. Al the same time, this loss has rendered the West vulnerable. Is there a way to fortify t h e modern West without destroying it altogether, a way of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater?"
In this context, PT searches for a solution, and refers to Girard, and Strauss. I will skip the solution Strauss provides due to the limitations of space, since neither me, nor PT consider his solution to be correct.
Moving on to Girard, it is first necessary to understand, Girard's philosophy before understanding Peter's reliance on him, in this paper. Girard, is famous for (inter alia), the mimetic theory, which asserts that human desires are derived from mimesis, which is the imitation of other wants, and behaviors. It is this mimetic behaviouralism which sometime results in conflict. But there is another point, which Girard makes, which is the scapegoat theory. Put simply, the enlightenment philosophy is that the global conflict was ended by a social contract, which recognised rights, and property. Girard thinks this is bogus. In his opinion, passions, and offensive instincts were fulfilled/calmed by the sacrifice, and killing of one entity, by all the other entities which ganged up on this entity. In other words, all entities attributed their conflicts and suffering to one entity, who was executed.
To understand this theory, take the following incident - which happened recently, in Madhya Pradesh - https://thewire.in/communalism/mp-aft...
Of relevance is the following excerpt: "On the demolition, the Express quoted SDM Raman as saying, “There was also communal tension in the village. People wanted the house to be razed.”
It is clear, the scapegoat, had been created and destroyed to maintain peace. Similarly, Girard argues that peace exists in West (compared to before), because they found and sacrified a scapegoat, and not because of a fictitious social contract. PT thinks, that there will be a time when such questions are asked again, and this risks the apocalypse. He says, that the lens of enlightenment will be unable to answer, or prevent the search for the answer to the questions of human nature, and it will unable to counter the unravelling which would happen if the truth (whatever it is) comes out, and bring back the pre-sacrificial violence. In one way, PT considers Islam and Middle East to be more advanced than the West - they are in the midst of violence, because they are already asking the question, that the West relegated to the background.
Peter Thiel's (PT) paper starts with the 9/11 attack, and how a liberal democracy was wonded by a bunch of determined, crazy and suicidal individuals who operated outside norms of liberal engagement. He states that this event signalled to the West that the rules of engagement hadchanged. He questions the transfer of wealth, and aid from liberalized developed world to the third , non-liberal world. He says, that ex-ante, the transfer made sense, that it would help keep off the communist movements. But he says, that ex-poste, it makes no sense. All it did, was add to the coffers of third world dictators, and the money circulated back to the west, in terms of deposits in Swiss Banks. [RS: He fails to see that in some cases, such as Greece, Japan, Western E, it succeeded, and it is only in certain countries in South America and Middle East where PT's observation is correct.]
He argues that there is a need to recognize that there DO exist groups who are evil, who are not rational, and who seek to fight even if comes at the cost of their prosperity and lives.
[Rs: is reminiscent of Android 16's line in DBZ- "there are those who words alone cannot reach"]
He states that the perpetrators in case of 9/11 were millionaires - like Osama Bin Laden. Foreign aid programmes couldn't have prevented this. He recognizes the conflict between the Greek and Roman philosophy, on one hand, which is the philosophy of action, and Christian Philosophy on the other, which is the philosophy of faith, and contemplation. Roman philosophy condemns errors of practical affairs - economic, and military errors, while Christian Philosophy condemns sins of faith. But he says, in Modern times, we have rejected both.
He argues,as we had repeated conflicts in Europe on the questions of human nature, .. to avoid conflict... over time West relegated these questions to the sidelines as private matters, outside the public sphere. This was a wise decision. Since it allowed the West to focus on economic and technological progress. They didn't solve the original question, they merely relegated it to the sidelines. To quote Peter:
"Inexorably, questions of virtue and religion became private questions; polite and respectable individuals learned not to talk about them too much, because they could lead to nothing but unproductive conflicts. For the modern world, questions about the nature of humanity would be viewed on par with the struggle among the Lilliputians about the correct way to cut open an egg. Hobbes, the first truly modern philosopher boasted of how he deserted and ran away from fighting in a religious war; a cowardly life had become preferable to heroic but meaningless death. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, had been an important part of the old tradition; henceforth it would be seen as nothing more than an old lie. And so the Enlightenment understood a major strategic retreat. If the only way to stop people from killing one another about the right way to open an egg involved a world where nobody thought about it too much, then the intellectual cost of ceasing such thought seemed a small price to pay. The question of human nature was abandoned because it is too perilous a question to debate"
Moving beyond the question of human nature, Peter argues the West,filled the gap by focusing on, techology and capitalism which brought it prosperity. The philosopher who was the embodiment of this new tradition, according to Peter, was John Locke (the intellectual founder of the US, according to PT)
He says, that Locke takes a politically convenient path to religion. He does not reject God, because then the liberal principles he proposes would never have been accepted (RS: Comment I agree, see the story of Thomas Paine).
Neither, does he agree with the dogma and rigidity of the old traditions. So how does one move away from the dogma of the old traditions without inviting the wrath which follows, when one rejects these dogmas? According to PT, Locke introduced reasonableness within religion, and unknowingly (for the masses, maybe even for him), changed religion. Therefore, he did not reject religion, because he termed it unreasonable. He merely interpreted it reasonably. . It is very similar to what the Indian Courts do with respect to regressive religious practices, by applying the artificial and nonsensical 'essential religious practices test. Whichever component of religion is challenged as regressive, and is truly regressive, is discarded, and prohibited by the Court, not by saying that the Constitution finds primacy over religion, instead by saying that this regressive practice was never a part of religion in the first place. The essential religious practice test, where the court is actually discarding what it considers regressive, by disguising it as non-essential.
It does not take the courageous step of simply saying "we don't care whether this practice is an essential part of your religion or not, what we do care about is whether the practice is regressive, and violates the rights of individuals, and if the religious practice does violate these rights, then we will ban them irrespective of your religious sentimentalities" .
But this approach might be politically difficult even today, so Locke's solution is understandable.
