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

[Flames Draft Watcher]

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

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
by John Maynard Keynes

9. Beyond Good and Evil
by Freidrich Nietzsche

8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
by Auguste Comte

7. The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan

6. Das Kapital
by Karl Marx

5. Democracy and Education
by John Dewey

4. The Kinsey Report
by Alfred Kinsey

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
by Mao Zedong

2. Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler

1. The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels

All I can say is wow...

[Cheese]

Forgot one....

The Bible

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Cheese@Jun 8 2005, 01:05 PM
Forgot one....

The Bible

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that conservatives consider the Bible neither harful, nor a book of the 19th or 20th century.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Wow? The list is pretty bang on. If I omit gender/feminist issues (obviously conservatives really love this stuff), then

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
by John Maynard Keynes

6. Das Kapital
by Karl Marx

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
by Mao Zedong

2. Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler

1. The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels

are books that severely deform people and their opinions to these days.

[Five-hole]

Personally, my favorite is in the honorable mentions category:

On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill
Score: 18

Very sad.

So how many of those has anybody read? I've read The Communist Manifesto (it's like 3 pages), Das Kapital (definitely NOT 3 pages), and Beyond Good and Evil. And On Liberty, I guess, though that wasn't in the original 10 list, as well as parts of The Origin of Species (hilarious) and Introduction to Psychoanalysis (Freud is dangerous now? What?)

[looooob]

must admit I was shocked to see these guys leave Origin of Species off their hit list...was relieved to see they gave it an honourable mention

[Agamemnon]

Originally posted by Flame Of Liberty@Jun 8 2005, 07:12 PM
Wow? The list is pretty bang on. If I omit gender/feminist issues (obviously conservatives really love this stuff), then

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
by John Maynard Keynes

6. Das Kapital
by Karl Marx

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
by Mao Zedong

2. Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler

1. The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels

are books that severely deform people and their opinions to these days.

Why was Mein Kampf one of the most harmful books of the 20th century?

The Communist Manifesto 'deforms' people? Books can do that? What is the right 'form'... yours? I suppose all copies should be burned...?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Agamemnon@Jun 8 2005, 01:20 PM

Why was Mein Kampf one of the most harmful books of the 20th century?

Are you freakin Serious??????????

[Frank the Tank]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz+Jun 8 2005, 02:23 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Bring_Back_Shantz @ Jun 8 2005, 02:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Agamemnon@Jun 8 2005, 01:20 PM

Why was Mein Kampf one of the most harmful books of the 20th century?

Are you freakin Serious?????????? [/b][/quote]
Haha! I wanted to do the same, but refrained....

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally posted by Frank the Tank+Jun 8 2005, 01:27 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Frank the Tank @ Jun 8 2005, 01:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Are you freakin Serious??????????

Haha! I wanted to do the same, but refrained.... [/b][/quote]
Yeah, I really should have held my tongue. I mean, it's not as though Mein Kampf directly contributed to an incredibly large portion of the German population participating in or at the very least ignoring the murder of 6 million innocent people, simply because they were Jewish......wait......

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz+Jun 8 2005, 07:23 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Bring_Back_Shantz @ Jun 8 2005, 07:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Agamemnon@Jun 8 2005, 01:20 PM

Why was Mein Kampf one of the most harmful books of the 20th century?

Are you freakin Serious?????????? [/b][/quote]
Well one has to ponder whether books can be evil or harmful by themself. If I read a blantantly racist viewpoint does that change me into a racist? Of course not. One can read a book and disagree with none, some or all of it.

If we are taught to believe everything we read then there might be a problem. But any critical thinker should evaluate ideas presented to him/her and choose to accept or reject them on their merit. Lies, untruths, bias are presented in books across the entire spectrum of topics.

Now the grey area for me is if you have kids who have yet to completely form their critical evaluation skills reading things with viewpoints that expouse hate, racism, etc. If you have authority figures recommending these types of things. But then still the book itself is not harmful or evil, the recommendation and affirmation of the ideas in it are harmful.

Interesting issue for sure. It's a very conservative view in general to see books as evil and as needing to be banned.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz+Jun 8 2005, 07:33 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Bring_Back_Shantz @ Jun 8 2005, 07:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Haha! I wanted to do the same, but refrained....

Yeah, I really should have held my tongue. I mean, it's not as though Mein Kampf directly contributed to an incredibly large portion of the German population participating in or at the very least ignoring the murder of 6 million innocent people, simply because they were Jewish......wait...... [/b][/quote]
Did the "book" itself contribute? Or was it that an authority figure also believed in these views and lead people to believe in these views?

