Classical music is a special taste like Greek language or pre-Columbian archeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and psychological shorthand.
We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that humanity often lacks awareness of its own history and the greatness of past civilizations.
Allan Bloom's quote highlights the disconnection between modern individuals and the rich historical achievements of previous societies. By comparing people to ignorant shepherds who only play with remnants of great civilizations, Bloom emphasizes that we tend to overlook the depth and beauty of the past, engaging only with superficial fragments rather than understanding the grandeur of what came before us. This reflection invites a deeper appreciation for history and the lessons it holds.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the importance of learning from history, this quote can illustrate how we must pay attention to our past.
More from Allan Bloom
All quotes →The humanities are like the great old Paris Flea Market where, amidst masses of junk, people with a good eye found cast away treasures...They are like a refugee camp where all the geniuses driven out of their jobs and countries by unfriendly regimes are idling.
Our Nation, a great stage for the acting out of great thoughts, presents the classic confrontation between Locke's views of the state of nature and Rousseau's criticism of them... Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. Reverence for nature, mastery of nature- whichever is convenient.
Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.
There is no real education that does not respond to felt need; anything else acquired is trifling display.
Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.
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The point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we're going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years - the last 50 years really - has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.
Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.
A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.
Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.
It is unacceptable that more than 1 billion people are hungry every day while another billion are obese.