Needless to say, this position is logically inconsistent. My personal critique (different from Thiel), is that following a 'modernised religion' is a confused contradiction in terms. The first question to ask is why do we follow a set of religious practices? The answer to this question does not lie in the present or the future, but in the past. No matter what answer is given, it will be a variation of the point that (a) our ancestors did it, and this is our tradition (b) a supernatural entity in the past mandated it. To reiterate, no matter what variation is given, the central component of the answer is the past. But the problem is that religion, in its true form, does consist of regressive components, and stipulations. Take the example of Christianity:
Ephesians 5;22-24 "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything"
Leviticus 20:9 "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death"
The above, extracts are merely some examples of patriarchal, and primitive doctrines of religion. Similar examples are 1 Peter "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men". However, Christianity is not the only religion with primitive doctrines. There are other religions such as Islam (in its treatment of women, and other faiths), and Hinduism (see 'Varnas')
Put simply, the above extracts penalize homosexuality, females and child rights. Now, see what Locke says, as Peter reproduces in his paper:
Marriage remains an important compact, but "the Wife has, in many cases, a Liberty to separate from [the husband] ---------Command for children to honour their parents does not apply if the parents have been "unnaturally careless"
Locke, much like the Indian Supreme Court is not rejecting religious doctrine, but is reforming it by interpretation. Of relevance here, is the view of Robert Millikan from the book 'Living Philosophies':
"In the United States, organized religion has already undergone an amazing evolution, which shows its capacity to adapt itself to new conditions. It first sloughed off, or had cut away from it, the terrible incubus of political power when the complete separation of church and state was decreed by the far visioned men who made our Constitution. Second, to a considerable degree it has freed itself from the shackles that are imposed by central authority and vested rights, and has thus left itself free to evolve. "
Of relevance is his argument that religion has evolved to modern standards. In this context, it is my (and not PT's) critique of the above practice--You follow religion because of its ancient origins, but what you are following is the modern, reasoned version of religion, that has been refined, and evolved. You follow it because of its ancient, mystical origins, but you want it to fit your modern sensibilities. But if you are following religion because of its ancient, traditional origins, then shouldn’t you follow the original scriptures, in their entirety, including their regressive components? You can't be on both sides. You need to decide, what is more important, following an ancient tradition, or modern reason ? If it is the latter, then follow reason, and don't try to mold and evolve religion to your personal standard of reason. Be intellectually honest. To quote Sir Arthur Keith:
"Like other conservative-minded men, I tried to empty the new knowledge of science into the time-revered Biblical bottles. I know that many have succeeded, and still succeed, in doing so; but to my eye, the Biblical bottles, when modified to hold the wine of modern science, bear no resemblance to the Scriptural originals. To say that they are the same is to prostitute truth."
Of course, this is my critique and Thiel does not venture here (smartly), he merely observes, and details the phenomenon. Quoting PT:
" Locke’s conception of Christ is a world removed from that of the medieval passion plays or The
Passion of Mel Gibson; still, the character Locke attributes to Christ comports rather well with the character that one reasonably might attribute to Locke himself and the passionless world he set out to create. Over time, the country founded by Locke would do away with Christian religiosity even as it maintained many outward appearances of it. The United States eventually would become more secular and materialist, though most of its citizens would continue to call themselves “Christians."
He details the various ways, in which Locke, without rejecting Christianity, subconsciously pushed the populace towards skipping the question of religion and human nature, and instead focus on rights, and the economy. PT argues that for this reason, Western Society rapidly advanced - it followed the ideals of the Enlightenment philosophers - to focus on empiricism (by extension science), human rights, capitalism, economics, and so on.
This peace, argues Peter, was broken from the point of 9/11 attacks. Peter says:
" Nothing should stop us from enjoying the prosperous tranquility of the capitalist paradise we have built for ourselves. Since September 11, our peace has been broken. For there remains another very important boundary whose existence the American people had forgotten about the rest of the world and its deep division from the West, The non-Western world had not yet seen the Peace of Westphalia. The progress of the Enlightenment has occurred at different rates in different pans of the world And in that world outside the West, questions of religion and the purpose of humanity remained central; even in 2001 the greatest fear was not the fear of a painful death but the fear of what would happen in one in the life after that death. And so, a religious war has been brought to a land that no longer cares for religious wars. Even President Bush, who styles himself a religious conservative, cannot bring himself io believe that it is religion that really matters:
“|T}his great nation of many religions understands our war is not against
Islam or against the faith practiced by the Muslim people.
Where Bush downplays the differences bin Laden emphasizes them,contrasting the world of pure Islam and the world of the decadent West in themost extreme way imaginable:
[T]he love of this world is wrong. You should
love the other world . . . die in the right cause and go to the other world.’
Unfortunately, bin Laden is not simply an irrelevant crackpot of the sort that one might find screaming at the bemused spectators in Hyde Park. For bin Laden, unlike Locke, hard questions of morality and conduct need no postponement; their answers are clear and resolution cannot be delayed. Bin Laden is a passionate man of wealth and power, so that his personal example reminds us of the boundary cases Locke so readily dismissed. Indeed, the oil industry, the source of bin Laden’s wealth, presents one of the most glaring examples that run counter to Locke’s felicitous generalizations. For most of the value of oil exists simply in nature, so that the “labor that humans add by extracting and refining this oil is proportionately quite small.."
From here onwards, PT argues that the world is inherently political, and taking sides is necessary, because if you don't take sides, and undertake actions then you will be obliterated - "when we don't make a choice, we still make a choice". PT reproduces the following extract from Schmitt:
"In Russia, before the Revolution, the doomed classes romanticized the Russian peasant as a good, brave, and Christian muzhik . . The aristocratic society of France before the Revolution of 1789 sentimentalized "man who is by nature good and the virtue of the masses . . Nobody scented the
revolution, it is incredible to see the security and unsuspiciousness with which these privileged spoke of the goodness, mildness, and innocence of the people when 1793 was already upon them—spectacle rididcule er terrible"
Schmitt argues, and PT agrees, until "there is an invasion by aliens from outer space, there can never be a world state that politically unites all of humanity" - in their opinion, it is a "logical impossibility".
To this end, Schmitt argues, and PT agrees, that when you have an enemy who does not play by the rules of the game, who believes in the destruction of the enemy (the West), then the West needs to start taking action, and cannot stop at half measures. There are certain enemies which are irrational. You cannot expect to appeal to their rational side. This argument can be seen in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine today, where it becomes clear that certain countries/individuals cannot be reasoned with.
But here lies the problem according to Schmitt, and Peter Thiel, when one side has subscribed to modernist, and enlightenment traditions, the very subscription to such traditions means that
(a) such side would be confused as to what purpose/ideal the side is fighting for;
(b) the side would consider fighting with the enemy contrary to their values and therefore gravitate towards avoiding such fights;
( c) that the elevation of rationality would involve self-preservation, and by extension the avoidance of war - much like Hobbes who boasted about fleeing battle.
