scends this difference by speaking wellnof both.nTo his credit, he has used arcanenStraussian concepts to produce a popularnwork of cultural criticism. Whilenthe Straussian scaffolding creaks occasionally,nthe tirades against rocknmusic, mischievous Teutons, and sensualnexcess give the work a lightern(even voyeuristic) quality. It has paidnoff. An in-depth study of Bloom in thenJune 19, 1987, issue of the WashingtonnPost depicts him as an internationalncelebrity. Flying to dinner with thenMayor of Jerusalem and hobnobbingnwith academic leaders in France, Israel,nand the United States, the author ofnThe Closing of the American Mindnseems to be less an ivy-tower scholarnthan someone with connections.nOne self-described right-wing populistnassured me that Bloom “is agin thencounterculture.” I’m not sure he unequivocallynis—or that his book wouldnbe selling so well if he were. For all hisnunhappiness with student manners,nBloom is no ally of middle-class valuesnor of our commercial Protestant past asna nation. In a revealing attempt tonexplain European “revolutionariesnwho accepted our ideals of freedomnand equality” but were (and still are)nappalled by our unequal distributionnof property. Bloom alludes to the effortsnof our “domesticated churches innAmerica” to preserve “the superstitionnof Christianity, [the] overcoming ofnwhich was perhaps the key to liberatingnman.” He offers, by contrast, nondetailed presentation of the views ofnthe “disinherited of the ancien regime.”nWhen antirevolutionary ideasnare given at all, they are described asn”special pleading” and linked to thengenealogy of Nazism. But there is onenside of the American heritage thatnBloom finds congenial: “Our principlesnof freedom and equality and thenrights based on them [that] are rationalnand everywhere applicable.” Bloomnnotes approvingly that the UnitednStates fought the Second World Warn”as an educahonal project to extendnthem.”nHis view of the American past isnhighly selective and has no place forneither Puritan oligarchs or Southernngentry. Bloom is at bottom a welfarenstate Whig who welcomes the spreadnof modern progressive ideals as thenactualization of both American andnEuropean revolutionary movements.nAt the same time, he laments thendegradation of his ideals in the form ofnundisciplined students, jarring popularnmusic, and falling educational standards.nThere is a paradoxical, even contradictory,ntone to his argument, whichnmoves back and forth between praisingnand damning democracy, skepticism,nthe Enlightenment, and bourgeois attitudes.nBloom wants an orderly andnprosperous society that supports philosophersnin their academic redoubts.nSignificantly, he defines philosophy asn”the abandonment of all authority innfavor of individual reason” and repeatedlynsuggests that philosophy mustnchallenge inherited ancestral truths.nNever mind, he also tells us, that “concreteness,nnot abstractness, is the hallmarknof philosophy.” Like Walt Whitman,nBloom appears to revel in contradiction:nIn one passage we are told,n”The most important function of thenuniversity in an age of reason is tonprotect reason from itself, by being thenmodel of true openness,” but elsewherenare warned, “In a democracynthe university protects the life of reasonnby opposing the emergent [sic], thenchanging, and the ephemeral.” In thenprocess, the university fights dogmatism.nIts job, then, is to oppose “dogmatism”nand support individualnspeculation—while resisting changingnviews. Through such resistance (assumingnthat universities can judge innadvance what ideas will be ephemeral),nacademics uphold the “model ofntrue openness.”nOne reason for such bizarre reasoningnis the pervasive Teutonophobia,nwhich is apparent in his revulsion fornthe social sciences and most othern19th-century German academic inventions.nBloom scorns any systematicnattempt to understand social phenomenanthat proceeds from data and methodologicalncriteria. He denouncesnMax Weber, a creator of social science,nas a “dogmatic atheisf and nihilisticnprecursor of Nazism, withoutndemonstrating either. Of course it wasnWeber and other 19th-centurynGerman professors who establishednprofessional standards of scholarship innthe social sciences. They would nondoubt have frowned on Bloom’s conceptnof the university as a place wherenone man’s speculative reason is madennnto exclude someone else’s — in thenname of openness and fighting dogmatism.nA colleague of Bloom’s has observednthat his true educational agenda is tonreplace modern scientific thinkingnwith classical ideals. That much isntrue. Bloom does have reservationsnabout scientific thinking; it is also clearnthat he has no intention of returning tonthe past, defined as the world beforenthe 1950’s. He stresses the connectionnbetween scientific materialism and liberalndemocracy; and while he deploresnthe nihilistic thrust of “absolute science,”nhe is for democracy and thensecular, demystified world to which henfinds it related.nBloom likes what he identifies withnthe left, rationalism, the Enlightenment,nliberal (and even social) democracy.nRegrettably, however, the progressnof his side has led not to a highncivilization but to dirty, drug-infestednadolescents and to promiscuous andnconfused adults. Bloom must encounternthese decadents even at the Universitynof Chicago. He is properlynalarmed that the new barbarians arenthreatening the university he oncenknew. Unfortunately, Bloom cannnever quite bring himself to recognizenthe close ties between his religion ofndemocracy cum philosophical skepticismnand the cultural trends he deplores.nIn one particularly ill-reasoned section,nhe tries to link the student radicalismnof the 1960’s to the Germannhistorieism of the early 19th century.nHe then goes on to rail against FriedrichnNietzsche and Martin Heideggernas enemies of the “universality of thenEnlightenment.” In the past, Marxistsn(most prominently from George Lukacsnin The Destruction of Reason)nhave attacked opponents of 18thcenturynrationalism, but Bloom is thenfirst (to my knowledge) to blame criticsnof the Enlightenment for the New Leftnas well as for Nazism. The hypotheticalnlink between Romantic conservativesnand Nietzsche, on the one side,nand the Chicago Seven, on the other,nis variously presented as antirationalism,nvalue-relativity, and culturalnprimitivism.nThe link is never convincingly established.nBloom argues without provingnthat behind our social ills arendisagreeable reactionaries who floutednSEPTEMBER 1987 131n