"To educate educators! But the first ones must educate themselves! And for these I write." -Friedrich Nietzsche
Allan Bloom, author and professor at the University of Chicago, died October 7th while hospitalized for peptic ulcer bleeding complicated by liver failure. He was 62. At the time of his death, he was co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy.
Bloom was born in Indianapolis and received his graduate degrees at the University of Chicago. Over the course of his career, he also taught at Yale, Cornell, the University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Paris.
What Bloom wrote eulogizing his teacher, Leo Strauss, can be said of him: "The story of a life in which the only real events were thoughts is easily told."
While best known for his 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom published seven other books and numerous articles. The spirit of his writing and teaching can perhaps be best gleaned from the following autobiographical fragment:
"When I was fifteen years old I saw the University of Chicago for the first time and somehow sensed that I had discovered my life.... The longing for I knew not what suddenly found a response in the world outside."
This early enthusiasm for a life of learning along with the enlightenment and enjoyment to be derived from it is the unifying theme throughout his writings. Bloom was convinced that a liberal education with a "judicious use of great texts" is the essential element of an education. His view was that the Great Books are vehicles of the best of 2500 years for reflection on the most permanent and important questions that we face as individuals and as a society. Thus, the person who truly wishes to live an examined life could do himself no better service than to bring serious, sustained study and thought to bear on these texts.
He meant it. Attaining mastery of Classical Greek and French, he put the languages to good use both for his own learning and for future students by translating Rousseau's Emile and Plato's Republic, perhaps the two most profound books on education of all time. He also co-authored Shakespeare's Politics, whose title alone illustrates his unwavering conviction that the great books of the past have much to say that concerns us today.
With the publication of The Closing of the American Mind in 1987, he received modest fame and a torrent of criticism, often taking the form of slander. He was called a racist, a sexist, and an elitist. The man who had written of Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying that he was "this century's greatest virtuoso of democratic leadership", had the appellation of "ultra-conservative" shrieked at him. With characteristic integrity, Bloom took the criticism without flinching and responded respectfully to what little substance there was.
The Closing of the American Mind is essential reading for understanding Bloom's thought and the decay of the modern university. It was the first of what might loosely be called the "anti-PC" books, and the only one offering an intellectual diagnosis of the problem along with a sound antidote. With its manifold allusions to the Great Books and their authors, the book itself is a marvelous affirmation of its thesis that the great texts and writers can shed much light on the issues that face us today.
The first part of the book is devoted to characterizing the moral and intellectual state of modern university students. "Students these days are, in general, nice. I choose the word carefully. They are not particularly moral or noble." He attributes this bland docility to moral relativism, instant gratification, and the poverty of the students' education. With profound insight, he sees many students emotionally dulled by a "premature ecstasy" derived from music, much like former drug addicts who "find it difficult to have great enthusiasms or great expectations" after prolonged abuse.
The second part of the book is the most difficult. It traces many of the roots of modern intellectual and relativism, whose highest expression is the multiculturalism on campuses today, to 19th and 20th century German philosophy and its import into American thought and culture. Though hard reading, it is insightful for understanding the sources of modern decay in our universities.
The last section of Bloom's book is a discussion of the proper relationships between the the student, the university, and society. It includes a wonderful analysis of the 60s, in which Bloom avoids the nostalgic self-congratulation and moralistic prudery often characteristic of such discussions. Instead, he sticks to ideas and their influence.
That The Closing of the American Mind was Bloom's final monograph is appropriate. In its closing pages we read, "one should never forget that Socrates was not a professor, that he was put to death, and that the love of wisdom survived, partly because of his individual example." The example Allan Bloom has set will do much to ensure that the love of wisdom survives, even if only for the happy few who have profited from his work.