These are significant problems according to PT since numerical or technological superiority is irrelevant, if the intensity of belief in destroying the enemy is (understandly) less than the intensity of the enemy. (ISIS and so on). In other words, the diffusion of enlightenment values in Western Culture would result in the West approaching its enemies, in the manner of Chamberlain, and not Churchill.
Till here, it appears that Peter is hinting that West, for its survival, must adopt the primitive and Machiavellian approach of entering the arena and beating the 'enemy'. The problem according to PT- is that any victory in the arena will be hollow, since the very entry into the battlefield, will destroy the enlightenment values that the West stands for. Therefore PT says, that we are at an impasse. Quoting him:
"Let us recapitulate. The modern West has lost faith in itself. In the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment period, this loss of faith liberated enormous commercial and creative forces. Al the same time, this loss has rendered the West vulnerable. Is there a way to fortify t h e modern West without destroying it altogether, a way of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater?"
In this context, PT searches for a solution, and refers to Girard, and Strauss. I will skip the solution Strauss provides due to the limitations of space, since neither me, nor PT consider his solution to be correct.
Moving on to Girard, it is first necessary to understand, Girard's philosophy before understanding Peter's reliance on him, in this paper. Girard, is famous for (inter alia), the mimetic theory, which asserts that human desires are derived from mimesis, which is the imitation of other wants, and behaviors. It is this mimetic behaviouralism which sometime results in conflict. But there is another point, which Girard makes, which is the scapegoat theory. Put simply, the enlightenment philosophy is that the global conflict was ended by a social contract, which recognised rights, and property. Girard thinks this is bogus. In his opinion, passions, and offensive instincts were fulfilled/calmed by the sacrifice, and killing of one entity, by all the other entities which ganged up on this entity. In other words, all entities attributed their conflicts and suffering to one entity, who was executed.
To understand this theory, take the following incident - which happened recently, in Madhya Pradesh - https://thewire.in/communalism/mp-aft...
Of relevance is the following excerpt: "On the demolition, the Express quoted SDM Raman as saying, “There was also communal tension in the village. People wanted the house to be razed.”
It is clear, the scapegoat, had been created and destroyed to maintain peace. Similarly, Girard argues that peace exists in West (compared to before), because they found and sacrified a scapegoat, and not because of a fictitious social contract. PT thinks, that there will be a time when such questions are asked again, and this risks the apocalypse. He says, that the lens of enlightenment will be unable to answer, or prevent the search for the answer to the questions of human nature, and it will unable to counter the unravelling which would happen if the truth (whatever it is) comes out, and bring back the pre-sacrificial violence. In one way, PT considers Islam and Middle East to be more advanced than the West - they are in the midst of violence, because they are already asking the question, that the West relegated to the background.
December 26, 2021
"One may define a “liberal” as someone who knows nothing of the past and of this history of violence, and still holds to the Enlightenment view of the natural goodness of humanity. And one may define a “conservative” as some- one who knows nothing of the future and of the global world that is destined to be, and therefore still believes that the nation-state or other institutions rooted in sacred violence can contain unlimited human violence."
October 12, 2021
A cursory synopsis of The Straussian Moment
The Enlightenment Lie
The Straussian Moment seeks to understand how human nature relates to conflict, and how western political philosophy falls short at dissuading violence.
9/11 forced the west to re-examine modernity. The wakefulness of western vulnerability led to a sacrifice of freedom to obtain added security. Peter Thiel depicts how the pre-moderns believed in the power of the intellect and the flaw of the will, but moderns believe the contrary. The search for human truth by the power of the intellect ended in near-limitless violence reinforced by mimesis. “The Enlightenment undertook a major strategic retreat. If the only way to stop people from killing one another about the right way to open an egg involved a world where nobody thought about it too much, then the intellectual cost of ceasing such thought seemed a small price to pay. The question of human nature was abandoned because it is too perilous a question to debate”.
Scientism displaced the traditional quest regarding the essential truths of human life. Thiel outlines how John Locke’s philosophy forms the justification of the secular and materialistic U.S. In modernity, inquiries about human life must never impede "the productive conduct of commerce". Humans according to Locke, can never know anything about the nature of humanity. People should consequently be free to act liberally in the marketplace. Thiel draws upon Leo Strauss’s study of John Locke’s view of natural rights. Thiel uses the case of oil, to reveal how Locke misjudge the value of labour versus scarce natural resources when arguing for his view of private property rights. To Thiel, the name Enlightenment is as phoney as the three-dollar bill. The Enlightenment produced a protracted period of profits and intellectual idleness. The American founding was illustrative of the intellectual abdication of the Enlightenment.
Schmittian Realities
Thiel turns to Carl Schmitt to say that our re-examination of the modern age will necessitate divisional political dilemmas. Political division obliges humans to choose between friends and enemies. The make-up of one’s enemies is key, as one often has to compromise to beat the enemy. The west, for example, had to sacrifice liberty as its Islamic foes posed a terror threat. Thiel goes on to consider the possibility of an end of the political. This potential world would be a hollow existence where people amuse themselves to death. Such a scenario is not likely to endure because fundamental questions about reality always lurk. The world is now at an impasse. Schmitt’s solution to the political, via a civilizational war is excessively risky due to modern technological advances in warfare.
Straussian Riddles
The Enlightenment impaired the west. Yet, we cannot return to the older tradition, because such a return is too violent. Thiel looks to Leo Strauss, to find an opening out of the Schimittian impasse. Strauss demonstrates that there are more things than the modernist permits in their worldview. Thiel examines the nature of power and esotericism. Politically incorrect taboos ought to be cautiously examined to fortify the West without ruining it. Western success comes from both an adherence to the principles of freedom and justice, but also from strategic deviations from these principles. Thiel agrees with Strauss that the west should return to the classical perception of human nature, and a tentative return to ancient political philosophy. Modernity will eventually subside and something very different will emerge. Thiel cites Oswald Spengler’s call for a heroic effort to regenerate a nobility to revive the west. Thiel thinks that such an effort is indispensable to cultivate a post-modernity that improves upon modernity.
