Allan Bloom facts for kids

Allan David Bloom (born September 14, 1930 – died October 7, 1992) was an American thinker, teacher, and expert in ancient Greek studies. He learned from important scholars like Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève. Later, he taught at several famous universities, including Cornell University, Yale University, and the University of Chicago.

Bloom strongly believed in an education based on "Great Books". These are classic works of literature and philosophy. He became well-known for criticizing how American universities were teaching students. His ideas were shared in his very popular 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. Even though some people called him a "conservative," Bloom said he was just trying to protect the "theoretical life," which means a life focused on deep thinking and learning. His friend and colleague, Saul Bellow, wrote a novel called Ravelstein, which was based on Bloom's life.

Early Life and Education

Bloom was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents were both social workers. When he was 13, he read about the University of Chicago and decided he wanted to go there. His family moved to Chicago in 1944. In 1946, at age 15, Bloom was accepted into a special program for gifted students at the University of Chicago. He spent the next ten years studying there, which started his lifelong love for the idea of a university.

Bloom once said his education "began with Freud and ended with Plato". He felt that learning about himself was a key part of his education. He gave credit to his teacher, Leo Strauss, for helping him on this journey.

Bloom earned his first degree from the University of Chicago when he was 18. He then continued his studies there, focusing on ancient Greek history and philosophy. He wrote his main paper on Isocrates, an ancient Greek teacher. His teachers remembered him as a very energetic and funny student who loved studying classic texts. In 1955, he earned his PhD. After that, he studied in Paris, France, with the famous philosopher Alexandre Kojève. Bloom later helped introduce Kojève's ideas to English-speaking readers.

Career and Work

Bloom taught in Paris and Germany in the 1950s. When he came back to the United States in 1955, he taught adult classes at the University of Chicago. He later taught at Yale University (1960–1963), Cornell University (until 1970), and the University of Toronto (until 1979). In 1979, he returned to the University of Chicago. Many of Bloom's former students became important journalists, government officials, and political thinkers.

In 1963, while teaching at Cornell, Bloom was part of the Cornell Branch of the Telluride Association. This group helped students develop their minds and learn to govern themselves. Bloom's first book, Shakespeare's Politics, was a collection of essays about Shakespeare's plays. He also translated and wrote about important works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Plato. His translation of Plato's Republic in 1968 was a very important work. Bloom believed a translator should help readers truly connect with the original text. He also translated Rousseau's Emile in 1978.

Another one of his books was Giants and Dwarfs, a collection of essays about other thinkers like Raymond Aron and Leo Strauss. Bloom also helped edit the scholarly journal Political Theory. After returning to Chicago, he became good friends with the writer Saul Bellow. Bellow even wrote the introduction to Bloom's most famous book, The Closing of the American Mind.

Bloom's last book was called Love and Friendship. He dictated this book while he was in the hospital. It explores the meaning of love through famous novels and plays. Allan Bloom passed away in 1992.

His Ideas

It's hard to put Bloom's ideas into one simple box. However, all his writings share a common goal. He wanted to make sure that a way of life focused on deep thinking and philosophy would continue for future generations. He tried to do this through both his academic writings and his more popular books.

His works can be seen in two main groups: scholarly books (like his work on Plato's Republic) and popular books about politics and society (like The Closing of the American Mind). These two types of writing are connected. They both show his view of what philosophy is and how philosophers should act in the world.

Understanding Plato's Republic

Bloom's translation and essay on Plato's Republic were very different from earlier versions. A key part of his understanding was the idea of "Socratic irony". Irony means saying one thing but meaning another, often in a clever or humorous way. Bloom believed that a true philosopher could see the funny side of sad things and the sad side of funny things. He saw Socrates as the perfect example of this.

Bloom thought that the "Just City in Speech" described in the Republic was not meant to be a real city we should build. Instead, it was an example used to show the difference between deep philosophical thinking and everyday life. He believed this "Just City" was not natural, but something created by humans.

The Closing of the American Mind

The Closing of the American Mind was published in 1987. Five years earlier, Bloom had written an essay saying that universities were not helping students enough. With encouragement from his friend Saul Bellow, he expanded these thoughts into a book. He wanted to share his critical ideas about the state of higher education in American universities. Bloom and his friends thought the book would only have a small success. However, it became a huge bestseller, selling nearly half a million copies in hardcover. It stayed at number one on The New York Times Bestseller List for nonfiction for four months.

The book criticizes modern universities and how Bloom felt they were failing their students. He argued that modern ideas in philosophy and the humanities were not helping students grow. He believed that the "great books" of Western thought were no longer valued as sources of wisdom. Bloom felt this was creating a problem not just in universities, but in American society as a whole.

Bloom believed that modern ideas, especially relativism, were causing this problem. Relativism is the idea that there are no absolute truths, and all beliefs are equally valid. For Bloom, this created an emptiness in people's minds. He worried that this emptiness could be filled by extreme ideas, similar to how Nazism rose in Germany.

Bloom also looked at the effect of popular music on students' lives. He placed pop music in a historical context, from Plato's Republic to Nietzsche's ideas about passion. He explored how music can influence people's feelings and actions. He suggested that pop music sometimes tricks young people into thinking their small acts of rebellion are important political statements. He felt that successful performers were actually serving the music industry's money-making goals.

Love and Friendship

Bloom's final book, Love and Friendship, was published after he passed away. He wrote it by dictating his thoughts while he was ill in the hospital. The book explores the meaning of love through famous stories and plays. It looks at novels by Stendhal, Jane Austen, and Leo Tolstoy. It also examines plays by William Shakespeare and Plato's Symposium.

Saul Bellow, Bloom's friend, wrote about how amazing it was that Bloom could dictate a whole book while so sick. Bellow said that Bloom was a "literary man" with great intelligence and humanity. He also noted that Bloom, a political philosopher, chose to write about literature at such a difficult time in his life.

Andrew Sullivan, a writer, said that reading Bloom's thoughts on Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra makes you see those plays in a new way. He also said that Bloom had a special gift for understanding reality. Bellow remembered Bloom as someone who "inhaled books and ideas" and was a truly "superior person."

Personal Life

Allan Bloom was gay. His last book, Love and Friendship, was dedicated to his partner, Michael Z. Wu.

Selected Works

• Bloom, Allan, and Harry V. Jaffa. 1964. Shakespeare's Politics. New York: Basic Books.
• Bloom, Allan. 1968 (2nd ed 1991). The Republic of Plato. (translated with notes and an interpretive essay). New York: Basic Books.
• Bloom, Allan, Charles Butterworth, Christopher Kelly (Edited and translated), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1968. Letter to d'Alembert on the theater in politics and the arts. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; Agora ed.
• Bloom, Allan, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1979. Emile (translator) with introduction. New York: Basic Books.
• Alexandre Kojève (Raymond Queneau, Allan Bloom, James H. Nichols). Introduction to the reading of Hegel. Cornell, 1980.
• Bloom, Allan. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN: 5-551-86868-0.
• Bloom, Allan, and Steven J. Kautz ed. 1991. Confronting the Constitution: The challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudism. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
• Bloom, Allan. 1991. Giants and Dwarfs: Essays, 1960–1990. New York: Touchstone Books.
• Bloom, Allan. 1993. Love and Friendship. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Bloom, Allan. 2000. Shakespeare on Love & Friendship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Plato, Seth Benardete, and Allan Bloom. 2001. Plato's Symposium: A translation by Seth Benardete with commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

See Also

In Spanish: Allan Bloom para niños

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers