Author Topic: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"  (Read 1100 times)

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Offline Sled Dog

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Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« on: March 10, 2021, 01:25:03 am »
Published in 1987, the book was intended to alert the public to the destruction Democratic control of higher education was wreaking on the minds of college students.

We've gone a long long way downhill since 1987.

I've only read the Introduction chapter, so far.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a decade and I finally got around to picking it up.   

He begins by discussing how the Left has equated "democracy" with "openness" and being "open-minded" to undermine the previous American culture based on the concept of Natural Rights that flowed from the Declaration of Independence and was so successful in making America the great land it used to be.

First few sentences:
Quote
There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.  If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students' reaction:  they will be uncomprehending.  That anyone would regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2+2=4.

Anyone see the connection to our situation today?

Saying 2+2=4 is dog-whistling for the white-supremacisty patriarchy, isn't it?

Quote
Stalinists also found the definition of democracy as openness useful.  The Constitution clashed too violently with the theory and practice of the Soviet Union.  But if democracy mean open-endedness, and respect for other cultures prevents doctrinaire, natural-rights-based condemnation of the Soviet reality, then someday their ways may become ours.

For instance, our new Soviet-style pre-determined election outcomes.

I am looking forward to this book.  I remember how the left vilified it when it came out.   I picked it up from the Salvation Army...and it's been sitting on my shelf for a decade or more.   

Quote
Class, race, religion, national origin or culture all disappear or become dim when bathed in the light of natural rights, which give men common interests and make them truly brothers.  The immigrant had to put behind him the claims of the Old World in favor of a new and easily acquired education.  This did not necessarily mean abandoning old daily habits or religions, but it did mean subordinating them to new principles.   There was a tendency, if not a necessity, to homogenize nature itself.

The arguments from those promoting the overwhelming invasion of the US by outsiders argue that the US eventually absorbs these people and makes Americans out of them.   That was when the nation was actively and consciously teaching them that being an American was a useful and natural goal.   
The GOP is not the party leadership.  The GOP is the party MEMBERSHIP.   The members need to kick the leaders out if they leaders are going the wrong way.  No coddling allowed.

Offline goatprairie

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2021, 03:51:44 pm »
Many liberals inevitably turn into leftists. Leftists are merely the other side of the same coin with fascism. Fascists/leftists inevitably try to suppress all speech/actions that conflict with leftism.
It's like the quote from W. F. Buckley Jr. something along the lines of liberals profess to believe in differences of opinion, but are then shocked and alarmed to discover many people have different opinions than they do.

Offline skeeter

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2021, 03:57:56 pm »
Read this back in the eighties. Still have a copy. Bloom called it 35 years ago.

Online andy58-in-nh

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2021, 04:14:13 pm »
The book is right behind me, here in my office.

I really ought to read it again, because what I see happening right now is a Revolution being conducted in slow motion by the people whose ideas Bloom, and also Robert Bork, in his book "The Tempting of America"  warned us about.
"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Online Bigun

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2021, 04:18:05 pm »
Been on my bookshelf since it was published in the late 1980's IIRC.

Here's another great one you should consider reading.

« Last Edit: March 10, 2021, 04:21:01 pm by Bigun »
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Online Bigun

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2021, 04:21:42 pm »
Read this back in the eighties. Still have a copy. Bloom called it 35 years ago.

 :yowsa: Indeed he did.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Online Bigun

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2021, 04:22:19 pm »
The book is right behind me, here in my office.

I really ought to read it again, because what I see happening right now is a Revolution being conducted in slow motion by the people whose ideas Bloom, and also Robert Bork, in his book "The Tempting of America"  warned us about.

 pointing-up
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

BassWrangler

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2021, 04:28:35 pm »
I may pick up a copy of this book. It should be interesting to gauge where we are now with what the author predicted.

EDIT: Looks like the book was re-issued in 2012:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451683200/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_SSSEEX661WXERX9WMXD8
« Last Edit: March 10, 2021, 04:30:42 pm by BassWrangler »

Online Cyber Liberty

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2021, 06:30:19 pm »
Moving to Books and Authors....
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
I will NOT comply.
 
Castillo del Cyber Autonomous Zone ~~~~~>                          :dontfeed:

Online Bigun

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« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 01:41:10 am by Bigun »
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline The_Reader_David

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2021, 03:43:50 am »
Read this back in the eighties. Still have a copy. Bloom called it 35 years ago.

Indeed he did.

Of course, he was no where near so prescient as C.S. Lewis who called it 68 years ago in The Abolition of Man.
And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know what this was all about.

BassWrangler

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Re: Allan Bloom - "The Closing Of The American Mind"
« Reply #11 on: March 12, 2021, 03:52:18 am »
My copy of this book arrived today. Will probably start reading it this weekend.