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Summary: Perhaps the Best Treatise on Education of the Last 50 Years
Review: I read The Closing of the American Mind during a summer semester at Reed College during the mid-1980s. Put simply, it is an authoritative and devastating attack on higher education. This work will likely stand the test of time, and stand as one of the best critiques of higher education of the last 50 years. At Reed, this work was often criticized brilliantly by the iconoclastic student body. At the same time, it seemed like just about everyone read it. It is indeed thought provoking and timeless. Bloom's contribution is tremendous, and simply can't be overlooked. In an age of increased specialization and fragmentation, Bloom weaved and crafted a brilliantly provocative treatise, and should be read by all parents before their children apply to college. It is as important as any critique of American society. I actually it rank along with De Tocqueville's Democracy in America and have it sitting close by on the shelf for reference when I feel compelled to read it.
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Summary: The issue is relativism
Review: Alan Bloom begins his controversial book with this statement, "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative... [This] is not a theoretical insight but a moral postulate... The students, of course, cannot defend their opinion... [but] to their way of thinking there should be no tolerance for the intolerant." When I read that statement as a student, I was offended. Later (as I got on in years) I realized what he was trying to tell me. As a young and idealistic undergraduate I believed that one must stand up for what is right, be committed, get involved, and act against evil. I also believed that truth and evil are relative. I was being inconsistent and didn't notice it. That, of course, is Bloom's point too and he concludes from it that students are in error in their relativism and calls for an education focusing on Western values that will teach them better. I think I was wrong but I would call for an education that would teach students about valid and invalid judgments. Let's face it: many of the students in our universities are NOT Western and, although it would be good for them (and for us) to learn about Western culture, that is not the only culture out there. We should all, however, learn about valid and invalid judgments; and we should all learn that it's okay to judge. A valid judgment requires that I separate my own personal preferences from what I judge to be unversal standards. That's not an easy thing to do. But it means that I must separate my revulsion from certain foods and customs (say lip piercing) from a woman throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre. The first is my cultural habituation; the second a universal value. Yet when I make those judgments I must do so humbly knowing that they are made by MY standards for I don't really know any others. And for that reason, it would be good for me to learn what those standards are. It would be good for me to learn Western values. And those, I'm afraid, are rarely taught these days. So I agree with Bloom's starting point but the conclusion he draws from it is perhaps not the only one possible.
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Summary: The immaturity of America's right wing
Review: No response I can give to Bloom's book would speak against it as well as Lawrence Levine's excellent response, "The OPENING of the American Mind." Bloom's not all wrong, but his answers are even more of an easy way out than even the most mindless liberal arts course. Please read Levine's book if you read Bloom's, and decide for yourself who is paying better attention to this country's culture, and who only likes to hear himself talk!
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Summary: Education, Democracy, and Soul
Review: The late Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" was an unexpected bestseller when it appeared in 1987. It is an outstanding work combining polemic against the diminution of American standards with serious thought about how we came to this impasse. Bloom's book is a testament to the power of ideas. If "The Closing of the American Mind" captures Bloom's thought, his friend Saul Bellow's novel, "Ravelstein" (1996) captures much of Bloom the man. I think Bloom's book and Bellow's novel will be permanently intertwined in the history of American thought and literature. It is difficult to think of one without reflecting on the other. The themes of Professor Bloom's study are stated in its title and, more explicitly, in the subtitle of the book: "How Higher Education has failed Democracy and Impoverished the Soul's of Today's Students." I tried to capture these themes in the title of this review: Education, Democracy, and Soul. The first theme of the book is education. Professor Bloom argues that American higher education has lost its sense of purpose and direction. He finds this due to an emphasis on relativism and toleration and a reluctance to focus on questions of purpose and meaning. Similarly, Professor Bloom finds American education has become overly politicized and attuned to the concerns of the moment. He urges that liberal education