For Bloom, it was relativist assumptions that made multiculturalism and feminism enemies of the great books of Western civilization, but it was also relativism that authorized the neoliberal economics that were corporatizing great universities like his beloved University of Chicago with consequences no less dire for the curriculum. According to Bloom, relativism’s call to openness functioned ironically as a “closing,” where “the acceptance of different ways” was made possible by an “indifference to their real content.” In this way, Bloom’s book was simultaneously an assault against the left-leaning politics of postmodernism and a call for the reassertion of philosophic rigor.
How Did We Get So Cynical About Higher Ed?
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