Worst liberal/left wing book that you forced to read in High School or College?

My Squash ^ | 10/31/02 | Burkeman1

[Burkeman1]

Everyone has their horror story about some PC or Left Wing book they were forced to read in High School or College. My worst book was in High School. It was "The Fixer" by Bernard Malamud. It was the tale of a Russian Jew being falsley accused of the rape and murder of a Christian Russian girl just before the Communist coup of Russia. He was innocent of the crime and the book details his time in prison and the torments he was subjucted too. OF Course during his time in prison he becomes a Marxist and hopes for revolution! The entire book was one giant communist propaganda piece. Since I had already read Solzenitsyn by that time and questioned the book in class I was told to shut up by the teacher. I did- to my shame- and got my "A".

What is the worst piece of Left wing crap that you were forced to read in school?

[Burkeman1]

Not the best book I haver read but it was not propaganda either. "Grapes of Wraith" is a great novel and should be read by American school kids.

[Krafty123]

I am not sure if it is left-wing, but the worst book I had to read for school was A Tale of 2 Cities. Wuthering Heights was also pretty poor.

[Sally II]

Gosh, that's a great question. I can't wait to see how other people respond. I can't think of anything that was too horrible. In junior college I took an easy summer class in ecology. One day we had to read a leftist article that blasted the rich western countries for polluting the earth, and we were asked to write an essay on the article. Since I had been to a few third world countries and the college was located in an area that was heavily populated by welfare recipients, I argued that poor people and poor countries polluted the most --welfare people couldn't afford decent running cars, so they always had several junky cars parked around their dried up lawns. Poor countries couldn't afford the environmental laws that would cut emissions. I got an A in that class.

In university, the worst class was probably modern American history. We had to read Backfire,a book that blames American puritanism, in part, for the Vietnam war, and I also had to suffer through a Bill Moyers special that was highly critical of Ronald Reagan.

[beckett]

I wasn't forced to read it --- IOW it wasn't part of any curriculum --- but as a teen I read The Greening of America, and entered for a time into the looking glass world of Charles Reich. Also, I look back on Future Shock as a particularly bad piece of business, a totalist vision composed of lots of silly guesses and fantasy.

[Zeroisanumber]

Interesting what Charles Griffin did to himself in order to be able to write that book. I understand that he had bad skin problems for years afterwards and eventually died of it.

[Question_Assumptions]

Amazingly, one of my high school English teachers was a young, anti-drug fairly conservative Jewish guy who was into science fiction.

Of course my high school also showed the students Roman Polanski's MacBeth. The one funded by Playboy. The parental consent forms for the "R" rated movie mentioned "some violence". Of course the forms totally failed to mention the nude witches, the nude Lady MacBeth, and the maid getting raped on the hallway. This was in the early 1980s.

The real nutcase was the Psychology teacher. She thought that parents arranging for their young teenage daughters to lose their virginity with older guys was a great idea.

This is, of course, part of why I'm so interested in home schooling and/or private religious schools as an alternative to public schools.

[Burkeman1]

Sorry- but it is funny. They were moving and I was at their house to help get rid of surperfluous stuff. As I have an interest in old books my mom pointed out "Silent Spring" and I grabbed it. Without the Jacket and the fact that is on the "Readers of the Month Club" makes it's worth about 50 bucks.

[Green Knight]

The Story of B. Basically civilization is bad, overpopulation is gonna kill us all, Christianity is evil, yadda yadda yadda. It's predecessor, Ishmael, isn't as bad but it's up there.

[Fred Mertz]

Interesting what Charles Griffin did to himself in order to be able to write that book.

I believe his eyesight was also damaged by the UV rays. He always wore sunglasses if I'm not mistaken.

[habs4ever]

It's mostly a fog now, but one comes back to me and that's Nevile Shute's On The Beach.I liked the movie so much more.

[Pelham]

Funny that you should mention Future Shock. That book and its authors, the Tofflers, were great favorites of Newt Gingrich. Which isn't all that surprising to those who had doubts about him.

[Sally II]

Silent Spring! I was going to mention that one, too. But I only had to read one or two chapters in college. It really gets me riled up when people mention that book to confirm their fear for the environment these days. That book is so dated. Wasn't that whole book about DDT or some other very specific pesticide? They should make Ayn Rand required reading --to provide balance. I like what she says about the whole pesticides and environment scares --basically: since the rise in technology, people have never lived longer lives in all recorded history. Facts should speak louder than words, but unfortunately all the lefties aren't paying attention to the real world.

[beckett]

...the Tofflers, were great favorites of Newt Gingrich...

Yeah, I remember reading that. It did cause me concern, but then, I was never high on Gingrich --- never.

[Burkeman1]

Bill Moyers- I sat through an entire week of class time watching his "documentary" on Reagan and Iran Contra. Me and another classmate asked enough questions to cause the teacher to send us out of the room and then come us to us personally and ask us not to "disrupt" his class. We were intimidated and then stayed silent. I am ashamed of that to this day.

[VetoBill]

I am torn about this book, "Johnny Got his Gun"

Great because it goes past the glory often presented in wars and shows the grim horrors involved. Poor because it is often a tool of the leftists and pacifists and can lead one into their mindset.

I was forced to read this during a college history class, for what reason I still don't know... I believe it would fit better in a literature class.

[per loin]

That was a technical manual, that ought have been entitled: "How to Manufacture a Martin Luther King Jr.".

[chnsmok]

I graduated in 1965 in a small Nebraska town. No leftist stuff there (that I was aware of).

[Joe Bonforte]

Economics and the Public Purpose by John Kenneth Galbraith. But the professor (the only non-Keynesian, non-Marxist on the faculty) pulled a fast one on the rest of the economics faculty. He had to make us read the Galbraith book, so he also added Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom as the counterpoint.

[grumpster-dumpster]

1974- "Contemporary English" (Required for my major):

The title: "Noam Chomsky(sp?) (And a subtitle I can't remember)"

Reading this particular ditty was worth 50 points towards the final grade...
Since the basic premise of "Contemporary English" was NO more nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, etc... Just noun phrases and verb phrases that the student was required to diagram...AND since I had no chance to get out of the class with better than a "D" anyway... I only read the first page.

I'm sorry, I just didn't see the need to study the life of a guy who liked to diagram sentances. Since he turn out to be a full-fledged commie and noted wack-o, I don't feel I missed anything.

P.S.: Still got a "D" ...and was actually grateful for that inflated grade! :o)