Pondering the roots of a vexing problem, I stumbled upon something.

Is French Hegelian Marxism competing right now with the philosophy (real or perceived) of Leo Strauss?

Reading Leo Strauss's book On Tyranny was a life-changing experience for me. Originally published in 1948, it is Strauss's interpretation of Xenophon's dialogue "Hiero, or the Tyrant."

The book was subsequently republished by Cornell University Press in the late 1960's with a faithful translation of the dialogue, a long review/essay responding to Strauss by the French Hegelian/Marxist Alexander Kojeve, and with Strauss's response to Kojeve and to Eric Voegelin's review of the original book. In its most recent edition, the book includes the translation of the dialogue and the Strauss/Kojeve/Strauss essays as well as correspondence between Strauss and Kojeve.

Strauss advocated the ancient understanding of the phenomenon of tyranny as a precondition to understanding the political phenomena of the twentieth century. Strauss argued that that the purportedly "scientific" study of politics in modern political science had stripped from modern awareness the knowledge necessary to understand the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century.

Kojeve demurred and advocated the coming of the universal homogenous state; he thought Stalin was on the right track. It seemed to me that Strauss's response to Kojeve allowed one to judge for oneself the relative merits of the classic and modern understandings of politics.

Might at least some of what drives the virulent hatred the French have for George W. Bush be philosophical in nature?

Once again, I am not a Straussian in my view of the classics, but the ancients still have a lot to offer over some of the moderns.

Ancient versus modern?

I'm intrigued.

MORE: Had to cut this short, as the connection is departing in twenty minutes. Maybe if I am lucky someone will put some deeper thought into this.