Allan Bloom wrote "Closing of the American Mind," a very prescient book. He wrote that relativism, the idea that there is no actual "good" or "evil," and the prevalent argument in college that America was no better than other nations, that America had as many defects and historical atrocities as any other nation, was destroying young students.
He also wrote that the easy access to information - not knowledge but merely data - undercuts genuine learning. He pointed out that it took Socrates a lifetime to learn he knew "nothing," but now every 18-year old claims to have that knowledge. They don't. They simply know the phrase, but have no actual knowledge of what it means.
His analysis is pretty amazing, since he offered his views in 1987, before the advent of the personal computer and social media. Those devices have worsened the problem, making it easy to obtain data and much less likely for students to learn why the data matter or how to challenge a popular precept. The ability to reason and challenge ideas is a fundamental precept to education and it is disappearing, replaced by popular consensus.
