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i h e amebm mind how highereducationhasfailed democracy and impoverished students the souls of today s allo bloom foreword by saul bellow

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$18.95 to me this is not the book of a professor but that of a thinker who is willing to take the risks more frequently taken by writers it makes an important statement and deserves careful study what it provides whether or not one agrees with its conclusions is an indispensable guide for discussion not a mere skimming of the tradition but a com pletely articulated historically accurate summary a trustworthy resume of the devel opment of the higher mental life in the demo cratic u.s.a saul bellow from the foreword the closing of the american mind is a pow erful critique by a distinguished political philosopher of the intellectual andmoral confusions of our a g e allan bloom a professor of social thought at the university of chicago and a noted translator of plato and rousseau argues that the social and political crisis of twentiethcentury america is really an intellectual cri sis from the universities lack of purpose to their students lack of learning from the jar gon of liberation to the supplanting of reason by creativity bloom shows how american democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized continental ideas of nihilism and despair of relativism disguised as tolerance what we see today according to bloom is young people who lacking an understanding of the past and a vision of the future live in an impoverished present and our universities entrusted with their education no longer pro vide the knowledge of the great tradition of philosophy and literature that made students continued on back flap

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continued from front flap aware of the order of nature and of man s place within it higher education fails to arouse or to nurture the self-knowledge that has always been the basis for serious hu mane learning a sweeping analysis of the intellectual cur rents of our century the closing of the amer ican mind is essential to an understanding of america s spiritual malaise about the author allan bloom is co-director of the john m olin center for inquiry into the theory and practice of democracy at the university of chicago where he is also a professor in the committee on social thought h e has taught at yale cornell the university of toronto tel aviv university and the university of paris h e is the translator a n d editor of plato s republic a n d rousseau s emile politics a n d the author of shakespeare s jacket design by louise fili author photograph by steve leonard printed in u.s.a copyright © 1987 simon schuster inc.

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from the reviews of the closing of the american mind the nationwide number-one best-seller hits with the approximate force and effect of what electric-shock therapy must be like by turns passionate and witty sweetly reasoned and outraged it commands one s attention and concentrates one s mind more effectively than any other book i can think of in the past five years christopher lehmann-haupt the new york times rich and absorbing it is a virtue of this book that it will provoke nearly everyone few books in recent years come close to allan bloom s grand tour of the american mind either in the ambition of their reach or the breadth of their grasp s frederick starr president of oberlin college the washington post book world it may be the most important work of its kind by an american since world war ii joseph coates chicago tribune essential reading for anyone concerned with the state of liberal education in this society the closing of the american mind is that rarest of documents a genuinely profound book born of a long and patient meditation on questions that may be said to determine who we are both as individuals and as a society roger kimball the new york times book review extraordinary no other book combines such shrewd insights into our state with so radical and fundamental a critique of it no other book is at once so lively and so deep so witty and so thoughtful so outrageous and so sensible so amusing and so chilling william kristol counselor to the secretary u.s department of education the wall street journal the book of the year insight a superlative guide not only to western political thought but to that thought as it has realized itself in the everyday relations of american society robert pattison the nation brilliant refreshing but chilling the economist

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other books by allan bloom plato s republic translator and editor politics and the arts rousseau s letter to d alembert translator and editor rousseau s emile translator and editor shakespeare s politics

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how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today s students

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t h e closing 0 fthe american mind · allan bloom

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copyright © 1987 by allan bloom foreword copyright © 1987 by saul bellow all rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form published by simon and schuster a division of simon schuster inc simon schuster building rockefeller center 1230 avenue of the americas new york new york 10020 simon a n d schuster and colophon are registered trademarks of simon schuster inc designed by eve kirch manufactured in the united states of america 17 16 library of congress cataloging in publication data bloom allan david date the closing of the american mind includes index 1 united states intellectual life 20th century 2 education higher united states philosophy i title e169.1.b653 1987 973-9 86-24768 isbn 0-671-47990-3 2

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to my students

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contents foreword by saul bellow preface introduction our virtue part o n e students 11 19 25 the clean slate books music relationships self-centeredness 82 equality 88 race 91 separateness 109 divorce 118 love 122 part t w o 47 62 68 82 sex 97 eros 132 nihilism american style 141 157 173 180 185 194 217 227 the german connection two revolutions and two states of nature the self creativity culture values the nietzscheanization of the left or vice versa our ignorance 9

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Îo contents part three t h e university 243 relation experi swift s univer 313 336 univer from socrates apology to heidegger s rektoratsrede tocqueville on democratic intellectual life 246 the between thought and civil society 256 the philosophic ence 268 the enlightenment transformation 284 doubts 293 rousseau s radicalization and the german sity 298 the sixties the student and the university liberal education 336 the decomposition of the sity 347 the disciplines 356 conclusion 380 index 383

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foreword professor bloom has his own way of doing things writing about the higher education in america he does not observe the forms manners and ceremonies of what is called usually by itself the community of scholars yet his credentials are irreproachable he is the author of an excellent book on shakespeare s politics and has translated plato s republic and rousseau s emile it will be difficult for nettled colleagues to wave him away and many will want to do just that for he is shrewd and mettlesome as well as learned and a great observer of what mencken would call when he was being mean the higher learning but professor bloom is neither a debunker nor a satirist and his conception of seriousness carries him far beyond the positions of academia he is not addressing himself primarily to the professors they are welcome to listen and they will listen because they come under heavy fire but he places himself in a larger community invoking socrates plato machiavelli rousseau and kant more often than he does our contemporaries the real community of man in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community is the community of those who seek the truth of the potential knowers of all men to the extent they desire to know but in fact this includes only a few the true friends as plato was to aristotle at the very moment they were disagreeing about the nature of the good they were absolutely one soul as they looked at the problem this according to plato is the only real friendship the only real common good it is here that the contact people so desperately 11

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