Posted on 05/31/2005 8:48:47 AM PDT by hinterlander
HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.
(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...
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Why is that on the list?
I've come to believe conservatives by and large fall into two groups: there are William Bennett and PJ O'Rourke types.
Some of the conservative thinkers polled in this exercise are probably within the Bennett camp and would see "On Liberty" as dangerous.
On a side note, I think that whatever magic has been used to glue these two groups of thought together in order to form the modern conservative movement is starting to erode. And liberals are getting better at exploiting our differences and getting us to fight internally.
See my post about Darwin and eugenics.
Nowhere near influential enough to do any real damage. Thankfully, Al Gore ain't exactly an eternal best seller.
The Communist Manifesto was published 11 years before Charles Darwin published his theories on evolution.
No kidding. Far more harmful than half the books on the list.
Lots of people believed in eugenics, not just Darwin. Take US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Buck v. Bell (1927) for instance. "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Nothing related to Creationism?
Funny thing... At my son's bris, there were three gen-X guys -- myself (a Jewish libertarian Republican), the godmother's husband (a conservative southern Baptist), and the godfather (a gay man, somewhat areligious and apolitical at the time).
One of the guests (a silent generation guy or very early boomer), mentioned Dr. Spock positively. Simultaneously, us three gen-X guys just exploded, blasting away at Dr. Spock's child-rearing advice. The older generations just sat their stunned -- I think my mother tried a token, "Well, he was good on health advice," but that was about it.
But it was amazing that the three of us, from different backgrounds and with somewhat different beliefs had the same, gut, visceral reaction against Dr. Spock. Granted, we were friends with each other, so we had some common beliefs -- but still.... Well, let's just say I think the influence of Dr. Spock has considerably waned.
The list has a whole "us good -- them bad" basis that made perfect sense in the Cold War, but that looks a little threadbare now. It's less a question of sides right now than it is of taking a close look at things and trying to make sense of them. To the degree that it is a question of sides -- of the West vs. militant Islam -- we may find that we are more on Mill's or Comte's or Kant's or Darwin's side than we might have wished. Perhaps Human Events is right after all, but it's better to try to figure things out on our own rather than accept judgments handed down by authorities.
Great list. Except for the presence of Darwin's books, I agree with the entire list. Good post.
It was Darwin's book that inspired many on this list if I recall
Yep.
"My perception is that while Darwin's theories have their problems, there is at least some truth to the idea of natural selection. Otherwise every animal breeder in history was a whack job. As to a literal interpretation of Genesis - well, it doesn't look to me like God created the earth in 7 24-hour days."
I really don't disagree with anything you say here. However, I can still disagree that natural selection is a sufficient explanation of the origin of man.
Funny how the Church used to be ridiculed for Its Index of Prohibited Books. I'm sure most if not all of these made the Index in their day.
Here's a partial listing. I'm happy that all of Sartres books made the list. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences. Reading isn't always good. What you read is what matters.
Not hatred, but, rather ignorant boobery mixed with religious fanaticism. It's the idiot wing of the conservative movement making an ass of itself again. I think for it to really be hatred, you need to have some basic knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. And even a cursory glance at the evolution threads shows that you can accuse creatards of many things, but knowledge is not one of them.
;-)
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