If God is dead, does that mean anything goes? Strauss, Weber and Schmitt revisited

Authors

  • Javier Franzé

Keywords:

Strauss, Weber, Schmitt, values, truth, totalitarianism

Abstract

Could the absence or presence of objective values make democracy fall into totalitarianism? This has been a key question since the Second World War postwar period. Leo Strauss’s critique of Max Weber and Carl Schmitt is pertinent to dealing with this problem. In fact, the core of this discussion lies in if politics can be based on objective and transcendent values or if it begins with and is based on the creation of and the fight around these values. While Weber and Schmitt understand that values are not objective and that this ensures pluralism, Strauss maintains that objective values essential to man do exist, and the negation of this truth prefigures the return of totalitarianism. 

Issue

Section

ARTICLES