Don't Read These Books!

Politics International Politics
1

According to the conservative website Human Events, the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century are:

  1. The Communist Manifesto
  2. Mein Kampf
  3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
  4. The Kinsey Report
  5. Democracy and Education
  6. Das Kapital
  7. The Feminine Mystique
  8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
  9. Beyond Good and Evil
  10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Honorable Mentions include:

* The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich
* On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
* Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner
* Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel
* The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
* Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault
* Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
* Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader (???)
* Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
* Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
* Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
* The Greening of America by Charles Reich
* Descent of Man by Charles Darwin

Is a comment even necessary?

Surprised they didn’t add the Qu’ran. I’d add the Bible.

2

[quote=“Toe Tag”]According to the conservative website Human Events, the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century are:

  1. The Communist Manifesto
  2. Mein Kampf
  3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
    …

Is a comment even necessary? [/quote]

Not with respect to those three. I’d agree with the assessment.

I certainly would not ban them, however.

3

I see nothing about “banning” anything. I see the most harmful books being identified. Let’s look more closely…

According to the conservative website Human Events, the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century are:

  1. The Communist Manifesto

Did not communism kill the greatest number of people in the 20th century and lead to untold misery and economic dislocation?

  1. Mein Kampf

Naziism and Hitler did not destroy Europe and lead to great misery?

  1. Quotations from Chairman Mao

Chinese communism was an exercise in humanity? freedom?

  1. The Kinsey Report

Disagree

  1. Democracy and Education

Do not know this book

  1. Das Kapital

See above.

  1. The Feminine Mystique

Are women happier today as “liberated” career women or do many now regret not trying to balance and have families? This is ditto for men incidentally but there was never the same level of hostility to family life as exhibited by Betty Friedan and her ilk. No?

  1. The Course of Positive Philosophy

???

  1. Beyond Good and Evil

Might determines morality. What I feel (if I think that I am one of the exceptional) determines my own reality, my own reality? no wonder Nietzche went insane.

  1. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Unfamiliar will look into it.

Honorable Mentions include:

  • The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich

So we are now facing underpopulation and graying populations. NOT overpopulation as our most serious problem. So? Who was right?

  • On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

Is this a joke? THIS book?

  • Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner
  • Reflections on Violence by Georges Sorel

???

  • The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Disagree

  • Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault

Yes, we have found that insane people and sane people are really the same. It just involves different levels of power determining who really is insane and who is not?

  • Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

Most of this research was long ago disproved and the “free love” that it preached has been responsible for a great deal of promiscuous sex that has not led to happiness but AIDS, broken families and lonely people at age 50.

  • Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader (???)

Depends on if you view the present crop of trial lawyers and their voracious appetite for law suits as being a serious problem for legitimate business, ultimately the consumer and how much this costs economic growth.

  • Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Again, why is it that at age 50 so many would be man-hating feminists like Maureen Down suddenly are desperate for marriage and family life?

  • Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Don’t know it.

  • Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Much of Freudianism has also been discredited to my understanding though I am not an expert.

  • The Greening of America by Charles Reich

Again, dependsd on the extent. When man is viewed as a germ worth destroying to preserve the formerly “pristine” Mother Earth then I think that the priorities have been skewed.

  • Descent of Man by Charles Darwin

Disagree.

Is a comment even necessary?

I think that it is. More than half of these books were seriously flawed not just in terms of morality but in terms of research and conclusions thereof. I think that a much wider debate needs to be held on many of these books and their reprecussions rather than openly dismissing the argument that the conservative group is trying to make. AND from my understanding these books have been labeled the most harmful to the Conservative Christian cause. Did anyone say they should be banned? AND if you are a Christian Conservative then you may value family, free markets and Creationism so these books, yes, would be a problem with your world view.

I have no issue with that. I would have an issue if this group was in fact calling for them to be banned. I want people to read these books, understand them, see how they have failed and come to their senses. The more they read, the more they cannot help but conclude that these ideas and their proponents were deeply flawed.

4

[b]“And the winner is: 1. The Communist Manifesto … followed by 2. Mein Kampf!”

Yes!
Yes!!
YEEEEES!!!
DEUTSCHLAND!!!
DEUTSCHLAND WINS!!![/b]

Though my friend says that list is crap. The books burn all the same when put on a pyre.

Serious again though … why is neither the Bible nor the Quran on the harmful books list? Both time and again have been standard excuses to kill. And then some for good measure. Leaving them out leaves a bad aftertaste in this German victory.

5

Agreed. Banning them only makes them more attractive. The forbidden fruit as it were.

mmmmmmmmm…forbidden fruit :homer:

6

Hint: always use “search” first

forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … mful+books
Forumosa :: View topic - Top ten most harmful books of the past 200 years

7

[quote]* Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault

Yes, we have found that insane people and sane people are really the same. It just involves different levels of power determining who really is insane and who is not?
[/quote]

Sounds like the movie “In The Mouth of Madness”. Awesome flick.

8

What. Some of my favorite books. I’d be lost without Beyond Good and Evil. :slight_smile: Without it, I’d probably think suffering was the highest of virtues.

