12
PARTISAN REVIEW
with the dark picture generally drawn by him, Bloom introduces a
somewhat pragmatic and optimistic note, which is very American,
in that he seems to think things can be improved in the future educa–
tion of our students. Spengler's thesis was wildly attractive, but it fell
apart when specialists in physics, philosophy, literature, and the
social sciences examined what he said about their specific subjects.
It
remains to be seen if Bloom's book meets with the same fate.
In any event Bloom has a more concrete subject, if not a more
concrete way of dealing with it. His main argument is that American
universities have largely failed in their chosen task of opening
students' minds to the vast store of knowledge and thought of
Western civilization. And he traces this failure to developments in
Western philosophy that not only have affected current modes of
thinking but also have perverted the popular mind. His book is a
scorching indictment of fashionable curricula, trendy teachers,
misdirected students, and nihilistic theories. But most reviews I have
seen have shied away from its disastrous implications for the political
and intellectual life of the country, and generally have pigeonholed
Bloom's views into one or another of the stereotypes of writing about
politics and education. Unfortunately, ideological dismissals of ideas
that go against the grain of comfortable cliches are very modish
today.
It
is difficult to summarize
The Closing oj the American Mind,
for
Bloom constantly takes excursions into the byways of Western
thought and into his own schooling and teaching experiences at Cor–
nell, Yale, and Chicago University. He also frequently reverses
himself, so that he often seems to be saying the opposite of what he
said earlier. In addition, the book is actually two books, one a
rambling history of philosophy and related subjects, the other a run–
ning dismissal of college education. The two are connected, at least
in Bloom's mind, by the fact that the origins of the modern educa–
tional- and social- malaise are to be found in the ideas of the great
thinkers of the West. But the connection is largely forced and on the
whole leaves out the influence of other, more basic, social and
political forces. Hence, while most of Bloom's description of the state
of higher education and its relation to the rest of society is jolting, his
attempt to draw a straight line between our philosophical ancestors
and the sad condition of the modern mind tells at most only part of
the story.
Bloom's picture of university life is not original; from time to
time other critics have exposed its deficiencies. But in the main there
