Bloom - The Closing of the American Mind: Introduction

Andrew reads the Introduction to Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (1987).
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[@adamsmith3413]

I read Blooms book in the 1980s and it was a tough read but a worthy struggle. Everything Professor Bloom warned us about has come to fruition.

[@galaxy-star-me]

Adam Smith
A country with so many progressive leftists who are so intolerant , it won’t end good.

[@abelm935]

@@galaxy-star-me intolerance goes both ways, both sides have people who are so far down the rabbit hole.

[@williamwhitten7820]

*Yes Bloom predicts 'Wokism' ala cultural Marxism perparated by the Black Panthers.*

[@Isaiah49.16]

And more so today!

[@williamwhitten7820]

*"The 'True Beleiver' is the real danger"~Allan Bloom*

[@canman5060]

This book is a real eye opener for all.

[@extremelybored9819]

Really, really excellent reading. Thank you very much.

[@autodidactstoolkit]

You’re welcome, Extremely! Thanks for listening.

[@gaylecheung3087]

Need to read this book

[@soso1998ify]

Thanks for sharing this, greatly done.

[@dl-q3387]

You know nobody gives a shit when the video has less than 100 comments

[@lazarusravelstein1311]

I'm no intellectual but Bloom certainly was. I'm a bad ass old man but Bloom wasn't. I have been lucky enough to read more than a thousand books, both great and small. I've read Bloom's book several times and refer to it periodically. If you want to comprehend why are elite universities, our politics, and our culture are fractured and failing Bloom's book is a fine place to begin.

[@StefanTravis]

There are intelligent, coherent critiques of the kind of shallow relativism Bloom identifies with _all_ relativisms. Unfortunately, Bloom hasn't written any of them.

[@alexdavinci9533]

Hempenasphalt
That is English... bad English.

[@Nbvcljkjgcg]

Hi Stefan, can you recommend a few titles, thanks :)

[@johnstewart7025]

I agree that the topic would require something more substantial than just the 20 pages in the book. The rest of the book shows how relativism came to American college campuses and what happened. But, I think that he does a persuasive job of describing what it is like to confront a room full of students who don't know very much and are smug about it because they think that the West / America doesn't have much to offer. However, Bloom doesn't regard the West as just another culture. Reason and science are the way to transcend cultures, he says. (He doesn't use any one term for the state of being without culture.)

[@johnstewart7025]

It is striking how he stands up for the imperialistic claims for Western values even after the Native American genocide, the various European-led holocausts in Africa, two World Wars and The Holocaust. Many thinkers since World War 2 have been hesitant about such a project.

[@kirkrintoul328]

John Stewart Bloom doesnt stand up for anything resembling imperialism. He merely stands up for excellence that is unique to The West.

[@johnstewart7025]

Moral absolutism is fine, but only if it is extremely limited (a few "inalienable," "self-evident" rights).

[@goban2]

There's a whole lot more right with this book than wrong, so the critics are wrong. It's a failure to discriminate against the irrational forces of indiscriminateness that created the post-modernist fanaticism we face today...and threatens our republic.

[@goban2]

@@michaelmolyneaux-swann I don't filter based on subjectivism, but empirically based reality. But go ahead & discuss the book through your own subjective lens and ignore reality. That's precisely what post-modernist do, whether you like it or not.

[@lolcatjunior]

The same crap Jordan peterson talks about.

[@bonzodog67lizardking15]

lolcatjunior+ Not exactly, but I'm sure it touches on similar themes.
Andrew Chapman is to be commended for tackling the book. It's not an easy read, but is like a chunk of chuck steak that requires real chewing and multiple readings to really digest.
It's a profound book and, considering it was published in 1987, quite profound and ahead of its time.

[@kbinco]

Jordan Peterson does not talk crap. Not all he says is relative, some is though. He deals with the modern psyche, and ignorance. I believe the earth is probably over 4 billion years old, think about that for a second. The chicken originated in China, so if there were no chickens, you would have no eggs. America is a manifestation of the roman empire, dis-information and division at the very core.

[@bonzodog67lizardking15]

@@kbinco Do you imagine ignorance a modern phenomenon? As one wise sage once said, "People need to be reminded more than Educated."

[@bumbum161]

There is a simple way to tell an idiot from a wise man. With any political or social idea, the discussion is at one of three stages, the thesis the antithesis and the synthesis. In general all three phases have some aspects of truth, because most theories arise from interaction with the real world. Without additional methods of analysis of information, the resulting synthesis is generally larger and thus harder to comprehend than the thesis and the antithesis.
The wise man recognises that he needs better tools or methods of thoughts to grasp the complexity, the idiot on the other hand wants to return to the state ante bellum, because he can not cope with his cognitive dissonance. he can not integrate two conflicting true pieces of information into his believe system. The reason why an idiot is an idiot, is not that he doesn't have the capacity to analyze complex problems, but that he conciously refuseses to enhance his thougth methods

[@bonzodog67lizardking15]

@@bumbum161+ Care to offer an application?