Messed up list over at the "conservative" magazine Human Events. (Hat tip to Chris at Mixing Memory) What a list. Some I can somewhat understand. Whether you think it simply went horribly astray in the hands of zealots or not, one must admit that Marx's notion of Communism certainly led to a lot of sorrow. Of course, by the same measure, one might say the same of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, or other works. (I'm sure if I knew more about Asian history I could say something there) The old problem, of course, is how much a book is responsible for its misuse. One can hardly blame the Bible for the excesses of Christians, for instance. At least to any significant fashion.
Having said that though, I think the line of thinking of Marxism surely led to some serious problems. But one might also argue that it brought about many goods, if only by getting people questioning. (I'm no marxist, mind you)
Now some books might be more justified. Mein Kampf for instance seems a fair bet, as might some other propaganda works for various totalitarian governments. So I'd probably agree with Mao's work as well. (Although I've not read it, so I probably ought not comment on it.)
But what does it mean for them to be dangerous? Are we considering this in a purely utilitarian scheme? Further to what degree does one blame the book? Surely even Mein Kampf can be seen to have its effect only because of the context it arose in. Without the Nazis, the German recession, the aftermath of WWI, and so forth it would have little impact. I don't exactly worry that my local Borders sells it, for example.
There's a great quote by Nietzsche that comes to mind.
Somebody remarked: "I can tell by my own reaction to it that this book is harmful." But let him only wait and perhaps one day he will admit to himself that this same book has done him a great service by bringing out the hidden sickness of his heart and making it visible.— Altered opinions do not alter a man's character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable.
I really get nervous about blaming books. (And isn't there a certain irony in decrying "dangerous books" and adding the Nazis to the list?)
Still, one can talk about books with unfortunate consequences. But there definitely is that uncomfortable sense that these people feel the books ought not be published. So let me go on with a few more on the list.
The Kinsey Report I'm mixed on. I can see the reason why some social conservatives would list it. At the same time I have very hard time complaining about scientific investigations of anything. Outside of things like nuclear secrets, I have a hard time justifying limiting scientific publication to the public. Further this report seems to a prime example of Nietzsche's quote above. After all Kinsey merely described what was going on. I think it a fair criticism to ask whether he reflected the actual rates of such behaviors. But it really seems like a bit of blaming the messenger going on. Not that Kinsely himself was that great a person. But does that matter? (My Nietzsche quote from yesterday seems appropriate here) Further I honestly have a hard time blaming the excesses of the sexual revolution and its aftermath on Kinsey. There were much bigger forces at work.
Dewey I have a hard time with as well. But then, to be honest, I've never understood the whole anti-Dewey movement. Perhaps I simply don't know enough Dewey to say. He's always been one of those figures I keep meaning to read more on. But it seems like I've met plenty of liberals and conservatives who knock him. The magazine's anger with the books seems particularly trite though. Dewey wrote the Humanist Manifesto. So? Put in the list the Humanist Magazine. But this particular book? (Democracy and Education) Was it really such a horrible evil to focus on skills instead of facts? Weird. The whole "Clinton" tie really seems a stretch as well.
The Feminine Mystique is an other one of those books I've long meant to read but never have. I've long had my gripes with "feminism." But more just because so many writing in the genre are so muddle-headed. I can't really blame feminism for that though. After all a lot write in the so-called "postmodern" tradition and are among the most muddle-headed I've ever encountered. But probably most of the thinking I endorse can be put in that category as well. Further I have read various essays and works characterized as feminist which I strongly agree with. Not having read this book, nor even knowing much about it, I can't say much. However once again the comments on the book in the magazine seem particularly trite and strained. It seems a guilt by association. The author was a marxist and had a communist lover. Wow. Once again irony alert to the Mein Kampf earlier.
Comte's Introduction to Positive Philosophy seems strained as well. Since when do conservatives hate positivism? I thought far too many of them were positivists. The complaint seems strained as well. Positivism has no room for a traditional view of God or traditional view of natural law. Now I've no great love for positivism. But perhaps having to listen to all the idiotic and ignorant flak postmodernism and Continental philosophy gets has made me unusually sympathetic to other movements. It just seems that positivism has been the whipping boy within philosophy the last few decades. Most people criticizing it don't really understand it. Further criticizing it because it doesn't offer the conclusions one wants seems more than a tad confused. It seems to me that positivism didn't significantly increase the number atheists in America. If anything there were more before the peak of positivism in the 40's and 50's.
