European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 10, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Zeroing in on America s Nice College students by Lee Mitgang associated pressm Ost everything on the current non fiction Best seller list in the United Stales seems to belong. There s a Tell All Book by actress Belle Davis another on Iho private he of Princess Grace and yet another about the Kennedy. All commercial All titillating and All probably forgettable each a Nice Light summertime  All mat is but no. 1. The current Topper to the amazement of the publishing Community is a Book that blogs through the philosophies of Plato Nietzsche Rousseau and Heidegger knocks feminism the 60s, Wood Allen and Mick Jagger and suggests there is something terribly wrong with our minds and our souls the closing of the american mind How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today s students was written by a High Strung Chain smoking University of Chicago political scientist named Allan 8 Oom whose previous published works hardly portended celebrity. He wrote a Book called Shakespeare s politics and translated Plato s Republic and Rousseau s Emile. Bloom lat att Book received critical acclaim immediately and hit the new York times Best seller list May 3, publisher Simon & schuster says 175,000 copies Are now in print. Both Bloom and his publisher Are at a loss to explain its runaway Best seller status. None could recall any Book of such Strong philosophic Bent Ever reaching such lofty commercial Heights in the United states. You see Bloom told a visitor to his hotel suite of the sort thai itinerant Best Selling writers Are in a position to demand of publishers i m not a writer. I m a teacher. This is a very personal Bock and Idin l expect Illo succeed. And i expected it to be violently  Bloom s Book a meditation on Trie state of our souls is direct to the Point of nastiness. Please Don t hesitate to disagree with my Book he says. I think you la discover i m not very  Bloom Core indictment under the Guise of open mindedness. Today s College students stand for nothing. They Are in Bloom s pejorative sense Nice nothing More and higher education has nothing to say to them having surrendered its moral Erma Bombeck standing in the 1960s when Bloom was a Young professor at Cornell and witnessed id his lasting bitterness the capitulation of faculty and administrators to the demands o Radical students. The 1960s were an unmitigated disaster Tor universities says Bloom by the Middle of thai decade universities were offering. Every Concession other than education bul appeasement failed and soon the whole Experiment in excellence was washed away leaving not a  higher education has yet to recover trom that turbulent decade says Bloom. Left on the moral and intellectual Ash Heap of the 1960s, today s slide nos have no idea of evil they doubt its  students and teachers have adopted an i m of you re of relativism thai allows Lor no moral judgments and blocks the Way Toi universities to explore Good and evil and the meaning of human existence. Science alone thrives in this amoral Campus Selling while the humanities languish. Philosophy the discipline Bloom Hopes could Lead american universities Back from its moral and intellectual morass is mostly seen by students As hot  and As taught in colleges today. Bloom does t necessarily disagree. Plato s Republic Bays Bloom is the most important Book about education Ever  american colleges might Well need philosopher Kings to Lead them and give them meaning. He sees none in the wings. Classical music is dead among the Young he writes and Rock n Roll has replaced in with one Appeal Only a Barbaric Appeal to sexual  Mick Jagger of the rolling stones became a hero to College students a. Nihilistic idol beyond the Law moral and political a continues. A shrewd Middle class tray he played the possessed lower class Demon and teen aged satyr up until he was 40, with one Eye on the mobs of children of both sexes whom he stimulated to a sensual frenzy and the other Eye winking at the Une Rolic commercially motivated adults who handled the Money religion and National origin have almost no noticeable elect on today s students social life or sheif career  Bloom noles in his preface that his Mournful conclusions Are based on students he has met in 30 years of teaching on elite campuses such As Cornell and he University of Chicago. Whether his More sweeping statements t h 00 of thei american How higher iduca1ion has failed democracy and impoverished Thi souls of today s student Hub Bloom foreword by Saul billow really describe accurately what s going on at the other 3,200 or so campuses in America is at least debatable critics say. Bloom however in t shy Aboul generalizing from his own experiences. For example he says if Blacks and Whites still Aren t living harmoniously on College campuses White students Aren t to blame. The fault if any. Lies Wilh 60s style Black Power radicalism that preached separatism and hostility. I do no believe this somber situation is the fault of the White students who Are rather straightforward in such mailers and frequently embarrassingly eager to prove their Liberal credentials.," says Boom. Bloom s Book is one of several this year taking critical aim at the state of american colleges. College by Formor . Education commissioner Ernest l. Boyer called higher education a troubled institution. More successful in credentialing than in providing a Quality education Lor their  a recent Book cultural literacy what every american needs to know by . Hirsch jr., a professor of English at the University of Virginia gained wide publicity Wilh its charge that schools Are failing to introduce students to literary and historical concepts that make up the Core of american heritage. And education Secretary William j. Bennett who has fired almost continuous broadsides at higher education this year recently called Bloom s Book an extraordinary event already a  people who have been hooting at me for two years Are now no less than rapturous about Bloom s Book even As they slano1 charged by its claims in the same Way they were charged by  he said. Bloom Tor his part insists no is not a University  he suggests that schools could do worse than follow Hie Good old great books approach in which a Liberal education Means Reading certain generally recognized classic texts. Nations speak of the arms race openly bul for years everyone knows the real Competition has been the gossip race Between great Britain and the United Stales Boih have impressive stockpiles of dirty laundry. Boh have a free press to launch an alack whenever they feel like it. Bom agree of tools should be Mads to Hmil their output Yel both seem to be stepping up their indiscretions for years. Great Britain has had a secret weapon that has kept the English in the gossip Lead the Royal family the Price lag is exorbitant Lor the Commonwealth in terms of salaries hats Polo ponies and Perks but it pays of. In 1936. Blain sent Shock Waves throughout the world with the news that King Edward Viii was renouncing the Truone in favor of marrying an american Divorcee. What a humiliating blow  was. Ii has taken the United slates 51 years to come close to that morsel with Gary Harl giving up a possible Paga 16 the stars and stripes nomination for the presidency on the strength of a Tacky lists snapshot with Donna Rice aboard a yacht. You can i expect to alack Buckingham Palace with Bimini and win i hate to say it. But the United states is dragging its feel for every american Church Secretary who had a tryst Vilh an evangelist Greal Britain had a Prince dating a soft porn Queen named Koo. For every Sleazy nude picture resurrected of a newly crowned miss America the Royal family retaliated with fast Lane Fergie and her sister in Law Princess i poking gentlemen in the Bottom with their umbrellas at the Royal Ascot races. You can l pit Nancy Reagan buying a new Sel of White House China against a Princess married to the future King of England who spends a weekend with an escort who looks like Superman. The United slates has always been bemused by Royalty. It has Naver seen what purpose they really serve naive Little Louls it s the Mother lode of gossip monday August 10,1987all aimed at the United slates to remind us we May be Able to Pul a Man on the Moon bul the world looks up to a nation Over its head in sex scandals. This country has no vision. It s been a Long time since a congressman went Skinny dipping in the Washington Basin or one of the children of the president whole a father do arcs Book. Zeroing in on every dead president we be Ever had to report a was fooling around does t count. We want someone a can see being interviewed by Barbara Walters. The United states has been a world Leader for 200 years. We did t get there by having presidents who lusted in their hearts. We need a program that can gel us on the move again the current Story from London reads. Princess d appeared in a skin tight purple Salon suit munched sugary Popcorn clicked her fingers and drummed on her Knees Al a genesis  the time to Striko is now. While they re asleep