Desire Within A Student example essay topic

In Allen Bloom's chapter, Books, three questions are repeatedly asked to university students: what books really count for them, who their heroes are, and what they think is evil. The repeated answers to these questions draw an interesting picture of modern American culture; how petty cinema has replaced serious books for college students as their source for guidance and fulfillment, and how it has limited their vision to only what is now and in the present. Bloom also comments on how modern feminism has diminished the importance of the classical texts by the democratization of universities and colleges, which seeks to thwart the original content of literature in order to appeal to all. And since "all literature up to today has been sexist", feminism has filtered out or hidden the true meaning behind potentially enlightening literature (Bloom 65).

The lack of reading, which is a vital part of education, has lead to our generation seeking our enlightenment and a sense of significance from the outside themselves rather than within. When Bloom asks his students which books count for them, he seems to be very surprised at the silence. It seems that today, that many students cannot recognize the powerful meanings behind classic art and literature. Students simply cannot see the powerful meaning behind classic art and literature. And Bloom's main intention as an educator is to prepare his students to see, in which then they would be able to think for themselves and more importantly think about something important. Mankind has always strived for completion, and in many ways, artists and writers of the past have done an excellent job at doing so.

However, students now feel they can seek that completion through new abstract ways, and are failing to grasp all the knowledge and experience their souls are seeking, even though the source is right at their fingertips. This lack of reading makes a students vision dull, and their ability to make keen observations is lost. The problem with not reading books is that students are forced to seek enlightenment elsewhere, especially movies. Movies make for a very passive intellectual experience. Only one or two good points are maybe made throughout an entire movie, and although some movies are excellent works of art, for the most part it leaves behind no great impact on a person's life and no helpful clues as to what the true aspects of life are. Movies only give the viewer simple satisfaction, and is only mere entertainment.

And what is worse, is the fact that most movies are only about the present, which tends to appeal to our petty and selfish desires. There's no doubt that cinema has warped the conscience of students, because we are too concerned with what is going on now and all around us. This makes us forget one of the most important things all people must understand; the past is a very important part of us, and to understand it makes for a more significant understanding of life. Bloom links the lack of reading to the failure of a student's ability to write. He says that teachers tell him that it is almost impossible to teach students to write, simply because they can hardly get their students to read or let alone like it. Although a lack of seriousness in the teaching of literature to students in high school, there still must be a desire within a student to want to explore his own interests within books.

However, this desire has seriously diminished in college students today. According to Bloom, "the latest enemy of the vitality of classic texts is feminism", and the focus of classic works has been shifted to "the private, the intimate, the feelings, thoughts and relations of individuals (Bloom 65)". This distorts the fact that these classic stories contained an immense amount of political content, and takes away the original purpose and intent of the texts. Although when all the political and heroic aspects of classic literature are removed, there is love, it can still be educating and insightful towards relationships and feelings, for both men and women. So, it is seems that by shifting the literary focus, feminism has destroyed the true significance of these great stories, and in a sense was a redundant and worthless change. And because almost all literature up to today is sexist, many offensive authors have been excluded from college curriculum, or are distorted by feminist responses and prejudices.

This makes a truly good piece of literature seem to only do injustice to the female race, and further solidifies their being misunderstood in the past. Therefore, the so called sexist stories that really contain insightful information about relationships are abandoned because students believe that they could not possibly contain anything relevant to what they feel is important and accepted today. I agree with Bloom, because students today cannot appreciate what classic literature has to offer. Despite the fact that almost every student knows about Shakespeare's contribution to the world of love and romance, almost every student today looks to pop culture and other outside influences, which embrace shallowness, sex, and vanity as to how to behave and interact with the opposite sex.

Education needs to be reformed, in order to fulfill the students' desire for completeness. And with the restoration and original focus put back on all aspects literature, without prejudice, students will perhaps learn to enjoy reading and live a more fulfilling life. The second question Bloom asks his students is who their heroes are. And once again the class is silent, since most students today believe that they should be themselves, and that to take after anyone seems unfitting. This leaves students to fall victim to conforming to today's role models, which mainly include economically successful or famous people. And these so called role models are nowhere comparable to the heroes in classic literature, like Cyrus, Theseus, or Moses.

So instead of being fascinated by these great heroes, students try to imitate the non-virtuous role models they see around them. People today are obsessed with their own image, and have a real idea of what the perfect body is supposed to look like. And more importantly, they pursue it so blindly, through such extreme measures as starvation or anorexia, all the way to steroids. However, students today are forgetting how important their inner self is, and what the image of a perfect soul is. So, without guidance from classic texts, students no longer wish to improve the way their own soul looks, and some cannot even imagine that people even have a soul.

Without books, people are empty. There is no other way to fill the voids in life, without exploring the minds of geniuses before us, through their books, and without knowing what virtue is. Today's generation hardly even understands what evil is, even though they could gain a great understanding of it through books. Students immediately think of Hitler as evil, which is "just another abstraction to fill up an empty category", and another indication that the lack of reading books has left students with a lack of vision and depth (Bloom 67). If students do not look inside books for the answers to all of life's questions, then their lives will never be complete, and the only place left to turn are meaningless movies..