Nietzsche's book is silly as well. Not only does it completely get Nietzsche wrong, but it concludes with the statement, "the Nazis loved Nietzsche." So if they loved chocolate should we stop eating that? (I hope not since I'm opening up a gourmet chocolate company)
Keynes is slamed as well. I thought conservatives like Keynes? Or was that Hayeck? I always confuse them. Anyway the complaint is over the justification of deficits. Now I actually agree here. But isn't it just a tad ironic for conservatives to complain too much here given the deficits of Reagan and Bush? They mention FDR, but somehow miss the complicity of the conservative movement here.
Some of the others are perplexing as well. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill? What? Almost every conservative I know loves that book. Mead, I'll probably concede, if only because I think social relativism owes more to her than it does to philosophy. Nader? I don't like him, but a dangerous book? Come on. Darwin? What!?!? I could go on. But the list really makes the magazine editors look like idiots in my mind. Embarrassing for conservatives. As they say, "with friends like these. . ."
So what would be my list of dangerous books? I don't know. I haven't really read enough to say much. Further I think "danger" entails some social situation that makes the book dangerous. I just can't think of too many that would fit there. For instance even given the excesses of the 60's I can't think of any book I'd blame. Further I tend to think the social resituation was inevitable, good and bad. Too many pressures and too many ideas now made possible. The "revolutions" were in my mind inevitable with some common sense coming back over the following decades.
My main complaint is that if conservatives think they have the superior ideas, then those ideas ought be able to win in the war of ideas conducted rationally. Complaining about books is then the utmost in futility and stupidity. Perhaps they ought instead be complaining about conservative books left unwritten?
First of all, I should point out that the list is of "harmful" books, not "dangerous" books. In my mind, that has more of a retrospective than prospective feel to it, making the list itself less (ahem) dangerous.
Second, it is Hayek that conservatives love, not Keynes. Keynes' economics were sound, but his implied political analysis was terrible. He never advocated permanent deficits--we were supposed to run surpluses in good economic times. But as we have recently learned, once deficit financing is legitimized, running a surplus for any extended period becomes politically impossible. I would contend that the harm resulting from long-term deficits lies not at Keynes' feet, but at the feet of those who who don't have the guts to follow through on the more politically painful implications of his ideas (Reagan in particular, although W could match him by the end of his term).
I was going to make an analogous comment on the Heidegger thread, but I'll put it here instead:
Clark:One can hardly blame the Bible for the excesses of Christians, for instance. At least to any significant fashion.
I'd beg to differ. It is one thing to blame a book or author (for example, Nietzsche) for subsequent misreadings (say, by the Nazis), but even still, we need to ask why the book in question allowed itself to be misread in that particular way (cf Derrida, "The Ear of the Other" for a discussion of this particular case.)
But it is quite another thing altogether if we question the accusation of misreading. Many of the "excesses" of Christians seem to be completely in line with a plain reading of the text of the Bible. I know that you like to read the "genocidal" passages metaphorically, but that's not the only way to read them, nor is it the most common. If we start from the plain, superficial meaning of the text, we have a body of writing that excuses in advance just about any "excess" in the name of God on behalf of his followers.
Similarly, I'm not so sure we can separate "Heidegger-the-Nazi" from "Heidegger-the-philosopher" as easily as we can "Frege-the-antisemite" from "Frege-the-philosopher". (For Derrida's view of this this case, cf "Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question")
Just to note, I don't read the genocide passages metaphorically. I just think the question of whether God actually commanded it is an open one. i.e. I see it as a history written by people and not an innerrant text that only teaches God's word.
The problem with justifying genocide in terms of the Bible is due to the New Testament and Christ's commandments there. But certainly it can be misread and Derrida makes an excellent point about whether a correct reading is possible
Regarding separating the two Heideggers versus the two Freges, that was what I was heading towards in the philosophers thread. The idea that there are two aspects to philosophy following Kant's comment. Heidegger was much more focused in on the kind of philosophy tied to a lived life. Frege was much more focused in on the scholastic elements of philosophy. I think that philosophy must have both elements (which is partially why I find the whole analytic / continental divide so silly). I even think science has both elements. But clearly some works will emphasize one more than the other.
I should add I was going to write a second post on this last night but ended up having to work in my yard since I had unfinished business from the weekend. My wife was rather insistent.
Two more quick additions.