Girardian Revelations
Finally, Thiel advances Rene Girard’s theory of mimesis. All desire is mimetic. Desire comes from a triangular relationship of subject, model, and object. Humans have no instinctual brakes on the envy caused by mimetic desire. Thiel thinks that the envy induced by mimetic desire remains one of the politically incorrect taboos. The Enlightenment got it wrong when they thought that social contracts stopped violence. When mimesis threatens to escalate into unlimited violence, there is a need for a scapegoat. Sacrificing the scapegoat unites the community and bring about limited peace. The west underestimate the scope of apocalyptic violence due to a denial of the founding role of the violence caused by mimesis. Still, the archaic rituals of scapegoating might no longer work to limit violence due to an expanded awareness of the scapegoating mechanism. Thiel debates whether it is wise to spread the ideas of Rene Girard, and how Girardian ideas differ from Straussian thought. Thiel justifies both the usage of violence and the security state if the usages are meticulously measured. The essay ends with Thiel cautioning against the perils of violence, and that Christian leaders must remember that “One must never forget that one day all will be revealed, that all injustices will be exposed, and that those who perpetrated them will be held to account”.
The Enlightenment Lie
The Straussian Moment seeks to understand how human nature relates to conflict, and how western political philosophy falls short at dissuading violence.
9/11 forced the west to re-examine modernity. The wakefulness of western vulnerability led to a sacrifice of freedom to obtain added security. Peter Thiel depicts how the pre-moderns believed in the power of the intellect and the flaw of the will, but moderns believe the contrary. The search for human truth by the power of the intellect ended in near-limitless violence reinforced by mimesis. “The Enlightenment undertook a major strategic retreat. If the only way to stop people from killing one another about the right way to open an egg involved a world where nobody thought about it too much, then the intellectual cost of ceasing such thought seemed a small price to pay. The question of human nature was abandoned because it is too perilous a question to debate”.
Scientism displaced the traditional quest regarding the essential truths of human life. Thiel outlines how John Locke’s philosophy forms the justification of the secular and materialistic U.S. In modernity, inquiries about human life must never impede "the productive conduct of commerce". Humans according to Locke, can never know anything about the nature of humanity. People should consequently be free to act liberally in the marketplace. Thiel draws upon Leo Strauss’s study of John Locke’s view of natural rights. Thiel uses the case of oil, to reveal how Locke misjudge the value of labour versus scarce natural resources when arguing for his view of private property rights. To Thiel, the name Enlightenment is as phoney as the three-dollar bill. The Enlightenment produced a protracted period of profits and intellectual idleness. The American founding was illustrative of the intellectual abdication of the Enlightenment.
Schmittian Realities
Thiel turns to Carl Schmitt to say that our re-examination of the modern age will necessitate divisional political dilemmas. Political division obliges humans to choose between friends and enemies. The make-up of one’s enemies is key, as one often has to compromise to beat the enemy. The west, for example, had to sacrifice liberty as its Islamic foes posed a terror threat. Thiel goes on to consider the possibility of an end of the political. This potential world would be a hollow existence where people amuse themselves to death. Such a scenario is not likely to endure because fundamental questions about reality always lurk. The world is now at an impasse. Schmitt’s solution to the political, via a civilizational war is excessively risky due to modern technological advances in warfare.
Straussian Riddles
The Enlightenment impaired the west. Yet, we cannot return to the older tradition, because such a return is too violent. Thiel looks to Leo Strauss, to find an opening out of the Schimittian impasse. Strauss demonstrates that there are more things than the modernist permits in their worldview. Thiel examines the nature of power and esotericism. Politically incorrect taboos ought to be cautiously examined to fortify the West without ruining it. Western success comes from both an adherence to the principles of freedom and justice, but also from strategic deviations from these principles. Thiel agrees with Strauss that the west should return to the classical perception of human nature, and a tentative return to ancient political philosophy. Modernity will eventually subside and something very different will emerge. Thiel cites Oswald Spengler’s call for a heroic effort to regenerate a nobility to revive the west. Thiel thinks that such an effort is indispensable to cultivate a post-modernity that improves upon modernity.
Girardian Revelations
Finally, Thiel advances Rene Girard’s theory of mimesis. All desire is mimetic. Desire comes from a triangular relationship of subject, model, and object. Humans have no instinctual brakes on the envy caused by mimetic desire. Thiel thinks that the envy induced by mimetic desire remains one of the politically incorrect taboos. The Enlightenment got it wrong when they thought that social contracts stopped violence. When mimesis threatens to escalate into unlimited violence, there is a need for a scapegoat. Sacrificing the scapegoat unites the community and bring about limited peace. The west underestimate the scope of apocalyptic violence due to a denial of the founding role of the violence caused by mimesis. Still, the archaic rituals of scapegoating might no longer work to limit violence due to an expanded awareness of the scapegoating mechanism. Thiel debates whether it is wise to spread the ideas of Rene Girard, and how Girardian ideas differ from Straussian thought. Thiel justifies both the usage of violence and the security state if the usages are meticulously measured. The essay ends with Thiel cautioning against the perils of violence, and that Christian leaders must remember that “One must never forget that one day all will be revealed, that all injustices will be exposed, and that those who perpetrated them will be held to account”.
April 4, 2023
"The Straussian Moment" is an essay written by entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel in 2003. In the essay, Thiel argues that the dominant political philosophy of the United States, liberalism, has failed to provide a meaningful vision of the future and that the country needs to adopt a more robust political philosophy to address the challenges of the modern world. Thiel suggests that the teachings of Leo Strauss, a political philosopher and academic, can provide the basis for such a philosophy. Thiel argues that Strauss's emphasis on the importance of nation-states, the need for strong leadership, and the role of religion in society are essential for a successful political philosophy in the 21st century. Thiel's essay has been influential in certain political and intellectual circles and has sparked debate about the role of philosophy in politics.
GPT
GPT
August 2, 2024
I stumbled upon this while studying Strauss; extremely surprised at how insightful and succinct Thiel's analysis of counter-enlightenment thinkers Schmitt, Strauss and Girard is. The primordial violence of Girard, mixed in with Strauss' philosophical (and political) reticence is a great contrast to Schmitt's oppositional political theology and Locke's necessity of ambiguity. However, I don't think the great threat to the US is Islam, but rather the US itself. Nonetheless, a great read on how to (not) fight the enemy.
