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

Human Events Online ^ | May 31, 2005 | Human Events

[music is math]

i think yonder is referring to keynes' quote "in the long run we are all dead", which was just him trying to say that keynesian horseshit policies are purely short-run, not long run (i.e. keynes wasn't making any grand philosophical observations, just pointing out that assuming things resolve themselves in the economic long-run is small comfort to the economically afflicted in the here and now).

[SittinYonder]

Keynes got it right about the way the Versailles Treaty was dishing out punishment and humiliation to Germany. I didn't say he was a dummy, but his economic theories were directly responsible for leading the United States down a socialist path. FDR used Keynes to bolster the New Deal, and in reality it was WWII that brought America out of the depression and not FDR's big government spending. I realize it's a debatable position, but it's decided in my mind.

[newheart]

" Among working biological scientists, only a tiny minority of kooks have a problem with evolution, and even those kooks hardly ahve any problem calling it a theory."

Nothing like a little ad hominem to start off a discussion. I think I'll pass, but I will at least say that I'm not it is helpful to classify someone like Michael Behe or William Harris as a 'kook'.

[Protagoras]

i think yonder is referring to keynes' quote "in the long run we are all dead",

He was wrong on that account, so that can't be it.

[Range Rover]

I would like to nominate Saul Alinsky - Rules for Radicals

On Hillary's bookshelf

[AuH2ORepublican]

What book made #3?

[newheart]

"I'm not it is helpful..." should read 'I'm not sure it is helpful...'

But then what can you expect from a kook (and pretty proud of it) like me?

[mbraynard]

The question was the worse books of the last two centuries. I believe the PEZ was from prior to this time and was a bastardization of an earlier book condeming Gipsys.

[SittinYonder]

Kudo to you, for not only reading all the book, but also for debating and berating the class communist.:)

I deserve no congratulations. I was a non-traditional student with a minimum of 10 years on the poor kid, I didn't relent even when he was completely disarmed and humiliated, and I took an extreme amount of pleasure in turning the rest of the class entirely against him and onto my side (the professor, uncommonly, was already on my side). It was a sin for me to do it and even more sinful to enjoy it as much as I did.

[blueblazes]

Doesn't it always seem to come down to a lack of balls? Frequently we can see what's coming but the pols lack the testicular fortitude to stop it or take decisive action. Look at our current immigration situation - or Europe's. It's pretty obvious what the outcome will be, but the powers that be do nothing to stop it. Maybe it's just part of the "human condition".

[Graymatter]

My personal anti-favorite: A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. Nasty piece of work.

[Moosilauke]

This list seems to be conflating "evil movements" and "books by evil people". "Mein Kampf" was an autobiography of an evil man, but that doesn't make it one of the most evil books of the century. It didn't seduce people with a destructive world view. It was crap as literature, and was recognized as such at the time. Hitler's success, while it lasted, was due to the exercise of brutal force, not to the subtle attraction of his writing. A book like "Silent Spring" should rank much higher on the scale of evil. Its effect was based on the book itself and the facts it alleged to portray, not on the personality of the author.

[OXENinFLA]

On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill



HUH???

[Graymatter]

And where's the Dianetics thing?

[AuH2ORepublican]

You inverted Immanuel Kant's name. Here's a little ditty to remind you of his name and those of other philosophers:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietszche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates himself was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato they say could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his Dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am !"
Yes Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he's pissed.

[OXENinFLA]

[redgolum]

Ah the philosopher's song!

Now all I need is some Spam..

[Squawk 8888]

"Silent Spring" should be on the list.

Agreed. The genocidal frenzy it uleashed was more devastating than the one outlined in Mein Kampf.

[steve-b]

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
HUH???

This inclusion does serve a valuable purpose. It makes it easy to apply the "KOOKERY: IGNORE" stamp to this list and (if it's worth doing) look for an intellectually valid effort toward the same goal.

[L,TOWM]

I've read both. The communist manifesto is little more than a political pamphlet. Mein kampf is a farily unstructured collection of rants.

Worth reading if only to see what embittered envy and arrogance (with no apparrent accomplishment to back it up) can produce.