Thanks, Ogged, for participating in my little "experiment." What an unsatisfying experience! Yours were the best comments I got, and you don't seem to know any more Strauss than I do... Still, the "conditions" were not exactly ideal.
Oops, just realized that 'experiment' suggests that I had some nefarious design. No, the pique was spontaneous. I really did do it with good will. And I'm sad I came up for now empty.
Thanks. It was fun while it lasted! And I commend you for giving it a shot.
I haven't read any Strauss but lots of Heidegger, so I have some sense of where Strauss is coming from. I'd say that it's very nearly impossible to understand Heidegger and the Heideggerians without studying with someone who knows them well; otherwise at best you'll be confused, and likely just frustrated.
I actually think Heidegger is fascinating -- even (maybe especially) post-'turn' Heidegger. The problem I'm having with Strauss is that his arguments are all scholarly arguments, without (as far as I can tell) any 'just plain old' philosophy. (There's plenty of 'plain old' philosophy in Being and Time, by contrast. And even in H's later work, once you learn how to read it.) So Strauss's work comes to have a bullying feel, which was deadly to my task Wednesday.
To buy Strauss you have to buy (a) that he's right in his reading of the history of political philosophy and (b) that these historical figures, thus read, were right (about how we should live, etc.). There's too much appeal to putative authority here. I found Strauss's rhetoric uninterestingly insulting.
In sum, I was trying to defend Straussians from Leiter's bullying, then found myself being bullied by Strauss. I wanted out.
That sounds fair to me. I'm content to forget Strauss for now. I have too many other things I'd like to read first, as I'm sure is the case for you.