Rating: 
Summary: Prophetic! A classic examination of American culture!
Review: Written in 1987, Alan Bloom's book, THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND, has proved to be prophetic in it's description of what society would look like if the trend of leftist education continued in American universities. As Bloom warned, America has become a place where group politics dominate individual rights and the lie of cultural relativism has taken hold. America is in decay.If you are looking for a book that will describe in detail the philosophical underpinnings of today's politically correct society, as well as the truths that established American society, this is the book you should purchase. Bloom is profound and provides ample evidence to document his arguments. You will understand how America arrived to where it is now, and why Americans think the way they do.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloom got the subtitle backwards
Review: What he seems to demonstrate is that democracy has failed higher education, not the reverse. His recurring theme is that the philosophic underpinnings of democracy have eliminated the concept of "truth" from society and replaced it with "values", thus ending the possibility for the university to serve as the explorer of truth. He bemoans the fact that university administrators in the 1960's didn't have the backbone to protect what he sees as the higher calling of education, yet he demonstrates that American democracy makes this protection impossible. Part One of the book is Bloom's musings on the flaccid state of American Culture. Part Two is a rather standard history of Western philosophy. One gets the impression that he simply typed out his lecture notes in order to get the book to 300+ pages. Part Three is of interest. First, one sees the suprising vitriol and anger that he expresses towards fellow academicians (all those stories you heard in college about professorial rivalries must have ben true). Second, you get a glimpse at his bleak prognosis for philosophy in America and his rather tepid suggestions for remediation (read Plato). If anything, the book proves that DeToqueville was right about America. We are not the contemplative sort. Maybe Bloom's Europeans will continue to provide us with good philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: Yeah, but so what?
Review: My review is in regards to Mr. Bloom's chapter on the corruption brought about by rock music. I really wish I could find out what it is in rock 'n roll that Bloom says drives an individual towards sexual conquest because I haven't been laid in years. This book reads like an updated version of Plato's "Republic." He brings forth some perfectly valid and intelligent points, but by the end of it, I had to ask myself, "so what?" Bloom tells us we need to control new forms of popular entertainment, and even abolish some of it in order to provide only pure, moral art and entertainment that stimulates the intellect rather than lustful and dishonest emotions. Restricting freedom and encouraging nothing but cleanliness is also a form of fascism. Bloom would have made a much more convincing book had he written with more compassion than condemnation.
Rating:
Summary: A great critique, fabulous
Review: Blooms book is tough reading, challenging. THis book expects you, the student, to delve back into the classical times and into philosophy for understand. So far different from the light conservative reading of O'Reilly and so far different from the un-balanced unsubstantiated works of Michael Moore or Chomsky, this book requires you to think. Bloom explores many subjects facing the American college student and the developing of the American conscious. He points out the current trend(all too relevant today even though the book was written in the 80s) towards moral relativism. He notes how we as Americans ahve become so afraid of value judgements. He speaks about the inculcation of college students with all embrasing words like 'culture'. He also comments on the non-integraton of black students on college campus's despite the massive outreach efforts. He notes the current distrust of classic texts and the current trend towards Satre and Marx on campus while noting the decline of emphasis on western thought and western civilization. This book is a great read, highly educational and of great value for todays student or young professional in understanding the lingo of the left. For a non-fiction biography of Bloom read Ravelstein by Saul Bellow.
Rating:
Summary: A response to Mr. Gudorf
Review: "But rock has one quality neither of the others do - it's still fresh. This is the point Bloom simply misses. People don't listen to rock because it's great, but because it's new. Bloom is simply unrealistic to expect a culture like ours that thrives on innovation to live only in the past; in fact, it would be unhealthy because it would lead to stagnation." In response to Mr. Gudorf, Bloom's point is that Americans have no sense of the past, of the greatness of the whole western civilization that ultimately produced them. Thus they choose the new over the truly great, People Magazine over Shakespeare, and the Stones over Mozart. Freshness, the ability to be innovative, is indeed the American virtue, but we experience it at the expense of some other very precious virtues, many of which Bloom outlines in this book. To argue that living in the past (i.e. prefering classical to rock) is unhealthy and leads to stagnation is a most American response to Bloom. That very "stagnation" which Americans abhor is the climate that fosters the reflection of which genius is a product. I first read Bloom as a college freshman in a colloquium my advisor signed me into against my will. I thought the book was only mildly interesting and barely relevant. I recently re-read it in my own leisure and realized the profundity of Bloom's arguments against a culture that suffocates greatness and thins the soil of the mind. I recommend it for parents (and those who plan to be) who want to raise children who are connected to a tradition and can think for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Best Conservative Book I've Read
Review: Forget Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, this guy is a real intellectual. Bloom is very direct in his criticism of the intellectual crisis in America, and it's getting worse since he wrote this book, with MTV, porn, video games..it's the dumming down of America right now and our forefathers would be shocked I think. He was right in so many areas, and his words are prophetic. If the emphasis on pleasure beats out the emphasis on meaning, America will continue to have a very rocky road! Bloom's observations on what is really going on in our campus's is startling and sometimes depressing. It was stunning to me that many college students are turning away from classical literature. We need more people like Allan Bloom, to "tell it like it is." Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy" and political moderate
Rating: 
Summary: Everyone talked about it, yet few really understood it.
