altariel | I think thinking is so important

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.