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the right track, taking its cues from mediocre mass culture, mob democracy, and moral relativism (the belief that no moral view is inherently superior to any other). It’s true that these seem to be characteristics of modern culture, but Strauss calls our attention to the ideals that animate the “philosopher-king” of Plato’s Republic and the contemplative sage of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Both figures are beacons of virtue and wisdom as well as natural leaders. Their search for absolute and ultimate truth in political life, as in all other areas, has been abandoned for the most part, he thinks. So his sense of “liberal” attempts to recapture what was at the heart of Platonic and Aristotelian political thought: it expresses our inner impulse toward human excellence as being the end of all our efforts. Strauss says:

The liberal man on the highest level esteems most highly the mind and its excellence and is aware of the fact that man at his best is autonomous or not subject to any authority, while in every other respect he is subject to authority which, in order to deserve respect, or to be truly authority, must be a reflection through a dimming medium of what is simply the highest.136

Strauss’s way of thinking treats democracy as a “universal aristocracy” in which all are free to find their proper purpose and place in society, but society itself is structured by the insight that our wisest leaders have into what is essential, most real, or “the highest” in human nature.

John Dewey, called in his time “America’s philosopher,” would agree with Strauss’s key idea that an ideal democracy is a universal aristocracy. But much depends on whether we put the stress on “universal” or “aristocracy,” Dewey argues. For him, the “liberal” in liberal democracy means faith “that every human being as an individual may be the best for some particular purpose and hence be the most fitted to rule, to lead, in that specific respect.”137 He also stresses that we should see democracy as merely a way in which those with the greatest political expertise find their way into power. Democracy is more than a kind of political system involving voting and majority rule. It’s a way of living that extends farther than politics, one that demands that individuals have the greatest freedom—in terms of equality of opportunity—to continue to grow as individuals and express their individuality. Democracy in this sense is a struggle: it requires our commitment to continually criticize and revise educational, political, and other means for providing opportunities for individuals. Sometimes these commitments may get in the way of traditional beliefs and values, and cause conflicts. But, Dewey says, it is also the best path for the attainment of excellence by a democratic citizenry as a whole. But Dewey’s view of excellence is not like Strauss’s because it is not solely dependent upon our accepting the wisdom of great and virtuous leaders. Instead, he says that democracy involves “faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the common man to respond with commonsense to the free play of facts and ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free inquiry, free assembly and free communication.”138

Anakin, particularly in his admiration for Palpatine and other “great men” and by his distrust of popular participation in democracy, holds a view comparable to Strauss’s. For both of them, greater concentration of power in the hands of a few is justified by the natural ability of those few to lead and their virtues in assessing, judging, and responding to difficult and complex situations. To Strauss, these are “the wise,” and Anakin sees wisdom and virtue not so much in Obi-Wan or the Jedi Council, but in figures like Palpatine who promise both the power and the license to correct injustices quickly and immediately. But the common person is apparently not fit to rule herself according to Strauss or Anakin, and the Straussian statesman is empowered to utilize many means, including deception, the stirring of patriotism, and manufactured threats in order to