I watch all sorts of things on YouTube. I've just been watching this interesting interview of Harold Bloom from the Charlie Rose show, back in 2005.
When I first read Harold Bloom, back in my teens, I felt crestfallen. I thought I had no appreciation of literature at all because Bloom seemed to read everything in a way so different from the way I read it. All these years later, I've come to think that he produced a great deal of hot air, no doubt along with profound insights. For one thing, his interest in the actual language and lyricism of poetry seems minimal. Like so many people, his interest seems entirely in the meaning. I think that's a huge mistake.
Bloom was a cultural conservative, who gave the grievance industries a well-deserved hammering. But he still lamented the Christian right in America, as he does in this interview, and as pretty much everybody (left and right, religious and secular) tends to do.
I have no time to argue it right now, but personally I have always liked the American religious right and think the attacks on them are lazy and snobbish. I used to like the Hour of Power from the Crystal Cathedral as a kid. I didn't reallly watch it, but I liked the atmosphere and it felt very wholesome to me. I think the world is a much better place for the American religious right.
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