# Straussianism — Tradition Straussianism is the school of political philosophy descended from [[Leo Strauss]] (1899–1973) at the University of Chicago. Its signature doctrines are **esoteric reading** (that great thinkers concealed their true, often heterodox, teaching from persecution and from the unphilosophic many) and the recovery of classical **natural right** against modern historicism and value-relativism — the argument of Strauss's *[[Natural Right and History]]*. ## Why it is load-bearing on the right No academic philosophy has had more concrete political effect on the American right. Strauss's students and intellectual heirs seeded **[[Neoconservatism]]** through figures linked to the [[American Enterprise Institute]] and the broader Bloom–Kristol network. The **West Coast** branch — Harry Jaffa and the [[Claremont Institute]] — fused Straussian natural right with reverence for the American Founding and Lincoln, and became the principal intellectual home of Trump-era [[National Conservatism]]. Claremont's "Flight 93 Election" essay and the subsequent "Red Caesar" / [[Caesarism]] debates are direct products of this lineage. The esoteric-reading method also gives the tradition a distinctive [[Epistemology]]: philosophical truth as something hidden and transmitted to a worthy few. ## Internal divide The **East Coast** Straussians (Allan Bloom) are more philosophical and skeptical; the **West Coast** Straussians (Jaffa, Claremont) are more nationalist and activist. This split structures much of the high-theory right today. See the [[Political Philosophy]] branch and the [[Philosophy in Right-Wing Thought Hub]] MOC.