2024 the best argument against democracy review

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The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition.

In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites.

Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reissue edition (April 3, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 404 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1451683200
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1451683202
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1320L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.06 x 5.59 x 8.46 inches
Reviewer: John White
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Brilliant.
Review: Well written, Thought provoking read

Reviewer: Asudulayev
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Thinking Man's Polemic rolled into a History of Western Philosophy
Review: I would recommend this book highly. It is interesting as a well-written polemic by someone who is not a mere, crass political commentator. It is a fascinating discussion of the history of Western philosophy. It is also an engaging discussion of what Bloom sees as the problems with modern higher education.I was introduced to Bloom as a masterful translator of Plato's Republic. Bloom's thesis is that university's don't teach well anymore, because of what he describes as vulgar and lazy form of Nietzschian relativism. To make this point he first describes the symptoms of modern students. He then traces the development of Western philosophy that brought us to Nietzsche. He ends by explaining how a vulgarization of Nietzsche bred the sort of vague academic doctrines, most neatly described as various forms of critical theory, which he thinks do not serve the students of Universities.What this work is, is a refreshing polemic against relativism. What this work is not, is a work of political commentary, though some have described it as such. There is nothing here approaching doctrinaire Left- or Right-wing thought (even of the late eighties, when it was written). Bloom deals with politics but does not move too much beyond Tocqueville's Democracy in America.The analysis of students is not particularly original and would read like a diatribe of an old-fashioned guy but Bloom's ability to explain this with philosophy. The history of philosophy section is the middle of the book is also its intellectual center. One might not agree with all of his characterizations (of Nietzsche, especially), but it makes for a good analysis and will at least inspire one to read and re-read those older works. The final part deals with the university, and partially rehashes the history with special application to the development of the modern university. This is perhaps the weakest part of the book, only because the arguments had already been built up, and are fairly implicit in the first two thirds of the book.Some have commented on the book as being difficult to follow because Bloom swerves off topic. I do not think that is fair: Bloom never forgets what he is writing, though he often adopts an ironical tone to illustrate a point, and since this can go one for a few pages, one might forget whether one is reading Bloom's exposition or his mocking of some theory of which he does not approve.The bigger issue is that he sets up the history of Western philosophy as battles between art-as-creation and science-as-reason. He associates the former with the classical Greeks through to the thinkers of the enlightenment, and the latter with Nietzsche and his influences. He seems to believe that we have gone too far in the direction of the latter. However he never reconciles the two or even suggests such a reconciliation. This is a shame.The university is not all of life and if one believes that one might still learn and philosophize outside the university, one wants to hear Bloom talk about the art/science dichotomy, rather than throw up his hands in frustration that no one in the modern university appreciates it.As for a recommendation: if you like reading Nietzsche, you will like this. If you want a political diatribe (Wikipedia says that some people have described this book as starting the American "Culture Wars" -- yeah only for those people who did not actually rad the book) look elsewhere.Kindle version worked great.

Reviewer: Jack
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Prescient Classic
Review: In Bloom's 1987 masterpiece, the scholar ably demonstrates how the decline of a liberal education has negatively impacted the student, family, and culture. He eloquently describes his love of the university, and how its decay-- which according to him-- started in the 1960s, damaged humane learning.My favorite aspect of the work is the readability of the text, as it is not written in a pretentious style. (OK, maybe a little.) Here are a few memorable excerpts:"Nietzsche said the newspaper had replaced the prayer in the life of the modern bourgeois, meaning that the busy, the cheap, the ephemeral, had usurped all that remained of the eternal in his daily life.""The Bible is not the only means to furnish a mind, but without similar gravity, read with the gravity of the potential believer, it will remain unfurnished.""Students do not date anymore. Dating is a petrified skeleton of courtship.""Women's careers today are qualitatively different from what they were 20 years ago, and such conflict is now inevitable. The result is that both marriage and career are devalued.""Dogmatic atheism culminates in the paradoxical conclusion that religion is the only thing that counts."I read Bloom as a classical liberal/conservative, though I know he was not fond of labels. As Western Civilization continues to decline due to reasons that the reader knows, it is important to read Professor Bloom's book to see how the USA was an active participant in its avoidable yet predictable downfall.This work was prescient and so far ahead of its time. I am happy I finally read it.

