The Closing of the American Mind
Also known as The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students
Allan Bloom's 1987 critique of relativism in American universities.
At a glance
Key ideas
Students, Nihilism, American Style, The university …
See all 4Reception
Roger Kimball, Martha Nussbaum and Harry Jaffa, Camille Paglia …
See all 4Connections
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Bloom argues that the openness of relativism has paradoxically closed American minds, undermining critical thinking and the search for truth.
- Students arrive without the habit of reading, absorbed in rock music and unable to ask deep questions.
- Value relativism has dissolved into a kind of nihilism, and the humanities have abandoned their task.
- He holds the university should serve the philosophic life.
Why it matters
- It became an unexpected bestseller and, in Camille Paglia's words, "the first shot in the culture wars".
Key facts
- Author
- Allan Bloom; preface by Saul Bellow2
- Published
- March 19871
- Origin
- An essay in National Review five years earlier, expanded with Bellow's encouragement1
- Parts
- Students; Nihilism, American Style; The University1
Key ideas
-
Students1
Popular culture, family and peers leave students without questions or imagination.
-
Nihilism, American Style1
Value relativism has turned into nihilism.
-
The university1
"The philosophic life is not the university": free thought need not depend on the institution.
-
Philosophy professors1
Analytic and deconstructionist professors neglect the humanising questions.
Reception
Connections
Written by
Links
Sources
Last checked against its sources today
Is something on this page wrong or out of date? Tell us
The line under a date fills as time passes: empty when new, then one equal share each for a day, a week, a month and a year. For episodes and other items it is full at 2 years; for "last checked", at a year. A striped line means the date is known only to the month or year.