Harold and Allan Bloom both lamented the loss of the “Great Books” for the greater society, but in two distinct ways. One was seeing the loss as the great loss of inspiration and personal discovery and growth — the wisdom and beauty to be found within, while the other saw it as the loss of a sort of instruction manual on how to live a good life — morally, but also politically.
They seem to represent the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits that Nietzsche talked about in his The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music. Apollo represents reason and clarity, restrain and order; whereas Dionysus represents chaos and exaltation, truth and beauty.
Allan Bloom being the Apollonian, Harold Bloom the Dionysian. In the end, the loss of the “Great Books” in greater society is an issue on both sides of the equation, as both are needed to live a good life.
Allan Bloom on Books for Moral Clarity
We are social beings; isolation is our demise. We cannot ignore that we need the group, or a society, to live a good life, and there is where the Apollonian necessity of books comes into play.
We need a sort of guide, an instruction manual so to speak, to help us in coming together and forming a good and civilized society. We need the past in order to help us direct our future. We need it so that we can set the foundation.
That’s not to say we need the past in order to stay there, as those are two very different things. We need to read in order to see and understand the axiomatic “Truths” that have survived throughout all of human history just as much as we need to see the mistakes that were made in order to prevent them yet again.
All this requires Allan Blooms’ analysis of books as education for the formation of the character and intellect that will affect not only our own life but our politics. They are a way to engage with deep thinkers like Plato, Nietzsche, and Heidegger to ask what is justice? What is truth? What is a good life?
Without them, how can we hope to make sense of our brief time on earth or find the answers alone, and only within our own generation? We can’t. We need the wisdom that has been passed down from time immemorial, and that has survived, to help us.
Harold Bloom on Books for Inspiration
On the other hand, we are not our group (and it is of the utmost importance to give ourselves wholly to a group). We are individuals, and should remain so if we are to continue to live in a free country. As much as we need to be part of something greater, so much do we need to develop our own character, our own strengths, and forge our own path in life.
There is a fine balance between a life lived in accordance with our values and the life lived serving others. The two must find a way to marry.
So in comes Harold Blooms’ reason to read the “Great Books.” They should inspire us, and move us forward. It is the Dionysian viewpoint that books point your to the “chaos” side of the world, and the inner reflections of what life is truly mean to be.
It’s not the rational, scientific, pragmatic side of life, but rather the things that make life, with all its strife, worth living. The forces of truth, beauty, and passion. The inspiration you get from moments in nature, or the awe you feel after you read a passage that seems to have been meant for you…the exhilaration of the moment caught up in the music and pleasure of a night.
Both Blooms saw the formation of the self, one steeped in philosophy and one in literature, necessitates education from the “Great Books” for both the analytical and the emotional part of life, respectively.
Though the Blooms came to the idea from two different sides, they are two sides of the same coin. Both are required for a full life. With Harold and Allan Bloom together, we see the importance of books to develop not only moral clarity, but spiritual and imaginative depth.
Allan Bloom blamed relativism for the loss of Truth, and therefore of the loss of right and wrong. Harold Bloom blamed the broader ideologies in general for the loss of reading as essential to understanding of the self. Both were right, and both are needed in their prescription to return to the Greats.
The Connection to Present Day
And why is this all important, anyway? What will reading books do in today’s society where all you see is the nonsense of social media, the election of socialists in a country built on freedom and individuality, and the growing divide of a government unable to talk long enough to keep the basic function of a government open?
Going back to reading the books worth reading won’t change anything right away, so it makes sense for it to seem pointless. But it seems to me that it is the only way for any long term return to values and morals that make us worthy of emulation. The ones that create free and just societies.
We may be in for a rough couple of decades, at the moment. But if we have any hope in a future worthy of our kids, hope being a necessity to keep fighting towards the good, then we should get back to reading the books worth reading.
As a wise Tanzanian Proverb goes, “little by little, a little becomes a lot.”
We shouldn’t doubt the power we have as individuals, despite the grand scheme of all that we are up against. We have the power to change course. To right the wrongs, and to bridge the divides. But we have to start a true education within ourselves, and with our immediate community.
And with that in mind, what book are you reading? And if you don’t have one join us while we read On Liberty, and other books worth reading with my book club.
Till next time, my friends,
Maria ❤
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