(Courtesy of Melissa who shared this with me this morning when I noticed her grumbling about #7)
Human Events self-described as "The National Conservative Weekly" has polled their experts and come up with a list of the ten most dangerous books ... the first three by Marx, Hitler, and Mao, are obvious choices (even though #2 is a classic of right-wing thinking) that could be assumed to be included in their list, but what are the other choices? Test your knowledge of the conervative right and see if you can guess what they are... then read about their reasoning for their choices. It provides an interesting insight into what they view as dangerous...
"Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries"
5 comments:
The only one that makes any sense to me is #8--Comte (Positivism was a death-knell for Western philosophy). The others that made the list are a strange assortment. Evidently, a great many people felt threatened by The Second Sex. I read this and have a hard time remember any passages threatening to castrate all males or storm the citadels of power, but who knows. Maybe I missed something. Marx had a couple books on the list. I wonder how many conservatives have read Das Kapital or the Marxist classics (I wonder how many Marxist have actually read Das Kapital. My guess is very few.) I tried to go through Mein Kampf once and was amazed at how foggy-headed it was. If anything, the Nazi movement probably succeeded in spite of the book instead of because of it. It reads pretty much like Fox News sounds--endless ranting without even a hint of logical structure behind it. If you're already a rabid racist, you "get it." If not, it's hard to make it to page zwei.
Sannam,
When I was young (early 20s) I was convinced that the Communist Manifesto was a dangerous text (as I had been indocrinated to believe)... Luckily I was raised by a family that had to read thinkgs for themselves and so if this was such a dangerous text, I decided I would find out why--I was blown away by the hopefulness of the text and its powerful call for social justice.
What I wonder is why anyone would be against John Dewey's "Democracy and Education"... this is a clear sign of this particular conservative groups fear of a critically aware populace.
Even more fascinating are the books on the extra list (Silent Spring?) ... what does this say about this particular conservative groups values? Who do they defend and at the expense of whom?
I truly thank them for making this list as it is a great tool for understanding their values and what they fear.
Wow. I just couldn't believe a lot of the books listed in the top 10 and "honorable mention" section are considered so horribly harmful. I've read all the books on the top 10 except the Dewey and Comte ones. I'm going to read them now lol. Dewey's book looks absolutely fascinating, and from the brief blurb, we seem to share some similar ideals. Uh oh! =) Pains me to see that a number of the panelists are from schools of higher education, and could compile a list like this - sigh. I'm surprised the 2 Darwin entries were only in the honorable mention section.
wow that is a great list...i guess i have been very harmed.
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