In anticipation of the “Snowflakes” discussion on Thursday, here is an insightful essay on the legacy of Allan Bloom’s 1987 The Closing of the American Mind. An excerpt:
For a democracy to thrive, talented youngsters had to be exposed to a philosophical education that allowed them to transcend the “bourgeois vulgarity” of their surroundings, and to devote themselves to something other than mere self-advancement. If American society could not ensure this, it risked descending into rule by elites who were no better than the uneducated mob, and for this reason perhaps far more dangerous (such was apparently his assessment of the graduates of MBA programs). As a result, Bloom believed that a “crisis of liberal education” would amount to nothing less than “the crisis of our civilization.”
Erica Holberg, Charlie Huenemann, and Harrison Kleiner will be presenting. The basic question has to do with the tension between the value we place on free speech on college campuses and the interest we have in defending campuses (and students) against speech whose primary aim is to incite hatred and division. Thursday, 11/30, 4 p.m., HH 322, all are welcome!
USUPhilosophy 