Professor Bloom’s Delight on the Right: American Conservatism and the Closing of the American Mind

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In 1987 the American philosopher Allan Bloom published his controversial book The Closing of the American Mind, in which he criticized contemporary trends in American academia as well as in the culture at large. The book was largely perceived to be a conservative tract, and many commentators on the political Right praised the work, although Bloom himself rejected the label ‘conservative’. The controversy Bloom unleashed was - and is - a battle between political forces for cultural sovereignty, especially in the universities, and the commanding heights of American intellectual life. This conflict was well captured in Camille Paglia’s famous description of The Closing of the American Mind as the ‘first shot in the culture wars.’ The purpose of this study is to inquire into the American Right’s reception and reconstruction of Bloom’s book and to determine the initial impact and lasting influence it had on American conservative thought. To provide the necessary context, the history of American conservatism from 1945 up to the respective points in time is also illuminated in this work.