if you read how everybody is talking about alan bloom's book and they were talking and talking because as you know it was a major blockbuster, people picked on a hot bloom blamed nietzsche. so you think that alan bloom had a problem with nietzsche. he didn't. he thought nietzsche was a genius. he loved nietzsche. he wrote beautifully about nietzsche. he wrote longingly about nietzsche. he thought nietzsche was a genius. genius. the problem was he thought he was in a cultural of intellectual pygmies who could not appreciate the genius of nietzsche. so what he is actually doing in "the closing of the american mind" because it's such an interesting move, he's not really blaming nietzsche for the impoverishment of american life that he find so despicable. he's blaming readers who are not to the task of truly understanding this great genius. so again that's not someone who is critical of nietzsche per se, although he has a reputation for having penned all the failures of late 20th century american life on nietzsche. quite the opposite what he's trying to do is keep nietzsche in his own imag

the reception of his book the closing of the american mind, blockbuster book, alan bloom says what is wrong with higher education teacher is killing the soles of their children, they're getting all this pluralism, multiculturalism but what they are not getting is great ideas, they are not getting the challenges of those great ideas. higher education is impoverished -- impoverishing the souls of our children. and nietzsche is right there all along. he talks about the nietzsche of american intellectual life. according to bloom, he thinks so much of what is wrong in late 20th century intellectual life is intellectuals are reading nietzsche, kind of like what george santayana they're tired of someone else's power, tired of authority, so he says the counterculture of the 1960s is a nurse on anti authoritarian is in and he says it is one thing to have these protests in the street and another to bring them into the academy and make such a ruckus. he is very critical of the uses of nietzsche. i hit the pause button here. if you read how everyone is talking about allan bloom's book and they ar