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Title: The Closing of the American Mind
ISBN: 0671479903
Author:
Allan David Bloom
Publicate Date: 1987-04
Publish: 1987-04
List Price: $18.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Hardcover
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1: Bloom's "Mind": Makes More Sense Twenty Years Later
If one were to come to Alan Bloom's THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND today, that reader would surely view it through the prism of other and more focused books on the decline of America's colleges and universities. More current writers on the same topic like Dinesh D'Souza and Roger Kimball have taken the lead blazed by Bloom and have improved on it not so much by pointing to the achievements of classic philosophers but more by explaining in more accessible prose what has caused the decline of our schools of higher education. Other reviewers have well noted the more technical aspects of Bloom's basic thrust that the rise of relativism has led relentlessly to a diminution of the very ability of language to have any universally fixed referents. When the collective humanities departments of this nation inculcate each new incoming class of freshman with a spectrum of politically correct ideology, then this is the starting point for Bloom to assess the damage done. Unfortunately, for Bloom and his readers, he spends far too much time on the theoretical and abstruse underpinnings of a traditional philosophy that he is sure has been betrayed by a legion of relativists who have no more to offer than than the sobering nihilistic concept that the primary reason that the American Mind has closed is due to a convergence between the youthful innocence of those minds and the debilitating and ruinous philosophy of cultural relativism. I cannot blame Bloom for writing the way he does since back in 1987, he had no other guides to sound the alarm that the very lifeblood of traditional American education was becoming unglued. It made sense for him to see things mostly through the lens with which he was most familar--the professor's lectern from which he could connect the dots on a wide net of philosophers who over the centuries have grappled with much the same problems but probably not to the suffocating extent that currently embodies what passes for contemporary cutting edge educational pedagogy. His book is replete with detailed analyses of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel,Nietzsche, Marx, and Heidegger, all of whom wrote of competing mindsets that directly relate to Bloom's thesis that relativism is a scourge that will not leave us anytime soon. Those readers who gain the most from Bloom are surely also those with the exact sort of widespread liberal education that Bloom himself has and almost as surely laments its demise in the elimination of the Great Books Theory which mandates that human beings must be immersed in the world of abstract thought, the loss of which leaves that world vulnerable to the insidious suggestions of the relativists who urge that since words have no fixed meaning then neither do what used to be called Great Ideas. THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND served its purpose of warning us that the nightmare of linguistic anarchy has already begun, Yet for those who have not read Bloom nor are particularly conversant with the aforementioned classic philosophers, then Bloom still remains a valuable fount of ideas but sadly not the place to begin the search for an alternative to those who cry out even now that there is literally nothing not even language holding our western culture together.
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2: The Roots of American Disorder
The university is supposed to be the place where excited young minds come to be initiated into the mysteries of the cosmos. And it wasn't long ago that such adventures were both available and pursued. Liberal education encouraged students to ask for themselves the question "what is man?" and to wrestle with alternative answers. The university provided a haven where the easy and preferred answers of the culture could be safely set aside, at least for a time, while the great minds of history past were consulted, argued with, and learned from.
But in Bloom's thirty years as a university professor he has witnessed a change, both in the mood and expectation of the students, and in the university's sense of identity, which has fragmented into a smorgasbord of unrelated pursuits. Confusion over the nature of knowledge confounds both. The spirit of the age, relativism, the truth that there is no objective truth, has settled like a smog over the campuses. Students no longer expect to find truth and meaning "out there", but only within. So the appeal of liberal arts to students is vastly diminished if it is denied that these studies can point to any reality beyond themselves.
Bloom notes that "the university now offers no distinctive visage to the young person. There is no vision...of what an educated human being is. The student gets no intimation that great mysteries might be revealed to him, that new and higher motives of action might be discovered within him, that a different and more human way of life can be harmoniously constructed by what he is going to learn." The "undecided student is an embarrassment to most universities, because he seems to be saying, 'I am a whole human being. Help me to form myself in my wholeness and let me develop my real potential,' and he is the one to whom they have nothing to say" (p.339).
America was founded on the Enlightenment tradition of men like Locke where reason was central; equality and human rights were rationally derived, universal principles, and democracy could flourish. A competing political philosophy with its origins in Rousseau but more radically developed by Nietzsche is where Bloom sees the beginning of today's predicament. It was with Nietzsche that American intellectuals in the forties became enamoured. Nietzsche denied, however, the rationally accessible human rights and equality that was central to American ideals. Rather it was in localized "culture" that man finds his wholeness and identity. In fact this meant that there was no such thing as "man" in the singular; there are as many kinds of "man" as there are cultures. The objective tool of reason is replaced by the subjective one of "commitment" and acts of the will.
American intellectuals did not seem to see the darker side of Nietzsche. He himself recognized that his cultural relativism meant "war and great cruelty rather than great compassion" (p.202). "Whether this value relativism is harmonious with democracy was a question that was dealt with by never being raised" (p.152). In fact, there can't be a respect for both human rights and culture "because a culture itself generates its own way of life and principles...with no authority above it" (p.192). Bloom warns that we need to "credit the possibility that the overpowering visions of German philosophers are preparing the tyranny of the future" (p.240).
Since the sixties, the vocabulary of Nietzschean ideas has been adopted at a superficial level by Americans such that they are no more than slogans (eg. words like "values" and "creativity"). Students do not and are not required to think them through. It's not even the embrace of relativism that Bloom finds to be the biggest problem, but the unthinking dogmatism with which it is held. This results, then, in the closing of the American mind when young people believe that there are no thoughts worth considering that they do not already know, no visions of the human experience worth exploring that they do not already possess.
