Allan Bloom
Political philosopher; University of Chicago; student of Leo Strauss; author of The Closing of the American Mind (1987); associated with “East Coast Straussianism”; teacher of Michael Anton
Who He Is
Allan Bloom (1930–1992) was one of the most prominent American political philosophers of the late 20th century and the most famous popularizer of Straussian ideas. His The Closing of the American Mind (1987) was an unlikely bestseller: a dense, learned critique of American higher education’s descent into relativism and cultural studies, framed as a Straussian diagnosis of liberal democracy’s self-destruction.
Bloom taught at Cornell, Toronto, and the University of Chicago, where he was the center of a brilliant and somewhat notorious intellectual circle. Michael Anton was among his students.
Intellectual Position
Bloom represents “East Coast Straussianism” — the academic, somewhat detached wing of the Straussian tradition that maintained philosophical distance from American political activism:
- Skeptical of American founding’s depth: Unlike Harry V. Jaffa’s West Coast Straussianism, Bloom was not a celebrant of the Declaration of Independence. He saw modern liberal democracy as philosophically deficient from the standpoint of classical political philosophy.
- Aristocratic: Bloom believed the university’s role was to protect the space for philosophy — for the rare exceptional individual to pursue wisdom — against the leveling pressures of democratic culture.
- Relativism as the enemy: The Closing of the American Mind’s central diagnosis is that American education has abandoned the claim that there are better and worse ways to live. This relativism — absorbed from German philosophy (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Weber) via academic social science — has destroyed students’ capacity for genuine intellectual and moral development.
The Closing of the American Mind
The book argues that:
- American students arrive at university “open” in the sense of moral relativism, not openness to truth
- This openness is actually a closing — it precludes the kind of passionate engagement with the great questions that education should produce
- The culprit is the absorption of German nihilism into American cultural life through the academy
- The result is a generation incapable of serious engagement with the questions of how to live
The book sold over a million copies and sparked enormous controversy — particularly over Bloom’s treatment of rock music, feminism, and multiculturalism as symptoms of democratic decadence.
Relationship to the New Right
Bloom is a complicated figure for the New Right:
- His critique of relativism and his Straussian framework are background assumptions for the Claremonters
- But his politics were not straightforwardly conservative — he was gay, deeply cosmopolitan, and had no interest in mass politics
- His East Coast Straussianism stands in tension with the Claremonters’ populist West Coast turn
Michael Anton’s intellectual lineage runs through Bloom to Strauss, which gives Anton’s writing its philosophical register — but Anton turned Bloom’s aristocratic detachment into political combat, something Bloom himself never attempted.
Cross-References
- Leo Strauss — Bloom’s teacher; philosophical root
- Michael Anton — Bloom’s student; took Straussianism in a MAGA direction
- West Coast Straussianism — the contrasting tradition to Bloom’s East Coast Straussianism
- The Claremonters — movement shaped by (and departing from) Bloom’s framework
- Esotericism — Bloom’s Straussianism included the esotericist dimension