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lackritzj's review against another edition
"Anger to sustain itself, requires an unshakeable conviction that one is right."
hollimark's review against another edition
1.0
They say you should write about something you know. Mr. Bloom knows more about closed minds than most, but I think he should have kept it to himself.
zamackic's review against another edition
1.0
When I choose this book, I thought with respect of the dude who wrote it, as he is known to me from educational approaches. I thought it will be similar to Steven Pinker's one "Better Angels of our Nature." Really scientific approach to the problem of morality and today's society.
But it is not. The writing is marred with logical fallacies arguing that Protestant Christian Morality is something we, as a society, need. It is also written in heavy academise, as that will give weight to his arguments.
The problem with his argument is, as Steven Pinker pointed out, our own, innate, human morality is now surpassing the Christian morality, finding the failings and immoral actions embedded in it, so of course diversity is bad. It is bad for people like Bloom to have diversity because they think diversity is what caused society to declare their old, bronze age, morality lacking.
In truth, books like this one were the beginning of the conservative Christians' claims in the USA that Higher education is bad.
When I moved to the USA from Europe I admired the slyness of the ruling classes when they make sure that the whole conservative movement is made to believe that science and educated people are their enemies, despite the fact that educated people were the ones that led major revolutions in Europe in order to get rid of the aristocracy and install democracy.
This book was one of those who contributed to that slyness. But it is not based on any science, and it is full of logical fallacies hidden in heavy academise writing style.
Today, we are suffering because of this twisting of scientific truth. Around 40% of the people in the USA refuse to use proven tools to end pandemics because their ideology and their leaders were telling them for multiple decades that science and educated people are morally lacking. Exactly like this book is doing.
But it is not. The writing is marred with logical fallacies arguing that Protestant Christian Morality is something we, as a society, need. It is also written in heavy academise, as that will give weight to his arguments.
The problem with his argument is, as Steven Pinker pointed out, our own, innate, human morality is now surpassing the Christian morality, finding the failings and immoral actions embedded in it, so of course diversity is bad. It is bad for people like Bloom to have diversity because they think diversity is what caused society to declare their old, bronze age, morality lacking.
In truth, books like this one were the beginning of the conservative Christians' claims in the USA that Higher education is bad.
When I moved to the USA from Europe I admired the slyness of the ruling classes when they make sure that the whole conservative movement is made to believe that science and educated people are their enemies, despite the fact that educated people were the ones that led major revolutions in Europe in order to get rid of the aristocracy and install democracy.
This book was one of those who contributed to that slyness. But it is not based on any science, and it is full of logical fallacies hidden in heavy academise writing style.
Today, we are suffering because of this twisting of scientific truth. Around 40% of the people in the USA refuse to use proven tools to end pandemics because their ideology and their leaders were telling them for multiple decades that science and educated people are morally lacking. Exactly like this book is doing.
dkbrady's review against another edition
3.0
Read this book many years ago. A enjoyable and persuasive argument for conservatism that had an impact on my world view at the time.
mijntwee's review against another edition
5.0
Bloom anticipated many of the problems we see on campus today.
res_curans's review against another edition
2.0
In this book, Allan Bloom argues that the university has been compromised by the fractured thinking that characterizes our society at large. The university is in danger of losing its true purpose, to the ultimate detriment of all society. He traces the origins of this moment back to Enlightenment philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, who radically reformed the idea of what it is to be a human being, and what the human being's relationship to the state is. According to his analysis, these developments culminated in a subjective turn with Nietzsche and Heidegger, which disembedded morality from any rational basis and gave birth to modern individualism. This, in turn, got watered down into our contemporary American values culture and its individualistic ideals of "fulfillment" and "lifestyle." He concludes that, since contemporary culture sees mankind as reducible to these impulses, the humanities have lost the authority and relevance they once had -- and this is the beginning of the end for the traditional role and authority of the university.
Style-wise, this book is a disaster. Bloom goes on and on and on with ramblings so prolix and convoluted that I had a hard time keeping track whether he was summarizing the position of some past philosopher or advancing his own argument, and sometimes even what his argument was. At several points, I thought I was following his train of thought only to be surprised by where he went in the next sentence. He name-drops constantly as though he expects his readers to know what it is he has in mind -- and when he does explain, he offers broad summaries of a thinker's entire body of thought with little to no elaboration -- so either way, we must take him at his word when he eventually reaches a conclusion (which sometimes never happens). It's also terribly disorganized. Despite being divided into sections, the book repeats arguments and doubles back constantly, an aspect which I found maddening. (For example, on p. 208 he makes the point that Nietzsche was the first anti-Socratic philosopher, and then makes the same point again a hundred pages later, on p. 307.)
