Closing+of+the+American+Mind

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 * //__The Closing of the American Mind__//** by Allan Bloom

__**Basic Book Summary:**__

This book is a complete explanation expressing Allan Bloom's views on education. His major argument in this book refers to openness. Bloom compares two forms of openness, he expresses that in one form what is considered openness is in reality closing of the mind. Bloom's other form of openness in this book is called openness of indifference. This form of openness is of intellectual pride and the impowering feeling of becoming whatever you want to be. It effects students by stunting students desire for self - exploration by having all endeavors have the same value. This form also teaches loose interpretation of important documents. Their self doubt increases and their amour-propre ( self esteem or self love) depending on others actions towards them. The second form is of openness is with knowledge. This openness is encouraging to students giving them the ambitions to learn about history and culture. This form also activates their amour-soi ( the natural and health self-esteem and self-love arising from within oneself and is independent of what others think of them.) And lastly it teaches a close interpretation of important documents.

Bloom's idea of education being planned is frowned upon because it does not let students spark their own creativity and values to learn. Instead these students must conform to certain guides of education and lose their own sense of seeking the knowledge they want to learn. Through his examination of students at the time the book was written, he found that many students were forced into molds that hindered their creativity and desire to learn.

Bloom notes that "to be sure of yourself is to be ignorant", and it means that you are closed minded and you must have a democratic/open mind to everything. He notes that the ideal goal of the higher education system is to raise Democrats to fit the government.

Nihilism is a major focus of Bloom's

Perhaps the greatest observation of Bloom is the evolution of reasons for attending educational institutions. He noted in Lincoln's time that students went to seek knowledge, rather than students do today to guarantee a successful career. He also criticizes schools because everything learned in classes today is memorized for a standardized test and then forgotten to make room for the next course's requirements. Instead of students pursuing the knowledge they desire, the knowledge is planned out for them with little say in what the student actually wants to learn.

For Bloom, true education comes from contemplating the questions the great philosophers asked, "Who am I?" and "What is Man?" Bloom feels that by making the study of philosophy optional and not mandatory universities have lost an important aspect of what made them great. He constantly refers to Plato's //Republic// and to the teachings of Socrates. He feels that by studying and learning to ask the questions the greats struggled with students today can open their minds. By learning simply what we need to know for our future careers we are closing our minds. Students today do not struggle with the philosophical questions of life but rather accept scientific answers as truth.

__**Key Terms**__

Self-Centeredness:Students are pushed to be individuals and become unique, not some sheep in the crowd that has no aspect of difference from other people. Students are told they can be whatever they want to be, thus allowing them to decide their own fate and have a sense of value over their actions and goals.

Equality:this idea ruin's a student's idea of the differences that lead to development and growth. The idea of making all equal in all ways goes against Bloom's ideas.

Race: Bloom's ideas of affirmative action state: "Those who are good students fear they are equated with those who are not, that their hard-won credentials are not credible."

Sex:Bloom recognizes this as fulfilling of physical desires/needs. It is safer to let urges flow freely rather than holding them reserved and risking rebellion.

Love: This goes against the values of youths. Youths do not want to embrace love as a binding contract in a relationship. The idea of making life-changing situations goes against the young spirit. Although, love is an urge of security and comes from a fear of being hurt.

Eros - " The eroticism of our students is lame. It is not the divine madness as Socrates praised:"

Amour-propre- self love or esteem based on other's opinions

Amour-soi- natural and healthy self-love or esteem arising from within oneself independent of the opinions of others.


 * __Passages__**

"The teacher . . . must constantly try to look toward the goal of human completeness and back at the natures of his students here and now." pg 19

" Actually openness results in American conformism - out there in the rest of the world is a drab diversity that teaches only the values are relative, whereas here we can create all the life-styles we want. Our openness means we do not need others, Thus what is advertised as a great opening is a great closing. No longer is there a hope that there are great wise men in other places and times who can revel the truth about life - except for the few remaining young people who look for a quick fix from a guru.....None of this concerns those who promote the new curriculum." page 34

"Most students will be content with what our present considers relevant; others will have a spirit of enthusiasm that subsides as family and ambition provide them with other objects of interest; a small number will spend their lives in an effort to be autonomous. //It is for these last, especially, that liberal education exists.//" pg 21

"Men cannot remain content with what is given them by their culture if they are to be fully human. This is what Plato meant to show by the image of the cave in the //Republic// and by representing us as prisoners in it. A culture is a cave. He did not suggest going around to other cultures as a solution to the limitations of the cave. Nature should be the standard by which we judge our own lives and the lives of peoples. That is why philosophy, not history or anthropology, is the most important human science." pg 38


 * "**This premise is unproven and dogmatically asserted for what are largely political reasons. History and culture are interpreted in the light of it, and then are said to prove the premise." (in regards to the question of how amour-propre develops proof of itself) pg 39

"True openness is the accompaniment of the desire to know, hence the awareness of ignorance. To deny the possibility of knowing good and bad is to suppress true openness." pg 40

"Almost everyone in the middle class has a college degree, and most have an advanced degree of some kind...but-the impression that our general populace is better educated depends on the ambiguity in the meaning of the word education, or a fudging of the distinction between liberal and technical education." pg 59

"The so-called knowledge explosion and increasing specialization have not filled up the college years but emptied them." (in regards to "trendy " courses being offered in the college curriculum) pg 340

"... the only serious solution is the one that is almost universally rejected: the good old Great Books approach, in which liberal education means reading certain generally recognized classic texts, just reading them, letting them dictate what the questions are and the method of approaching them- not forcing them into categories we make up, not treating them as historical products, but trying to read them as their authors wished them to be read." pg 344

"The lack of student interest, the near disappearance of language study, the vanishing of jobs for Ph.D.'s, the lack of public sympathy, came from the overturning of the old order, where their place was assured. They have gotten what they deserved, but we have unfortunately all lost." pg 352

"Humanists ran like lemmings into the sea, thinking they would refresh and revitalize themselves in it. They drowned." pg 353

"Hobbes said if the fact that two and two makes four were to become a matter of political relevance, there would be a faction to deny it." pg 354