Allan David Bloom was born on September 14, 1930, and died on October 7, 1992. He was an American philosopher, expert in classical literature, and teacher. He studied with scholars such as David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon, and Alexandre Kojève. Later, he taught at several universities, including Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, Yale University, the École Normale Supérieure, and the University of Chicago.
Bloom supported the idea of teaching students important works of literature and philosophy, known as Great Books education. He became well-known for his criticism of modern American higher education, which he explained in his widely read 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. Although he was often described as a conservative in the media, Bloom refused this label, stating he aimed to protect the "theoretical life." Saul Bellow wrote a novel called Ravelstein, which is a fictional story based on Bloom, his friend and colleague at the University of Chicago.
Early life and education
Bloom was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Jewish parents who were both social workers. His parents had a daughter named Lucille two years before he was born. At age thirteen, Bloom read an article in Reader's Digest about the University of Chicago and told his parents he wanted to attend. His parents believed this was unlikely and did not support his wish. However, when his family moved to Chicago in 1944, his parents met a psychiatrist and family friend whose son was part of the University of Chicago's humanities program for gifted students. In 1946, Bloom was accepted into the same program, beginning his studies at age fifteen. He remained enrolled at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park for the next ten years. This experience started his lifelong interest in the concept of a university.
In the preface to Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960–1990, Bloom wrote that his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato." The focus of his learning was self-knowledge, or the process of understanding oneself—an idea he later said seemed hard to imagine for a boy from the Midwest. He credited his teacher, Leo Strauss, with helping him pursue this goal.
Bloom earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago at age eighteen. Some of his classmates during college included Seth Benardete, Richard Rorty, and Stanley Rosen. For graduate studies, he joined the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, where he worked with classicist David Grene as his tutor. Bloom wrote his thesis on Isocrates. Grene described Bloom as a lively and funny student who was deeply committed to studying classical texts but had no clear career goals. The Committee on Social Thought was a special program that required very hard work and attracted few students because it did not guarantee jobs after graduation. Bloom received his Ph.D. from the committee in 1955. Later, he studied under Alexandre Kojève, a well-known philosopher in Paris. Bloom later shared Kojève's lectures with English-speaking audiences. While teaching philosophy in Paris, he became friends with Raymond Aron and other philosophers. Among Americans living in Paris, Bloom was also friends with writer Susan Sontag.
Career and death
Allan Bloom worked and taught in Paris from 1953 to 1955 at the École Normale Supérieure, and in Germany in 1957. After returning to the United States in 1955, he taught adult students at the University of Chicago with his friend Werner J. Dannhauser, who wrote a book about Nietzsche’s view of Socrates. Bloom later taught at Yale from 1960 to 1963, at Cornell until 1970, and at the University of Toronto until 1979, when he returned to the University of Chicago. Some of Bloom’s former students included well-known journalists, government officials, and political scientists such as Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kraynak, Pierre Hassner, Clifford Orwin, Janet Ajzenstat, John Ibbitson, James Ceaser, and Thomas Pangle.
In 1963, while teaching at Cornell, Bloom was a member of the Cornell Branch of the Telluride Association, an organization that helped students grow intellectually and learn to manage themselves. Students lived in the Telluride House on the Cornell campus and managed the house themselves. During this time, Bloom became friends with Frances Perkins, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. Bloom’s first book was a collection of three essays about Shakespeare’s plays, titled Shakespeare’s Politics. It included an essay by Harry V. Jaffa. Bloom also translated and explained Rousseau’s “Letter to M. d’Alembert on the Theater,” connecting it to Plato’s Republic. In 1968, he published his most important work, a translation of Plato’s Republic. Bloom aimed to create a translation that was accurate for serious students. The book’s preface stated, “this is intended to be a literal translation.” Although not everyone agrees with his translation, Bloom believed a translator’s job was to help readers connect with the original texts. In 1978, while teaching at the University of Toronto, Bloom translated Rousseau’s Émile. He also wrote an essay titled “Giants and Dwarfs” about Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, which later became the title of a collection of essays on thinkers like Raymond Aron, Alexandre Kojève, Leo Strauss, and John Rawls. Bloom was an editor for the journal Political Theory and contributed to History of Political Philosophy, edited by Joseph Cropsey and Leo Strauss.
After returning to Chicago, Bloom taught with Saul Bellow. In 1987, Bellow wrote the preface for Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind.
Bloom’s final book, Love and Friendship, was written while he was in the hospital and published after his death. It explored the meaning of love. There is ongoing debate about whether Bloom kept his homosexuality private and whether he died of AIDS in 1992, as suggested in Saul Bellow’s fictionalized account in Ravelstein. Bloom’s friends did not deny his homosexuality, but it is still unclear if he died from AIDS.
Philosophy
Allan Bloom tried to share a philosophical way of life with future people through both academic writings and writings for the general public. His works can be divided into two groups: academic (such as Plato's Republic) and political commentary for the public (such as The Closing of the American Mind).
Bloom's translation and essay about the Republic are very different from earlier translations and explanations of the Republic. One major difference is Bloom's focus on Socratic irony. In fact, irony is central to how Bloom understands the Republic (as seen in his discussion of Books II–VI of the Republic). Allan Bloom explains that a philosopher is not affected by irony because he can see the tragic as comic and the comic as tragic. In his essay, Bloom writes about Socrates, the greatest philosopher, saying, "Socrates can go naked where others go clothed; he is not afraid of being laughed at. He can also think about sexual relationships where others feel fear; he is not afraid of being judged. In other words, he treats the comic seriously and the tragic lightly." Therefore, irony in the Republic refers to the "Just City in Speech," which Bloom does not see as a model for future society or as a guide for the human soul. Instead, it is a city described with irony, showing the gap between true philosophy and those who try to practice it. Bloom agrees with Strauss when he says the "Just City in Speech" is not natural but created by people.
