The American mind never fully opened at all, frankly.
When Bloom talks about its closing, to me it is merely a metaphor.
The American mind, what little there was, of frankly at that time so paltry a thing in the first place, had closed further, and never really opened much, by 1776.
All societies are based, as he admits, on agreement, not disagreement. Disagreement is itself parasitic on agreement.
The fact that Americans disinvite so many prominent people to lecture is as unsurprising to me as that they are willing to remove so many eminent past leaders' monuments.
It was, after all, a society founded on the very concept of disagreement.
What centrists, liberal, however you want to term them, called a vital center turned out to be a faux, evanescent, and quite artificial phenomenon.
It certainly did not exist much, or for long, anywhere, long before the Civil War even, although people like Stephen Douglas paid lip service to the concept of a united nation on the issue of slavery in, say, the 1850s...what nonsense.
What centrists, liberal, however you want to term them, called a vital center turned out to be a faux, evanescent, and quite artificial phenomenon.
It certainly did not exist much, or for long, anywhere, long before the Civil War even, although people like Stephen Douglas paid lip service to the concept of a united nation on the issue of slavery in, say, the 1850s...what nonsense.
Why candy coat it?
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