It is beyond me how this book became a best-seller. For stylistic reasons alone I would not recommend this to anyone. I only finished this book because I was using it for a class. There are a number of other books that make similar points much better, and in less space - The Abolition of Man, After Virtue, and John Taylor Gatto come to mind. Bloom also has something in common with Charles Taylor in his analysis of the Enlightenment as a turning point. (If I remember correctly, in his Massey lectures, Taylor responds directly to Bloom by defending aspects of modern individualism against Bloom's unilateral attack.)
Content-wise, I agree for the most part with Bloom's criticism of modern relativistic values culture. As a public school teacher, I see propaganda for this ideology all the time, and am well familiar with both its vacuity and its lack of effectiveness among the students for actually shaping their lives in any meaningful way. I am also witness to the fallout of how our culture as a whole tends to devalue the pursuit of knowledge as part of the good life, let alone philosophy as the highest of all pursuits. His insight that values culture merely rephrases existential questions rather than actually answering them is a good one. And he makes a strong case that, in order for our culture to find its way out of its contradictions, we must return to philosophy. (It was my own experience a number of years ago reading After Virtue and realizing that the emperor had no clothes -- that modern moral discourse serves only to mask its own baselessness -- that started me down the path of philosophy.)
His insights into the state of education, especially in the final section, are even more incisive. He was clearly traumatized by the Cornell takeover in 1969, and looks on that event as a paradigm case of how academia concedes to popular demands, rather than standing as a bulwark resistant to popular opinion and pushing back in an enriching, constructive way. In this, he sounds very conservative -- the activists had charged the university with systemic racism, and his critique could be seen as insensitive to race issues. But his point isn't so much about the activists' claims, as with their closed-minded attitude. He sees antiracism as part of the pseudo-fascism of new liberalism, an intolerant ideological package that proceeds by force rather than argument and makes a point of censoring opposition. (Again, all this is a result of developments in Enlightenment and existentialist philosophy, and a necessary consequence of democracy.) You've probably heard something like this before -- so, take it as you will. His ultimate concern is the fallout, that the humanities are separated from the other disciplines, cordoned off and relativized. As part of this closed-minded package, there isn't anything to learn from philosophy or the tradition except what can be practically applied to the here and now. E.g., Plato, Shakespeare, etc. were all sexists/racists/etc., so we approach these authors from a position of superiority and utility, which makes authentic engagement with them, and therefore true enrichment, impossible. And in cutting ourselves off from these authors, we are cutting ourselves off from ourselves. I.e., we are unable to engage critically with the philosophical heritage we borrow from unknowingly every day (Enlightenment and existentialism), which stunts our growth and our functioning as a society. Most of those points I think are fair, and to a large extent still relevant. And many of them resonate personally.
On the other hand, he does go on more than one caustic rant about young people and their rock music, casual sex, "liberal values," etc., clearly giving vent to some deep bitterness. Although he makes some valid observations here, it's hard not to read these in the voice of an old fuddy-duddy armchair-would-be-philosopher railing against the damn youngsters. These sections of the book are horribly dated and call into question his own credibility.
Also, he fails to truly reckon with some of the figures he brings up. Although he does offer a pretty good summary of Nietzsche's philosophy, I think he either misunderstands what subjectivity really means for Nietzsche and Heidegger (and their followers) or is too quick to dismiss them because of their scorn for (and his love of) Socrates and the Socratic tradition. He doesn't come to grips with what their insights really mean for his stake in the preservation of the university. So in the end, he could come off almost naïve.
So kind of a mixed bag overall. It did raise some important questions, and I think I learned something about Rousseau and the history of the Enlightenment. But again, it was terribly written, rambly, and poorly organized, and I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have a background in philosophy and didn't already know basically what he was talking about, I would have been totally lost. Perhaps that's why a lot of people just ended up reading this as sort of a conservative clarion call in the culture wars. Closing of the American mind indeed.
