right-wingers show us most dangerous BOOKS ever

[Dr Rock]

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

a "panel" (read: group related by fewer than 3 incestuous blood ties) of conservative "scholars" (read: actually own manuals for their shotguns) emerged from their outhouses to select the MOST HARMFUL BOOKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY for your shock and awe.

I don't think I really need to write a summary of my own, since the choices pretty much speak for themselves. what is pretty cool is that each one of these ghastly, offensive works of literature has its own link direct to amazon.com - presumably so that you can order a copy and burn it on your altar?

 

[Bananaman]

And they say we're brainwashed!
Just because they can't think for themselves they think no one else can....

B-man

 

[jonb]

I'm surprised the Communist Manifesto got almost twice as many votes as Mein Kampf. Not many fans of Marx among school shooters. But then again, these are neocons, and Hitler was one of Prescott Bush's buddies. I'm not surprised by The Feminine Mystique: No one wants to deal with the fact that American kinship makes every man a king, no matter how much of a loser he is outside the home.

And what, pray tell, is a communist physicist? What does ideology have to do with atoms?

 

[GottaBigOne]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that Nietzche wasn't advocating that the will to power was the ideal, but only making a commentary of how things are and will be no matter what.

And the Second Sex is a great fucking book!

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

As someone who works in the field of languages and literature, I believe in the power of the word. Words are powerful tools because, used skillfully, they can convey ideas, but in the end, they are just words. They are not actions. Words can deliver volatile threats, but words themselves are incapable of fulfilling those threats. That applies to the written word as well as that spoken. Without the freedom to exchange new ideas through language, the Renaissance would never have occurred. Without precise and skillful use of language, the Industrial Age and the rise of beneficial technology could not have come about. But still, words are just words. The words are not the danger: the mindset of the reader can be. The author, of course, has no control over that. If someone is moved to bloody revolution because he has read Das Kapital, or takes to sewing live rats into a woman's vagina because he has read Justine, he has problems that are more serious than his choice of reading materials. Books are not dangerous unless used as projectiles aimed at someone's head, but the readers can be downright terrifying. The author is not to blame for how people choose to interpret his work.

 

[jonb]

Originally posted by ChimeraTX@Jun 1 2005, 05:03 PM
I flipped through Mein Kampf at Walden Books, and it looked a lot more boring than I thought it would be. Strange, that same day I saw a book by Clinton in the "Clearance Section."

I've heard the stories about Bush's grandfather. Do you have any good sources on it?

[post=317017]Quoted post[/post]​

Look up Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, Union Banking Corporation, Holland-American Trade Corporation, and Silesian-American Corporation.

 

[Dr Rock]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper@Jun 2 2005, 01:28 AM
Words are powerful tools because, used skillfully, they can convey ideas, but in the end, they are just words. They are not actions.

[post=317034]Quoted post[/post]​

besides which, has anyone else here ever tried to actually READ mein kampf? trust me, it's impossible. the book is not even comprehensible enough to be "harmful." it's so badly written and arranged that your brain just gives up by about the third chapter. it is the literary equivalent of the rancho la brea tar pits. there may have been 10 million copies in circulation by 1945, but I'll guarantee you that no more than half a dozen of them had actually been read ... and of those, at least half the readers must have died from brain hemorrhages shortly afterwards.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

The fact that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not on that list is very revealing.

 

[steve319]

Well, sure, these are considered "dangerous" books. There's nothing more threatening to the conservative right than ideas that might shake up the status quo.

Heck, there's nothing more threatening to the traditional power base than ideas.

Oooooh, scary!

 

[Freddie53]

These so-called scholars seemed to do fine with the top three selections but then.....

John Dewey??? He is the icon of public education. He is the founder of modern thought on public education. He expouded such ideas as modeling democracy in the classroom.

Kinsey???? So he did a study of average length of penises. Do the conservatives not have one or what? Guess his book caused a lot of penises to shrink.

John Darwin??? He didn't make the top ten but......dangerous??? Well he did observe correctly that all species are changing...er..um... is that evolution... no...yes... the domesticated turkey is a myth.....it was here all the time...ur., um, no it wasn't.... it was bred from the wild turkey... yes it was....not it wasn't... corn was not developed from maze....yes it was...no it wasn't. Tis tis. It is John Darwin's fault. We were doing nicely developing new breeds and even new species and Darwin came up with the E word. Call it anything you like but please don't use that "E WORD."

Margaret Mead??? I remember when she was living. Back then she was highly respected. What happened?

I could look back for more authors in the bunch that I noticed and thought how in the hell did they get there. But four is enough for me for me to list. I'll let others question other "dangerous" books in the list.


I bet every gang member and every prisoner in jail has read all of those top ten. Tis a shame. Had we kept those books away from them, they wouldn't be in those gangs or be sitting in those jail cells. Shame shame on those books.

That's what happens, you know, when you let the masses read uncenored books. It causes big time crime. Last I heard, nearly every gang member was carrying around both Dewey and Mead's dreadful books close to their breast, reading and rereading at every opportunity.

 

[jonb]

Charles Darwin. Who the hell is John Darwin? If you're interested, maize itself developed from a hybrid of two different Mexican grasses.

Coming of Age in Samoa was one of Mead's most famous works. However, it turned out that her informants lied to her as a joke. I personally think some of the stuff she said about plains tribes in Male & Female was pure bull. But I did enjoy her work on the differences between Americans and Englishmen.

Personally, I've always enjoyed The Second Sex. It's a wonderful introduction to existentialism, and to feminism. And the application of the existential question "What is normal?" to gender really makes you think.

