Allan Bloom: Relationships

Bloom's chapter Relationships really sparked my attention in this book. I looked at some of comments that Bloom was stating and I looked at my experiences growing up and I believe there is some truth to what he is saying. In the section on Self-Centeredness, Bloom talks about students today and their attitude toward the things of the past. I apprieciated his one statement that said "a modern parent willing to believe in the superiority of the younger generation to her own, especieally when the former is most disrespecteful of the latter's standards". I can see this is evident by looking at the students that I have worked with. Kids today seem to think that because they are recieving a higher education than what their parents did then they are at liberity to have no respect toward their parents opinion. And yet the parents are disillusioned with this because they feel that their offspring are superior to them because of the education they recieve. Another opinion of Bloom is that students today do not care about the world around them, partly because they haven't experienced it and partly because they are working on their own careers to care. Bloom has it right when he says "Starvation in Ethiopia, mass murder in Cambodia, as well as nuclear war, are all real calamities worthy of attention. But they are not immediate, not organically connected to students' lives." I think that we are all somewhat quilty of this. Even today when I think about the war in Iraq, I know that there is fighting but becuase it does not affect my day to day life sometimes I forget. We all forget.