Word: blooms
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...precisely that demand which University of Chicago philosopher Alan Bloom could not understand when he appeared at Harvard earlier this semester. The irony of his attack on relativism is that he encourages us to ignore morality. For him, every demand from a minority group is an attempt to seek power. He refuses to accept that it might be a request for compassion, and beyond that, a plea for self-assessment...
...Black student rose and challenged him on why the works of Black writers should not be included in the pantheon of great books. Bloom was unyielding, and the student proceeded to rail against the ancients as white Anglo-Saxon protestants. The slip was for Bloom, and no doubt for many, proof of the unthinking mindset of many minorities who demand inclusion...
Armed to defend himself, Bloom pointed to the words of W.E.B. DuBois, who in Souls of Black Folk himself cited the importance of reading Shakespeare. "Does that satisfy you?" Bloom asked, and in the question one hears the heart of the problem...
...matter of satisfying those who feel aggrieved, it is a matter of acknowledging that the feeling is real. DuBois would have been sympathetic to the Black student far more than he would have been to Bloom. One of DuBois' central tasks was to show the important contributions of Black culture, to show that what he termed the "Sorrow Songs," the Negro spirituals, were the equivalent of Shakespeare...
Still, America's number may not be up. According to Vogeli, curriculum materials that emphasize practical application have been emerging. "Change is on the way," he says. "Books like Innumeracy and Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind articulate dissatisfactions present and already known to the teaching community." By so doing, they may greatly reduce the odds that Americans will continue to wallow in innumeracy...