The denial of any universals means that there is only the particular. If there is no such thing as "man" but only the "self" then what does Aristotle have to say to me? If reason is less important than feeling why should I care about what Plato says about justice? No wonder today's students are more concerned with self-fulfillment than with becoming wise.
So how are students to get excited again by the mysteries and possibilities of human experience? Bloom sees as the best solution the old Great Books approach, where the classics are read as the authors intended them to be read. This is no small difference from the typical approach in the humanities, where the classics are now kept. There they are treated as mummified museum pieces and read through the lens of modern presuppositions and political correctness. It is as if a great sign hangs over the door to the humanities that says "There is no truth, at least not here."
For example, it is claimed that Aristotle's "Ethics" teaches us not what a good man is but what the Greeks thought about morality. If it was read as it was intended to be read, students would be challenged to discover new experiences and reassess old ones. However now they are told that Aristotle can just be used to enrich the vision of the world they already have. Bloom is not saying that the claims of the great books are automatically true, but that we ought to wrestle with them in order to see that the picture of the whole may well be larger than the one we currently have.
Though he has argued that free inquiry and democracy itself are threatened when reason is devalued, Bloom is hopeful that liberal education is still possible. "The questions are all there. They only need to be addressed continuously and seriously for liberal learning to exist; for it does not consist so much in answers as in the permanent dialogue" (p.380).
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3: Garbage
I did not appreciate this book. There are only two books I've ever ripped up and this is one of them. Bloom is an Elitist, Sexist, Classist, Ageist, Racist. This book is garbage and is an offense to all of humanity.
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4: Makes his points well, but exposes some serious intellectual blind spots
Bloom makes a compelling case for embracing, through study, Western Civilization in general, and the Great Books in particular. He also does a good job of showing how today's universities exalt the natural sciences - which address only the material aspect of existence - while neglecting, to man's and society's peril, the social sciences and humanities, which speak to the immaterial aspects of existence.
In the course of making his case Bloom refers to Moses as a myth, or if not the man Moses, then certainly the story of him securing the 10 commandments from Mt. Sinai. At the same time Bloom acknowledges the great contribution of Moses, likening it to those contributions made my Aristotle, Socrates, or Shakespere.
Now, this is interesting logic for such an exalted intellectual as Bloom. He liken Moses to Aristotle, Socrates, and Shakespere but seems untroubled by the fact that one of them - Moses - claimed to receive what he passed down to humanity directly from God, even in face to face interaction. Neither Aristotle, Socrates or Shakespere made any such claim. If they had, wouldn't that change Bloom's opinion of those men - probably for the worse? Truth and deception have nothing in common. How would it be possible for a pathological liar to also provide man with some of the greatest moral truths ever known: "Thou shalt not steal"; "Thou shalt not murder"; "Thou shalt not bear false testimony"? How could a man who could speak this last mentioned commandment, at the same time be so out of touch with reality that he would state that he got the commandments from God? Even if it were possible that such a blend of truth and lies could reside with a man, why would Bloom venerate him?
Furthermore, Bloom convieniently shies away from calling the person, Jesus of Nazareth, a myth (a much harder case to make, even for natural sciences), and Bloom makes no attempt to account for the new paradigm erected by Jesus, especially at the Sermon-on-the-Mount. If Moses' apparently invented moral laws seem noble, if not mythically quaint, to Bloom, if Bloom were alive today would he be prepared to say the same things about Jesus's utterances in the Sermon-on-the-Mount?
Which of the following are quaint mythical statements, as likely fabricated by the mind of man as by God?
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. "
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Here again, we have the problem? If Jesus did say those things, so full of truth, how could he also tell the Samaritan women at the well:
"I who speak to you am he." (John 4:26)
after she made mention of the Messiah, if it were not true?
It is sad to see how intransigence toward the God of the Bible can make a muddle out of intellectual acumen.
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5: Book review:
This book was suggested for me to read by a friend. It was a cumbersome read about 400 some odd pages and I knocked it out in a few weeks.
Harold Bloom goes to great lengths salivating over the works of brilliant thinkers of the past. Ancient Philosophers such as Socrates 399BC, Plato 347 BC, Aristotle 332 BC and Cicero 43 BC are referenced often. More modern thinkers, philosophers and writers such as Machiavelli, 1527 AD, Descartes 1650 AD, Locke 1704 AD, Goethe 1832 AD, Nietzsche 1900 AD, are also sited often as well.
Bloom comes across as a conflicted agnostic, not wanting to embrace the ideal of intrinsic value in human beings, but not totally dismissing the ideal either. He plays it safe, acknowledging that human beings may have a soul, but stops there by making no conclusions, because in the end he really can't.
He wants excellence back in college education but offers no real remedy to get there; he only laments the ill effects of post modernism, nihilism and other soul less characteristics of present day academia. Bloom seems to have great compunction for having no solutions within his grasp. He elucidates nothing in his 400 pages; he almost like a professor who loves to hear himself speak, (think Ben Stine character in Ferris Bueller movie), but much more of an self ennobling, aristocratic, intellectual with a splendid command of the English language. Bloom has an impious, intransigent view for the believers in Deity, which I think leaves him coming up short in all his postulations. He is masterful at polemics and seems to find vigor and great joy in ruffling feathers. In the end a call to action or a conclusion to all the problems Bloom raises is untenable. It seems that he trusts in the opinions of the finite, i.e.-men, philosophers of the world, when truth is eternal and springs from our Creator, which he is loathe to approach......much less acknowledge.
In conclusion the best and most telling quote found very early in the book is here:
"I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing."
Socrates
And this quote is what Blooms seems to hang his hat on, gaining his readers nothing.
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