Review: I was amazed that so many of my conservative friends purchased the Closing of the American Mind yet how few if any actually read it. I heard quotes from the book, yet they were always taken out of context and people referred to the book yet did not seem to know anything about it. I asked a PhD about the book and he only wanted to know whether the title was proper for the book, I guess he had not read it either. Platonism is mentioned a lot in other reviews, my interest though is the acceptance of German Rationalism in America. de Tocqueville said that if America ceased to be good it would cease to be great. He said America was great because it was good. One book I was reading at the time was Sun Tzu'z Art of War, he states that when your enemy has accepted your ideas and philosophies he is no longer your enemy. Tzu mentions that when you come to fight, your enemy will not want to because there are no differences. By our acceptance of German Rationalism have we forgotten what has made America great? Will we forget that although we have a common ancestry with Europe, we are a distinct people whose ancestors came here to escape the world that was Europe. Whether escaping religious persecution or a potato famine, those who came here sought the freedom that came with responsibility. This book called a Jeremiad may just be a warning still in this new millenium.
Rating:
Summary: The Purpose of True Education; Inner Directed Development
Review: A major impact in my thinking and an awesome introduction to Nietzsche, nihilism and the American education system. Bloom outlines what education was compared to what it is today. How cultures consisted of much more than mere nationalism, but rather, educated thinkers who influenced Western civilization from non-equalitarian societies. Bloom relates thoughts from Alex de Toquville and the problem of equalitarianism, the deterioration of the American educational system and the problem of nihilism. In doing this, Bloom, outlines the teachings of Nietzsche, Max Weber, Marx and other major thinkers that have dealt with such issues. Weber's charisma, to Marx's rationalism to Nietzsche's culture, self-positing and value creating ability, using Heidegger's term of "authenticity," Bloom delivers a book that is worth every page and chapter. His outline of the 1960's turmoil that aided to both the extension of nihilism and the deterioration of the University is essential reading. The MBA has replaced true educational and cultural reflection that molds, shapes and infuses interior authenticity in individuals that in turn, form our leaders, thinkers and greats of our time period. But where are they today? Certainly a much smaller and obscure group that is both surrounded and smothered by external, outer-direction that fails to produce those great thinkers that have literally changed the course of Western civilization. Bloom also ventures into morality, music and general social conditions that affect our American civilization and most certainly his students and the University, once a "sacred" place of character development, now a place where the classics have been shelved in the humanities, rejected by the scientific champions, only to find students - the back bone of future thinkers - to obtain more superfluous knowledge determined solely for financial success and material gain; external accomplishments devoid of internal character authenticity and inner-directed value positing. Bloom's book should be read by every educator. The University that seriously values the original intent of such educational institutions since their inception have lost sight of direction. Those that blow this book off as conservative verses liberal miss the entire theme of Bloom's complaint and value of the great minds that form our entire society and civilization.
Rating: 
Summary: the emperor has no clothes
Review: Bad news from the groves of academe: the american university is failing to keep the wisdom of Aristotle, Rousseau and Nietzsche in the forefront of the undergraduate imagination. I was shocked, shocked. Along with a handful of insights, Professor Bloom has given us nearly four hundred pages of flapdoodle. The tone is nasty and condescending, the prose is impenetrable, and the net effects are relief when the book is finished and wonder at the fuss it has provoked. You can get the same message from Saul Bellow with some good belly laughs added. Bloom should have used Western Union.
Rating:
Summary: Bloom got the subtitle backwards
Review: What he seems to demonstrate is that democracy has failed higher education, not the reverse. His recurring theme is that the philosophic underpinnings of democracy have eliminated the concept of "truth" from society and replaced it with "values", thus ending the possibility for the university to serve as the explorer of truth. He bemoans the fact that university administrators in the 1960's didn't have the backbone to protect what he sees as the higher calling of education, yet he demonstrates that American democracy makes this protection impossible. Part One of the book is Bloom's musings on the flaccid state of American Culture. Part Two is a rather standard history of Western philosophy. One gets the impression that he simply typed out his lecture notes in order to get the book to 300+ pages. Part Three is of interest. First, one sees the suprising vitriol and anger that he expresses towards fellow academicians (all those stories you heard in college about professorial rivalries must have ben true). Second, you get a glimpse at his bleak prognosis for philosophy in America and his rather tepid suggestions for remediation (read Plato). If anything, the book proves that DeToqueville was right about America. We are not the contemplative sort. Maybe Bloom's Europeans will continue to provide us with good philosophy.
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