9

The mere fact that On Liberty is on this list, pretty much makes it crap and not credible at all.

10

I did not agree with that inclusion on the list but come on several of the other ones…

11

Ideas in and of themselves are not necessarily dangerous. Personally, I’d rather burn a book burner than a book.

HG

12

While not necessarily the reason, everything in this world has been done in the name of what one believes. Civilization, empires, wars, values, virtues, and truth–all things we could do without. :slight_smile:

13

Will this become a “don’t read”?

Peter is also more of an “egoist” in Barrie’s manuscript, compared with the final published version, she said: “I would say he is more mean.”
This depiction is arguably more consistent with the ending of the book, where Peter callously reveals to Wendy that he has forgotten Tinkerbell entirely. He then takes Wendy’s daughter off to Neverland, leaving Wendy behind, desperate to be allowed to come.
“Barrie was not afraid of going to some dark places. He was also trying to show that children can be fierce,”said Nelson.

14

no.
just more accurately shows how any normal author progresses throughout the writing of his/her book.

15

Some actual banned books:

16

Read Nietzsche, Hitler, Mill and Darwin. Bonus points to anyone who can spell “Nietzsche” correctly on the first try. Not sure how Utilitarianism is supposedly harmful, but I can’t be bothered to look into “Human Events” (whatever that is).

17

“Top Seven Classic Novels Banned from High Schools”
Using no evidence whatsoever , conservative pulls facts out of ass. Only two of the books mentioned appear on the list of classics that are actually banned
“1984” for violence (rats) and sex(Winston and Julia)
“Brave New World” for sex (the orgy)
The rest have been banned for sex, violence, foul language (most of them) or racism/racist language -“To Kill A Mockingbird” for use of the word ‘nigger’ (also violence against children)-“Gone With The Wind” which is a pot-boiler which shouldn’t be on a list of classics, for racism,. (Surprised not to see “Huckleberry Finn”, which used to be banned for its bad attitude to authority, and then for its use of ‘nigger’.) “The Lord of The Rings” was banned by Evangelists too stupid to understand the word fantasy. Most of the books were banned to “protect” against sex and violence. sometimes by overly-concerned liberals, sometimes by agitated conservatives.
The author of this piece also seems to misunderstand the word ‘banned’:
"For some inexplicable reason, George Eliot has been banned from the classrooms, mostly from indifference. " I regret that students are not reading George Eliot, my second-favourite writer (after Dosteovski), but that doesn’t mean that she is banned. Unfortunately ‘Middlrmarch’, her best work, is too long for school -its a tale of modern science versus rural conservative stupidity (the kind of people who today deny climate change as a big plot cooked up by George Soros).
Who do you think tried to ban most of these books, and why?

  1. The Great Gatsby , by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  2. The Catcher in the Rye , by J.D. Salinger

  3. The Grapes of Wrath , by John Steinbeck

  4. To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee

  5. The Color Purple , by Alice Walker

  6. Ulysses , by James Joyce

  7. Beloved , by Toni Morrison

  8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

  9. 1984 , by George Orwell

  10. Lolita , by Vladmir Nabokov

  11. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

  12. Catch-22 , by Joseph Heller

  13. Brave New World , by Aldous Huxley

  14. Animal Farm , by George Orwell

  15. The Sun Also Rises , by Ernest Hemingway

  16. As I Lay Dying , by William Faulkner

  17. A Farewell to Arms , by Ernest Hemingway

  18. Their Eyes Were Watching God , by Zora Neale Hurston

  19. Invisible Man , by Ralph Ellison

  20. Song of Solomon , by Toni Morrison

  21. Gone with the Wind , by Margaret Mitchell

  22. Native Son , by Richard Wright

  23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , by Ken Kesey

  24. Slaughterhouse-Five , by Kurt Vonnegut

  25. For Whom the Bell Tolls , by Ernest Hemingway

  26. The Call of the Wild , by Jack London

  27. Go Tell it on the Mountain , by James Baldwin

  28. All the King’s Men , by Robert Penn Warren

  29. The Lord of the Rings , by J.R.R. Tolkien

  30. The Jungle , by Upton Sinclair

  31. Lady Chatterley’s Lover , by D.H. Lawrence

  32. A Clockwork Orange , by Anthony Burgess

  33. The Awakening , by Kate Chopin

  34. In Cold Blood , by Truman Capote

  35. The Satanic Verses , by Salman Rushdie

  36. Sophie’s Choice , by William Styron

  37. Sons and Lovers , by D.H. Lawrence

  38. Cat’s Cradle , by Kurt Vonnegut

  39. A Separate Peace , by John Knowles

  40. Naked Lunch , by William S. Burroughs

  41. Brideshead Revisited , by Evelyn Waugh

  42. Women in Love , by D.H. Lawrence

  43. The Naked and the Dead , by Norman Mailer

  44. Tropic of Cancer , by Henry Miller

  45. An American Tragedy , by Theodore Dreiser

  46. Rabbit, Run , by John Updike

“Banned & Challenged Classics”, American Library Association, March 26, 2013.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics (Accessed September 4, 2018)

18

Hmm ‘don’t read these books’… In a Taiwan forum?

Careful now