The Importance of Socratic Rhetoric

I think the impression that Strauss's rediscovery of esoteric writing is sinister, is linked to the Iraq war and the premises of going into Iraq. So I want to just say something that's very important about how Strauss himself understood the political philosopher who writes between the lines. He calls that way of writing, Socratic rhetoric, in one context, in a book that we'll actually be looking at a little bit,. It's called Ontirania. But one of the things that he says about Socratic rhetoric is that it's perfectly just harmless and animated by a spirit of social responsibility. And what Strauss sees on the basis of his understanding of Socratic rhetoric as he found it in Plato and