Comments on: Excuse Me?

By: edison

edison — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 07:47:48 +0000

The creepy part is that someone actually considered doing a Ten Most Harmful Book list at all. Arrogance with a chill to it…

By: Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 17:11:21 +0000

As a commenter said over at Pharyngula, the omission of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from the list is rather damning.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 03:16:08 +0000

Top Ten Most Harmful Books of the Twentieth Century: 1. The "Late Night with David Letterman" Book of Top Ten Lists 2. Top Ten Lists to Live By 3. The Top Ten of Everything 2005 4. David Letterman's Book of Top Ten Lists 5. Garfield's Top Ten Tom Cat Foolery 6. Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out into the Real World 7. An Altogether New Book of Top Ten Lists 8. Top Ten Greek Legends 9. Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make 10. Top Ten Shakespeare Stories

By: myglesias

myglesias — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 02:28:36 +0000

You know, I suppose this just shows my own Marxian proclivities, but I think the strangest thing (among many strange things) about this list is the level of causal power they seem to be attributing to books. “No Hitler, no holocaust” strikes me as vaguely plausible, but “no Mein Kampf, no holocaust?” No way. It’s not as if Hitler wrote the book, it picked up awesome word of mouth, became a bestseller, everyone read it and was convinced, then Hitler decided to enter politics and put his ideas into action. Similarly, Mao’s Red Book — so what? As Jonathan says, “a symptom, not a cause” of the horrors of Maoism.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:56:55 +0000

The explanation is pretty self-explanatory: ‘Comte, the product of a royalist Catholic family that survived the French Revolution, turned his back on his political and cultural heritage, announcing as a teenager, “I have naturally ceased to believe in God.” Later, in the six volumes of The Course of Positive Philosophy, he coined the term “sociology.” He did so while theorizing that the human mind had developed beyond “theology” (a belief that there is a God who governs the universe), through “metaphysics” (in this case defined as the French revolutionaries’ reliance on abstract assertions of “rights” without a God), to “positivism,” in which man alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to be.’

It is all about Comtean positivism rejection of metaphysical speculation. Go back and read the transcripts of the recent Kansas ID “hearing.” The ID crowd constantly rants against “naturalism”, which, given the way they talk about it, might be seen as a descendent of Comtean positivism, in that it methodologically rules out “god” as an explanatory force.

Or maybe they just really, really hate analytic philosophy.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:11:07 +0000

If you were doing this from the liberal perspective, would you, say, juxtapose Mein Kampf with William Buckley’s God and Man at Yale? That strikes me as a grotesque confusion of scale, similar to the idea of putting Margaret Mead or Ralph Nader with Lenin and Mao. I didn’t know auto safety was as dangerous an idea as, what, National Socialism?

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 21:41:40 +0000

Mao’s inclusion in the list is a pretty good clue, actually, that they’re not really paying attention. The Little Red Book was a symptom, not a cause, of China’s troubles and broader leftist issues. It’s really Mao’s Collected Works (or perhaps his early Jiangxi report, which was something of a bestseller in Chinese communist circles and formed the foundation of his actual ideas) which would be relevant, though even that has to take a second seat to Lenin’s runner-up entry.

And I just noticed Margaret Mead…. come on, people. I’m done with this, for now. This isn’t worth it.

By: kieran

kieran — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 19:36:42 +0000

Comte is probably on the list because the likes of Hayek and von Mises liked to wheel him out occasionally to give him a solid kick in the backside.

By: berlihe

berlihe — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:13:42 +0000

I’m surprised no one has mentioned so far that the _Origin of Species_ received honorable mention. I really think that not believing in evolution disqualifies you from having any ideas, period. It implies an epistemological stance too faulty to rescue.

On a larger note (and I sent a letter to the editors of “Human Events” to this effect), it’s hard to argue with their first three choices, in that they each formed part of the idealogical basis for various murderous, totalitarian states. But the very act of compiling a list of “harmful” books strikes me as more appropriate for a totalitarian state than a democratic one. At the very least, it implies something less than love for the free exchange of ideas, and tepid tolerance thereof just isn’t enough.

By: amardeepmsingh

amardeepmsingh — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:05:43 +0000

I think you’re reading this list much too seriously. Don’t forget that these folks haven’t actually read any of the books on the list!

This is how they put this list together: 1) The most harmful ideas are secularism/atheism (includes evolution), communism/socialism/welfare state, feminism, liberalism, and sexual liberation. 2) Find 10 books which are reputed to advocate those ideas.

An improved list would include Bertrand Russell’s “Why I Am Not A Christian,” which actually had a palpable affect on the religious beliefs of thousands of people, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and “The Joy of Sex.” I would also throw in that insidious book by Dr. Spock which argued against corporal punishment — without which no conservative philosophy is quite complete.