I think thinking is so important

[altariel]

communicator links to a list of the ten most harmful books compiled by a "panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders". In a particularly nice touch, the links to the books are to versions you can buy on Amazon rather than to online copies, where available.

The idea of a harmful book is meaningless to me, although I imagine that if I dropped a hardback of Das Kapital on my toe it would probably hurt a fair old bit.

Whilst it didn't make the top ten, two or more of the judges listed On Liberty by John Stuart Mill as a harmful book. Ah, but then Mill knew all about this "peculiar evil", didn't he?:

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. [...] [T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error." (On Liberty, chapter 2).

I'm particularly grateful that a list of these miserably misnamed "scholars" is provided at the end of this article so that I can heckle take the opportunity to engage in mutually constructive debate should I be unlucky enough to come across any of them again. Shame on them.

Comments

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

*standing ovation* Well said, indeed.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I don't usually remember to get cross about things, but this really annoyed me.

[pseudnik.livejournal.com]

I am strangely proud of the fact that I own copies of three of the top ten and that I have read a further two of them.

I shall, of course, immediately rush out and obtain the other five, if only out of curiosity as to exactly how they are going to harm me.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I shall, of course, immediately rush out and obtain the other five, if only out of curiosity as to exactly how they are going to harm me.

Careful carrying them home, you don't want to put your back out.

[pseudnik.livejournal.com]

I had visions of being run over by a bus while I was reading the blurbs on the back covers.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Kids! Beware of books!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-)

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

DEWEY? OMG, they include DEWEY????

*chortles*

Erm thank you for linking to this; it is an enormous help to me right now for many professional reasons that I'll probably be posting about shortly. Good God, though. I guess our free-market friends don't much care for the marketplace of ideas.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Very glad that this is helpful.

I don't know anything about Dewey, to be honest. The complaint that "he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking “skills” instead" made our illustrious listmakers sound a bit Gradgrindly.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

PS On Dewey, good old Wikipedia supplied.

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

He is fairly obscure, yes, but something of a secular religion in my neck of the woods, so it's very amusing to see him listed with such heavyweights. God, that's the funniest thing I've ever seen, and will send my entire program into a fit of gloating that will probably last for weeks.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-) I'm now imagining a series of posters of him with legends like "More Harmful Than Darwin" or "More Harmful Than Foucault".

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

I imagine that if I dropped a hardback of Das Kapital on my toe it would probably hurt a fair old bit.

And paper cuts are an issue that the liberal media just ignores...:)

I'm particularly grateful that a list of these miserably misnamed "scholars" is provided at the end of this article [...]. Shame on them.

Yes - there are certainly books that need to be refuted, because of bad methodology and misinformation, but surely a scholar should discourage acceptance of those books by showing that a convincing refutation is possible? Not by vague assertions based on ideological bias.

That's a wonderful quote by Mill - thanks for posting it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

And paper cuts are an issue that the liberal media just ignores...:)

I bet they all have shares in Elastoplast.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

Thanks for providing this quote from J.S.Mill!

The link to the list seems to be going the rounds on the Internet right now; I, too, had seen it and frothed at the mouth in my own LJ over so much (academically sanctioned) idiocy, but the passage from On Liberty is probably the very best antidote to that kind of braindead polemics.

The funny thing is that even John Milton -- not only John Stuart Mills -- would appear like a flaming liberal next to the person who wrote the article and the scholars who must have endorsed it. While Milton adhered to the notion of "harmful" and "dangerous" books, he still advocated engaging with their ideas.

I can't see any intellectual engagement here, only oversimplifying condemnations à la "The Nazis liked Nietzsche" (well, their own watered-down version of some of his ideas without the philosophical background/context), "There were over 10 million copies of Mein Kampf in Germany" (not arguing that the content of this book turned out to be very harmful, only pointing out that you simply got Mein Kampf for free on many occasions during the Third Reich), "Betty Friedan was a radical left-wing journalist" (so what?) and "she did not choose a career as a housewife and mother" (I've read an article about her that described how her husband used to beat her, but also stated how proud she was of her son).

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Good points about Nietzsche, and thank you for that extra information on Betty Friedan. I probably shouldn't get so worked up about something which, as you say, as very little intellectual engagement but - grr! it gets my goat!

