THe Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th century

what is 'Democracy and Education'?

John Dewey.

I was going to say RTFA, but I won't cos it's shit.

Ha ha so did I. The list turned out to be more amusing and depressing than that though.

...portraying capitalism as an ugly phase in the development of human society in which capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the cheapest possible wages to earn the greatest possible profits.

Uh, guys - have you not noticed that THIS IS TRUE?

And no, the Communist Manifesto is not based on hate, although it does advocate armed struggle. What people fail to realise is that class war is not about the individuals in each class, it is about the structure of the class system - the death of the system does not have to mean the death of the individuals in the ruling class.

Many xposts.

Readers of Human Events Online: "Where do I sign???"

Also, and I normally hate this position but wow is it appropriate (even if said book falls outside of the baseline parameter of the list in that it was written before the 19th century), THE BIBLE.

I absolutely cannot figure out the purpose of this sentence. It's not saying anything, in fact it's just filling space before we get to the #1 book (which is The Communist etc.). If it's a sneer, what exactly is it sneering at?

So does that make it a good thing, or a bad thing?

Discuss.

(Haha it should be no surprise that I have issues with Nietzche being on this list.)

the honorable mentions are pretty hilarious too. "origin of species"...

m.

the conservative platform?

(sorry Dan (& others))

Any version of this list which doesn't include Infinite Jest/Gravity's Rainbow is necessarily useless.

Horrors.

Paulo Coelho

The Dice Man

erm erm erm

JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL

Real actual most harmful book of the last 5 years = "Who Moved My Cheese?"

Left Behind, obv.
Chicken Soup for the Soul
The Da Vinci Code (it's probably not old enough)
The Wheel Of Time Vol.1

The Wheel Of Time Vol.1

Actually swap this for The Belgariad Vol.1 kthxs

Mark David Chapman did.

http://giganticmag.com/images/ilx/lennon.jpg

He made loyal Gloria's life miserable. "The only place you could go for privacy was the bathroom," she told Gaines, "and so often at night I'd go in there and lock the door and just cry."

He bought two copies of The Catcher in the Rye and made Gloria read one. He talked of changing his name to Holden Caulfield and even wrote the Hawaii attorney general to ask about the procedure.

On Sept. 20, he wrote a letter to a friend, Lynda Irish, in New Mexico. On it he drew a picture of Diamond Head with the sun, moon and stars above it.

"I'm going nuts," he wrote.

He signed it "The Catcher in the Rye."

He brought home books from the library on one subject after another. One of them was John Lennon: One Day at a Time by Anthony Fawcett. In it he read about Lennon's life in New York. He was furious.

"He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions," Gloria told Gaines. He began to talk of going to New York.

And he began, he would tell Gaines in prison, to pray to Satan. "There were no candles, no incantations," Gaines writes. "Just Mark, sitting naked, rocking back and forth at the controls of his stereo and tape recorder, splicing together his reasons for killing John Lennon from the lyrics of Beatles songs, the soundtrack of "The Wizard of Oz", and quotations from The Catcher in the Rye.

Of course, it's also possible that you're an asshole. Let's not rule that out.

he's hardly a lunatic. i think the main mistake people make with him is to read him outside of the philosophical tradition and context within which he is working.

a pretty nice description of Nietzsche's philosophy btw!

I guess you're separating the definition of "lunatic" and "smart and important man". I think he's both. A lot of people are.

He makes sense, terrible sense, in chunks. As a whole, he's a smart lunatic -- like, say, Hitler, for instance

No! no no no no no. Nietzsche is a logical man, fundamentally, and holes in his logic are just that. Holes. Perhaps at worst his ideas are the ravings of a nice, well-meaning, completely innocuous madman who lived with his mother. Like Marx, he advocates nothing that we can today point at and say, "That's morally wrong." He's a thinker. He's a kook. He was maybe wrong, but we need these people.

Mein Kampf, on the other hand, should be taught in schools as a perfect example of every logical fallacy ever invented. You want to teach logic and critical thinking, teach this book. It's the best example of what not to do that could probably ever be written.

Nietzsche's a philosopher that happens to be insane and whose ideas are, in my opinion, completely untenable. That doesn't make him Hitler, and I'm sorry for saying any such thing. My bad, for real.

And I think I've said too much already.

You sound like Nietzsche ;)
I don't think his ideas are untenable. He's trying to think his way out of the straitjacket his society put him in. Sometimes that might be doomed to fail. But we need to keep trying, nonetheless.

think about it.

nice choice (as far as the fluff slot goes)

We do?

Does Steve.n still post here?

Am I wrong for wanting to run a 10 most harmful records poll on ILM now? ;)

Am I wrong for wanting to run a 10 most harmful polls poll on ILM now? ;)

Curious George books spread lies about the AIDS virus

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

Paulo Coelho

The Dice Man

Note to self, never read The Dice Man.

Coelho is some seriously harmful and self-deluding bullshit.

The Dice Man is very funny. Sometimes dicks like stuff that's good.

Top 10 non-harmful books:

1. The Holy Bible
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Non-harmful? The Bible?

the original list is hilarious, especially with the runners-up. i mean, "on liberty"? what in the world could a conservative find in there to disagree with?

"what is to be done?" and possibly "mein kampf" are the only books on the list that caused any demonstrable harm.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b361/tapestore/jk.jpg

Top 10 non-harmful books:

1. The Holy Bible

the original list is hilarious, especially with the runners-up. i mean, "on liberty"? what in the world could a conservative find in there to disagree with?

The origins of "nonjudgmentalism" in modern thought and the idea that eccentricities are good, ipso facto, because they break away from tradition. Other things too, but those are two biggies.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/da/LRonHubbard-Dianetics-ISBN1403105464-cover.jpg/150px-LRonHubbard-Dianetics-ISBN1403105464-cover.jpg

I can't believe I'm first to thread with this.

ZS, I think libcrypt was making with the joeks.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1980/51wk5wfps2blkx2.jpg

I don't notice the sarcasm when it's evident, and sometimes I think I sense it when it's not there. I suck at the internet!

You're doing fine!!

I apologize in advance for posting this:

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/167/imageuploadimagexq2.gif

Is there a thread where people post everything harmful about The Holy Bible? The fact that Eve took the apple (and other shit in the bible) has made women be treated and stereotyped as inferior since god knows when that sacreligious book was written.

Is there a thread where people post everything harmful about The Holy Bible?

Manic Street Preachers: Clasur Neu Methiant

We should note that Human Events is really far-right wacko shit; it does not, despite Reagan's fondness for quoting anecdotes in Cabinet meetings, represent mainstream conservative thought.

let's recall that at one time ronald reagan was a far-right wacko who did not represent mainstream conservative thought!

c.f. also barry goldwater's gradual evolution (helped by liberal-ish dissing of falwell) from epitome of wacko right-winger into the epitome of the "good conservative"

Is there a thread where people post everything harmful about The Holy Bible?

THIS SOUNDS LIKE FUN

Gah, there's enough Dawkins threads on this board, what runneth over with such critiques. Or others 'bout 'ligion and such.