Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

[dr. what]

From here: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc.

The books:

1. The Communist Manifesto
2. Mein Kampf
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao

No surprise there....

4. The Kinsey Report
5. Democracy and Education

Er...wha? ....

6. Das Kapital

No surprise again...

7. The Feminine Mystique
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
9. Beyond Good and Evil
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Oooooooooo-kay.........

Honourable mentions

The Population Bomb
by Paul Ehrlich


What Is To Be Done
by V.I. Lenin


Authoritarian Personality
by Theodor Adorno


On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill


Beyond Freedom and Dignity
by B.F. Skinner


Reflections on Violence
by Georges Sorel


The Promise of American Life
by Herbert Croly


Origin of the Species
by Charles Darwin


Madness and Civilization
by Michel Foucault

Soviet Communism: A New Civilization
by Sidney and Beatrice Webb


Coming of Age in Samoa
by Margaret Mead


Unsafe at Any Speed
by Ralph Nader


Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir


Prison Notebooks
by Antonio Gramsci


Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson


Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon


Introduction to Psychoanalysis
by Sigmund Freud


The Greening of America
by Charles Reich


The Limits to Growth
by Club of Rome


Descent of Man
by Charles Darwin

-----------------------------------

Somebody please tell me that this is a joke......

[Robert Walper]

I was honestly expecting the bible to be mentioned.

[Xenophobe3691]

So lemme see. You have the standard crap by the really bad Communists, Mein Kampf, Das Kapital (The Road to hell is paved with good intentions).

But everything else is about enlightenment, whether natural or self-oriented. No wonder my family isn't conservative...

[Lord Zentei]

Descent of Man
by Charles Darwin

Origin of the Species
by Charles Darwin

On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill

Nope, don't think this is a joke at all.

[Plekhanov]

The levels of delusion these people are under is just astonishing just look at the "summary" of General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes which just got in at #10

Keynes was a member of the British elite--educated at Eton and Cambridge--who as a liberal Cambridge economics professor wrote General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the midst of the Great Depression. The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.

That's rights it's all Keynes & FDR’s fault who reaped so much damage with deficit spending in the 30s that not even the best fiscally ‘conservative’ efforts of Reagan & the Bushs could repare the damage

[Alan Bolte]

Origin of the Species
by Charles Darwin

Do you think maybe they meant On the Origin of Species?

[Jew]

Origin of the Species
by Charles Darwin

Do you think maybe they meant On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life?

Fixed that for you.

[Executor32]

I was honestly expecting the bible to be mentioned.

By conservative scholars?

[Straha]

The levels of delusion these people are under is just astonishing just look at the "summary" of General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes which just got in at #10

Keynes was a member of the British elite--educated at Eton and Cambridge--who as a liberal Cambridge economics professor wrote General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the midst of the Great Depression. The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.

That's rights it's all Keynes & FDR’s fault who reaped so much damage with deficit spending in the 30s that not even the best fiscally ‘conservative’ efforts of Reagan & the Bushs could repare the damage

Bah, Keynes was a good economist and he doesn't deserve being thrown into the same pot as FDR. That being said the criticism there against FDR and his new deal is deserving, the New Deal is considered by many many modern day economists to be the cause of a prolongation of the Depression and to have been prehaps the single worst American economic policy of all time.

That being said I see only about six altogether detrimental books on the complete (honourable mentions included) list, the obvious communist/Nazi books, the Population Bomb (pure and utter drivel that deserves to be burned for all time). Some people really need to pull that stick out of their ass...

[That NOS Guy]

Then again, damage is an entirely relative in these cases.

-NOS
Still assholes though

[Plekhanov]

Bah, Keynes was a good economist and he doesn't deserve being thrown into the same pot as FDR. That being said the criticism there against FDR and his new deal is deserving, the New Deal is considered by many many modern day economists to be the cause of a prolongation of the Depression and to have been prehaps the single worst American economic policy of all time.

I don't want to get into an argument on economic policy I was just pointing out the absurdity of conservatives who idolise Reagan & Bush complaining about government spending and the deficit today and trying to blame it upon Keynes & FDR.

[Frank Hipper]

What I find infinitely telling is that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not on that list.

And, while Nader made many false claims about the Corvair in Unsafe at Any Speed, it is not deserving to be on that list, either.

[Robert Walper]

I was honestly expecting the bible to be mentioned.

By conservative scholars?

