The Closing of the American Mind (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND is another in a spate of books that suggest elitist cures for social problems too complicated to yield to the reductive solutions their authors propose. Allan Bloom’s book devotes more space to identifying the problems than to detailing the sorts of cures one finds in E.D. Hirsch’s CULTURAL LITERACY or in Mortimer J. Adler’s THE PAIDEIA PROGRAM.

Bloom cantankerously suggests that America’s youth do not read, have few enthusiasms, and possess little of the native intellectual curiosity that marked their progenitors; he also takes potshots at rock music, modern films, and contemporary attitudes toward sex. Although Bloom identifies some real problems that exist in some young people, one might expect his background as a responsible scholar to forbid his making the kinds of generalizations with which this book is filled. One cannot view a generation as broadly as Bloom does and hope to present anything approaching a fair, balanced, and representative portrayal of it.

Anyone who has worked closely with modern young people may well take from this book a message which its author did not intend to convey: Some members of the academy are so remote from the realities of modern existence that they have made themselves of minimal use to many of the vital, socially concerned young people who are struggling to cope with a world in which the only constant seems to be dizzying change.

Bibliography

Armour, Leslie. Review in Library Journal. CXII ( May 1, 1987), p. 66.

Hillar, M. Review in The Humanist. XLVII (November/December, 1987), p. 44.

Kimball, Roger. Review in The New York Times Book Review. XCII (April 5, 1987), p. 7.

Kohn, Alfie. Review in Psychology Today. XXI (August, 1987), pp. 70-71.

Menand, Louis. Review in The New Republic. CXCVI ( May 25, 1987), p. 38.

Minogue, Kenneth. Review in The Times Literary Supplement. July 24, 1987, p. 786.

Nussbaum, Martha. Review in The New York Review of Books. XXXIV (November 5, 1987), pp. 20-26.

Pattison, Robert. Review in The Nation. CCXLIV (May 30, 1987), p. 714.