Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom (born September 14, 1930 in Indianapolis, Indiana, died October 7, 1992 in Chicago, Illinois) was a philosopher and academic who was controversial for his criticism of contemporary universities. Bloom championed the idea of 'Great Books' education.
Early Life and Education
An only child born to social worker parents, his mother was particularly well educated and ambitious, earning her degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Bloom entered university at the age of fifteen, as part of the University of Chicago's early admission program for gifted students. In the Preface to Giants and Dwarfs, a collection of his essays published between 1960 and 1990, he states his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato". The theme of that education was self-knowledge, or self-discovery; a subject Bloom later remarked seemed impossible to conceive of as a Midwestern American boy. Bloom credits Leo Strauss as the teacher which made this endeavour possible for him.
Allan Bloom earned his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought University of Chicago in 1955.
Career Accomplishments
Bloom studied and taught abroad in Paris (1953-55) and Germany (1957). Upon returning to the United States he taught adult education students at the University of Chicago with his friend Werner J. Dannhauser, author of Nietzsche's View of Socrates. Bloom later taught at Yale, Cornell, Tel Aviv University and the University of Toronto, before returning to the University of Chicago.
During 1968, he published his most significant work of philosophical translation, interpretation and contemplation- The Republic of Plato. According to the assessment of online bookseller Alibris, "it is the first translation of Plato's Republic that attempts to be strictly literal, the volume has been long regarded as the closest and best English translation available." Although the translation is far from universally accepted, Bloom strove to act as a matchmaker between readers and the texts he translated and interpreted. He repeated this effort while a Professor at the University of Toronto in 1978, translating Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's Emile. Bloom was an editor for the scholarly journal Political Theory as well as a contributor to History of Political Philosophy edited by Joseph Cropsy and Leo Strauss among many other publications during his years of academic teaching.
After returning to Chicago, he met and taught courses with Saul Bellow winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature. Bellow wrote the Preface to The Closing of the American Mind in 1987, the book that made Bloom famous and rich. Bellow immortalized his dead friend in the novel Ravelstein. In that story, Ravelstein is clearly based on Allan Bloom and it relates Bloom's many interesting personal characteristics, which included his homosexuality. It is important to note that Allan Bloom never told his readers of his own homosexuality, One may gather from his silence that he found it unnecessary to his thought or purpose as a teacher, matchmaker or philosopher. Even while authoring his last work Love & Friendship, Bloom does not touch upon his own love life. In some sense this silence, or forgetting of the body, is distinctive of Bloom's educational approach. The biological details could always be worked out later.
Philosophy
Allan Bloom’s writings can be divided into two basic categories: scholarly (i.e. Plato’s Republic) and popular political comment (i.e. Closing of the American Mind). On the surface, this is a valid distinction, yet closer examinations of Bloom’s works reveal a direct connection between the two types, which reflect his view of philosophy and the role of the philosopher in political life.
Bloom’s translation and interpretive essay on Plato’s Republic was published in 1968; an obvious question would be why? The Republic had many English language translations available to students. Yet for Bloom, previous translations were lacking. In particuliar, Bloom was eager to sweep away the Christian Platonist layers that had coated the translations and scholarly analysis. In 1971, he wrote, "With the Republic, for example, a long tradition of philosophy tells us what the issues are.[...] This sense of familiarty may be spurious; we may be reading the text as seen by the tradition rather than raising Plato's own questions." (Giants & Dwarfs, 1990, p.106).
Up until the late 20th century, most English language Platonists were following a tradition that blended Christian theology with Plato. This view, named Christian Platonism, interprets Plato as prophet of the coming Christian age, a monotheist in a polytheist world. In this school, Socrates is considered a pre-Christian saint; the tradition emphasizes Socrates' 'goodness' and other-worldly attributes, such as accepting his death like a martyr.
Yet there developed a different type of Platonism, a type Bloom became aware of and most certainly adopted from his teacher Leo Strauss. Pagan Platonists have a significantly different view of Plato’s Republic (I use 'pagan' only to connate a difference with Christian Platonists. In fact, I am adopting a Christian perspective in so doing, since Christians call the Ancient Greeks 'pagans'.) The most important representative of this thought in the past century was Leo Strauss (1899-1973).
Strauss discovered this point of view by studying ancient Islamic and Jewish theorists, such as Alfarabi (870-950) and Moses Maimonides (1135-1204). Each philosopher was faithful to their religion but sought to integrate classical political philosophy into Islam and Judaism. Islam has a prophet-legislator Muhammad and similarly, Jewish law is a function of its theology. Thus these philosophers had to write with great skill, they had to incorporate Plato's and Aristotle’s ideas, many of which contradicted or contravened Islamic or Jewish thought and practice, without being seen to challenge the theology- except for a select few- the few of each faith that were willing to read beyond the texts. According to Strauss, Alfarabi and Moses Maimonides were really writing for potential philosophers within the pious faithful. Strauss calls this the discovery of esoteric writing, and he first presents it as a possibility in Persecution and the Art of Writing(1952). Christianity differed from these faiths in that philosophy was always free to establish a foothold in Christendom, without necessarily being seen as heretical. All one has to do is think of St. Augustine (354-430) and his City of God and On Free Will.