Reviewer: O. Halabieh
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Education Revised!
Review: As the author best puts it this is a book on "how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students". This book offers a thorough historical lesson of our education echo-system and how it came to where it currently is.Allan structure the book into three main sections. Students, where he describes the current state of students - particularly those getting ready to enroll in university - the books they read, the music they listen to and the relationships they engage in. The second section is "Nihilism, American Style" where the author discusses current culture (or lack there of), values and creativity to name a few themes. There is a strong focus in that section on Continental Europe and its thinkers - and their influence on America. The last and final section "The University" discusses the current role of this education centerpiece, and the back-warding it has gone through in terms of achieving its mission. Allan calls for a "revolution" of its role and a reversion to the roots of embracing classical liberal art and the early work of the Greek Philosophers.A unique piece of literary work - based on years of research and experience from an educator. If one was to read one book on the evolution of education, this would definitely be a top contender. One that would make you think, and reconsider your views. The only criticism I have is with regards to the structure of the book which is sometimes hard to follow. That being said, the author does a good job of recapping the main point towards the end. To that effect it may be wise to re-read the book at a later point again, given the global understanding acquired from the first reading.Below are excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful:1- "The gradual stilling of the old political and religious echoes in the souls of the young accounts for the difference between the students I knew at the beginning of my teaching career and those I face now. The loss of the books has made them narrower and flatter. Narrower because they lack what is most necessary, a real basis for discontent with the present and awareness that there are alternatives to it. They are both more contented with what is and despairing of ever escaping from it. The longing for the beyond has been attenuated. The very models of admiration and contempt have vanished. Flatter, because without interpretations are like mirrors, not of nature, but of what is around. The refinement of the mind's eye that permits it to see the delicate distinctions among men, among their deeds and their motives, and constitutes real taste, is impossible without the assistance of literature in the grand style."2- "Thus, the failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is."3- "Values are not discovered by reason, and it is fruitless to seek them, to find the truth or the good life."4- "Good and evil are what made it possible for men to live and act. The character of their judgments of good and evil shows what they are."5- "Since values are not rational and not grounded in the natures of those subject to them, they must be imposed. They must defeat opposing values. Rational persuasion cannot make them believed, so struggle is necessary. Producing values and believing in them are acts of the will. Lack of will, not lack of understanding, becomes the crucial defect. Commitment is the moral virtue because it indicates the seriousness of the agent. Commitment is the equivalent of faith when the living God has been supplanted by self-provided values. .. Commitment values the values and makes them valuable. Not love of truth but intellectual honesty characterizes the proper state of mind. Since there is no truth in the values, and what truth there is about life is not lovable, the hallmark of the authentic self is consulting one's oracle while facing up to what one is and what one experiences. Decisions, not deliberations, are the movers of deed. One cannot know or plan the future. One must will it."6- "A serious life means being fully aware of the alternatives, thinking about them with all the intensity one brings to bear on life-and-death questions, in full recognition that every choice is a great risk with necessary consequences that are hard to bear. That is what tragic literature is about. It articulates all the noble things men want and perhaps need and shows how unbearable it is when it appears that they cannot coexist harmoniously. "7- "Many will say that my reports of the decisive influence of Continental, particularly German, philosophy on us are false or exaggerated and that, even if it were true that all this language comes from the source to which I attribute it, language does not have such effects. But the language is all around us. Its sources are also undeniable, as is the thought that produced the language. We know how the language was popularized."8- "Men (in democracies) are actually on their own in comparison to what they were in other regimes and with respect to the usual sources of opinion. This promotes a measure of reason. However, since very few people school themselves in the use of reason beyond the calculation of self-interest encouraged by the regime, they need help on a vast number of issues - in fact, all issues, inasmuch as everything is opened up to fresh and independent judgement - for the consideration of which they have neither time nor capacity. Even the self-interest about which they calculate- the end - may become doubtful. Some kind of authority is often necessary for most men and is necessary, at least sometimes, for all men. In the absence of anything else to which to turn, the common beliefs of most men are almost always what will determine judgement. This is just where tradition used to be most valuable. ..tradition does provide a counterpoise to and a repair from the merely current, and contains the petrified remains of old wisdom."9- "To sum up, there is one simple rule for the university's activity: it need not concern itself with providing its students with experiences tahat are available in democratic society. They will have them in any events."10- "It turned out that natural science had nothing to say about human things, about the uses of science for life or about the scientist. When a poet writes about a poet, he does so as a poet. When a scientist talks about scientists, he does not do so as a scientist. It he does so, he uses none of the tools he uses in his scientific activity, and his conclusions have none of the demonstrative character he demands in his science. Science has broken off from the self-consciousness about science that was the core of ancient science."11- "What happened to the universities in Germany in the thirties is what has happened and is happening everywhere. The essence of it all is not social, political, psychological or economic, but philosophic. And, for those who wish to see, contemplation of Socrates is our most urgent task. This is properly an academic task."12- "And one cannot jump on and off the tradition like a train. Once broken, our link with it is hard to renew. The instinctive heads of scholars, are list."