To add to my comments about the impossibility of a correct reading. If that is so (and I think it is to varying degrees) then one obviously is left with an even more pronounced problem of whether we can blame the book. Following Derrida we can after all face the same problem with any book. Why single out the Bible or Mein Kampf?
My other point is about On Spirit. I confess to having started that a few times. However it is a very difficult text - one of Derrida's most difficult. So I always stop to go refresh up on some other text that it seems I really ought read as a prerequisite. The last time I started it I decided I really needed to refresh my Hegel first. So I'll confess to not having finished it yet. But its definitely one I've read about and keep coming back to.
Clark, do you really take issue with the first three books on the "most harmful" list? Communism in the form of Marxism-Leninism (and of course Stalinism, Maoism, etc.) has been the cause of unspeakable destruction, misery, and repression during the twentieth century. Whether you personally find some merit to The Communist Manifesto, or whether you want to absolve that particular book from the consequences of what you imply might be its misuse rather than legitimate use, does not change the fact that it was the impetus and the substantive content of more than half a century of bondage for a large proportion of the earth's population. I doubt you are willing to offer Mein Kampf the same benefit of the doubt.
I think the list has it just about right, at least with regards to the first three, although I might put Mao's little red book in place number two before Mein Kampf and right after The Communist Manifesto.
The article is titled "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries" - the word "dangerous" is a bit of an overstatement. The explanations given are certainly lacking in some cases, but it might help to understand that HUMAN EVENTS is a popular conservative newsweekly that is dominated by a collection of op-eds from various syndicated conservative columnists. Other conservative journals (notably NATIONAL REVIEW and POLICY REVIEW) have treated these books in considerably greater depth.
Given the conservative context, it is reasonable to conclude that the books on the list were nominated because they are perceived to have had a historically deleterious effect on the development of society according to conservative ideals, regardless of the intent of the authors or other independent merit. No one is suggesting censorship.
The Kinsey Report is typically faulted for having used an excessively abnormal sample population (especially many prisoners) and neglecting volunteer bias, leading to inflated figures that "define deviancy down" along "everyone does it" lines - a considerable moral hazard of popularization of any kind of research into aberrant behavior. I suspect that the same rationale governs the restricted distribution of the results of the LDS Church's internal sociological research.
The general conservative complaint against the progressive education movement is that they prioritize social engineering along rather liberal lines above or in opposition to traditional academic achievement. A more specific complaint against Dewey is that the educational techniques he promoted (like "learning through discovery") are notoriously inefficient compared to traditional alternatives (e.g. "rote learning"), and that such unwarranted "progressivism" is the true cause of the decline in U.S. educational performance.
In math, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) promotes national standards for math education that de-emphasize memorization of facts (e.g. multiplication tables) and other rules in favor of calculators and letting students figure out their own methods for solving math problems without any background - the heritage of Dewey in action.
Outside of colleges of education, this is widely believed to be a disaster, contributing to results like the fact that only 55% of American 8th graders can correctly answer the question "How many pieces of string will you have if you divide 3/4 yard of string into pieces each 1/8 yard long?".
Similar pedagogy has arguably lead to lower achievement in spelling, grammar, science, geography, and so on. That is not to say that Dewey himself would necessarily support all the ways his theories have been put into practice.
You are all right that I did up the ante on rhetoric by saying dangerous rather than harmful. I probably should have used harmful, although beyond that I don't think it changes my comments much. Just do a grep on dangerous and replace with harmful. (grin)
Beyond that though, I thought I agreed with the Nazi and Mao books. I'm more mixed about the marxism because I'm not entirely convinced we can lay all the ruin of the 20th century communism on the door of Marx's books. If we do, as I mentioned, then we have to accept the same criticism of the Bible and Koran. Something I don't think most conservatives would be willing to do.
It seems to me laying all the excesses of Stalinism, Maosim, or even European communism on the door of Marx is a bit too much. As I said I'm obviously no Marxist. But I think blaming Marx for the 20th century's failings is a bit much.
The problem is that I think the blame is put on books rather than the figures and movements that used them. I'm just not sure I buy that. As I said, I don't worry that a copy of Mein Kampf is at my local Borders. I think the danger (or harm) isn't so much in the books as it is in things larger than the books. There might be exceptions, of course. For instance I'd probably put the magazines Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler well above the Kinsey Report, for instance. I'm not disagreeing that there are problems with aspects of the Kinsey Report. But I think those criticisms are a bit too pronounced from what I can see. Further they seem the type of errors one would expect with any initial survey of fauna or flora.
