The heart of Agresto’s critique is that the liberal arts has lost its sense of purpose and promise. While Allan Bloom presented relativism as the modern classroom menace in his Closing of the American Mind, Agresto’s book recognizes that the barometer has shifted: students who once abandoned truth (superficially, at least) now cling to the truth-claims of the radical left. Where the liberal arts once presented a sweeping vision of the West’s intellectual tradition, students and educators have bankrupted the discipline, destroying its identity in pursuit of identity politics.