Style-wise, this book is a disaster. Bloom goes on and on and on with ramblings so prolix and convoluted that I had a hard time keeping track whether he was summarizing the position of some past philosopher or advancing his own argument, and sometimes even what his argument was. At several points, I thought I was following his train of thought only to be surprised by where he went in the next sentence. He name-drops constantly as though he expects his readers to know what it is he has in mind -- and when he does explain, he offers broad summaries of a thinker's entire body of thought with little to no elaboration -- so either way, we must take him at his word when he eventually reaches a conclusion (which sometimes never happens). It's also terribly disorganized. Despite being divided into sections, the book repeats arguments and doubles back constantly, an aspect which I found maddening. (For example, on p. 208 he makes the point that Nietzsche was the first anti-Socratic philosopher, and then makes the same point again a hundred pages later, on p. 307.)
It is beyond me how this book became a best-seller. For stylistic reasons alone I would not recommend this to anyone. I only finished this book because I was using it for a class. There are a number of other books that make similar points much better, and in less space - The Abolition of Man, After Virtue, and John Taylor Gatto come to mind. Bloom also has something in common with Charles Taylor in his analysis of the Enlightenment as a turning point. (If I remember correctly, in his Massey lectures, Taylor responds directly to Bloom by defending aspects of modern individualism against Bloom's unilateral attack.)
Content-wise, I agree for the most part with Bloom's criticism of modern relativistic values culture. As a public school teacher, I see propaganda for this ideology all the time, and am well familiar with both its vacuity and its lack of effectiveness among the students for actually shaping their lives in any meaningful way. I am also witness to the fallout of how our culture as a whole tends to devalue the pursuit of knowledge as part of the good life, let alone philosophy as the highest of all pursuits. His insight that values culture merely rephrases existential questions rather than actually answering them is a good one. And he makes a strong case that, in order for our culture to find its way out of its contradictions, we must return to philosophy. (It was my own experience a number of years ago reading After Virtue and realizing that the emperor had no clothes -- that modern moral discourse serves only to mask its own baselessness -- that started me down the path of philosophy.)
His insights into the state of education, especially in the final section, are even more incisive. He was clearly traumatized by the Cornell takeover in 1969, and looks on that event as a paradigm case of how academia concedes to popular demands, rather than standing as a bulwark resistant to popular opinion and pushing back in an enriching, constructive way. In this, he sounds very conservative -- the activists had charged the university with systemic racism, and his critique could be seen as insensitive to race issues. But his point isn't so much about the activists' claims, as with their closed-minded attitude. He sees antiracism as part of the pseudo-fascism of new liberalism, an intolerant ideological package that proceeds by force rather than argument and makes a point of censoring opposition. (Again, all this is a result of developments in Enlightenment and existentialist philosophy, and a necessary consequence of democracy.) You've probably heard something like this before -- so, take it as you will. His ultimate concern is the fallout, that the humanities are separated from the other disciplines, cordoned off and relativized. As part of this closed-minded package, there isn't anything to learn from philosophy or the tradition except what can be practically applied to the here and now. E.g., Plato, Shakespeare, etc. were all sexists/racists/etc., so we approach these authors from a position of superiority and utility, which makes authentic engagement with them, and therefore true enrichment, impossible. And in cutting ourselves off from these authors, we are cutting ourselves off from ourselves. I.e., we are unable to engage critically with the philosophical heritage we borrow from unknowingly every day (Enlightenment and existentialism), which stunts our growth and our functioning as a society. Most of those points I think are fair, and to a large extent still relevant. And many of them resonate personally.
On the other hand, he does go on more than one caustic rant about young people and their rock music, casual sex, "liberal values," etc., clearly giving vent to some deep bitterness. Although he makes some valid observations here, it's hard not to read these in the voice of an old fuddy-duddy armchair-would-be-philosopher railing against the damn youngsters. These sections of the book are horribly dated and call into question his own credibility.
Also, he fails to truly reckon with some of the figures he brings up. Although he does offer a pretty good summary of Nietzsche's philosophy, I think he either misunderstands what subjectivity really means for Nietzsche and Heidegger (and their followers) or is too quick to dismiss them because of their scorn for (and his love of) Socrates and the Socratic tradition. He doesn't come to grips with what their insights really mean for his stake in the preservation of the university. So in the end, he could come off almost naïve.
So kind of a mixed bag overall. It did raise some important questions, and I think I learned something about Rousseau and the history of the Enlightenment. But again, it was terribly written, rambly, and poorly organized, and I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have a background in philosophy and didn't already know basically what he was talking about, I would have been totally lost. Perhaps that's why a lot of people just ended up reading this as sort of a conservative clarion call in the culture wars. Closing of the American mind indeed.
annoy_ken's review against another edition
5.0
The most impressive, though provoking, book I've read in the last decade. Must read.