Well, I'm actually making another entry on this blog, so yay! For the first serious piece, I'd like to review a book I came across in my research for a paper I wrote recently. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students is a book by Allan Bloom which was written in 1987, and which analyzes and critiques the American education system from a philosophical standpoint. Although it is 25 years old, a great deal of the themes Bloom covers remain relevant today, perhaps even more so than when he initially wrote it. Since I surmise that most of the folks on this forum are either in college or will be attending it soon, I think this is a fitting thing to write on!

The first thing that one ought to know about Allan Bloom before diving into this book is that he was a Professor of Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and produced translations of Plato's Republic and Rousseau's Emile. His two translations are an apt summary of the largest influences on Bloom, for he draws most of his criticism of the university system from Classical and Enlightenment thought.

So, what exactly does Bloom see as the problem with the American university? To put it simply, it has lost sight of its core. In the times leading up to WWII, the American university taught a curriculum which focused heavily on the thinking upon which America was founded: Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and more broadly, the great Classical tradition of Plato, Aristotle, and all those they inspired. For Bloom, this form of liberal arts education was good. Exposing students to the Classical tradition would make them good citizens by giving them a firm understanding of the ideas underpinning American democracy, as well as enriching their souls with the beauty and profundity of some of the greatest writers, artists, playwrights, and philosophers of the world. Most importantly, it would give them a moral center - an ordered way to view the world and know how to live a good life.

In the post-war years, however, this education was rethought and reworked radically. Many people in the Philosophy departments of universities grew tired of such rigid moral positivism and sought answers to the big questions facing humanity in soft sciences such as Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, or Psychology. The thinking in these fields tended to be dominated by German intellectuals, such as Max Weber or Sigmund Freud. Although they were not philosophers by trade, Bloom claims that these German intellectuals had a profound effect on philosophy in America nonetheless because they were all heavily influenced by one of their predecessors who was: Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is perhaps most famous for the quote "God is dead," but the quote is often misunderstood. For Nietzsche, society needed to be ruled by invented "Gods" in order to succeed. Irrational beliefs ran to the very core of civilization and human nature, and were necessary for their survival; the rationality and science which had "killed God" were self-defeating and not sufficient to structure a society. Nietzsche thus did not declare God dead as a smug rhetorical flourish from a triumphant atheist, as so many who are only familiar with the quote are inclined to think, but as a deep and anguished lament from someone who desperately wanted to believe that God still lived. Nietzsche claimed that with God dead, we could only descend into nihilism, in which no value or belief system could be judged good or evil, at least until mankind saw the light and created new "Gods." These notions ran contrary to Enlightenment beliefs which held that reason and logic ought to serve as the basis for life, government, and morality, and that the universe was a rational, ordered place. Through his proxies in the form of Weber, Freud, and the rest of the German intellectual establishment, Nietzsche's view on ethics and society came to dominate the American university.

From this, one of the main points of the book comes into view. American democracy is rooted firmly in Enlightenment and Classical ideals. With American universities coming under the sway of Nietzsche, who detested those ideals, an obvious source of dissonance appears. How can young people be expected to participate responsibly in democracy if universities implicitly teach that the values underpinning democracy are poisonous and worthless?

As the American university began unwittingly adopting Nietzschean views, the curriculum and philosophies guiding it naturally changed as well. One of the most important marks of this shift in philosophy was the move away from an attempt to give students a firm moral center and towards a hollow and poorly-understood notion of "tolerance," in which all values and beliefs are equally valuable, and students are constantly taught that the greatest sin is to judge the beliefs of others - the only evil is that of "intolerance." Bloom argues that this tolerance is merely a mask for nihilism; if all values are equally valuable, then they are all worthless. What is the point of believing anything under such circumstances? The curriculum also changed; the focus shifted away from a strict and rigorous education in the Classics and towards a huge range of electives which would afford students a broad array of paths to a degree. For Bloom, this was essentially an admission that the universities themselves no longer claimed to know what represented a decent education.

This is the essential framework in which Bloom operates. Within this context, he assaults the university culture on several fronts, discusses the fall into Nietzschean thinking and its effects on democracy, and also considers the implications that this teaching has in the lives of university students in numerous areas, from their views on books and music to their approach to relationships, sex, and love.

This book was an extremely fun and enlightening read for me. Although I don't agree with everything in it, I was quite impressed with many of Bloom's major points. I have observed that moral relativism (the belief that no morality is actually correct, that everything is relative to time, place, and person) is on the rise in America like never before, and this book provided an interesting and often convincing narrative on how that came to be. I especially like Bloom's argument that this anti-rational thinking permeating the American university system is hazardous to democracy. Voter turnout is shamefully low in America, and an intellectual and philosophical explanation for the apathy is the most convincing route to take, in my opinion. If young people don't understand and appreciate the thinking that went into building the American political system, how can they be expected to make choices that will guide it responsibly? If the perverted "tolerance" doled out by American educators claims that their views are worthless, just like everyone else's, how can anyone be expected to care about making their voice heard by voting?

The book does have a few problems, though. Bloom's views on music read hilariously like an old man whining about how the music was better in the old days. Which, to be honest, is exactly what he's doing. His views on relationships and the family are also somewhat idealized. He has an extremely romantic view of love, and comes out strong against divorce, due to the harm it does to children. While divorce is a major decision that must not be taken lightly, it is sometimes the lesser of two evils. Bloom does not seem to consider that a toxic relationship between parents might be more damaging to a child than a divorce. He is also very dismissive of modern psychology. He makes an extremely good point about psychologists often "inventing" new "problems" that their patients may not have even considered in order to keep them paying for sessions. However, psychology can also be very helpful to many who have legitimate mental problems.

Overall, I can heartily recommend this book to any who are interested in education and philosophy and/or who are currently or will soon be attending college. I am roughly one year away from a bachelor's degree, and it very much bothers me that at no time was I ever assigned a serious reading of Plato, Locke, Rousseau, Shakespeare, Voltaire, and many other great minds who helped define the Western Tradition in which America is firmly planted. I've been left to discover them for myself, but others may not be so active in seeking out a good education. Bloom levels a critique at the American university system that struck a chord with me on a deep level. Whether you agree with everything Bloom says or not, The Closing of the American Mind is an impressive, well-reasoned, and fun to read text with a message that is worthy of careful consideration.

For those interested, the book can be purchased here: http://www.amazon.com/Closing-American-Higher-Education-Democracy/dp/B002A44TXI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1367719956&sr=8-3&keywords=the+closing+of+the+american+mind