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted to see that only one of the "scholars" was a woman. Silly old buggers.

I didn't see Plato's Symposion on their list and am quite surprised...

Mind you, I am convinced they haven't actually read all the ones they did list. Have you ever tried to get through a work of Adorno's? How it can be dangerous when it's barely undestandable, godknows.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think I read Dialectic of Enlightenment as an undergrad; I certainly wrote an essay or two on the basis that I had!

[aervir.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted to see that only one of the "scholars" was a woman.

And her name is Phyllis Schlafly...

Re: Plato

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't see Plato's Symposion on their list and am quite surprised...

But ever since Leo Strauss, the neocons are all convinced Plato's on their side. And since no one who is For Them can also be Against Them, according to the only logical device in the neocon/fundie handbook, Plato must never have written anything offensive to them or if he did, it must be disavowed...

Dwim

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I suggest sending them all copies of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Good idea!

[bill-leisner.livejournal.com]

DailyKos has a few more suggestions for the list:

*Goodnight Moon. Because the bunny is wearing blue pajamas and we all know what that means.

*Webster's Dictionary. Because it has all "those words" in it.

*Roget's Thesaurus. Because it helps you find even more ways to say "those words."

*The Pet Goat. Because even the hardiest freepers cringe when they think about Bush and those seven minutes on 9/11. Ticktockticktock...

*Yertle the Turtle. Rick Santorum can't read it without fainting. It's just all male turtle on turtle on turtle...wriggling and writhing and wet. What's next...a "Pride" parade??

*Richard Scarry's Best Counting Book Ever. Because math leads to science. Science leads to heathen claptrap like "evolution" and "global warming" and "stem-cell research."

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Damn Richard Scarry and his heathen lies!

[mgkellner.livejournal.com]

I think by going for the requisite "Top 10" list, they diluted their message. Many of the books are on the list because the list makers are protesting the loss of the 18th Century, and are mad as heck that it didn't stick around forever. Darwin, Decimal, Fredan, et all fit into that category, and are just laughable as choices for this list. The title, "Books Stodgy Conservatives Don't Like Very Much", would be a better title for a list of such books.

However, you cannot deny that there are very harmful ideas. Actually, there are just two harmful ideas. One is that our group, be it racial, national, religious, or cultural, is inherently superior, and has the preordained right to tell everyone else what to do, or worse, that we have to "cleanse" the land of inferior types to make room for this lofty group. The other is that we have a the right to take your property, for whatever reason. I put forth the position that books that do a good job of convincing people to sign on to either of those programs are indeed harmful. That is not to say the publication or reading of these books should be supressed. That is the worst thing possible, because it makes the authors into martyrs, and will simply increase the appeal, as they now become forbidden knowledge. Such books need to be taught, and examined as the totalitarian claptrap that they are.

mk

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Many of the books are on the list because the list makers are protesting the loss of the 18th Century, and are mad as heck that it didn't stick around forever.

The Declaration of Independence started a war and lots of people died, OMG harmful! ;-D

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I put forth the position that books that do a good job of convincing people to sign on to either of those programs are indeed harmful.

I don't think it's the books. I think it's the people that write them, and promote them, and turn them into policy - and also those who fail to counter them.

I'm shocked

[(Anonymous)]

John Dewey beat out Lenin?

Boy, there are some pragmatists over here who'll be ecstatic, in a "badge of honor" sort of way.

I'm kind of surprised "Angels in America" didn't make even the (dis)honorable mentions. They've got all these heavy philosophical works, but nothing from the ever-offensive arts? That's just not fair and balanced!

Dwim

Re: I'm shocked

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It was interesting that there were no gun manuals included. They must have caused a fair bit of damage.

Re: I'm shocked

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, one wonders about those sorts of silences. But I guess this would be the ideologically dangerous books list, not the list of books telling people how to create and operate physically dangerous things.

But since it is an ideological list, the other omission that caught my eye as I read over the top ten was that the judges barely see fit to mention racism as a dangerous idea. They mention the mass-murder of Jews under "Mein Kampf", but as a topic, anti-semitism isn't brought up, nor is any other form of racism. None of the books listed in the top ten, with the exception of "Mein Kampf", readily lend themselves to analysis in terms of racialized politics. It's as if that concept had no part in the horrors of the past two centuries. To me, that's rather telling.

Dwim