Reading about the history of reactionary criticisms of the left a la Pluckrose & Lindsay, Douglas Murray, etc. A mentor from undergrad recommended a book responding to Allan Bloom, “The Opening of the American Mind,” by his PhD supervisor, Lawrence Levine.
Sub “woke” for “PC.”
Sub “woke” for “PC.”
@mccormick_ted you history folks are always lurking with your prescience.
Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind” (1987) seems to be the Bible of this anti-woke movement. The force of his central argument seems to rely on an analogy between rising PC culture and the Nazis. Jordan Peterson has clearly devoured this one.
Levine does an excellent job of demonstrating how the reactionary criticisms against “radical leftists” “taking over the universities” are often based on nothing but surface level discomfort.
While some critics have become more sophisticated, this is still ridiculously common.
While some critics have become more sophisticated, this is still ridiculously common.
My impression of Bloom thus far is someone who holds up Plato’s Republic, saying, “This, but unironically.”
It’s funny how little has changed. A boogeyman is fashioned out of some straw caricaturization of “cultural relativism.” The order-chaos contrast, with the West firmly representative of the former, is especially reminiscent of Jordan Peterson’s musings today.
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