Baaad Books! Bad! Bad!
Much talk today about the Human Events list of the “Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries.” Let me state right off the bat that I don’t think the concept of “harmful book” is inherently ridiculous. Someone, whether William Dean Howells or Mayor Jimmy Walker, once said that “No young girl was ever ruined by a book.” The paleoconservative social critic John Shelton Reed responded that the claim insulted books and young women both.
I agree with Reed. Books can be very dangerous. So can absolutely anything of value. Fire. Love. Flight. Vigorous exercise. Empathy. Seat belts. Wine. Weapons. The worst defense of freedom to write and publish without restriction is that these are inherently harmless activities. Had writing and reading no power to do ill, it would have no power to do good. Why waste time defending ineffectual things? We are brought to this pass in America largely because we’ve accepted the regulatory state’s ambition to remove all possible risk from life. Making that argument puts us at the disadvantage of arguing from a bad fact set – once someone can demonstrate that someone has been harmed by a book, we’ve lost the game, because we accepted our opponents’ rules.
So it does no good to make fun of Human Events for naming some invidious titles. Making fun of them for trying to make money off the things, though, that’s pretty cool.
Comment by Avram —
May 31, 2005 @ 9:44 pm
Looks like a pretty good reading list.
Comment by Gary Farber —
May 31, 2005 @ 9:44 pm
“I agree with Reed. Books can be very dangerous. So can absolutely anything of value. Fire. Love. Flight. Vigorous exercise. Empathy. Seat belts. Wine. Weapons.”
Pretzels.
Comment by Matt —
May 31, 2005 @ 10:29 pm
“Making fun of them for trying to make money off the things, though, that’s pretty cool.”
I can’t believe I’m defending this stupid list, but Balko’s criticism (”while these books may be evil, Human Events obviously has no qualms about making a buck or two from disseminating the ideas inside them”) is weak. If someone is motivated by reading the list to buy any of these books for research purposes, why shouldn’t H.E. make a little money off it? They’re not attempting to spread the ideas in the books, for Pete’s sake — I think that point was clarified in the title of the list. If I write on my blog, “So-and-so’s a nutcase, and if you don’t believe me, read his book,” damn right I’m going to put an Amazon hyperlink with associates tag in.
Comment by Lenny Bailes —
June 1, 2005 @ 12:47 am
Alfred Kinsey, John Dewey, and John Maynard Keynes — all enemies of the American Way. But, in assembling their Monster Society of Evil, they appear to have overlooked W.E.B DuBois, Carl Jung, Malcolm X, J.D. Salinger, and Walt Kelly.
In the meantime, if we’re talking about Authors of Evil, where are Richard Bach, Khalil Gibran, and Rod McKuen?
Comment by Eric Thompson —
June 1, 2005 @ 2:57 am
We can certainly make fun of their choices…
Comment by Tom Scudder —
June 1, 2005 @ 6:21 am
I’m shocked that ORIGIN OF SPECIES only made the “honorable mentions”.
Trackback by the Greater Nomadic Council —
June 1, 2005 @ 11:08 am
Books That Need Burning
Human Events, a self-proclaimed “national conservative weekly,” has a list of the ten most harmful books of the last two centuries. Jim Henley thinks it’s funny that they’re trying to make money off these books. Jonathan Goodwin wonders about the…
Trackback by Mark in Mexico —
June 1, 2005 @ 11:52 am
Most Harmful Books of the last 200 years
I have read only Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Darwin’s Origin of the Species and Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed. Having fessed up, I am not altogether unfamiliar with many of the others. I would hazard a guess that most if not all of the bloggers a…
Trackback by Mark in Mexico —
June 1, 2005 @ 12:31 pm
Most Harmful Books of the last 200 years
DISCLAIMER: I have read only Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Darwin’s Origin of the Species and Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed. Having fessed up, I am not altogether unfamiliar with many of the others. I would hazard a guess that most if not all of the …
Comment by JayeRandom —
June 1, 2005 @ 2:45 pm
I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t get the memo. How can books be dangerous, again?
Comment by Kevin J. Maroney —
June 2, 2005 @ 8:25 am
And how could they possibly have overlooked Codename: Strykeforce?
Comment by Barry —
June 2, 2005 @ 4:18 pm
And please note that they were a tad bit contradictory. The criticism of Marx described the present-day USA as being a pretty good place, economically. The criticism of Keynes was that this lead to the present economic situation. Which is bad, or something, I guess.