It's been too long . . .

I may have forgotten how to blog. I might be testing that theory in the next few days. Someone whose name begins with an X was reading through here and leaving comments tonight, and it seemed a shame to me that I haven't updated since November. I'm once again amazed, looking my old posts, how different I seem to myself when I read what I've written. I have a personality that doesn't come out in daily life very much, particularly now that I no longer live near any close friends from school. I go months without having an intellectual conversation with an interested partner.

I recently finished Steven B. Smith's Reading Leo Strauss, one of no fewer than six "apology of Leo Strauss" books in the St. John's library. After reading Reading, I could see myself going through Strauss's major works at some point, even though I'm still unclear why he's so thoroughly opposed to historicism, and I don't know what evidence there is for his esoteric readings of Plato. I read the book because the lecturer last week spoke on Alfarabi, and this week it's on the statesmanship of Lincoln--two obviously Strass-influenced lectures in a row--and so I thought I'd finally try to figure out what the origin of this stuff was.

I still have an enormous preference for the philosophy of Richard Rorty, an avowed historicist whom the Straussians would, furthermore, likely consider "unserious" or something like that because he doesn't have a central enough focus on politics. Oh well. It takes all kinds to make an ivory tower.