Some reviewers, like Norman Gulley, criticized the quality of both Bloom's translation and his essay.
The Closing of the American Mind
The Closing of the American Mind was published in 1987, five years after Allan Bloom wrote an essay in National Review about how universities were not meeting students' needs. With the help of his friend Saul Bellow, a professor at the University of Chicago, Bloom expanded his ideas into a book that described his life and criticized the state of higher education in the United States. Bloom and his supporters believed the book might be successful, but they also thought the publisher’s small payment for the book showed little confidence in its sales. However, strong reviews in The New York Times and a column by conservative writer George Will titled "A How-To Book for the Independent" helped the book become a surprise bestseller. It sold nearly half a million copies in hardcover and stayed at number one on The New York Times Bestseller List for nonfiction for four months.
The book argues that American universities are failing their students. Bloom criticizes modern trends in philosophy and the humanities. He says professors who focus on topics like "ordinary language analysis" or "logical positivism" ignore important ethical and political issues that help students grow. He also criticizes professors who use "deconstructionism," a method that questions traditional ideas about truth, because it weakens the moral lessons found in great works of philosophy and literature. Bloom believes that the "great books" of Western thought—works by thinkers like Plato and Aristotle—have lost their value as sources of wisdom. He also connects the problems in universities to larger issues in American society, comparing the United States to the Weimar Republic, a failed government in Germany before World War II. Bloom argues that modern ideas, such as the belief that society can be built on self-interest and the rise of "relativism" (the idea that truth is not fixed), have caused a crisis in American culture.
Bloom believes this crisis has created a spiritual emptiness in American society, allowing radical leaders, like those who led protests in the 1960s, to take control. He compares this to how the Nazi Party in Germany filled a similar gap during the Weimar Republic. Bloom says that the deep thinking and freedom of philosophy, once central to education, have been replaced by a false form of philosophy that promotes relativism. He also argues that modern education has led students to value money and success over love, truth, or honor.
In one chapter, Bloom analyzes the influence of popular music on students, comparing it to ideas from philosophers like Plato and Nietzsche. He examines how pop music, often called "rock music," is marketed to young people and how it fits into the capitalist economy. Some critics, like musician Frank Zappa, said Bloom’s views on pop music were similar to older critics who wanted to preserve traditional American culture. Bloom, inspired by philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, discusses how music affects the human soul. He uses examples like soldiers inspired by music, religious people moved by hymns, and lovers influenced by romantic songs. He criticizes pop stars like Mick Jagger, saying they use sexual themes to make young people feel rebellious, even though they are actually controlled by the music industry. Bloom argues that many students admire Jagger’s fame and wealth but are really just bored with their limited life choices.
Bloom also discusses how young people lack meaningful literature in their lives and often have shallow, unromantic relationships. He explains the state of education not just through the lens of economists or psychiatrists but through the broader culture.
The book received early praise in major publications like The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. However, later reviews were more critical. Scholars like Martha Nussbaum and Harry V. Jaffa said Bloom was heavily influenced by 19th-century European philosophers, especially Friedrich Nietzsche. Nussbaum questioned whether Bloom was a good philosopher, saying there was no evidence he was one. Other critics, like Benjamin Barber and David Rieff, called Bloom’s book reactionary and even compared him to a controversial political figure. Some reviewers, like Robert Paul Wolff, humorously described the book as a fictional story written by someone else. However, others, like historian Fred Matthews, acknowledged that Bloom’s insights into pop culture were both amusing and thoughtful, calling the book "a rich, often brilliant, and disturbing book."
Some critics supported Bloom’s arguments. Norman Podhoretz noted that the book’s title, The Closing of the American Mind, refers to the unintended consequences of the "open mind" in liberal thought, which can lead to narrow-mindedness and intolerance.
Love and Friendship
Harold Bloom's final book, Love and Friendship, was written while he was partially paralyzed and in the hospital. It was published after his death. The book explained ideas about love by analyzing works from authors such as Stendhal, Jane Austen, and Flaubert; Tolstoy in relation to the influence of Rousseau on the Romantic movement; plays by William Shakespeare; Montaigne's Essays; and Plato's Symposium.
When describing the book's creation, Saul Bellow said:
Harold was a scholar and also a writer. He had a lot of intelligence and could do many things. He did not like common, overly kind phrases meant to comfort sick people. While still partially paralyzed and unable to even sign his name, he dictated the book. This was remarkable because it was unusual for someone who was sick or recovering to write a book. It was also unusual that a political philosopher would choose to write about literature at such a time. Bellow believed that Harold's strong and creative mind, inspired by his serious illness, turned to the nineteenth-century novel, Shakespeare's love plays, and the idea of love in Plato's works. He encouraged readers to explore deep emotions and consider how modern life has changed our feelings.
Andrew Sullivan said that reading Bloom's analysis of Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra helps readers see those works in a new way. He also said that reading Bloom's explanation of Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse makes readers want to read the original again more carefully. Sullivan believed Bloom had a special ability to understand real life and to connect deeply with it.
In an interview, Bellow recalled that Harold took in books and ideas like people take in air. He said most people only care about facts, but the truth is that Harold was a very kind and noble person. Bellow added that when critics say the novel is no longer important, they might really be saying there are no meaningful people left to write about. However, he believed Harold was certainly one of those people.
Personal life
Bloom identified as gay. His final book, Love and Friendship, was dedicated to his companion, Michael Z. Wu. There is debate about whether he died from AIDS.