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Closed minds create impoverished souls

Francisco Miraval

In 1987, American philosopher Alan Bloom wrote his well-known book The Closing of the American Mind, where he warned about the “impoverished souls” of those who at that time were just students or young entrepreneurs and now, three decades later, are those in charge.

I am not an expert on Bloom’s ideas and I lack the capacity to judge the merits of his warning. Also, I do not fully agree with his ideas about relativism, historicism, and philosophy. However, I am inclined to accept his idea of culture as “commitment to learning and a negation of prejudice”.

Whatever the case, there are almost no doubts that currently the social field of closed minds (as defined by Dr. Otto Scharmer, of MIT, in his Theory of U) has become the most influential way of thinking in vast areas of the Western world (nothing new, historically speaking, in our culture, by the way.)

I was thinking about Bloom and his book because I recently -and almost by accident- I heard an interview with Edward Alden (of whom I know nothing) who mentioned his book The Closing of the American Border, written in 2009.

This is a very complex book, difficult for me to understand and even more difficult to summarize. I will only say that, according to Alden, “a nation that cuts itself from the rest of the world” will “face dangers”.

I wonder if when Alden used in the title of his book the expression “The closing of…” he was consciously referring to Bloom’s book. It will be difficult to accept it is a mere coincidence. After all, the “closed mind” created, as Bloom said, by a failed educational experiment (perhaps an intentional failure?) creates existential and cultural isolation.

Perhaps that’s the case. According to Dr. Scharmer, a closed mind leads to a closed heart and a closed will, which, in turn, are the basis of antisocial behaviors, including narcissism, prejudice, and intolerance, that is, what it could be called “co-destruction.”

But there is yet another consequence of a closed mind: you can’t adapt to changes. Alden wrote about that in his book Failure to Adapt: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (October 2016.) According to Alden, the self-sufficiency (autarky) of the United States ended and many don’t know it or refuse to accept it.

In that context, the expression “left behind” used by Alden in the subtitle of his most recent book also caught my attention because, at it is well known, it is an expression used in other contexts, including the Christian fundamentalist teaching about people being “left behind” while others go to “Heaven” after the “Rapture”.

Could it be possible, then, that there is a connection between closed minds, closed borders, closed trade, and fundamentalism? How can I know? After all, I just an unpaid freelancer who writes a weekly column with 500 words.

Regardless, Bloom wrote his book in 1987, Alden wrote his book in 2009, and George Orwell wrote his book in 1948.

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