Read
May 26, 2025Thiel, writing in 2007 as the popular attitude towards the global war on terror has turned, recycles neoconservative talking points for rubes with graduate degrees. Thiel argues that the events of September 11 has brought awareness to a rift between "the West", who since the Enlightenment have largely abandoned their philosophical and religious traditions, and the non-Western world, for whom these questions are still central. Thiel, drawing from the thought of Leo Strauss, asserts that the modern liberal West, due to its Enlightenment disposition, is impotent to deal with or even understand threats such as these, and, in order to avoid slipping into relativism and nihilism, must find a way to revive some of these modes of thinking in order to serve as a foundation for liberalism without also reviving the violent ideological conflicts of the pre-Enlightenment world. Summarizing, a "religious war has been brought to a land that no longer cares for religious wars." Contextualized, this is a roundabout way of rehashing the 'they hate us for our values/our freedoms' talking point which was used to try and explain the September 11 attacks and justify the neoconservative nation-building project. Rather than real people existing and acting within an historical context, the attackers were merely religious fanatics, their motives not worth investigating. Two points are implicit in Thiel's thesis which are never interrogated: 1) Liberal internationalism is the default or predominant mode through all of the last ~400 years of western thought, with America as its apogee, and 2) that this formulation of liberalism is necessary and worth renewing, as the alternative may be worse.
Again pulling from Strauss, Thiel suggests a, "secret coordination of the world's intelligence services, as the decisive path to a truly global pax Americana." In true Silicon Valley fashion, the solution is not found in addressing the root cause of the problem, but to build an ever-expanding series of solutions to perpetuate the conditions which led to the problem while containing the consequences. We see this prescription playing out directly now with Thiel's company Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company which openly collaborates with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on citizens and develop predictive policing systems utilizing AI.
Though the talking points have evolved as the context has shifted, Thiel in 2025 continues to appeal to undiscerning useful idiots through his patronage network of political influencers and content creators.
Again pulling from Strauss, Thiel suggests a, "secret coordination of the world's intelligence services, as the decisive path to a truly global pax Americana." In true Silicon Valley fashion, the solution is not found in addressing the root cause of the problem, but to build an ever-expanding series of solutions to perpetuate the conditions which led to the problem while containing the consequences. We see this prescription playing out directly now with Thiel's company Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company which openly collaborates with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on citizens and develop predictive policing systems utilizing AI.
Though the talking points have evolved as the context has shifted, Thiel in 2025 continues to appeal to undiscerning useful idiots through his patronage network of political influencers and content creators.
February 1, 2022
I won't pretend to be familiar with the works of Schmitt or Strauss beyond the superficial, but regardless I find it bizarre that someone can so vehemently invoke 9/11 to signal the end of liberal values, extoll the virtues of a friends / enemies dichotomy, and make no mention of the holocaust.
This is not good.
This is not good.
May 30, 2023
This is not a book but an essay. You can read it here. https://gwern.net/doc/politics/2007-t...
It is worth reading. I am not sure what it means. Will have to read it a few times.
It is worth reading. I am not sure what it means. Will have to read it a few times.
February 5, 2025
“Terminally online edgelords, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some vampiric billionaire.” –John Maynard Keynes, probably
Melodramatic and monocausal. Its claims liberated not only from the shackles of Enlightenment orthodoxy but also from any common standard of proof or citation.
All jokes aside, credit must be given where credit is due. Thiel was clearly cutting against the grain here and leveling some remarkably prescient critiques against the “end of history” era back when liberal consensus reigned supreme. He makes some compelling points about the blindness of the West towards antagonistic (and, perhaps, nonabsorbable) ideologies, its decadence, its hollowness. Whatever one might think about the development of the argument from there, it is pretty wild to consider where things were back in 2007 and realize that Thiel was already working to build out this competing world view – complete with its own pantheon of thinkers, intellectual aesthetic, idiosyncratic prophesies of decline – lab-made for viral propagation in the internet age. That said, a few cursory (and perhaps misguided) reservations regarding the actual substance as I attempt to digest it:
First, I can’t help but wonder if Thiel mischaracterizes “the Enlightenment” slightly and is thereby far too sweeping in his criticisms. He seems to treat its intellectual firmament as a cowardly retreat from the fundamental questions of human nature (which its proponents believed had led to unacceptable levels of conflict and violence); instead, we would hereafter focus on the sorts of temporal frivolities that define modernity. Though I’m by no means a scholar on the period, to me this seems to be an incredibly uncharitable reading a diverse and teeming “movement,” its ethos, its spirit. Where in this is the Enlightenment of Bacon? Of Kant? I fail to see its animating spirit as a retreat from anything. Instead, it represents a painstaking attempt to put a common language to the reality shared among minds and thereby craft a methodology that might transcend the chasms that would otherwise engulf our solipsistic beliefs. To me, this seems to be a deeply human quest to answer the very same fundamental questions Thiel accuses it of avoiding – a mission full of spirit, full of courage in its search of elusive thing we call “truth” instead of pushing these unsettling questions aside and remaining segregated in the confirmation bias of team play. Perhaps we might not like where the answers end up, but that’s another question entirely.
Similarly, I can’t help but think that Thiel is talking out of both sides his mouth a bit when it comes to his indictment of this post-Enlightenment period. On one hand, the West has been rendered impotent and vulnerable due to its loss of faith. On the other hand, when commenting on this Liberal order, Thiel seems to be describing (and, indeed, sneering at) a system built upon the articles of a great and brilliant faith – a belief that human beings can overcome their differences, develop institutions and mechanisms to sublimate their baser instincts, and collectively build a brighter, kinder future than they might ever have otherwise. Thiel’s tacitly Schmittian lens seems to ignore all of the great monuments to human collaboration that exist all around us. And all the great advances and triumphs carried to the West on the wings of Enlightenment thought. There’s an ironic, hyperstitional mechanism at play in these ‘naked realist’ ideologies. Like all human action, it’s swaddled in faith. Just as believing in a positive-sum game can make it so, so too does the zero-sum world become real when you start behaving according to its principles. I’ve started noticing this sort of tautology at the center of many a rain dance for the illiberal turn: a critique based on the inefficacy of the current system, a current system actively sabotaged and thereby made ineffectual primarily by those leveling the critique. I’d imagine few can claim more personal credit for the crumbling battlements of the liberal order over the past two decades than Peter Thiel.
Certain elements of this work’s apocalyptic downswing remain elusive to me. Strauss’ “moderate middle course” in which “the theoretical esotericism of the philosopher is combined with some sort of practical implementation” proves to be untenable as the hypocrisies and “disturbing truth” of human violence that roils underneath the Enlightenment’s manicured lawns threatens to breach the surface (one can’t help but picture Blue Velvet’s incredible opening sequence hah). Evoking Girard, Thiel argues that modernity’s inability to support a bedrock of founding myths and “archaic rituals” will spell its undoing because “the smooth functioning of human culture depended on a lack of understanding of this truth of human culture” (so now I guess the post-Enlightenment world was too good at disseminating knowledge about human nature?). Instead, the unveiling of these horrible truths to the general public will “deprive humanity of the efficacious functioning of the limited and sacred violence it needed to protect itself from unlimited and desacralized violence” and spell the foretold cataclysm in which “all will be revealed… all injustices will be exposed, and… those who perpetrated them will be held to account.” Delightful.
