Fascinating text, thank you. For me, ‘The Closing Of The American Mind’ truly was an eye-opener, and I devoured its follow-up, the essay collection ‘Giants And Dwarfs’ too. A little-known fact about ‘American Mind’ was that many students presented the book to their parent(s) as a gift, some sort of lesson with hidden messages, contents that those kids probably were too afraid to address directly, person-to-person. Bloom wrote a shattering chapter on divorce (its effect on children) in his book; and to this reader that may well have been what those students tried to tell their parents with that gift.
Bloom also leaves little room for the pop idols of those (or indeed, any other) days. Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson do get a hatchet-job; not especially for the music they make, but more for presenting young impressionable persons with a dream world.
And Bloom effectively kills of any illusion that drugs could have positive effects (as the generations of the ‘70s so abundantly claimed).
‘s Funny... at the time it was not fashionable to say that you liked Bloom’s book. As if it were something to be ashamed for, as if it had to be sold under the counter, like a porn magazine.
Mind, I don’t like ‘conservative books’ because they are conservative. There are objectionable conservative books too. I tend to have a special disliking for the thinking of Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman. But that is my problem, not yours. Disagreement is the soil in which freedom can blossom.
Do read Bloom, though. His writings have held up beautifully, amongst other things for his general education. You can’t go wrong with someone who advises to read Flaubert and Stendhal after all, can you?
I read the book in high school. Should reread it again after 15 years.
Friedman had the gift of taking a few basic premises, with which even die-hard liberals could agree, and relentlessly pursue the logical consequences of them. Some people didn't like those consequences. When I was young, I often watched him debate assorted leftists on William Buckley's old “Firing Line” program, gently shredding their arguments and counter-arguments into incoherent pieces.