[Phys-L] Re: Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries - PART 2

[clement at HAL-PC.ORG (John Clement)]

Among the runner up books are two by Darwin.  So they are not just
conservatives, but are fundamentalists.  Actually the list is anti-science
and anti-intellectual.  The very idea that a book is dangerous is
anti-intellectual.  Nobody has ever been violated by a book.

It is not the books that are dangerous.  It is the individuals who use the
books as a pretext for bad actions that are dangerous.

Of course, they never considered that calling a book dangerous actually
increases its allure.  Their list may actually lure a few individuals into
reading a few of the books.  Since most people never ready any books, this
list might actually inadvertently increase literacy.  Did the Catholic
church's banned book list have any real effect?  It probably made Galileo's
writings more alluring and his published works more collectable.

BTW John Maynard Keynes was actually misrepresented in their blurb.  He
advocated deficit spending during bad times, but the opposite during good
times.  Politicians never remember that part.  He was also one of the few
economists who actually made money.


The meaning of conservatism has certainly shifted.  Eisenhower and Goldwater
would have been offended by the current mating of conservatism with
anti-science fundamentalist ideology.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> 10. GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY
> Author: John Maynard Keynes
> Publication date: 1936
> Score: 23
> Summary: Keynes was a member of the British elite--educated at Eton
> and Cambridge--who as a liberal Cambridge economics professor wrote
> General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the midst of the
> Great Depression. The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government.
> When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus
> of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing
> and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as
> U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual
> budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.
>
> HONORABLE MENTION (in order of the judge's rating)
>
> These books won votes from two or more judges:
>
> The Population Bomb
> by Paul Ehrlich
> Score: 22
>
> On Liberty
> by John Stuart Mill
> Score: 18
>
> The Origin of Species
> by Charles Darwin
> Score: 17
>
> Coming of Age in Samoa
> by Margaret Mead
> Score: 11
>
> Unsafe at Any Speed
> by Ralph Nader
> Score: 11
>
> Second Sex
> by Simone de Beauvoir
> Score: 10
>
> Silent Spring
> by Rachel Carson
> Score: 9
>
> The Greening of America
> by Charles Reich
> Score: 9
>
> The Limits to Growth
> by Club of Rome
> Score: 4
>
> Descent of Man
> by Charles Darwin
> Score: 2