I’m sadly not sufficiently well-read to comment on Thiel’s interpretation of Strauss and Girard; however, in terms of his application of their thought to the currents of contemporary affairs, I struggle a bit to square certain circles. I remain unconvinced that the apocalyptic sequence sketched out above can be cast exclusively at the feet of the post-Enlightenment West. All civilizations are built atop mountains of organized hypocrisy. The liberal order is far from alone in being a jury-rigged kludge of mismatched parts. I doubt the common men of yore were any more blind to this fact than we are today. And, as they say, the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Should the day come, ours would by no means be the first to suffer a loss of animating faith, collapse under the weight of its contradictions. No civilization is any more stable than a house of cards. I just think this one happens to be the best build we’ve put together yet.
Additionally, Thiel’s initial “gotcha” moment in diagnosing the supposedly unique flaws of the post-Enlightenment West lies in the failings of its core ideologies to manage a coherent response to 9/11. Another reading might be that most of the problems Thiel diagnoses are actually downstream of the opposite problem: a failure to follow the wisdom of our intellectual heritage in prosecuting the global war on terror. The United States betrayed the guidance of our sacred faith overseas – eroding trust in international collaboration and the legitimacy of global institutions through our unilateral adventurism in Iraq, our disdain for the post-Westphalian conception of sovereignty, our disregard for human rights and the conventions of warfare. We betrayed our faith at home – the Patriot Act, the AUMF, warrantless surveillance, untold erosions to civil liberties and checks on executive overreach. Perhaps Thiel’s argument would be that it couldn’t have happened any other way; the key tenants of this faith are irreconcilable with human nature. I don’t know. Regardless, a different (less dark and sexy, more normie) prescription in the wake of this dereliction – and, indeed, many of the other signs of rot Thiel identifies here or elsewhere within the current order – would be a stronger, more robust application of Enlightenment values rather than their complete abandonment.
Clearly, that is not what Thiel has in mind. I’ve grown somewhat allergic to critiques of liberalism that don’t put much effort into proposing a positive, coherent alternative. They often seem to end up doing the motte-and-bailey thing by offering up some reasonable points about how our current system isn’t perfect (or even bad) and then using this as cover to advance some comically worse alternative. It is sort of telling that Romanticism is often neglected in these broadsides on the Enlightenment – we’ve been here before and some… uncomfortable things happened. In true Straussian form, Thiel seems to obscure his intentions behind vagaries and hand waving; however, reading between the lines, it seems as if there’s a yearning for some sort of fascistic theocracy in which the mechanisms of truth telling are jealously guarded by an elite cadre and Christianity is unleashed from Locke’s “reasonableness” doctrine.
I must confess that it has been a bit difficult for me to separate the bit I know of the author (his famed association with libertarian thought, Yarvin-adjacent NRx stuff, the vaudevillian Trump show) from this work. I don’t really understand how all the pieces fit together. How does a hypercapitalist, Randian hellscape do anything but lead us farther off the spiritual path and instead right into the arms of Mammon? How does Thiel envision himself surviving this “unreasonable” Christian state? And honestly how does one even organize a society that is somehow simultaneously libertarian, neocameral, and faith-based? Maybe I’m just a couple turns of the screw behind all the various visions of a new world order. That’s my fault. Regardless, one thing I’ve noticed is that those proposing an illiberal turn generally do so with the assumption that they will be situated above it as great übermensch exercising their merited freedoms while the mass of modern serfs is actually subjected to their perfect solutions. Aside from the obvious lusts, I think a lot of this stems from a desire to systematize – a pathological unease with the messiness and “impurity” of the modern world. However, totalizing, “perfect solutions” rarely lead to dynamic growth or human flourishing. Any student of human nature surely knows this.
THC #25
Melodramatic and monocausal. Its claims liberated not only from the shackles of Enlightenment orthodoxy but also from any common standard of proof or citation.
All jokes aside, credit must be given where credit is due. Thiel was clearly cutting against the grain here and leveling some remarkably prescient critiques against the “end of history” era back when liberal consensus reigned supreme. He makes some compelling points about the blindness of the West towards antagonistic (and, perhaps, nonabsorbable) ideologies, its decadence, its hollowness. Whatever one might think about the development of the argument from there, it is pretty wild to consider where things were back in 2007 and realize that Thiel was already working to build out this competing world view – complete with its own pantheon of thinkers, intellectual aesthetic, idiosyncratic prophesies of decline – lab-made for viral propagation in the internet age. That said, a few cursory (and perhaps misguided) reservations regarding the actual substance as I attempt to digest it:
First, I can’t help but wonder if Thiel mischaracterizes “the Enlightenment” slightly and is thereby far too sweeping in his criticisms. He seems to treat its intellectual firmament as a cowardly retreat from the fundamental questions of human nature (which its proponents believed had led to unacceptable levels of conflict and violence); instead, we would hereafter focus on the sorts of temporal frivolities that define modernity. Though I’m by no means a scholar on the period, to me this seems to be an incredibly uncharitable reading a diverse and teeming “movement,” its ethos, its spirit. Where in this is the Enlightenment of Bacon? Of Kant? I fail to see its animating spirit as a retreat from anything. Instead, it represents a painstaking attempt to put a common language to the reality shared among minds and thereby craft a methodology that might transcend the chasms that would otherwise engulf our solipsistic beliefs. To me, this seems to be a deeply human quest to answer the very same fundamental questions Thiel accuses it of avoiding – a mission full of spirit, full of courage in its search of elusive thing we call “truth” instead of pushing these unsettling questions aside and remaining segregated in the confirmation bias of team play. Perhaps we might not like where the answers end up, but that’s another question entirely.