 

[KinkGuy]

Originally posted by Bananaman@Jun 1 2005, 03:10 PM
And they say we're brainwashed!
Just because they can't think for themselves they think no one else can....
B-man

[post=316944]Quoted post[/post]​

They don't want to think for themselves. It's just soooo much easier and simpler if others tell you what to think and believe. The first 3 books on that list should be required reading for every US citizen.......................while we can still get our hands on them.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

I've always believed that if words are powerful enough to propel humans into evil then words are also powerful enough to prod humans to do good.

SG

 

[madame_zora]

Evil is just so much easier and so much more fun.

I'm glad that some idiot found it useful to compile such a list, now I know the names of those who voted so I can disregard anything I may read about them in the future. Nietzche, Freud, Kinsey- sure, why read anything except the Bible ever?

 

[GottaBigOne]

Actually Madam, I just read Leciticus again last night, and I was awestruck at how fucking ridiculous it was. Talk about a dangerous book, I think the bible has probably the cause of more death than any other book. Seriously though, everyone should read Leviticus, its a short book and i don't know how anyone could read it and not see how primitive and chauvanist it is, and how fucking ridiculous!


Actually here, I'll give a link:

Search for Leviticus

 

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@Jun 2 2005, 11:49 PM
Actually Madam, I just read Leciticus again last night, and I was awestruck at how fucking ridiculous it was. Talk about a dangerous book, I think the bible has probably the cause of more death than any other book. Seriously though, everyone should read Leviticus, its a short book and i don't know how anyone could read it and not see how primitive and chauvanist it is, and how fucking ridiculous!


Actually here, I'll give a link:

Search for Leviticus

[post=317444]Quoted post[/post]​

As I see it, the Bible is a record of man and his relationship to God. It is progressive as man's understanding of God improves and more of God is revealed.

There is a major difference between fundie Christians who believe everything literally and mainline Christians who see a lot of symbolism and a lot of the Bible as a history of the people then.

When I read a scripture I try to find out what it meant to the people then and whart it means to us now.

That book Liviticus is rarely read in mainline Christian churches. It is a mainly a skipped book except for some convenient passages that the fundies like to throw around.

 

[GottaBigOne]

Whats interesting about leviticus though is that it demonstrates "God's" bloodlust apparently which almost all christian denominations subscribe to when talking about the salvation of Christ. Its a morality based on sacrifice for one's sins, but this sacrifice is not to be made by the wrongdoer, no, someone else must pay the blood bill, in leviticus it was a goat, or bull, or whatever, in the NT it's Christ.

When I read the Bible I don't see people coming to know the "true" nature of God over time, I see primitive thinking- in that one must satisfy a omnipotent being outside causality with starnge demands- evolving and changing with the times. I believe somewhere in Dueteronomy there is a passage that implies that the tastes of God change along with the cultural standards of men, which to me reveals that indeed Man created god and changes and uses him to suit his purposes.

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@Jun 4 2005, 10:29 AM
When I read the Bible I don't see people coming to know the "true" nature of God over time, I see primitive thinking- in that one must satisfy a omnipotent being outside causality with starnge demands-

Of course you do. When an atheist reads the Bible, he is on the outside looking in. His view is going to be very different from the believers. As you don't believe that there is a God, how can people come to know His "true" nature? In the days of the Old Testament, the Jews were a primitive and oppressed people. It would've been pointless to explain theological precepts with high-flown scholarly terms that none of them would've understood. They were in a culture where the subservient man strove to please his superior; that they understood. His superior had the means to reward him or punish him; that they understood. The superior doesn't tolerate insubordination; that they understood. Anytime someone uses familiar terms to describe something unfamiliar, something is bound to be lost in the translation. That is the problem taking the Bible literally: much of it is parable and must be read in that context.

 

[GottaBigOne]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper+Jun 4 2005, 05:47 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoubleMeatWhopper &#064; Jun 4 2005, 05:47 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-GottaBigOne@Jun 4 2005, 10:29 AM
When I read the Bible I don&#39;t see people coming to know the "true" nature of God over time, I see primitive thinking- in that one must satisfy a omnipotent being outside causality with starnge demands-

Of course you do. When an atheist reads the Bible, he is on the outside looking in. His view is going to be very different from the believers. As you don&#39;t believe that there is a God, how can people come to know His "true" nature? In the days of the Old Testament, the Jews were a primitive and oppressed people. It would&#39;ve been pointless to explain theological precepts with high-flown scholarly terms that none of them would&#39;ve understood. They were in a culture where the subservient man strove to please his superior; that they understood. His superior had the means to reward him or punish him; that they understood. The superior doesn&#39;t tolerate insubordination; that they understood. Anytime someone uses familiar terms to describe something unfamiliar, something is bound to be lost in the translation. That is the problem taking the Bible literally: much of it is parable and must be read in that context.

[post=317821]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]
So then whats to say that they weren&#39;t just making it up? Why are the Primitive Jews more right then the Egyptians of the same time? WHat about the ancient greeks or Hindus?

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@Jun 4 2005, 06:09 PM
So then whats to say that they weren&#39;t just making it up?

Exactly: who&#39;s to say? That&#39;s where faith comes into play. Either you believe or you don&#39;t, and what someone believes is what works for him. I don&#39;t say that the members of other religions, or those with no religion at all, are right or wrong. We all make our own way as we see fit, and whether we recognise a Deity or not, we&#39;re okay as long as we&#39;re being true to our own consciences. You don&#39;t believe in the existence of God; that&#39;s fine for you. You can be a good human being, and that has nothing to do with religion. In my case, I believe in God, and for me to deny the existence of what I believe is there would be dishonest. Moral choices need not be religious choices.