return to its initial function of searching for wisdom and for self-knowledge. While not every student need pursue the liberal arts (in fact, it is a rare enterprise), Bloom finds that these studies must be available for those interested, and honored, if University education is to produce thoughtful human beings and an informed community holding values and the pursuit of truth in common. Bloom finds the source of liberal studies in ancient Greece with Socrates and his great student, Plato. The second theme of the book is democracy, and American constitutionalism. American democracy remains a precious experiment and Bloom traces its roots to enlightenment thought, particularly in John Locke. The basic values of our system are liberty and equality. Bloom ties democratic values into a society devoted to the pursuit of empirical knowledge rather than superstition. He returns frequently in his book to Alexis de Touqueville's "Democracy and America" which captured a great deal of the promise of our country while warning of the levelling and conformity that would result from an unchecked, uncritical approach to a sociey in which each person's opinions counted as much as each other person's. There is much fascinating but difficult material in this book about German anti-rationalists beginning with Nietzsche and proceeding through Max Weber and Heidegger. These thinkers espoused theories, Bloom argues, fundamentally at odds with American democracy. Their theories have been vulgarized and watered-down and form the basis, Bloom argues, for the preoccupations of modern America with "life-styles" and "commitments" rather than reason. Bloom's historical discussions are difficult and move rather too quickly at times, but they are thoughtful and rewarding. The third theme of the book is soul. For Bloom, soul is what our young people and our country are in danger of losing. Soul is at first blush exemplified by the Socratic pursuit. It is a conviction that some things are worth knowing and pursuing and it is an attempt to find them through serious enterprise. Soul is a matter of love, passion and effort. Bloom finds "soul" compromised by an attitude of relativism, of too easy commitments, and of a desire to compromise somewhat too easily in matters of love to attain the necessity of sex. Lack of soul, for Bloom, is exemplified in the pursuit of rock music by the young and not-so-young as an attempt to find an emotional high without the attendant spiritual and intellectual effort. This book is difficult reading and there are moments when the polemics get in the way of the thought. This notwitstanding, the book is a passionate and deeply informed treatment of the life of the mind and sprit.
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Summary: This Book Changed My Life
Review: Have you ever read something that perfectly illuminates ideas that you have been perceiving on an intuitive level, but couldn't quite put into words? Have you experienced that incredible moment (all too rare) when a powerful thinker opens up your mind to whole new dimensions of thought and understanding? The Closing of the American Mind is one of those books. It's not light reading, but for those with above average reading comprehension and the patience to read slowly, Closing will take you places you've never been before. I first heard about this book while reading Dionne's _Why Americans Hate Politics_. It was mentioned as a work that was influenced by the famous political philosopher Leo Strauss, who was very influential among the so-called "neoconservatives" (anti-communist liberals who believed in virtue and rebelled against the new-Left in the 1960s). Dionne stressed that this important group of intellectuals, having been liberals themselves, were particularly adept at criticizing the policies of the Left. I found this fascinating, so I decided to read Closing for myself. At the time, I had no idea that it would be a life changing experience. This book is incredibly interesting. It is a brilliant critique of the American education system, particularly the University. It is even more relevant today than it was in the 1980s. If you take nothing else away from this book than a better understanding of a liberal arts education, it will be worth the price of admission. On the other hand, if you read this book carefully like I did, you will be rewarded with Bloom's brilliant mind, his incisive wit, his astonishing observations, his (sometimes overwhelming) references to the greatest works human history, and finally, an appreciation for the irony of America's great closing, a closing cloaked behind a veneer of openness. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Needs trimming
Review: Enjoyed the book, although I feel the author spent a great deal of time and energy setting up his argument with a labyrinthine review of the general assault on reason that commenced with J.J. Rousseau, but was by no means limited to him. The pace picked up considerably in the last third, though, with Bloom's pointed analysis of the intellectual heritage of human-ness that has been denied the modern student, which made the early reading struggle worthwhile. I consider Bloom's work a "proof" of C.S. Lewis' thesis found in "The Abolition of Man" essays, which I highly recommend as well.
