The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students

The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students, by Allan Bloom, is a non-fiction book published in 1987. The work is a critique of American culture and higher education and was considered a landmark in the culture wars of the 1980s. It was a surprise bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year. This guide refers to the page numbers in the 1988 First Touchstone paperback edition of Bloom’s text.

Bloom’s main thesis is that American culture has embraced moral relativism without understanding its disquieting origins in German philosophy or its potentially dangerous consequences for democratic society. This situation constitutes a social and educational crisis of the highest order, undermining the country’s sense of national unity and encouraging racial divisiveness, narcissism, and social isolation. Moreover, the university system has failed in its mission to provide the type of education and humane cultivation that can counter the social decline and anti-intellectualism prevalent in America today. The country’s creed of tolerance and openness is really a closedmindedness.

The book consists of three main parts reflecting the fundamental subjects of Bloom’s critique. Part 1, “Students,” addresses the plight of contemporary students and society; Part 2, “Nihilism, American Style,” traces the historical development of the philosophy of value relativism and its popularization in America; and Part 3, “The University,” addresses the historical role of the thinker in society and the structural and pedagogical problems facing the liberal arts university today. Stylistically, the book incorporates reminiscence, historical narrative and analysis, philosophical meditation, polemic, and exhortation.

Bloom begins by discussing the ubiquity of the language of value relativism in American culture and in the assumptions of his students, who believe that truth is relative and equality requires tolerance of all opinions. He contrasts the presuppositions of relativism with the rationalist doctrine of natural rights upon which American democracy is founded. American youth are culturally and psychologically disadvantaged today by many social factors—anti-intellectualism, self-indulgence, consumerism, mass media, rock music, the waning influence of religion, and the breakdown of the family—which together have facilitated a receptive and uncritical acceptance of relativism. The lack of intellectual alternatives and models of noble thought and action available to students have narrowed and leveled their spiritual horizons, Bloom argues.

After establishing the moral crisis of American society, Bloom traces the historical developments that led to the philosophy of relativism as a counterreaction to Enlightenment rationalism. Sourcing the origins of relativism in Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, Bloom examines the roles of Machiavelli, Rousseau, Freud, and Max Weber in reimagining the Western concept of the self, preparing for and popularizing Nietzsche’s pivotal reconstruction of morality. Bloom concludes Part 2 with an analysis of the important significance of Nietzsche’s value philosophy and its relation to religion and politics.

Turning to the university in Part 3, Bloom considers the evolving role of the thinker in society from ancient Greece until the present day, describing the development of the modern university as a product of the Enlightenment and a fulfillment of the Socratic spirit of truth seeking. He condemns the moral hypocrisy and ignorance of Cornell’s student activists of the 1960s, as well as the university administration’s timidity in conceding to their demands. The book concludes with a discussion of the structural divisions of the modern university and the philosophical challenges facing liberal arts education today. Bloom contends that liberal arts study must return to its original goal of cultivating and civilizing the undergraduate; the most effective means of doing this is the Great Books curriculum of classic texts, read on their own merits.