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clayjs's review against another edition
5.0
A dense tome on the current state of the American university focused primarily on Cornell and the University of Chicago, the author's stomping grounds, [b: The Closing of the American Mind|75812|The Closing of the American Mind|Allan Bloom|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1291063942s/75812.jpg|1856482] is both difficult and fairly satisfying. It makes me a little sad to read other reviews on here for this book, because many of the people writing them obviously didn't give it the time or attention it requires to read it well. To say the book is conservative propaganda is puerile. His interaction with politics in the work is well-reasoned and makes many concessions on both sides, but more importantly, it's secondary to the book's actual purpose, and for a political philosophy professor, it shows remarkable restraint. To say that his purpose is to bring the Great Books back into the university, one would have to have missed the chapter on why Great Books education is simplistic and silly. I'm not even going to address the guy who suggested it's racist for describing Affirmative Action. Bloom is fair and subtle, and yes, a bit elitist, and his book is complex and should be treated so. It is a musing on the history of philosophy and the universal search for truth and meaning, a lament for the dying hunger for ideas in America's youth, and a cogent observation of the priorities and relationships of university students in the late '80s. [b: The Closing of the American Mind|75812|The Closing of the American Mind|Allan Bloom|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1291063942s/75812.jpg|1856482] is 30-years-old this year, and we as a nation are watching his unheeded admonitions coming to pass. Of course, I don't agree with everything Bloom suggests in his book, and the sections on sex and music ring with a certain tinny Get-off-my-lawn-ness that put me off a bit, but it's hard to blame a 30-year-old book for feeling a bit dated.
wwatts1734's review against another edition
4.0
Does it ever seem as though, even though the volume of discourse has increased because the media, the quality of that discourse has gone way down in the last 50 years? Professor Allan Bloom, a philosopher from University of Chicago, has written this excellent analysis about how the lack of substantial philosophical education in colleges and universities since the 1960s has produced an American public who are illiterate in the concepts of virtue, ethics and other philosophical topics with which all educated people would have been familiar 100 years ago.
So what has replaced the education in metaphysics and ethics? Bloom explains to us that education has shifted from what uplifts the human heart to what uplifts the human ego. He shows us how students no longer pursue beauty and look only to be stimulated. Students want their self-esteem to be built up at the expense of their knowledge of human nature. Social conscience gives way to narcissism and the search for the profound gives way to the search for whatever skills can earn a buck for the student after graduation.
This work was written in the 1980s, but it seems that Professor Bloom's thesis is even more appropriate today than it was in the 1980s. Ask most college students today if they would consider majoring in literature or philosophy and they will look at you incredulously. How can I make a living at that? Why should I listed to Bach's Cantadas when alternative rock will make my heart pound and my hormones rage? Why should I consider the beauty of a Mona Lisa when pornography will be so much more stimulating? Ultimately those of us whose college education should elevate the intellect are drawn into the abyss of materialism, pop culture, narcissism and depression.
The book is a bit depressing but I find that Professor Bloom's thesis is worth reading. How can we get back to a college education that uplifts and edifies? To find out, please edify yourself by reading this book.
So what has replaced the education in metaphysics and ethics? Bloom explains to us that education has shifted from what uplifts the human heart to what uplifts the human ego. He shows us how students no longer pursue beauty and look only to be stimulated. Students want their self-esteem to be built up at the expense of their knowledge of human nature. Social conscience gives way to narcissism and the search for the profound gives way to the search for whatever skills can earn a buck for the student after graduation.
This work was written in the 1980s, but it seems that Professor Bloom's thesis is even more appropriate today than it was in the 1980s. Ask most college students today if they would consider majoring in literature or philosophy and they will look at you incredulously. How can I make a living at that? Why should I listed to Bach's Cantadas when alternative rock will make my heart pound and my hormones rage? Why should I consider the beauty of a Mona Lisa when pornography will be so much more stimulating? Ultimately those of us whose college education should elevate the intellect are drawn into the abyss of materialism, pop culture, narcissism and depression.
The book is a bit depressing but I find that Professor Bloom's thesis is worth reading. How can we get back to a college education that uplifts and edifies? To find out, please edify yourself by reading this book.
provaprova's review against another edition
3.0
More interesting than I expected (not just a conservative cliched curmudgeon) but ultimately leaves me mostly unmoved.
sgabriele2123's review against another edition
1.0
Had to give up, I could only take so many pages of “get off my lawn & turn off that damn music!”
topper2676's review against another edition
3.0
Good first few chapters, then he sounds like a man yelling get off my lawn
andersonh92's review against another edition
3.0
Meh. I think it’s a bit outdated. But, at the same time, our minds are still closing.