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

What are the main factors responsible, in Bloom’s view, for the intellectual decline of American society? Discuss several of these causes, considering their interrelations.

Today’s youth, Bloom argues, have little interest in or respect for books. What are the causes and consequences of the cultural illiteracy of American students? Is his argument valid?

In Part 2 of The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom describes how modern notions of the self, creativity, and culture developed in part as a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment and natural science. How are these ideas related to the emergence of value relativism?

What role did the ideas of Max Weber and Freud play in the popularization of value relativism in the United States? How did they develop the legacy of Nietzsche’s thought in this regard?

Bloom argues that Americans want nihilism “with a happy ending” (147). What does he mean by this? How have Nietzsche’s thoughts on value relativism been transformed in the context of American culture?

Charisma and lifestyle are two terms belonging to the language of value relativism, Bloom argues. What do these ideas mean, and how do they relate to relativism? Consider the historical development of these concepts, as Bloom outlines it.

Bloom writes that “Nietzsche was a cultural relativist and he saw what that means—war, great cruelty rather than great compassion” (202). This interpretation runs counter to the prevalent assumption that multiculturalism leads to greater tolerance and less conflict in civil society. Explain Bloom’s point, distinguishing the reasons for his assertion.

One of the fundamental oppositions in The Closing of the American Mind is that between reason, represented by the archetypal figure of Socrates, and its detractors, exemplified (in varying ways) by Rousseau, Weber, and Nietzsche. What are the arguments on behalf of, and against, reason, as laid out by Bloom in his historical survey of Western philosophy?