Had some unknown wrote and published the book, would the holocaust have still happened without a Hitler to promote it and it's views?

[Looger]

i kinda think that mein kampf is a book that, had more people read, hitler would never have gotten past munich.

surprised that the outright lie 'protocols of the elders of zion' didn't make the list.

was published by lenin during his pogrom against the jews of russia in the 1920s.

book never mentions any specifically jewish things whatsoever, and goes through a blueprint of world domination through banks etc.

what many proponents of this book are unaware of is that an earlier work labeled 'protocols of the elders of scion' is nearly identical, penned by the secret-society-mad french of the late 19th century.

to this day many people believe that 'protocols' is a blueprint for the 'zionist overlord government' and refuse to see the facts of history...

very dangerous, i wager anti-semitism has cost this world a lot, not the least of which is a forever unsettled israel/palestine issue.

had world and local (arab) anti-semitism not been so high, israel would not have had 50 years of bloody conflict or even need the strategic land like the golan or west bank to defend itself.

anti-semitism, ugly stuff.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Alright, fine, the book itself isn't evil, but the ideas it contained were dangerous and ultimately very harmful, and that makes the book dangerous.

But I suppose I could argue that a book on it's own is harmful or dangerous. No one is going to argue that a gun when used for it's intended purpose is dangerous and will cause harm. Mein Kampf was written with one purpose in mind. To disseminate ideals of hatred. So I suppose when you take into account the intent of the book then yes you could say it is evil or dangerous.

There are a lot of books about racism, but for the most part the ones I'd consider to be not evil or dangerous are written ABOUT racism, as a means to analyze or document it. Mein Kampf was written to perpetuate and validate it, something that I'm sure a lot of people would agree is evil.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally posted by Flames Draft Watcher@Jun 8 2005, 01:03 PM
4. The Kinsey Report
by Alfred Kinsey

Larf, #####ing Christian Converatives. I am now going to go out and buy all the books on this list.. anyone got an e-mail address to the writer of this list?

[RougeUnderoos]

His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.

Ha ha ha. Gotta get a shot in on Clinton. I also liked the shot at Betty Friedan for screwing a communist.

What a ridiculous exercise. "Hmm, let's think of a whole bunch of stuff we don't like and make a list of books to match"!

I'm not surprised they left out the book called "The Book That Says Everyone Is Stupid and Will Follow Blindly Another Book and There Are No Other Factors But the Evil Original Book".

That Origin of the Species almost made it tells me all I need to know about that bunch.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally posted by Bring_Back_Shantz@Jun 8 2005, 07:53 PM
Alright, fine, the book itself isn't evil, but the ideas it contained were dangerous and ultimately very harmful, and that makes the book dangerous.

But I suppose I could argue that a book on it's own is harmful or dangerous. No one is going to argue that a gun when used for it's intended purpose is dangerous and will cause harm. Mein Kampf was written with one purpose in mind. To disseminate ideals of hatred. So I suppose when you take into account the intent of the book then yes you could say it is evil or dangerous.

There are a lot of books about racism, but for the most part the ones I'd consider to be not evil or dangerous are written ABOUT racism, as a means to analyze or document it. Mein Kampf was written to perpetuate and validate it, something that I'm sure a lot of people would agree is evil.

But the book doesn't mysteriously "perpetuate" ideas all by itself. It only perpetuates these ideas if people agree with them. Reading a book that promotes racism does not suddenly make me a racist unless I choose to believe those ideas. Books can't change your ideas, ideals and philosophies unless you decide you believe what the author is saying.

So I guess this issue can be applied to other areas of life and it's a contentious one amongst "conformists" vs "free thinkers" as I've decided to term them. There's a group of people that wants to control everything you read or hear so that you aren't exposed to "dangerous" or "evil" ideas. Another group of people would say, let everyone read what they want and they'll decide for themselves what ideas, ideals and philosophies they believe in. Only when those ideas are put into action is when those people should be judged.

What's interesting is that the idea of "free speech" would tend to indicate allowing anything but we do seem to make some exceptions.

[habernac]

Alright, fine, the book itself isn't evil, but the ideas it contained were dangerous and ultimately very harmful, and that makes the book dangerous.

So by that logic, every movie thriller we watch is dangerous too and should be on the banned list?

[RougeUnderoos]

Just poking around that site and they have the usual suspects hanging around but what caught my eye is that Pat Sajak -- the real Pat Sajak of Wheel! Of! Fortune! fame is one of their contributors. He writes "essays" according to the first one I glanced at.

Good Stuff

[Buff]

Originally posted by Cheese@Jun 8 2005, 01:05 PM
Forgot one....

The Bible

I don't think it is harmfull at all.