Leo Strauss, a guru of the neo-conservatives, made plenty of absurd statements. In a diatribe1 against liberalism, modern social science and causality, he made this preposterous assertion:
Social science proceeds by inductive reasoning or is concerned with prediction or with the discovery of cases. Yet what is the status of the principle of causality in social science relativism? According to a widely accepted view, the principle of causality is a mere assumption. There is no rational objection to the assumption that the universe may disappear at any time, not only into thin air, but into absolute nothingness, and that this happening may be a vanishing, not only into nothing, but through nothing as well. What is true of the possible end of the end of the world is true also of its beginning. Since the principle of causality is not intrinsically evident, nothing prevents us from assuming that the world has come into being out of nothing and through nothing. Not only has rationality disappeared from the behavior studied by science; the rationality of that study itself has come radically problematic. All coherence has gone. We are then fitted to say that positivistic science in general, and therefore positivistic social science in particular, is characterized by the abandonment of reason or the flight from reason. The flight from scientific reason, which has been noted with regret, is the reasonable reply to the flight of science from reason.
In so far as this makes any sense, Strauss seems to be upset that we have not demonstrated that methodological empiricism is an Absolute, ignoring the fact that an emprirical science is always subject to revision. He also seems to be saying that reasonableness and rationality are inherently at odds. Absurdities like this can lead to astounding inconsistencies and American conservatives do not hesitate to embrace them.
Consider Kate O'Beirne of the National Review and her recent appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Here's the contradiction: O'Beirne supported the impeachment of President Clinton on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury but supports the pardon of Libby for exactly the same charges. Crooks & Liars has the video and here's the relevant part of the transcript:
MATTHEWS: Where you on President Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice? Did you support impeachment and conviction of him for those crimes?
O'BEIRNE: Yes, his self-confessed perjury.
MATTHEWS: It's a high crime if a Democrat does it, but if a Republican does it, it was what? Prosecutorial over-reach?
O'BEIRNE: Chris, he admitted to committing perjury.
MATTHEWS: Right? I'm just trying to find consistency here from Kate O'Beirne.
Perjury and obstruction of justice should throw a president and of office who has been elected twice, but it should not cause a day of damage to the life of Scooter Libby.
1
"Relativism," in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss, Selected and Introduced by Thomas L. Pangle, University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 18-19. This originally came from a paper Strauss published in Relativism and the Study of Man, Helmut Schoeck and J.W. Wiggins, eds., Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961, pp. 135-57.
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