Reviewer: Sara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Une analyse pertinente de la société américiane des années 60. Une lecture agréable et prenante, à lire absolument!

Reviewer: kotani takaharu
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: 本の状態は説明通りでした。配達日も予定通りに届きました。

Reviewer: Yogesh Kamdar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A superb book. No political correctness, just a direct and original approach. One of the best books I have read.

Reviewer: Eratosthenes
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: There has been increasing concern expressed within many liberal democracies recently about whether the very concept of free speech in universities is under threat from those of a left-liberal position who think that any individual who holds a view of the world that somebody might disagree with, find challenging, disturbing, or might even just cause them to reflect on their own view of the world, should be prevented from speaking within the university, or sacked if they are employed by the university. Bloom explores, in considerable detail, the roots of all this in Amercan universities and shows how they were capitulating to student demands to control the curriculum, and even who should, or should not, be employed, some fifty years ago. Alongside this capitulation to student demands, Bloom details how the left-liberal movement gradually rejected all texts, knowledge and learning from the past as being no longer of any relevance or value. This began to sow the seeds of a powerful movement which has been, and remains, determined to undermine and discredit all the institutions, traditions, and even the culture of liberal democracy in a cleverly disguised attempt to create a permanent, and ongoing, state of revolutionary political struggle. (Other writers have identified the roots of this movement as arising from a gradual realisation by the extreme left, during the 20th century, that the hope of proletarian revolution, in order to overthrow the capitalist system, was forlorn, and that therefore what was required was a systematic determination to discredit, and even overthrow, the institutions and traditions which the capitalist system, according to the extreme left, uses to perpetuate its oppression of humankind). Bloom shows how the result of all this has been the slow death of any concept of liberal education, often encouraged and given credence, tragically, by those who regard themselves as being liberal-minded individuals. Rather than opening people's minds, universities have increasingly become places which are actually closing people's minds, as the entire corpus of thousands of years of scholarship are rejected, and more and more debates about all sorts of issues are closed down, using political correctness, or safe space arguments, as a defence. In effect Bloom seems to think that what we are witnessing in liberal democracies is not just a relentless dumbing down, and even silencing, of intellectual enquiry and debate but, even more fundamentally, a process of self-destruction which we appear to be largely blind to. Meanwhile those sounding the alarm bells increasingly find themselves facing ridicule, denigration, or even dismissal from their employment, simply for having raised their concerns. Having witnessed the relentlessly catastrophic consequences of totalitarianism during the 20th century, and of ISIS in the early 21st century, what Bloom describes strongly suggests that we are largely blind to the creeping totalitarianism in our own back yards, as so many societies have been in the past, and that our blindness will be our undoing, in the same way that it has been the undoing of earlier societies which failed to realise what was unfolding in their midst. If Bloom is right we urgently need to wake up to the reality of the very serious threat which we face, namely the threat to freedom of thought and speech and, by implication, the threat to freedom itself, in what we like to think is liberal democracy. Bloom clearly thinks that our universities are relentlessly being hijacked to become centres of a political struggle which is characterised by increasing levels of intolerance, aggression, and even violence, in its attempts to achieve its goals. Critics of Bloom clearly see him as being out of touch, out of date, and irrelevant. If you find yourself concerned about what appears to be unfolding in liberal democracies, and particularly in universities in so-called liberal democracies, read this book and decide for yourself. Whilst Bloom is writing entirely about American universities in the last fifty years, its relevance to what appears to be going on in universities within all liberal democracies in the 21st century is abundantly clear.

Reviewer: Chris Leckenby
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A well written and fantastically thought provoking book that's bound to have an instant effect on all who read it. Each sentence is more intriguing than the last, and by the end of it all you'll be seriously re-examing all of you values and belief systems. While that may sound daunting, it's a thought experiment that's fully worth the time and effort and which will ultimately make a better person out of the reader.