The Closing of the American Mind is a thoughtful book, if somewhat overwrought at times. With that in mind, it's fair to say that the late professor Bloom's comments on education had some impact on reinvigorating my own interest in academics.Professor Bloom examines the educational development taking place (then in the 1980s) taking place particularly in elite higher education in the US. While some argue that his appreciation for classical literature and education is antiquated and out of date, I think that misses the broader point. Professor Bloom is primarily concerned with the (perceived) failure of higher education to ground students in those ideas and ideals that gave rise to the modern educational institution in the first place. To the extent that this yields a skeptical view of some modern alterations to the higher education edifice, he might be perceived as conservative.Whatever label we might attach to his views for our own convenience, Professor Bloom's views bear more than cursory glance based on personal predispositions. His critique is fundamentally about education, about how our elite institutions equip their students to be leaders in society, and about whether that education facilitates the well examined life.While the book as prose drags somewhat in the midsection, this is interesting and thoughtful non-fiction on the nature and principles of education.

Allan Bloom is a hysterical, raving, reactionary lunatic. he and his academia ilk are exactly the reason why education teaches kids nothing, because they know absolutely zero about the children they're supposed to teach. mostly, this book is little more than a "get off my lawn" diatribe against any and all (race, sex, drugs, rock music) youth fascinations, blaming each of them in turn for the "Closing of the American Mind."Bloom continually condescends in the most irritating manner of the American intellectual elite; yammering on and on yearning for some lost set of ideals that never existed; kids who didn't slack off. Americans who knew their place. Businessmen who were kind and good, not greedy, because they'd read French poets in school. Quoting Socrates, Plato, Tocqueville to bolster arguments that are pointless and stupid, Bloom completely fails to engage and communicate anything meaningful, which of course may be the real reason his own Ivy League students seem so disengaged. That thought, of course, would never enter the author's mind in a million years. With guys like this, it's everyone else's fault you know. Built on a false notion, this book can never succeed. However, that doesn't stop the author from telling us all the ways in which we're so stupid and he's so fucking smart. Bloom's problems? Liberalism. Integration. Equality. Without a class and caste system, youth have no set place! No reason or need to struggle! No reason to look up to the "elite" class! Kids these days, they accept everybody without prejudice! That's wrong! Because, because now we have women thinking they can learn stuff! Make decisions about things old men like me have already decided. And ask men out on dates and nobody blinks an eye! And black people! Right there! On campus! The horrors!

I know nothing about American Universities and so when Bloom says things about the lowering of standards to accommodate black students who have been admitted without the requisite standard of education to succeed I just assume this is standard racist crap. But Im really not in any position to argue one way or the other. He certainly doesnt waste time supporting any of his arguments with facts, mostly just vitriol. In fact, this book is so full of bile that after a while the need to spit becomes part of the amusement that gets you through.The stuff about rock music being symptomatic of Americas decline at the start was quite amusing. He does tend to seriously over state his case and this distracts from some of the often very insightful things he has to say. His critique of love among American youth is a case in point. The thesis runs a bit like this. The womans movement has taken away the ground for possessing a woman. Divorce and the high turn over rates of sexual partners devalue sex to the point where it is no longer able to sustain love. Because people do not feel it is appropriate to possess another they feel it would be wrong to feel jealous if their partner had sex with someone else but if this is the case then love itself is impossible, as we have no means of valuing our partners at all you can only feel nothing over the infidelity of your partner if you feel nothing for your partner. No fault divorce and the womens movement are the great villains here as they have removed the fairytale and thus removed all capacity to love.Bloom, however, does not appear to be asking for a return to traditional family values this seems to be gone forever and not even something he would want. He offers no solutions here, just feels that all he needs to do is identify the problem and the solution should be obvious. It wasnt obvious for me, so, if he is offering a solution to this problem, I missed it.Clearly, he has also overstated the problem divorce and the womens movement probably are guilty of ending lots of relationships that in the past would have grinded on to death in a kind of living death but Im struggling here with the negative implication of that. I think his critique of lovelessness is less relevant to the young, when one is more likely to confuse love with sex anyway, as it might be to those in mid-life who find themselves questioning the value or even possibility of meaningful sexual relationships or of relationships generally that can be places where both people are able to grow and not whither in the dark shadows they cast upon each other.The stuff on Nietzsche particularly Nietzsches attraction for the left is something Ive been more or less arguing for years. Ive always been surprised at how readily the left have adopted Friedrich as one of their own, when he is anything but. The injection of irrationalism into the left that Nietzsche represented is precisely the kind of dreadful error that has made the left the near complete irrelevance that it has become today, perhaps when we need it most.The most abhorrent aspects of Nietzsche are not the little lines he drops in to shock Are you visiting woman, bring your whip but the obsessive focus on the individual and the adolescent, masturbatory gaze he casts over the artist as the creator of new values. And how teenage boys just love this crap all of whom know their will to power and that their proper place is supermen.I figured before I started reading this I would disagree with much of it in the end I was surprised by some of the things I ended up agreeing with. I dont think rock music is really just the rhythm of sex or needs be as blandly crap as Bloom makes out but much of it is crap. Ive no idea how many American kids read books there certainly do seem to be a lot of Americans on this site, but I guess that could just be an aberration. I was talking to a friend of mine about this book the other day and told him some of the themes and tried to explain Blooms tone he was appalled and told me off for bothering to read such rubbish. And that is the problem, this stuff is written with such hysteria that it is likely to alienate people immediately. I believe this is a book that is adored by the rightwing in America but Im not totally sure why they would feel they get such comfort from it. I did not get the impression that this book was calling for a return to traditional values just complaining about where the loss of these values (and there loss forever) has so far brought us.I hadnt realised that Allan was a different person to Harold, although, in so far as they both believe in the importance of the canon and reading great books I guess they might as well be the same person. It would certainly save time if they were