Why “straussianism” is a great word
A method of reading and teaching political philosophy that seeks to recover the esoteric meanings of texts and mounts a profound critique of modern political thought. From Straussian (pertaining to Leo Strauss or his followers) + -ism (denoting a distinctive doctrine, theory, or practice). Unlike "Strauss's thought" (which refers specifically to the philosopher's own complex writings) or "Platonism" (which denotes the philosophy of Plato that Strauss sought to decode), Straussianism is the applied craft of his disciples. It is the careful peeling of a text's literal surface to find the hidden teaching, the deliberate tension between the exoteric and the esoteric, and the quiet, relentless questioning of contemporary certitudes—a practice less of constructing a system than of cultivating a permanent, piercing unease. It is the scholar leaning over a worn copy of Machiavelli at midnight, searching for the omission that reveals intention; the seminar where a question about justice becomes a question about the questioner; the conviction that philosophy survives in the silences, passed not through explicit doctrine but through the formation of a reader who has learned to suspect the most important things are rarely said directly.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).