Prof. Allan Bloom (1993)
This book (a short description below the fold) unleashed a storm of vitriol from the Usual Scumbags when it was published, just as Harold Bloom’s ‘The Western Canon’ and John Lott’s ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ did when they were published.Much of it from people who hadn’t even read the books! A sure sign that an author is right on target. There’s a short description of the book below the fold, and it can be downloaded free in a number of formats HERE
‘The complete text of Allan Bloom’s great work on the decay of American life and the political-intellectual causes of the decline of humane learning. It is now more relevant and pertinent than when he wrote it over two decades ago.
Since its publication the most prestigious universities in America have seen a continual and ever more rapid decline in what little seriousness, depth, and intellectual discipline was left in them. This is true for both the students and especially the faculty. The most recent generations of academics are strangely more frivolous or enslaved to contemporary trends, fashions, and crass public opinions than those of merely three decades ago. The best european universities have followed down America’s path, unable to resist the strength of its influence and (as Bloom says) gullible towards all fashionable innovations. Such conflicts as Philosophy/Revelation, or the grave questions about the deleterious effects of fanatical egalitarianism can hardly be appreciated. Candid discussions about the relations between the sexes have become nearly impossible or even dangerous as a result of a persistant and insidious soft moralism.
In Britain, where academic bigotry, cowardice, and historical prejudices reign, Allan Bloom’s name is an anathema among academics: his books are despised. In order to escape having to make the efforts necessary to confront his ideas, they are disdainfully ignored. In France, Germany, Japan, and now China Bloom’s reflections have been received with greater openness, introspection, and engagement.
Nevertheless, as far as this writer is aware, the book has rarely been appreciated for what it is, even by its friends and supporters.
The book’s power and profundity are demonstrated by its continued ability to stir up blind indignation, hatred among the ignorantly sophisticated, and to bring infamy upon its author, even though he has been dead these last 17 years. In short, Bloom’s analysis goes directly to the core of the most thoughtlessly held prejudices of our time. It is an untimely book, and more than a book.
This scanned version is offered especially to those students in universities across the country who long to become something, to know the true, the good, and the beautiful, and who (unwittingly) seek an experience of greatness which has been denied to them. Bloom can be a true friend & guide to the student lost in the fetid Hades of the contemporary university.’
This post did indeed resurrect my interest in this book. Prof Bloom had written some remarkable commentary about Pascal and his contributions to Western thought. Were he still alive today, I’d ask him why he made no reference to the influence of Malthus. Perhaps he’d addend this work were he to see how strongly the Precautionary Principle is attuned to NeoMalthusianism.