When I first started reading Marginal Revolution, I quickly noticed two terms Tyler uses that I didn’t understand. The first was “State-Capacity Libertarianism”, which it’s mostly what it says on the tin and is probably the best-available label for my politics. The second is “Straussian Reading”, which I found much more impenetrable because Tyler’s style is to just kind of drop in these terms with the assumption that his readers either know what they mean or will be curious enough to figure it out.
This except, which Kevin Lacker found and discussed is the best description of Straussian reading I’ve seen; this post is for myself, when I need a refresher, or so I can easily send to others. The excerpt is from Philosophy Between The Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing:
Imagine you have received a letter in the mail from your beloved, from whom you have been separated for many long months. (An old-fashioned tale, where there are still beloveds—and letters.) You fear that her feelings toward you may have suffered some alteration. As you hold her letter in your unsteady hands, you are instantly in the place that makes one a good reader. You are responsive to her every word. You are exquisitely alive to every shade and nuance of what she has said—and not said.
“Dearest John.” You know that she always uses “dearest” in letters to you, so the word here means nothing in particular; but her “with love” ending is the weakest of the three variations that she typically uses. The letter is quite cheerful, describing in detail all the things she has been doing. One of them reminds her of something the two of you once did together. “That was a lot of fun,” she exclaims. “Fun”—a resolutely friendly word, not a romantic one. You find yourself weighing every word in a relative scale: it represents not only itself but the negation of every other word that might have been used in its place. Somewhere buried in the middle of the letter, thrown in with an offhandedness that seems too studied, she briefly answers the question you asked her: yes, as it turns out, she has run into Bill Smith—your main rival for her affection. Then it’s back to chatty and cheerful descriptions until the end.
It is clear to you what the letter means. She is letting you down easy, preparing an eventual break. The message is partly in what she has said—the Bill Smith remark, and that lukewarm ending—but primarily in what she has not said. The letter is full of her activities, but not a word of her feelings. There is no moment of intimacy. It is engaging and cheerful but cold. And her cheerfulness is the coldest thing: how could she be so happy if she were missing you? Which points to the most crucial fact: she has said not one word about missing you. That silence fairly screams in your ear.
Like Kevin, I suspect know this is used all the time in contemporary professional contexts, so it’s useful to have an explicit example of a most implicit style.