>>2883679Doc is bullshit.
"Strauss believed that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything-all values, all moral truths. Instead, people were led by their own selfish desires. And this threatened to tear apart the shared values which held society together. But there was a way to stop this, Strauss believed. It was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation. And in America, that was the idea that the country had a unique destiny to battle the forces of evil throughout the world. This myth was epitomized, Strauss told his students, in his favorite television program: Gunsmoke."
First, Gunsmoke; this is clearly Rosen's recollection from being around Strauss just as often outside of courses and getting to know him personally, and a silly thing to assert. The most Gunsmoke or Perry Mason will ever appear is as a funny example related to whatever text he's going over, certainly never as an example of a "myth of the nation."
Second, "Strauss believed that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything-all values, all moral truths" is wrong, though the following is partly right ("people were led by their own selfish desires"); Strauss isn't worried about people questioning anything, that's his own m.o.; to the extent he's worried about politics, he's concerned more about license in behavior that leads to both viciousness given a pass and a sensualist hedonism resulting in an unstable political regime or handing over power to tyrants so the orgies can continue.
Third, "But there was a way to stop this, Strauss believed. It was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation." This is actual bullshit, and what's worse is that Curtis can make this look plausible because of Strauss's theses on exoteric writing, which can sound conspiratorial. But he never promotes the Noble Lie, and what's more, he doesn't discuss it anywhere near as much as one would expect based on reputation (if you look at the Plato’s Republic chapter of City and Man, it's more surprising how little is made of it). Additionally, the line on religion is simply wrong, Strauss, who I do think was an atheist, didn't buy that the Moderns had legitimately disproved revelation, he thought they handwaved it, and he was reticent to express anything like a dogmatic position for or against it at all.
In the past 15 years, claims by people like Curtis (and Shadia Drury, who a lot of anti-Strauss people rely on) look even more ridiculous because both levture recordings and transcripts for two dozen full courses have been released, and we're getting his notebooks published, and they don't bear out any of these claims.