Would both of you agree that seeing Darwin as harmful is rather silly?
Well, I do agree with you on the Darwin point. But reading Marx you realize that he wanted exactly the kind of systems that were in fact implemented.
I honestly don't see how you can accept Mein Kampf in this category and reject The Communist Manifesto. Somehow Mein Kampf can, as a book, be considered harmful and/or blamed for the harm they caused "rather than the figures and movements that used them," but Marx escapes from this category? Have you read Mein Kampf? It doesn't read all that differently from The Communist Manifesto even if the substance is different.
BTW - I'm curious what David Landrith, our local Mormon logical positivist thinks of including Comte.
Regarding Dewey, I just don't know enough about his thought, let alone philosophy of education to say much there. For those interested, most of his books are available online. I suspect this is once again the abuse of a book by later people. But I just am not well enough versed in Dewey to argue the point one way or the other.
I will say, from my experience teaching freshmen both philosophy and physics that learning problem solving skills is a distinct problem. My experience was that there was too much memorization going on and the students flailed in college because that mode of learning was all they were used to. That's not to say that especially in the younger years memorization might not be neglected. But I suspect there is more going on. I dropped a note to my brother who is an educator to see if he'll weigh in here.
I've read parts of Mein Kampf. You must admit Hitler kind of drones on. It comes off (the parts that I read) as kind of naive. I've only read excerpts from The Communist Manifesto. So I'll concede being wrong there. Although once again I thought I didn't find the first few entries problematic. It was more just a general question of the role of books in history. i.e. to what degree is the book at fault? But most of the latter books are just ridiculous.
Whoops. Accidentally deleted a few sentences in the above.
You must admit Hitler kind of drones on. It comes off (the parts that I read) as kind of naive. He reminds me of freshmen getting all excited about animal rights activism, socialism, or all the new ideas they are exposed to and then getting extreme about them. There's that sense of naive young exuberance and ridiculousness. He doesn't come off as this mastermind by any means.
If the question were which books were doing the most harm today, then the list would undoubtedly be quite different. I think a historical measure of harm was intended here.
The influence of Origin of the Species is a fait accompli today, but when it was released it had a negative impact on traditional culture, particularly in Europe, by appearing to discredit traditional religion and the conservative values it upheld. That is not to say anyone should blame Darwin.
Marx, on the other hand, deserves at least some of the blame for the depredations of modern Communism as he explicitly promoted that type of revolutionary upheaval.
I don't know if I have much to say on education. No matter what you do you are going to disenfrancise people. That is just life. Of course there are costs to experiental education, but then there are costs to content driven learning as well. The continual sway back and forth probably occurs because in the final outcome, there are few substantial differences between them. By that I don't mean they end up with the same results, only that the net profit/loss sum isn't much different. If something comes to stir the pot, sure things will change, and we will wish we focussed on whatever system would then have solved the problem. However unless there are environmental imbalances, leaning too heavily in any one direction will just leave an open flank exposed that will then cause problems.
The conundrum is that an equilibrium can't be had because equilibrium positions have a natural consequence wherein people stop caring about the issue. You can't have a solved problem that is important (at least in a social sense). Thus important issues always seem problem riddled. If they weren't contentious they wouldn't be important. They would either be wholly accepted and thus invisible (after a time), wholly rejected, or wholly ignored.
I wonder if this circular conflagration isn't part of the whole bad book problem. Most of the books discussed seem to have been more rallying points for change than subtle mind manipulators. Sure they changed the climate by providing as it were a feed back loop, but that just seems like a characteristic of anything that is successful. Sucess has to survive at least a couple iterations of reinterpreation and reapplication.
Of course I also tend to view many historical deperditions as just an inevitable natural consequences of more overarching trends within humanity. They are only obviously bad when taken out of context of the larger things that spawned them, which presumably had at least some other positive and presumably more subtle results.
Tracing influences through books instead of authors is just a matter of convenience. Books are static, easily analyzable after the fact, have an independent impact on a large body of readers who may never meet the author, and represent a temporal snapshot of the author's views that often have a traceable effect far different than what he or she intended.
Especially when considering deleterious impacts, it is much cleaner to trace causality through a persons specific works or acts. To trace such influences to the person themselves tends to lead to hagiography or demonization.
