Harold Bloom in The New York Times:
‘Betraying Spinoza,’ by Rebecca Goldstein.
The German and English Romantics (Shelley aside) got Spinoza wrong. Reading his superbly cryptic masterwork, the “Ethics,” I find myself agreeing with Strauss that Spinoza pragmatically was an Epicurean materialist. As in Epicurus and Lucretius, Spinoza’s God is scarcely distinguishable from Nature, and is altogether indifferent to us, even to our intellectual love for him as urged upon us by Spinoza. Many Americans are persuaded that God loves each of them, personally and individually. Is that our blessing, in this era of George W. Bush, or is it not the American malaise, partly productive of the daily slaughters on the streets of Baghdad? A transfusion of Spinoza into our religion-mad nation could only be a good thing.
More here.
