First Principles Journal: A Stirring Defense of the Conversation
James Seaton - 06/27/08

In the decades since The Closing of the American Mind became a bestseller, many critics have joined Allan Bloom in arguing that the changes in higher education since the sixties have been mostly for the worse. Anthony Kronman adds his voice to the lament for the humanities in his recent title Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life. While offering a trenchant critique of the academy’s too often dogmatic adherence to the articles of multiculturalism, tolerance, and constructivism, Kronman notes both the moral worth of such commitments as well as the ways in which their contemporary iterations fall short of the ideal of a truly humane liberal education. . .