Similarly, I can’t help but think that Thiel is talking out of both sides his mouth a bit when it comes to his indictment of this post-Enlightenment period. On one hand, the West has been rendered impotent and vulnerable due to its loss of faith. On the other hand, when commenting on this Liberal order, Thiel seems to be describing (and, indeed, sneering at) a system built upon the articles of a great and brilliant faith – a belief that human beings can overcome their differences, develop institutions and mechanisms to sublimate their baser instincts, and collectively build a brighter, kinder future than they might ever have otherwise. Thiel’s tacitly Schmittian lens seems to ignore all of the great monuments to human collaboration that exist all around us. And all the great advances and triumphs carried to the West on the wings of Enlightenment thought. There’s an ironic, hyperstitional mechanism at play in these ‘naked realist’ ideologies. Like all human action, it’s swaddled in faith. Just as believing in a positive-sum game can make it so, so too does the zero-sum world become real when you start behaving according to its principles. I’ve started noticing this sort of tautology at the center of many a rain dance for the illiberal turn: a critique based on the inefficacy of the current system, a current system actively sabotaged and thereby made ineffectual primarily by those leveling the critique. I’d imagine few can claim more personal credit for the crumbling battlements of the liberal order over the past two decades than Peter Thiel.
Certain elements of this work’s apocalyptic downswing remain elusive to me. Strauss’ “moderate middle course” in which “the theoretical esotericism of the philosopher is combined with some sort of practical implementation” proves to be untenable as the hypocrisies and “disturbing truth” of human violence that roils underneath the Enlightenment’s manicured lawns threatens to breach the surface (one can’t help but picture Blue Velvet’s incredible opening sequence hah). Evoking Girard, Thiel argues that modernity’s inability to support a bedrock of founding myths and “archaic rituals” will spell its undoing because “the smooth functioning of human culture depended on a lack of understanding of this truth of human culture” (so now I guess the post-Enlightenment world was too good at disseminating knowledge about human nature?). Instead, the unveiling of these horrible truths to the general public will “deprive humanity of the efficacious functioning of the limited and sacred violence it needed to protect itself from unlimited and desacralized violence” and spell the foretold cataclysm in which “all will be revealed… all injustices will be exposed, and… those who perpetrated them will be held to account.” Delightful.
I’m sadly not sufficiently well-read to comment on Thiel’s interpretation of Strauss and Girard; however, in terms of his application of their thought to the currents of contemporary affairs, I struggle a bit to square certain circles. I remain unconvinced that the apocalyptic sequence sketched out above can be cast exclusively at the feet of the post-Enlightenment West. All civilizations are built atop mountains of organized hypocrisy. The liberal order is far from alone in being a jury-rigged kludge of mismatched parts. I doubt the common men of yore were any more blind to this fact than we are today. And, as they say, the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Should the day come, ours would by no means be the first to suffer a loss of animating faith, collapse under the weight of its contradictions. No civilization is any more stable than a house of cards. I just think this one happens to be the best build we’ve put together yet.
Additionally, Thiel’s initial “gotcha” moment in diagnosing the supposedly unique flaws of the post-Enlightenment West lies in the failings of its core ideologies to manage a coherent response to 9/11. Another reading might be that most of the problems Thiel diagnoses are actually downstream of the opposite problem: a failure to follow the wisdom of our intellectual heritage in prosecuting the global war on terror. The United States betrayed the guidance of our sacred faith overseas – eroding trust in international collaboration and the legitimacy of global institutions through our unilateral adventurism in Iraq, our disdain for the post-Westphalian conception of sovereignty, our disregard for human rights and the conventions of warfare. We betrayed our faith at home – the Patriot Act, the AUMF, warrantless surveillance, untold erosions to civil liberties and checks on executive overreach. Perhaps Thiel’s argument would be that it couldn’t have happened any other way; the key tenants of this faith are irreconcilable with human nature. I don’t know. Regardless, a different (less dark and sexy, more normie) prescription in the wake of this dereliction – and, indeed, many of the other signs of rot Thiel identifies here or elsewhere within the current order – would be a stronger, more robust application of Enlightenment values rather than their complete abandonment.
Clearly, that is not what Thiel has in mind. I’ve grown somewhat allergic to critiques of liberalism that don’t put much effort into proposing a positive, coherent alternative. They often seem to end up doing the motte-and-bailey thing by offering up some reasonable points about how our current system isn’t perfect (or even bad) and then using this as cover to advance some comically worse alternative. It is sort of telling that Romanticism is often neglected in these broadsides on the Enlightenment – we’ve been here before and some… uncomfortable things happened. In true Straussian form, Thiel seems to obscure his intentions behind vagaries and hand waving; however, reading between the lines, it seems as if there’s a yearning for some sort of fascistic theocracy in which the mechanisms of truth telling are jealously guarded by an elite cadre and Christianity is unleashed from Locke’s “reasonableness” doctrine.
I must confess that it has been a bit difficult for me to separate the bit I know of the author (his famed association with libertarian thought, Yarvin-adjacent NRx stuff, the vaudevillian Trump show) from this work. I don’t really understand how all the pieces fit together. How does a hypercapitalist, Randian hellscape do anything but lead us farther off the spiritual path and instead right into the arms of Mammon? How does Thiel envision himself surviving this “unreasonable” Christian state? And honestly how does one even organize a society that is somehow simultaneously libertarian, neocameral, and faith-based? Maybe I’m just a couple turns of the screw behind all the various visions of a new world order. That’s my fault. Regardless, one thing I’ve noticed is that those proposing an illiberal turn generally do so with the assumption that they will be situated above it as great übermensch exercising their merited freedoms while the mass of modern serfs is actually subjected to their perfect solutions. Aside from the obvious lusts, I think a lot of this stems from a desire to systematize – a pathological unease with the messiness and “impurity” of the modern world. However, totalizing, “perfect solutions” rarely lead to dynamic growth or human flourishing. Any student of human nature surely knows this.
THC #25
January 28, 2023
The West, in concentrating on the welfare of its people at the treaty of Westphalia, pushed the grand questions of how to live under the rug, and created a society whose achievements sprouted the modern age. It also sprouted the America of 9/11. While the other, the left out Islamic world, still thinks of it, and it's leaders, Bin Laden one of them, can(could) command a lot of respect by proselytizing on how to live. And so it is time we let go of the cheap garb of liberalism and the values of enlightenment, and start debating why God abandoned us on Friday at 3pm.
But what would have happened if the essay was written today? Could Bin Laden be easily replaced as a metaphor by Putin now, or Xi next year. I suspect he could. And that's a problem, when any philosophy opposed to the West could fill the ideological gap much anticipated here. Just because the flavour of the decade is attacking you, doesn't mean you should abandon what has brought you where you are. Of course the US has much to introspect, but to resurrect a long forgotten god ain't gonna do it, given that god was used as justification for much of it.
In some way, I sympathize with the author. He wants the world to care more about ideology, but that it never did. It was always about proliferation and sustenance in cycles. And ideology never helped much with it. We live in that world, because of that world.