Here is a nice article on the controversy about "discovery learning" in mathematics education:
"An A-Maze-ing Approach To Math",Barry Garelick, Education Next, Hoover Institution, Spring 2005
The following is a book review from the same journal focusing on how Dewey's legacy has been distorted by his successors:
Mark, once again my complaint about books as harmful is that it ignores the whole issue of meaning, intents, and interpretation. Something that seems key to the discussion of books. I'll stick to my claim that if many of these books are harmful then the Bible is at least as harmful. Just look at how many people in the 20th century used the Bible to stop scientific progress and inquiry not to mention justify racism. By the same logic as people are appealing to Dewey, Marx and others it seems one really ought apply it to the Bible.
Something just isn't right.
Clark-- sorry for misreading you on the "genocidal passages" part. My point (which you also got at) is that it doesn't matter if you or I regard the Bible as inerrant-- the issue is the actions of the various readers (who may or may not have read it as inerrant.) In other words, it doesn't matter if God actually commanded genocide, if certain readers are led to believe that he did.
Clark:I'm more mixed about the marxism because I'm not entirely convinced we can lay all the ruin of the 20th century communism on the door of Marx's books. If we do, as I mentioned, then we have to accept the same criticism of the Bible and Koran. Something I don't think most conservatives would be willing to do.
I think you hit the nail right on the head here. In fact, I'll push the analogy a bit further and say that laying the ruin of 20th century communism on Marx's door is like laying the past 2000 years of Christian "excesses" at Jesus's door. The actual words of Jesus (as represented in the Gospels) make up only a small part of the developed doctrine. That's why I disagree with John when he writes:
John:But reading Marx you realize that he wanted exactly the kind of systems that were in fact implemented.
I think you'll find that in the 50 volumes of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels fewer than 10 pages discussing how things would operate under communism. Marx was concerned with forming a radical critique of capitalism (in terms of history, philosophy, economics, and political economy) and didn't offer any detail whatsoever on a future "classless society" except to predict (and call for) "a withering away of the state."
It's Lenin that the conservatives should be after, but in that case, it is difficult to pick out a single book that has the cachet of "The Communist Manifesto" (which is hardly a book, by the way-- it's really a small pamphlet.)
To return to my main point, though: the text of the Communist Manifesto was manifestly not used by the perpetrators of the Gulag as a defense or program; certainly not to anywhere like the extent of the way the Bible has been used by Christians (which is why I suggested the alternative analogy).
I think these lists are generally silly, but I'm not inclined to go easy on Mein Kampf as either harmful or dangerous. The book was in my high school library and that was dangerous. Whoever allowed it to be there should have been bopped on the head. I read it -- the whole thing -- in study hall, twice, out of sheer curiosity. Fortunately I had the sense to see it for the nonsense it was; had I been in a darker place at the time, I shudder to think of what could have happened. There are books that should be treated carefully as dangerous; and books do harm people. I think it's disingenuous to think otherwise. It is true that any book might harm people; but it is also true that any liquid might harm people. Not all liquids are the same, and not all books are the same.
Personally, I think the excesses of 2000 years should be attributed to the Bible, to the extent that it is logically consistent to do so, i.e., to the extent that the Bible was actually used in a non-ad-hoc way to motivate the excesses. It seems entirely reasonable to me to do so; much as it is entirely reasonable to attribute the excellences of 2000 years to the Bible, to the extent that the Bible was actually used in a non-ad-hoc way to motivate them. Why would one think otherwise?
I find it interesting that they provide links to where you can buy the books.
The problem with Marx was not his advocacy of radically different social arrangements, in particular the abolition of private property, but rather his insistence that revolutionary overthrow of the status quo was the only way to go. Historical determinism has some merit coupled with a gradualist theory of social reform - it is the idea of class warfare as the only and inevitable solution to social inequity that darkens Marx's reputation.
Lenin and countless other revolutionaries were following the program Marx prescribed. If Marx didn't prescribe violent upheaval as a necessary (and justified) stage of social evolution, we might today class him with George Bernard Shaw instead of Mao Tse Tung.
As far as the Bible goes, I think it is reasonable to attribute harm according to the degree that each author, having perfect hindsight, would wish to re-write or clarify his contribution in light of negative historical consequences, to the degree those consequences might hypothetically be remedied by those changes.
That is a denormalized definition of harmfulness, since there may be an arbitrary number of places where the causal chain might be sufficiently altered to mitigate a future problem.
Responsibility (blamefulness), on the other hand is normalized by definition - only one actor or event can be 100% responsible the way we normally think about it - that is partitioned according to a rational scheme for culpability rather than one for abstract and idealized regret.
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