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Summary: Worth opening one's mind, for a bit, until one's fury
Review: a comfy warm breeze from the 80's welcomes the reader that opens this. It immediately strikes me, that this guy is serious, brilliant and well worth taking into consideration. His remarks about the weakness of society - and especially cultural society - to be able to say 'this is good, that is bad' and the mantra we all were tought, it seems 'everything is equal, T.S.Eliott=Agatha Christie=hotetenton dance=Butter and sage= etc. - all these are hard and true. That they apply by now to the global situation is proof of either the American conquest of the world, or the depth of his observation. Of course Allan Bloom has a theory and fiddles with stuff to make it fit: to deduce that rock-music is a major cause of mind closing is not only pathetic, but brings to mind Adorno's similar attempt with his Jazz essay. Still, it is a good read, and there is so much one can take out of this philosophical all you can eat. Any reader of this will be guaranteed moments of fury mingled with aha's. I especially recommend this to european readers (which I am one myself). The book takes on a less political aspect, and is ever more poignant.
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Summary: Interesting, contradictory, version of American culture
Review: I am of two minds about this book. If the book was written with the intention of inspiring people to read the classics, then the author has achieved his purpose, although somewhat unsatisfactorily. It is not the author's thesis, but contradictory and inadequate reasoning that have inspired me to read the classics - Plato, Locke, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, to determine for myself their value.
On the other hand, if the book was written as a treatise on the state of American culture the author has done a poor job of reasoning. Many of the examples elaborated in this book are contradictory in themselves.
The classical music he cites as inspiring man's highest aspiration is a step backward in his argument against the bourgeois, as this particular music was created for money. A better support of his argument could have been made with folk music, which quite possibly is the only music that is created without the intention of drawing a profit; however, this would work against his reasoning too, as the rock music he bemoans stems from folk music.
Mr. Bloom's use of Freud as illustration of psychology in many examples (there is brief mention of behaviorism) is hardly worthy of the academia he represents when Freud had fallen from repute in many academic circles by the time the book was written.
Further, while he belabors the point of man and survival, there is no mention of the growing interest in Evolutionary Psychology initiated by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene.
As far as his view on women's roles, I will leave that to another reader who is far more poignant than myself. "Bloom's comments on the promiscuity of female college students are inappropriate, as well as sexist, considering there is no mention of like behavior in corresponding males (which, it is presumed, is acceptable)."
Finally, while I can agree on his conclusion "there needs to be more debate in academic circles," I'm uncertain as to whom that statement is directed to. The students he derided in his passage on the sixties presumably had that intention in mind when they attacked the "castles of academia" and their stolid support of the status quo and were placated with toys.
Ultimately Mr. Bloom has given us food for thought. I have no doubt of his wealth of wisdom in the philosophic, however, I think his incomplete understanding of other channels of knowledge is clearly demonstrated in this book. While I do not agree with his reasoning, I have been inspired to read further to determine for myself
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Summary: Typical State of the Decline address...
Review: ...from a rather atypical spokesman. I need not venture into many of the specifics of Bloom's...well, argument. He attempts to survey the decline, or closing, of American intellectual (i.e., academic) culture. I purchased this book as I was reading his translation of The Republic. This book is certainly not the evil reactionary work that some on the left take it to be, nor does Bloom emerge as a conservative in this work. Many of his criticisms of higher education ring true. Students don't take the classics seriously (or their classes, for that matter), their attention-span has been dulled by materialism and media culture, and the humanities is in a state of near ruin. But Bloom goes too far at many points; it is simply not true, for instance, that there are as many black students attending university as there are white students. Nor does he offer many solutions to the problems of which he speaks.
Finally, the verbosity of this undertaking puts many on the postmodern academic left to shame. It makes his argument difficult to follow, obscures his points and is simply unnecessary. In a sense, Bloom is a mere derivative of Leo Strauss, so if you find any of his arguments stimulating I would suggest you pick up any work by that author. He is the best representative of the Straussian method, and it will make the works of Bloom (and Mansfield, among others) easier to follow and swallow.
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Summary: Philosophy's History
Review: Alan Bloom attempts to explain the root of America's troubles. He examines the philosophical root to be exact. Basically what he says is that Americans are so focused on their rights that they forget about their responsibilities. he shows how this came about by explaining the way in which the American acedemic community had been influenced by German thought. According to Bloom this was bad. Very bad. Well, to be honest, this book was a little heavy on the philosophy. Nearly half of the book is a histroy of western philosophical thought with barely a mention of America. It's interesting, but I don't think that is what the title of the book lead me to believe this book was about.
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