2 stars mostly because of so many mentions of Hobbes, but no Calvinists.
But what would have happened if the essay was written today? Could Bin Laden be easily replaced as a metaphor by Putin now, or Xi next year. I suspect he could. And that's a problem, when any philosophy opposed to the West could fill the ideological gap much anticipated here. Just because the flavour of the decade is attacking you, doesn't mean you should abandon what has brought you where you are. Of course the US has much to introspect, but to resurrect a long forgotten god ain't gonna do it, given that god was used as justification for much of it.
In some way, I sympathize with the author. He wants the world to care more about ideology, but that it never did. It was always about proliferation and sustenance in cycles. And ideology never helped much with it. We live in that world, because of that world.
2 stars mostly because of so many mentions of Hobbes, but no Calvinists.
May 17, 2025
Full of silly conclusions and false dichotomies but succeeds in making Strauss sound interesting. When you read Thiel, the mystique falls away but 1) he seems smarter than Musk and 2) I appreciate some of the Dimes Square works of art he has funded - if the right-wing is to hang around, they should at least have the decency to be avant-garde about it.
Knowledge of man and knowledge of the political are not opposed at all. There will always be a degree to which study of our nature will be subject to bias (be it self-serving or self-disparaging) but the acknowledgement of that isn't to give up on the idea of human nature. The moment where he noted instances where the upper classes idealised the lower classes as innately good was bizarre - as if deification can't go hand in hand with justifications for dehumanisation? He also seems to idealise this idea of there always being an enemy in society inherently despite acknowledging that it is impossible in our modern day - but this is fundamentally unsustainable even in the recent past as internal conflict over the racial element has often plagued fascist states. I don't know about the idea of an innate/inherent human nature but it is clear that environment has a massive effect on how our flaws manifest.
Knowledge of man and knowledge of the political are not opposed at all. There will always be a degree to which study of our nature will be subject to bias (be it self-serving or self-disparaging) but the acknowledgement of that isn't to give up on the idea of human nature. The moment where he noted instances where the upper classes idealised the lower classes as innately good was bizarre - as if deification can't go hand in hand with justifications for dehumanisation? He also seems to idealise this idea of there always being an enemy in society inherently despite acknowledging that it is impossible in our modern day - but this is fundamentally unsustainable even in the recent past as internal conflict over the racial element has often plagued fascist states. I don't know about the idea of an innate/inherent human nature but it is clear that environment has a massive effect on how our flaws manifest.
December 11, 2023
Le titre est straussien, au sens de l'ésotérisme philosophique que Thiel applique visiblement à ce court essai qui ne dit pas toute sa pensée...
Sinon, surcôté. De bonnes intuitions vite étouffées par des présentations sommaires de quelques œuvres philosophiques plus ou moins mises en perspective pour estimer, vaguement, à quoi pourrait ressembler notre futur. Il est toutefois intéressant de noter qu'un homme si puissant et influent (et libéral...) soit aussi lucide sur la fin du libéralisme politique. Qu'il soit lecteur de Girard est tout aussi notable. N'allons-nous pas vivre un "Girardian moment" que Thiel n'aurait pas osé laisser faire son chemin jusqu'au titre ?
Sinon, surcôté. De bonnes intuitions vite étouffées par des présentations sommaires de quelques œuvres philosophiques plus ou moins mises en perspective pour estimer, vaguement, à quoi pourrait ressembler notre futur. Il est toutefois intéressant de noter qu'un homme si puissant et influent (et libéral...) soit aussi lucide sur la fin du libéralisme politique. Qu'il soit lecteur de Girard est tout aussi notable. N'allons-nous pas vivre un "Girardian moment" que Thiel n'aurait pas osé laisser faire son chemin jusqu'au titre ?
December 7, 2023
A boyish essay that somehow manages to bring Schmitt, Strauss, and Girard together in a way that isn't just enlightening, but enigmatic. Three puzzles it made me think about:
1. If humanity has to go extinct eventually, doesn't this mean that our reason for existing will be revealed when we have completed existence?
2. Why does esoteric knowledge always simplify things? Is all truth part of one geometric structure?
3. Who is the founding scapegoat of the American Empire? What will happen when he is forgiven?
1. If humanity has to go extinct eventually, doesn't this mean that our reason for existing will be revealed when we have completed existence?
2. Why does esoteric knowledge always simplify things? Is all truth part of one geometric structure?
3. Who is the founding scapegoat of the American Empire? What will happen when he is forgiven?
August 28, 2024
interesting essay, nuanced writing.
peter thiel discuss horrors of 9/11 and how to deal with such adversities where enemy doesn't play by the rules of the modern world (roughly economy and capitalism-based foundations of america) and holds on to religious fanaticism
discusses various writers and their philosophies:
- john locke's liberalism idea and american foundation on these ideas
- carl schmitt's conservatism ideas
- strauss kinda holds middle ground here
- girard on human nature of violence
peter thiel discuss horrors of 9/11 and how to deal with such adversities where enemy doesn't play by the rules of the modern world (roughly economy and capitalism-based foundations of america) and holds on to religious fanaticism
discusses various writers and their philosophies:
- john locke's liberalism idea and american foundation on these ideas
- carl schmitt's conservatism ideas
- strauss kinda holds middle ground here
- girard on human nature of violence
December 16, 2024
"The few who understood something of mens heart and mind, who were foolish enough not to restrain their full heart but to reveal their feeling and their vision to the vulgar, have ever been crucified and burned"
October 24, 2022
An interesting summary of the debate between Girard and Strauss, with several thought-provoking passages strewn throughout.
January 3, 2025
what was this even about
June 30, 2025
Covers a lot of good ideas but in Straussian fashion, the main idea of the essay seems to be hidden. I'm not smart enough to see it on a first reading though, will probably revisit.
July 13, 2025
I could follow up to the section on Girard. Maybe I need to read closer or know Girard but it was difficult to see how all the talk on mimesis / scapegoating / violence fit in
October 17, 2025
structure - 5/5
depth - 4/5
prose - 3/5
depth - 4/5
prose - 3/5
August 31, 2025
Previously, scapegoating a lone transgressor offered a semblance of order; after the attacks of 9/11 came with the deaths of the both the victims and the perpetrators, we faced a scary turn where the criminal also became its final victim, preventing our communal ability for catharsis. Thiel points us toward how this can spiral, revealing the fragility of peace when society’s old enlightenment illusions unraveled. Modern ideological fervor, liberated from the need for self-preservation, disrupted the traditional division between executioner and victim.
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