Closing of the American Mind (65 page)

university and,
267
,
268
,
272
,
332
–33

value of,
312
,
382
see also
Plato

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander,
187

Sorel, Georges,
221

Soviet Union:

cultural criticism and,
225
,
226

democratic openness and,
32
–33

malaise of,
197

natural science in,
297

Reagan on,
141

social science teaching on,
354

Spinoza, Benedict,
276

Stalin, Joseph,
67
,
146
,
214

Stranger, The
(Camus),
88

Strauss, Leo,
167

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The
(Kuhn),
200

Swift, Jonathan:

classics viewed by,
373

Enlightenment questioned by,
293
–98

natural science viewed by,
270
,
358
n

Symposium
(Plato),
133
,
169
,
375
,
381

Tartuffe
(Molière),
328

Thales,
270
–71,
288

Theory of Justice, A
(Rawls),
30
,
229

Thoreau, Henry David,
171
,
279

Thrasymachus,
283

Threepenny Opera, The
(Brecht and Weill),
151

Thucydides,
188
,
197
,
346

Thus Spake Zarathustra
(Nietzsche),
151
,
194

Tocqueville, Alexis de:

American Indian and,
171

American religion viewed by,
196

art and,
74

democratic family described by,
115
,
116

democratic man viewed by,
225

democratic mind viewed by,
149
,
235
,
252
,
254
,
255
,
378

democratic tradition and,
58

Descartes/Pascal opposition and,
51
–52

doubts of,
160
,
319

equality chosen by,
227
–28,
248

freedom vs. equality in,
98

individualism viewed by,
84
,
85
–86

intergenerational relationships viewed by,
82

on Pascal,
251

Tolstoy, Leo,
64
,
66
,
173

Tonio Kröger
(Mann),
231

Treatise on Civil Government
(Locke),
366

Trotsky, Leon,
221

University of Chicago:

in fifties,
125

German influence at,
148
–50,
156

Koyré at,
344

pseudo-Gothic buildings of,
243
–44

Vietnam War,
364

Voltaire,
292

Wagner, Richard,
54
,
68
,
206

War and Peace
(Tolstoy),
66

Washington, George,
29

Watson, Thomas,
167

Wealth of Nations, The
(Smith),
259

Weber, Max:

atheistic religiosity of,
210
–11

ethical distinctions of,
369

language of,
208
,
209
,
210
–11,
212
,
214

legitimate violence categories of,
212
–13,
219
,
225

Lukacs and,
222

Nietzsche viewed by,
194
–95

pariah category of,
145

politics of,
213
–14

popularization of,
147
,
367

Protestant ethic of,
208
–9

university view of,
148
,
345

value relativism of,
150
–51,
337
–38

Weill, Kurt,
151

Weimar Republic:

nostalgia for,
151
–52

popular culture of,
151

Right vs. Left in,
154
–55

Xenophon,
268
,
269
,
274

Zelig
,
144
–46

Zilboorg, Gregory,
155

Allan Bloom was Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the College and co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy at the University of Chicago. He taught at Yale, University of Paris, University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, and Cornell, where he was the recipient of the Clark Teaching Award in 1967. His other books are Plato's
Republic
(translator and editor),
Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theatre
(translator and editor), Rousseau's
Emile
(translator and editor), and
Shakespeare's Politics
(with Harry V. Jaffa). He died in 1992.

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Copyright © 1987 by Allan Bloom
Foreword copyright © 1987 by Saul Bellow

All rights reserved,
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in whole or in part in any form.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

30

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Bloom, Allan David, date.

The closing of the American mind.

Includes index.

1. United States—Intellectual life—20th century.

2. Education, Higher—United States—Philosophy.

I. Title.

LA227.3.B584  1987

378'.012'0973—dc20                        86-24768

To My Students

ISBN 0-671-47990-3
ISBN: 978-0-6716-5715-4
eISBN: 978-1-4391-2626-4