Strauss took this insight and applied it eventually to Plato’s writings themselves. Bloom's translation and essay of the Republic takes this stance; therefore, it is radically different in many important aspects than the previous translations and interpretations of the Republic. Most notable is Bloom's discussion of Socratic irony. In fact, irony is the key to Bloom’s take on the Republic. (see his discussion of Books II-VI of the Republic.) But what is this irony? Allan Bloom says a philosopher is immune to irony because they can see the tragic as comic and comic as tragic. It is worthwhile to look at Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet for an example of this philosophic capability; otherwise, it is just empty words. The tragedy of the play is not about dumb kids killing themselves because they are so wrapped up in first love that they lack commonsense, or the long-range view that they will go off to college and find other lovers. Sadly, the tragedy of Romeo & Juliet is seen in a much diminished light today because contemporary society does not understand the role of the warring families. The families represent the political- they represent the Serb and Croat, the Palestinian and Israeli, they represent political entities at war. The play is akin to President Bush's daughter walking across a college campus and falling in love with a handsome, gallant, kind and considerate foreign exchange student. This young student sees Bush's daughter as perfection and fulfillment. They meet and fall in love, only to discover that Romeo is Usama Bin Laden's son. They commit suicide together because they think the world has no place for their love.
Yet a philosopher would laugh at this play, when everyone else cries, the philosopher would see that these divisions, between Americans and terrorists, are just artificial, they are not natural, and the fact that Jenna and Usama Jr. can fall in love is proof of this. A philosopher is fearless where others are terrified. Bloom refers to Socrates, the philosopher par excellence, in his Interpretative Essay stating, "Socrates can go naked where others go clothed; he is not afraid of ridicule. He can also contemplate sexual intercourse where others are stricken with terror; he is not afraid of moral indignation. In other words he treats the comic seriously and the tragic lightly." (Plato’s Republic, Interpretative Essay, p.387). Thus irony in the Republic refers to the 'Just City in Speech'. Bloom looks at it not as a model for future society, nor as a template for the human soul; rather, it is an ironic city, an example of the distance between philosophy and every potential philosopher. Bloom follows Strauss in suggesting that the 'Just City in Speech' is not natural; it is man-made, thus ironic.
Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind" is a critique of the contemporary university and how Bloom sees it as failing its students. To a great extent, Bloom's criticism revolves around the devaluation of the Great Books of Western Thought as a source of wisdom. However, Bloom's critique extends beyond the university to speak to the general crisis in American society. "Closing of the American Mind" draws analogies between the United States and the Weimar Republic. The modern liberal philosophy, enshired in the Enlightenment thought of John Locke- that a just society could be based upon self-interest alone, coupled by the emergence of relativism in American thought- had lead to this crisis.
For Bloom, this created a void in the souls of Americans, into which demagogic radicals as exemplified by 60's student leaders could leap. (In the same fashion, Bloom suggests, that the Nazi brownshirts once filled the lacuna created in German society by the Weimar Republic). In the second instance, the higher calling of philosophy/reason understood as freedom of thought, had been eclipsed by a pseudo-philosophy, or an ideology of thought. Relativism subverted the Platonic/Socratic teaching, partially by replacing the language of classical political thought with newly coined sociological Nietzscheanizations such as 'culture' 'values' 'creativity' and 'the self'. The Great Books of Western Thought simply became the ramblings of dead white men rather than beacons leading to the highest calling.
The power behind Bloom's critique of contemporary social movements at play in universities or society at large is derived from his philosophical orientation. The failure of contemporary liberal education leads to the social and sexual habits of modern students, and their inability to fashion a life for themselves beyond the mundane offerings touted as success. Commercial pursuits had become more highly valued than the philosophic quest for truth or the civilized pursuits of honour and glory. In these regards, Bloom's conservatism is quite different from how most Americans view contemporary conservative thought. It could be argued, for example, that his dismissal of the value of the MBA degree is completely out of sync with current American right of center thinking.
While Bloom discusses contemporary social movements (particularly those that gained ascendancy in the 1960's), he is virtually silent on the gay rights movement. This is of some interest, as there has been much public discussion concerning Bloom's own homosexuality, something that he never wrote about, though it was widely known by his friends and many of his students, which includes the controversial black conservative Alan Keyes, who is known for his extreme criticism of such gay rights issues as gay marriage.
Conclusion
Bloom's work is not easily definable. Yet there is a thread that links all of his published material. Allan Bloom was a philosopher and he was primarily concerned with preserving that way of life for future philosophers. He accomplished this through scholarly and popular writing, which required different styles of writing, but his objective was consistent throughout.
List of Works
- Closing of the American Mind. (1987)
- Giants and Dwarfs: essays, 1960-1990. (1990)
- Love & Friendship. (1993)
- Shakespeare on Love & Friendship. (2000)(reprint of a section of Love & Friendship).
- Shakespeare's Politics. (1981) (with Harry V. Jaffa).
- Republic of Plato. Translated with notes and an interpretive essay. (1968), (1991 2nd ed.)
- 'Jean Jacques Rousseau' in History of Political Philosophy. Cropsey and Strauss editors
List of Editor Works
- Plato's Symposium: a translation by Seth Benardete with commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete. (2001)
- Confronting the Constitution. (1990)
- Letter to D'Alembert and writings for the theater. (Edited and translated by Allan Bloom, Charles Butterworth, and Christopher Kelly.) (1968)
List of Works on Bloom as Subject
- Political Philosophy and the Human Soul: essays in memory of Allan Bloom. Edited by Michael Palmer and Thomas L. Pangle. (1995)
- Ravelstein. (Novel) Saul Bellow (2000) Please Note: This is piece of fiction, Bellow acknowledges it is partially based on Allan Bloom, his former friend and colleaugue at the University of Chicago.