I was going by the OP title rather than the actual people listing said books.

[Superman]

No Bible OR Koran...

[Frank Hipper]

No Bible OR Koran...

Were either written in the 19th or 20th centuries?

[Darth Wong]

No Bible OR Koran...

Were either written in the 19th or 20th centuries?

That is part of the conceit of the article, isn't it? That anything written before the 19th century is exempt. That's part and parcel of the conservative reactionary mindset.

Let's face it; there's not much literature surviving from the distant past which is still popular and socially influential today except for religious texts.

[Jarl Sven]

sometimes I fear for the species

[Robert Walper]

No Bible OR Koran...

Were either written in the 19th or 20th centuries?

I haven't found where it says the books had to be written in these eras, only their measurement of "harm" in said eras. Am I missing that part? *goes back to review again*

[Gandalf]

No Bible OR Koran...

Were either written in the 19th or 20th centuries?

I haven't found where it says the books had to be written in these eras, only their measurement of "harm" in said eras. Am I missing that part? *goes back to review again*

"Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

That particular wording would make it seem that said books have to originate from C19/C20.

[Robert Walper]

Were either written in the 19th or 20th centuries?

I haven't found where it says the books had to be written in these eras, only their measurement of "harm" in said eras. Am I missing that part? *goes back to review again*

"Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

That particular wording would make it seem that said books have to originate from C19/C20.

*nods* Ok, I see where I misinterpreted. I was substituting "of" with "in" I guess.

[Darth Wong]

What I find infinitely telling is that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not on that list.

And, while Nader made many false claims about the Corvair in Unsafe at Any Speed, it is not deserving to be on that list, either.

That list is worthless. Anyone who thinks that Darwin's theory and by extension, the whole field of modern biology is "harmful" has his head crammed so far up his ass that he can see his own lungs.

[Xenophobe3691]

What I find infinitely telling is that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not on that list.

And, while Nader made many false claims about the Corvair in Unsafe at Any Speed, it is not deserving to be on that list, either.

Yeah, I was wondering about the Protocols. Oh well, I guess those God-killing, money hungry Jews should be exposed.

Ah well, who wants the blood of innocent Christian Babies in their Matzah! I DO!

[Frank Hipper]

That list is worthless. Anyone who thinks that Darwin's theory and by extension, the whole field of modern biology is "harmful" has his head crammed so far up his ass that he can see his own lungs.

It's worse than merely worthless, it's a proactive attack.

I mean, take Nader's book for example. Yes, he was being more than a bit self-promoting, and yes when you had proper tire pressure the Corvair was far safer than he implied; but Unsafe at Any Speed was the birth of consumer awareness, and that consumer awareness not only benefits the consumer by promoting higher quality in the consumables we buy, but it promotes pure capitalistic ideals through spurring competition.

This kind of blind lashing out at anything that hints at opposition to the ideaology is what scares me so badly about current conservatives. They'll shoot themselves in the foot for the slightest semblence of gain; they have no insight.
They took the September 11th and the 2004 elections as carte blanche to run rampant and attempt to erase the past 70 years of social progress and produce a foreign policy that is a massive brown stain, replete with corn, in the BVDs of the world.

Childish and unthinking!

This mindset produced the ones that were going to do away with filibustering to gain a couple judges, without a thought to the possibilities of the future.

Putting a now nearly forgotten book on a list may not seem like much to lot a lot of people, but it's the implications as to what lies behind it that bothers me more than the action itself.

[Daltonator]

Let's organize a book burning and become True Patriots(tm)!

[Nephtys]

4. The Kinsey Report

Because human sexuality is bad and we must deny it's existance.

5. Democracy and Education

Because secular humanism and reason are bad things that never contributed to anything.

7. The Feminine Mystique

Because us women as anything except mobile baby factories is heresy.

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Because non-traditional economics is merely a front for those dirty reds and their plots to steal my bodilly fluids.

On Liberty

Terrible! John Stuart Mill is a card carrying commie mutant traitor, that's what!

Origin of the Species

Because our children should not be exposed to these so called 'facts'.

Silent Spring

Because Radiation and Chemical exposure is healthy for you, and gives you superpowers, not cancer.

Descent of Man

Because man certainly is the bestest EVER. MY BOOK TOLD ME SO!

Honestly, this is the biggest pile of agenda'ed crap ever. You can't group Stalin, Hitler and Mao with secular humanism, evolution, feminism, keynsian economics, and FDR.